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Saturday 7 June 2008

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Tech News

• The New 3G IPhone?

Will Steve announce it at the WWDC?

There have been some interesting mock-ups popping up on the Net and everyone seems to believe that the 3G announcement is imminent. But Apple isn’t streaming the Keynote. Is this much ado about nothing?

But also look for new third party applications, new .Mac named Mobile Me, perhaps video chat. But no built in keyboard, no stylus.

• Great stuff happening at Google Labs.

Everyone has a lab - Microsoft, Yahoo. But Google does a great thing for kids getting a job at Google. It’s the Google 20% rule. They require their employees spend twenty percent of their day working on their OWN projects! Wow! That’s out of the box thinking. And considering that Google owns what their employees work on, it’s downright genius. That’s how Google came up with alot of their killer apps including GMail, Google Docs, etc.

Google has captured a large part of the market with these killer apps that they offer for free. These are viral hits that spread by word of mouth (that’s why they had the Gmail invitations). Doom started that with making a free 3 level download. Viral marketing is currently the best marketing going.

• Google is also making headlines by leasing a few hundred acres of land from NASA for their “Extended campus.”

Changes happen with lighting speed in the technology world. And the bigger a company gets, the slower they adjust to change.Which begs the question, is Google getting too big? Too old? IBM did something very similar, as did Microsoft. Expanding their campuses and then shortly after, they were supplanted by something else and they ended up just being another player, rather than leading the pack.

Guests

• Scott Wilkenson, editor of Ultimate AV Magazine

Scott was a guest on FOX 11 L.A. doing a special on digital conversion. Tips on what you need to know as we make the digital television switch in 2009. Chief of which is the $40 converter voucher to subsidize the purchase of a converter box so people who don’t buy an HD TV can still watch TV.

It’s a great time to buy an HDTV. Prices are down. But few television stations are actually broadcasting in it, which is surprising since they have to by February 2009. Fox is broadcasting in 720p and it looks stunningly well. But nobody broadcasts in 1080p since it requires too much bandwidth. Shooting at 720p is better than shooting in 1080i. 1080i is interlaced, meaning you get every other line every other frame. So for motion based programs like car races, it can be very problematic. So, in reality, watching TV in 720p is much better.

But all this hoopla is just for broadcast TV. For satellite and cable TV, nothing will change as the satellite and cable providers will down-covert automatically to customers who don’t have an HDTV.

There’s also some confusion over broadcasting digitally and broadcasting in high definition. Standard definition programs can broadcast digitally and all will have to be digital by February. But HDTV is a separate entity that is broadcast digitally.

But what happens if your station doesn’t have an HD signal by February? Will you lose their signal? Quite possibly. This is part of the problem as time gets close to shutting off the SD signal. Many stations just aren’t broadcasting an HD alternative yet.

Leo cautions to wait. This isn’t happening for six months. So there’s no need to rush out and buy those converter boxes right away.

To find out more, go to http://www.dtv2009.gov.

And you know what? Sometimes those HiDef signals don’t look all that great.

Lance, in the Chatroom, that there is an exemption for low power stations that won’t have to go digital by the due date. So that means that to watch all those low power stations you may need a converter box anyway.

• Dick DeBartolo, the Giz Wiz and Editor for Mad Magazine

The Plane Clean Air Filter - a compact device that can be attached to a passenger’s overhead gasper nozzle and filters out about 99.5% of all the nasty stuff in the air. Cost is about $20 for the unit and $7.00 for 10 filters.

• Steve Gibson, Security Now and Gibson Research

Researchers claim you can defeat encryption by “freezing RAM” with the freon from an upside down can of air. They then took it out of the computer and placed it into another computer. Scan the memory and find encryption keys to decrypt a hard drive.

Wow. Sounds very “Mission: Impossible.” The key has to be in memory like it does for encrypted DVDs. The key needs to be available to decrypt on the fly. So this is a vulnerability for every computer.

A more common attack is that the USB and FireWire ports are vulnerable for a hacker to install a thumbdrive and take over a computer do to the “auto run” feature which is enabled by default. They can then “suck the memory out of the laptop and copy everything in memory and read it later. So, it’s a wise idea to disable AutoRun in Windows Setup.

Another good idea is to simply “log out” when leaving your desk. That way the memory is dumped and the computer is just waiting for another login.

