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Sunday 8 June 2008

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Tech News

• Amazon.com goes down for two hours.

They estimate they lose about $30,000 a minute in lost sales orders. But the question is, even though they deny it, was it a denial of service attack? The Internet Movie Database, which uses Amazon’s webservice, received a DOS attack at the exact same time. So that’s rather convenient.

How does a hacker perform a d.d.o.s. attack? Don’t you need hundreds or even thousands of servers and computers? Well yes, you do. Just a few pings can’t do it. But when we surf the net and download or open stuff we shouldn’t, we open our computers to be co-opted without or knowledge and become a “zombie computer.” These Zombied PCs can be triggered “en masse” and create the kind of d.d.o.s. attacks that Amazon experienced. And all without our knowledge. The best way to keep your PC zombie free is to free is practice safe computing and change your web behavior. Follow Leo’s rules and you can combat alot of it and keep your PC Zombie Free.

• NYTimes: Obama’s edge is in Internet fund raising and networking.

Using sources like MySpace and Facebook, the Obama Campaign has managed to raise millions and rally supporters at an unprecedented level. Can the McCain campaign equal it?

Sweden wants domestic spying powers

• According to Slashdot, ‘’Sweden is close to passing a far-reaching wiretapping program that would greatly expand the government’s spying capabilities by permitting it to monitor all email and telephone traffic coming in and out of the country.

‘’

Guests

Chris Marquardt - Tips from the Top Floor

Our assignment: Silly!

Neil eats a firetruck

Plumber

We Are Family

Jim the Tolerable

Our next assignment: take a picture illustrating the concept flat.

Ron Rosberg the Gadget Guru

A great solution for audio in rooms without wiring your home by Sonos
Price range: $999 starting bundle and up.

Great program for your Blackberry - PocketDay Try it for 30 Days Free.

Hands-free Law in certain states only three weeks away.

If you get a ticket, send your a copy of the citation into HEADSETS and they’ll send you a headset for free!

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Hour 1

Q Howard, Van Nuys, CA - Needs a TV card for his laptop.

Try the HVR950Q by Hauppuge. $99 ($65 on Amazon). Comes with a coax adapter and can receive HDTV channels.

If you have trouble getting a signal, digital doesn’t travel as well as analog. So before you invest, head on over to http://antennaweb.org and enter your location. The site will then tell you what channels you can receive and what antenna will work best for getting over the air digital TV.

For MAC users, try El Gato.

Q Terry, Seal Beach, CA - Concerned about spyware security.

Uses all the freebies, AVG (Vs. 8 is out now, BTW, and it’s still free), AdAware, Windows Defender. But he doesn’t get everything and he wants to know what he can do. Leo says these are great programs that provide very good basic protection. But let’s face it, at “free,” you get what you pay for. Leo recommends Eset’s NOD32. At just under $40, it’s a bargain for protection to the next level. And it handles not just malware and viruses, but spyware as well. And for speed, it helps, not hinders your PC. speed.

He’s also concerned with cookies and what they tell people about you. Leo thinks cookies are relatively harmless but do have the potential of gathering alot of information about the user, particularly if it’s like Google which already chronicles your surfing habits and they buy an online ad company like DoubleClick. There’s a lot of potential there for privacy violations.

Best bet, set your browser to block third party cookies (sorry Firefox users, you can’t do this).

Q Mark, Truckin’ through Texas - Needs a better Bluetooth Headset.

Leo recommends the Supertooth Lite by Blue Ant. Fits on your visor which gives it an advantage over wireless sets because it has tremendous battery life. Sounds great, with noise cancellation.

Other options include the new Jawbone and the Plantronics Voyager.

Mark also needs a good GPS option (bein’ a trucker and all). Leo likes the Dash Express. At $299 it’s a great price and it’s ultra accurate. It has traffic updates, but also has alternate route information based on travel time. That’s because the Dash uses information to update conditions on the Express. This gives users up to the minute GPS information. It’s also cool because it can be updated from your PC. You have directions and maps you want to input into your Dash, you can choose the sent to my Dash option and when you get in your car, you have it ready to use. Very nice.

Other options include TOM TOM and Magellan GPS units.

LEOSMOSIS - Listening to Leo enough that you actually absorb it.

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Hour 2

WWDC - Will Steve Jobs announce iPhone 2? Will it have GPS? There’s some great shots appearing online that look pretty realistic.

Leo’s not going, but he’ll be covering the coverage on TWITLIVE 10am PT-1pm PT.

Q Jonathan, Pittburgh, PA - What’s the best way to record his grandfather telling stories while looking at photos?

Doing a family video project. Wants to shoot both Grandpa and the pictures he’s looking at in the photo albums. Well, you could do the “Ken Burns” style of interviewing and then inserting scans of the photographs - “panning and scanning” as you go. But that doesn’t work if you need “stream of consciousness” where he recalls stories as he looks at the picture.

Why not use two cameras? That way you can switch between the two. And they don’t have to be expensive, either. You can use your basic camcorder and then, perhaps a handheld option like THE FLIP to record over his shoulder looking at the photos. Then just insert that scanned photo and you’re good to go.

