Leo Laporte
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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday 31 May 2008
- Show Audio
- Tech News
- Guests
- Hour 1
- Hour 2
- Hour 3
- Mark, San Antonio, TX - VPN on his Macbook is very slow. Options?
- Bob, Thousand Oaks, CA - Wants to publish an eBook. Options?
- Ken, Anaheim Hills, CA - Has an 80GB iPod. Wants to load movies and music. How?
- Ron, Long Beach, CA - Launching a Commercial Sports Blog. Can he use photos he finds on the Internet?
- Richard, Spotswood, NJ - Different Bit Torrent download speeds from two computers. Why?
- Jenny, Tucumcari, NM - Looking for a bright, long lasting, flash light to direct truck traffic.
- Norton, Orange, CA - Printing to a cake with a picture. How do they do that?
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
- Canadian customs officials are opening people’s computers, iPods and other technology at random to look for child pornography.
Some arrests have been made and the Canadian government is now negotiating an agreement to also look for “copyright infringement.” This proactive policy may include ripped CDs and can lead to confiscated devices, arrest, and fines. The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will become a part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and has behind it the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) and the US office of Free Trade.
- The Recording Industry has created a program called “Media Defender” which will seed bit torrent sites with bogus torrents in an effort to take down piracy sites through denial of service attacks. Is this legal? Seems like vigilantism.
- The new iPhone is imminent. Should be announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Will have a 3G network for faster connections. Sales, ironically, are down at the moment as Blackberry enjoys a 50% market share in the cellphone market.
- Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock - a company that promises to protect your identity against fraud was so confident of his service that he gives out his social security number in radio commercials. Customers are now suing him after 23 driver’s licenses and at least one payday loan have been given out with it.
- Leo’s jonsin over the ATV by Apple Core, Ltd. It was a very cool idea. A USB Key that hacks your APPLE TV. You plug it in, then reboot your AppleTV. It then takes over the OS with hacked programs that allow you to alter the AppleTV. Sadly, though, due to pressure from Cupertino, no doubt, Apple Core has pulled the ATV until they can work around the issues that prevent it from being released. Meanwhile, there is the Patch Stick.
Does Apple get to really say what you can and can’t do with something you BUY? Don’t you really own it? It doesn’t void the warranty and you don’t open the box. You can even restore the original software. So what’s the big deal?
UPDATE: Apple Core has a workaround for the ATV:
- The first is an electronic version that can be be downloaded instantly after purchase. This allows the user to use their own existing flash drive for the aTV Flash software to run on. Currently this requires a Macintosh computer running Tiger or Leopard.
- The second option is a pre-install option where we can pre-install the software on all new and upgrade Apple TV orders that are placed with us.
- Gyminee - make gym friends, keep track of work outs, etc. Leo loves this site.
Guests
- Scott Wilkinson, editor Ultimate AV Magazine
Flat panel LCD screens have an “off axis” issue. When you’re not looking straight at it, the color shifts, the contrast changes, and it begins to look like a photo negative. The cheaper the TV, the worse the off axis issue.
Other LCD issues include more motion blur, higher black levels, etc. For all it’s issues, LCD has more market penetration, but Plasma is what Leo’s liking even though they are becoming less common. Ironic considering LCDs are more expensive. The Pioneer Kurow is the best plasma out on the market. Pioneer’s reached it’s 9th generation (2nd generation of the Kurow brand).
Where LCD excels is in the high light environment. And there’s no chance of image retention or burn-in (plasma has overcome much of this, however). If you have a high light environment, LCD is probably better. But overall, plasma gives the best picture quality.
LCD wise, Scott is impressed with Samsung’s LED back light TVs are where he’s looking. Brighter, uses less power, and Leo thinks they’re more robust. Samsung’s “local dimming technology” or High Dynamic Range, LEDs behind dark parts of the screen are dimmed individually and turned up in bright parts. This improves contrast and makes the picture “pop.” On the conventional LCD side, three’s the Samsung LN-52A750.
attach:samsung.jpg | Samsung LN-52A750
Questions to Scott can be emailed to him at scott.wilkinson - at - sourceinterlink.com
- Dick Debartolo, the Giz Wiz
LifeGear LGTF38. AM/FM WeatherBand Reading Lamp. Charges cellphones. Has internal batteries but has a hand crank charger. 3 super-bright LED flashlight ; 4 LED reading or map lamp; Comes with an adapter for Nokia but you get another for free for your phone; NOAA emergency radio with alert, AM/FM and weatherband Alarm clock; Emergency signal flashers and siren.
3 power options: crank, AC or DC / Suggested Price : $59.95
Hour 1
Q Paul, Albuquerque, NM - Has several movie boxes. Loves them.
attach:rokunetflix.jpg | Netflix Box
Like the Roku Netflix Box. $100 and streams movies from your Netflix que. Movies are free with a Netflix account. Easy setup. Quality looks like a “low-end DVD,” better than VHS on a standard broadband account. More bandwidth and the quality gets broadcast quality.
The AppleTV isn’t user friendly.
Popcorn Hour $179. Streams movies from the computer. Downloads video from BitTorrent. Updates itself. Interface works well.
Q Diane, Santa Ana, CA - needs a backup pay as you go cellphone.
She wants a cellphone that won’t get cancelled if she doesn’t use it for awhile. This is purely for a backup. The AT&T Go Phone is one to try. Also the Tracfone, and Metro PCS.
Q Eric, Chevy Chase, MD - wants to use a TMobile Blackberry 8320 as a data modem.
The problem is that cellphone carriers usually disable this function. The phone can do it, but the carriers won’t let you do it. However, there may be a workaround. Google Blackerry (plus the model number), T-Mobile, and “modem.” There’s probably someone out there that’s already done it. Beware though, this may either void your warranty or cancel your account.