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Hour 1

Q Thea, Glendale, CA - Looking for a good eBook reader.

She’s an actress and wants to know if the Amazon Kindle is the best and most convenient or is the Sony eBook Reader the way to go?

Leo says the SONY e-Book Reader has one plus. It’s gorgeous. Okay two, it’s $60 less. But that’s as far as it goes when comparing it to the Kindle.

The Kindle is easier to read. The Kindle has black, crisp lettering on a gray background. Contrast could be better. It has a passive screen which is better for battery life and it has the advantage of letting you choose your font and size. It’s better in sunlight since it doesn’t have a backlight. It’s alot like a book in that sense. And the Kindle also gives you wireless access with lifetime free internet access over the Sprint PCS network. Very nice feature. Course, that let’s you head over to Amazon to shop for new eBooks, which you can download in less than a minute.

And you also get Kindle email so you can email books to others on the Kindle network.

Illustrations don’t look good on either book.

Price for the Kindle … $360. Very competitive. And in Leo’s opinion, a no brainer.

Q Eric, Chevy Chase, MD - Looking to get an APPLE TV.

Is it worth it to buy the 200 MB option?? Will the internet speed be all that faster?

85MBits is very fast. Leo says that when you hear these claims of blazing speeds, you should automatically cut it in half. But the slowest you really want is 100Mbits, seriously. So adjusting for reality … yes, it’s worth getting.

Q Evan, Melbourne, Australia - Needs a good printer for photography.

Designing a website to sell his photographs. He’s considering printing them himself or using an online service. Leo says almost every professional photographer agrees that the best is the Epson Photo Stylus printers.

What you want to be sure of is that you use archival prints using archival quality prints and inks. Leo recommends the Photo Stylus R4880.

Check out Evan’s Photography website here.

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Hour 2

Q FineMellow on Tiwttr wants to know to tag an mp3 and how an iPod knows your listening to a podcast?

There’s a tag in the MP3 file that provides the information. MP3 is a very good format that sounds really good. It also provides additional information that’s useful. These “tags” will point give album title, genre, song writer, etc. So your iPod sees the podcast tag, it reads it.

Except the iPod uses a non standard file tag and as such, you have to tag it as a podcast in the iTunes store. Otherwise, it may end up in the songs category.

Is there a program that can fix this? Anyone?

Q Tom, Milwaukee, WI - How can he promote his website?

His site is a video game review site. He’s getting decent traffic, but wants more. The best way to do it is to call in to the show and plug it!

Gaming is changing. It’s going online and becoming more social.

Seriously though. You gotta know your audience. Who are you pointing your site to? Who do you want to get? Then, figure out where this demographic congregates? Go there. There’s alot to be said for using the Internet - going to gamer sites and trade links. The more incoming links you have, the more Google will see you. At the very least, participate in gaming forums and use your sig to link to your site. Have Myspace and Twitter accounts. In other words, get a presence on the net that is wide spread. Even have a podcast and blog.

Some people wonder if you should invest in buying into Google Ad-Sense. Leo doesn’t think so. It’s way too cost prohibitive. Simply participating in the web will drive traffic your way.

Tom’s website is GENERATION GAMERS.

Q Rocky, Riverside, CA - Video camera recommendation.

Expecting his first baby! Has a GL1 and wants to know if he should he upgrade to an HD camcorder? You bet! And you want something more compact. First consideration is format. Tape, DVD, or Hard Drive?

Let’s look at tape. Tape is a dying medium though, even though it’s the best format. But carrying a ton of even small video tapes around can be bulky. But it’s by far the safest and most reliable format.

DVD. If you want to shoot video and then edit it to take out wasted scenes, add titles and music, etc., you’re taking a hit in video quality by shooting native with a DVD camera. This is because the video on DVDs is encoded to MPEG2, a compressed format. It’s great as an end of the line format, but not for shooting source footage. And once you finalize the DVD, unless you use RW discs, you can’t record on them again.

Likewise, hard drive based camcorders (or flash drives), while convenient are still problematic because you have to move the footage over and it’s rather problematic if it has a tragic error and you lose the footage. So you need a backup strategy. Also, HD Hard drives record in AVCHD which require a faster computer with updated hardware. So if you buy an AVCHD camcorder, you may as well be upgrading your computer.

MiniDV is still king, even if it is a dying medium. Leo likes the Canon HV30. That’s his choice.