To handle two cameras, Apple’s Final Cut Studio does a great job with this option, though it’s not cheap.

On the PC side, James recommends the Adobe Visual Communicator 3.0 which has multi camera support and has green screen, graphics, etc.

Another option once your done is to check out Geni.com. It’s a free genealogy service that has the extra benefit of allowing users to attach pictures, audio and video to the family tree they create. That way everyone in the family can have access to these videos no matter where they are.

Jonathan also has a ton of pictures that need to be scanned. What about those services like Scan Cafe? Leo says they’re pretty good. He also recommends Legacy Productions in Los Angeles.

But here’s the thing. Leo also recommends you use a local service that gives you the ability to deliver and pick up all these pictures, films and video. Because that way they can’t get lost or damaged in the mail.

Or, you can scan it yourself. You have total control of it and you’ll save money, but it’s very time consuming.

Q Tim, LaVerne, CA - needs data recovery help.

Lost his partition table and both his backup disks. What can he do? Leo recommends going into the MANAGER CONSOLE, and then select the STORAGE and DISK MANAGEMENT. This will graphically show you the discs you have available, how they’re partitioned and formatted.

If you can’t find it, the data is still there because you can see the hardware. A disc recovery tool like SpinRite or Norton Disc Doctor will help you recover the drive and get back your data.

With TWITTR being so unreliable lately, the Twit Army is looking to PLURK or POWNCE. Both of these have the advantage of adding photos as you go.

Q Andrea, Berkeley, CA - Needs help translating tech-ese from SmugMug.

Owns an online photo lab called PHOTO LABORATORY . Got a marketing pitch from SMUG MUG. She has no idea what the techno-babble of “open API” means.

API means “Application Programers Interface.” Having an “Open API” gives you the option of allowing a third party application that accesses your data and use it. (Twittr has one called Twittrific that does this). What Smug Mug may be saying that your customers can work with SmugMug and print the pictures they send to you through Smug Mug since they focus on professional photographers.

Could be good, Andrea, but they are indeed a competitor. Doesn’t sound like you need to take it, but give them a call and ask them what they’re wanting because they’re a great company. Maybe a partnership in the offing.

Q Michael, Redding, CA - How does he know that the malware isn’t created by the anti virus companies?

Leo says he’s confident they aren’t. However, there are hackers who create viruses and then extort you to give them money to release your computer. Who’s watching the watchers? Well, there are enough bad guys out there that the AVS companies don’t need to. And most are being funded by organized crime.

If one legit company was going it, the others would certainly blow the whistle. But the trail points to bad guys in Eastern Europe.

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Hour 3

More on Amazon’s outage for two hours. CNet estimates that Amazon lost about $1.8 million an hour.

Amazon’s party line is that they have a very complex system that can lead to technical difficulties. It’s their story and they’re sticking to it.

But come on, at the exact same time for the exact same duration?

How are they doing it? We let them coopt and zombie our computers by bad or careless behavior. Follow Leo’s rules and you can combat a lot of it and keep your PC Zombie Free.

Q Michael, Los Angeles, CA - Knows what happened to Amazon.

IMDB is owned by Amazon. Bought in 1998. They were both attacked, then it stands to reason that Amazon was attacked as well. But they don’t want to admit it.

Their “stealth name servers” were leaking and that always points to a d.o.s. attack.

Great detective work, Michael!

Q Gloria, Redlands, CA - Having trouble opening Quicken in virtual Windows on her MAC.

Having trouble opening Quicken from her CD. The best way to run it is to create a “virtual machine” using Parallels or VMWare. But the problem is, OSX and Windows are running in concert and fighting over resources. You need to tell VMWare what resources it can use exclusively. Look in the “devices” menu and tell VMWare to capture that CD or other device. As soon as you do, the autorun should start immediately afterwards.

Q Jeff, Novato, CA - Getting corrupt data on his hard drive.

Sometimes, hard drives go bad. Whether from fragmented data or even cosmic rays! You can fix it. But if there’s physical damage to the drive, you’ll run into this over and over again.

Take your recovery discs and recover the drive. It’ll reformat the drive and reinstall the system. So FIRST, make sure you’ve backed up your data! If that doesn’t work, then worst case, you need a new hard drive, and they’re cheap.

Q Tim, Covina, CA - New laptop, mouse pointer grabs the icon on it’s own and opens it.

Just got a Dell Inspirion 1420. Got it for $549 thanks to a mistake in the store. Score! But the trackpad mouse is possessed!

Leo suggests going into the control pad and check the “ignore accidental use of the trackpad,” option, also dial back the sensitivity, and disable the “click by tapping” option. If that doesn’t help, the trackpad may be damaged and as such, should be repaired. But chances are this is a “pebcak” situation and you just need to get used to the design of the laptop.

TIMDUFFY.COM - consumer advocate and investigative reporter.

Q Denny, Santa Clarita, CA - Wants to add streaming video onto his website.

What’s the best editing software for Windows? Leo likes Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0. But Pinnacle Studio 11.0 is very good as well.

Why is it slowing down the system? Simply put, video is a bandwidth hog. Just the nature of the beast. But more RAM will help and a stronger processor.

See you next week!

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