Hour 2
Q Jay, Danville, IL - Computer doesn’t recognize a hard drive.
Seemed to start after using Uniblue, an anti-spyware program. Leo thinks that’s coincidental and it’s probably just a hard drive failure. There could be a stuck head of frozen bearings. But these are rare. More likely, it’s a read error caused by a damaged sector. Leo recommends SPIN RITE by GRC to recover your data. Spin Rite may take up to a day or even several months to recover the drive and get back your data. But well worth the $90 price tag. Lastly, the file allocation table may be damaged. Try Norton Disk Doctor for that.
But before you do anything, image that drive just in case. You don’t want things to get worse.
Q Wendy, Orange County, CA - Her WebTV Horror Story
Her WebTV was hacked and as a result, she was accused of a hacking crime and spent time in jail. WebTV still claims their technology is unhackable.
The good news is that WebTV is a dinosaur now. Nobody is really buying it, except for less sophisticated users. Microsoft owns it now and has changed it to MSTV.
Q Dale, Palmdale, CA - Problems booting up his computer. Suspects a virus.
Dale’s worried about his data drive. The best way to prevent yourself from being infected is to alter your behavior. Don’t open attachments or go to suspect webpages. Sometimes a JPG or DOC file can be infected as a virus since they have executable functions.
The hard drive is inert until you activate it. But if you’re confident that your system is clean, your antivirus is up to date. Then you can connect the drive, scan it with your AVS, and judiciously copy your data off it. But ONLY your data.
Hour 3
Q Mark, San Antonio, TX - VPN on his Macbook is very slow. Options?
His network runs on XP Pro. You need a faster Internet connection. What you’re probably dealing with is a slower business internet connection. If you’re using Windows VPN< it’s not the fastest remote accesss utility on the market. Another option is to use , which does alot of things behind the scenes to increase your performance. You can lower your screen resolution or change it to send less data.
Q Bob, Thousand Oaks, CA - Wants to publish an eBook. Options?
There’s so many that offer the service. Hard to choose. Leo says you can make your own. The key is distribution. Another option is to also give the option of a printed book. Check out LULU. Lulu is an on demand publisher which prints both hard cover, softcover and ebooks and takes a reasonable percentage of the sale price. Lulu also does photobooks, calendars, the whole shebang. They handle credit cards, shopping carts, and offer quality printing. It’s a one stop shop.
Q Ken, Anaheim Hills, CA - Has an 80GB iPod. Wants to load movies and music. How?
Well, you have one choice. iTunes. You have to. Be careful though. If you have music on your iPod already and you do a fresh install of iTunes, it’ll erase the iPod in favor of the new music or movies. To get movies on it, rip the DVD and import into iTunes. Easiest way is Handbrake. Pick the largest file and move it to the iPod. Handbrake will do the entire thing in a few hours.
Is it illegal? It is. The DMCA made it a crime to “reverse engineer” or defeat copy protection. So much for Fair Use, which is still something we believe in and you should be able to make a copy for your iPod. But if you don’t want the risk, iTunes does offer movies for sale/download. But most movies still aren’t available on iTunes.
And this is why the movie industry is wrong on this issue. They believe we should pay for a copy of every conceivable format of a movie. It’s the law of the land. Does that make it right? Not at all. An archival, fair use, copy should still be upheld by the court and the MPAA is very leery of challenging this in court. And it shouldn’t be wrong to do so.
And if you choose to uphold your fair use rights, chances are, nothing will happen to you.
Q Ron, Long Beach, CA - Launching a Commercial Sports Blog. Can he use photos he finds on the Internet?
Absolutely not. Not even if you give credit. Any picture made is copyrighted automatically. Leo suggests using Flickr. Flickr uses a creative commons license. But since Ron is doing a for profit website, he’ll need to secure rights to any photograph he finds or shoot his own.
Q Richard, Spotswood, NJ - Different Bit Torrent download speeds from two computers. Why?
Has a new Mac Book Dual Core. But with his other Mac, he gets faster download speeds. What gives? It could be your torrent client. Bit Tornado is very quick. MicroTorrent (fastest for the MAC). Tornado Torrent. Azureus. All faster. But it may also be your firewall. Try turning it off. It may speed it up. BitTorrent can go around the firewall, but it really slows it down.
From Twitter, Ed Roach suggests that he may be using universal plug and play to open ports for BiTorrent. So, if turning off the mac firewall doesn’t do it, you may need to permanently modify the settings on your router to dedicate the bittorrent ports. You don’t have to use any specific port like 6881 - you can custom assign one and tell your router to let the traffic in.
Q Jenny, Tucumcari, NM - Looking for a bright, long lasting, flash light to direct truck traffic.
Leo recommends an LED based flash light for its bright, long-lasting beam. Make sure they’re using between 5–8 lights. These are the way to go. It’s the future of flash lights. She asked about the hand cranked gadget Dick Debartolo recommended. Leo isn’t sure since it’s more for emergencies (with it’s radio, etc). Good to have in the truck. Cost is about $40.
Flashlightz.com offer very powerful LED flashlights made by Phoenix and Pila. Sturdy. Long lasting. Careful though, some are quite blinding. Also, Maglights are all made with LEDs now.
Jenny also wants to know about moving an iPod to another computer. Move all the music off and put it on the other one first. You can use the iPod to do it by making it a data drive and copy the music onto it. Or there are many third party programs. Otherwise, iTunes may format over your existing collection. You have to do it by hand.
Q Norton, Orange, CA - Printing to a cake with a picture. How do they do that?
Similar to an inkjet only it uses food coloring instead of ink. Check out howstuffworks.com to learn how it works. Canon sells food grade “ink and paper” to actually make it from your own printer!