Q Al, Laguna Beach, CA - Trouble setting up his laptop wirelessly to his home network.

Setting up a home network. Doesn’t have permissions because of a blank password. Of course, he has VISTA HOME PREMIUM. So you can’t use a blank password to log on to access files. Go into file sharing, and give yourself a new account and log into it remotely with that new credential. Go into the file sharing control panel. Networking. Turn on file sharing. Hunt around in there and you’ll see that. (We’ll post post more later)

But the bottom line is, you don’t have to create a new password, just a new person. But understand if you don’t configure your router right,you could give anyone access to your PC through file sharing. So be CAREFUL.

From the Chatroom: Windows Vista Help Paper on File Sharing Essentials

Q Jackie, Corona, CA - Is there an online option to transfer business calls from a phone line to her cellphone?

Leo suggests a virtual PDX. Look into GotVMail.com. Prices start at $10 a month. Very affordable.

Q Ruth, Hercules, CA - Can she have two RAID addresses?

Has a RAID. Can she have multiple raid drives for backups? Can she pull one out and replace it? Leo isn’t much of a fan of RAID ports on motherboards. The BIOS of your motherboard isn’t smart enough to recognize a replaced RAID drive. He suggests software driven RAIDs. And an external RAID Sata drive is a better option. Better yet, get two and once a week, swap them out.

The problem with RAID is that if a drive dies or if the computer is destroyed, you lose your backup. That’s where an off-site backup provider automatically backing up your system comes in handy.

Course, you can burn your data to DVDs and mail them to a family member or friend for safekeeping.

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Hour 3

Q Sandy, Los Angeles, CA - Will AVCHD be readable ten years from now?

AVCHD is a strange new codec that’s kinda like H.264. More and more software packages are creating plugins to read it. Leo thinks that’s a larger, great question. Will it be readable 10 years from now? What about DVDs? Will he be able to read it a decade from now?

Some formats are time tested. But chances are that some software will be able to read it. But what’s more concerned is hardware based systems like DVDs. In ten years, you may not be able to read them. So, you have to act like an archivist and update to newer formats as they come along. Like Super 8 to VHS video to DVD. But now that we’re out of analog and into digital, it won’t degrade over time or lose it’s quality. So, as CDs begin to be phased out, move on to the next popular format like DVD and then on to … who knows, holographic? But stick to more common formats that you know will be available over time. And teach your kids to be the next genealogist in the family.

Q Steve, Vancouver, WA - Older Toshiba laptop. Upgrade the OS to Vista and clone the drive?

Leo doesn’t think Steve should upgrade to Vista. Stick to XP. And as for adding or cloning the drive with a newer larger one. It may be that you can’t. But assuming you can use a larger drive, don’t partition it. Just use the entire drive. Partitions don’t really help at that drive size. You lose the drive, you lose the drive. So just keep it as one drive.

But check out Drive Snapshot. Free for thirty days and will be able to clone your old drive so you can put the data on the new one.

Q Kyle, Indianapolis, IN - His IDE drive is misidentified as an “I” drive. Normal?

The computer may not be able to see partitions larger than 160GB. If you try and combine partitions, you may end up with a unreadable drive. It’s possible that this is an XP issue or IDE is just past it’s design specs. Don’t mess with it because you may render it unbootable.

Q John, San Angelo, TX - Can’t hear what’s he’s recorded online.

Check your mixer to see if you’ve muted the channel that the program uses to stream and then your mixer records on. It may be using a different channel for live playback than for recorded playback. It’s just a simple re-enabling in the program settings.

Q Elizabeth, Pasadena, CA - Recommendation on learning web design.

Bought their nephew a new laptop for his birthday. Wants to learn web design. What do you recommend to get him started? Leo says there’s alot of free design software like NVU that will give him about 90% the functionality of bigger, expensive apps like Dreamweaver.

Q Harry, Tarzana, CA - In Vista, his book isn’t properly spaced when he prints it.

In a word processor, a space isn’t like a space in the printer. Depending on the typeface you use, your formatting will be completely different. So, outside of one space between words, spacing things out is the worst way to do it.

There are printer fonts and screen fonts and sometimes Windows will choose the printer font and it messes things up. You could write in a table, that way you can keep control of it.

But in the end, you have to make sure your document is set up with your printer so that the document knows. Go into page setup and correct or duplicate the settings.

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