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Saturday 05 July 2008

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Tech News

Viacom wins in court.

GooTube has to surrender member names/IP addresses of those who watch YouTube videos of copyrighted material. Does that make us criminals? Will Viacom go after those watching as well as posting clips from the Daily Show? Doubtful. But for crying out loud, all posting clips of shows on YouTube does is provide free advertising for Viacom.

Thanks, Judge Louis L. Stanton. Leo says Google should deliver paper printouts of the information. It would be the equivalent of 12 million books.

The 3G iPhone comes out this Friday at 8am.

Are you “I Ready?” You’ll need to bring a ton of stuff with you because in store activation is required. What a pain. It’ll take an average of 20 minutes to activate the phone. So the line will be VERY slow. Don’t bother to wait in line. It’s a good bet you can go in the next day and walk right in.

The iPhone “rev 2″ will have a few changes, chief of which will be that it supports AT&Ts faster HSDPA hi-speed network. It’s not everywhere, but they’re working to expand it. It’ll have third party applications downloadable through the iTunes App store. And it will be GPS(-ish). It turns on occasionally. But it can’t be used for turn-by-turn applications to save on battery life. Finally, the price has dropped to $200. But don’t be fooled by that because AT&T has raised the price of the data plan and in the long run, the iPhone will actually cost MORE!

• YELP is tossing members now for “Trading reviews.” Yelp is a business review service and they have discovered that businesses are networking and trading reviews in order to stuff Yelp with more positive reviews that are obviously skewed.

Guests

Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine

Scott forgot a lossless download service. iTRAX. You pay for the quality. Lower quality, cheaper price. Higher quality, up to $3.00 a track.

Now, onto where we stand in the HiDef. Now that Blu-ray has won the battle, where do we stand? Scott recommends getting your Blu-ray discs online and stick with name brands like Sony, Memorex, Fuji. Last thing you want is a $25 coaster. There are dual layer and single layer burners. But the MPAA has choked down stand alone Blu-ray recorders. You can get them in the US. But rumor has it that we may see Blu-ray recorders within the next two years.

Until then, you can get a Blu-ray burner for your PC. Sony PT25 Media Center computer has a Blu-ray burner. But will it record off the air in real time or do you have to record to your hard drive first and then dump to your Blu-ray?
Leo says Lite-On has a 2x Blu-ray burner for $288! Great deal. Perfect for primary data backup. (wink wink, nudge nudge).

BDR, BDRE (rewritable) is the format for burning. Problem though. Most Blu-ray players can’t play it! Scott says Samsung made a BDP1200 is an unlocked player which can play just about any Blu-Ray format, including BDR, and the PlayStation 3 is probably good for this. But don’t expect to burn a Blu-ray movie for this purpose.

Leo says that Toshiba should’ve decided to dump HD DVD burners and made a stand alone, cheap HDDVD video recorder. They would’ve cornered the market.

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Hour 1

Q Al, LaHabra, CA - How to disable the annoying Vista user account control window?

The UAC is a next best security feature Windows has created. But it is annoying. It’s just a reminder that you’re about to install something and be sure. Best thing to do is never run your machine as an administrator. That way it “slows” you down to think twice. Spyware and root kits also has to deal with UAC which prevents it. Turning it off, effectively disables Vista’s security.

You’ll be using the Group Policy Editor to get rid of it by going into Control Panel for your user, user account, make changes to user account. Change security settings. Turn off UAC.

Another way is Start - Run - GPEdit. You can also turn off bits and pieces of UAC. It’s safer. Safer, gives you more control.

Q Rebecca, So. Pasadena, CA - How to open voice messages onto her Mac?

Bought a new Olympus voice recorder. Has trouble getting her files onto her Mac. Olympus has their own proprietary format and as a result, you need to use their software to play it. Even though Olympus swears opening windows media player will do it. But it won’t. DSS Player for the MAC is what you need.

Keep an uncompressed or lossless version on your hard drive to preserve the quality.

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Hour 2

Q Mark, Santa Ana, CA - Wants to make a slide show CD to play on TV.

He doesn’t have a DVD burner. Can he burn on CD? Some DVD players will be video CDs. It’s called CDi. But it depends on the hardware. Many do, but some don’t. Look for “multi-read” on the box. Create a video CD. Use an authoring program like Ulead’s DVDMovie Factory download the 30-day trial to see if it works for you. They also have a slide show application called CD&DVD PictureShow. Choose burn a VCD as the option.

Q Burt, Glendale, CA - Hard drive partition is messed up through Norton Ghost.

Missing the beginning of the Ghost data image. Tried to have a data recovery service, but so far, no joy. You may be able to browse it with Ghost’s browser utility.

Leo likes Drive Snapshot. Steve Gibson recommends it. A very quick way to restore a drive if you need to. Not the best backup technique, but an image is a great way to restore it from a previous moment in time. Leo uses it so he never has to do a Windows install again. But you still want to back up your data.

Q John, Mission, TX (via Skype) - WordPress calendar bug.

ICS Calendar. Plugin for Wordpress. Takes data from Google Calendar and incorporates it into the WordPress calendar of your blog. Problem though, it’s not getting all the events. Leo thinks it’s just a bug, probably in Google Calendar. But if the capabilities differ with your plug-in, you may have a mismatch. Look closely to see.

Q Brian, Rockland County, NY - New PC recommendation

Has a $200 certificate to Circuit City. Looking at the 64 bit Vista OS. Worried about glitches in iTunes. You want to be sure you have the latest drivers. Ask if you can get the same machine in 32 bit. The only real advantage is that Vista Ultimate addresses over 4GB of RAM. But over 4GB is no real value compared to compatibility issues.

If you need to pull the trigger today, don’t worry, go ahead.

Q Ryan, Edinburgh, Scotland - Trouble with his Mac webcam

He has a USB and isn’t seeing the camera output. Mac isn’t compatible with all the USB cams out there. Check settings and if your camera isn’t showing, then it’s designed for Windows. eCam makes a driver that will probably work. Or, you can buy a new camera. Logitech makes one just for Macs now.

Q Joe, Tustin, CA - His Blackberry Curve doesn’t stream audio.

He wants to stream radio stations or news programs. There are all kinds of stream options and many radio stations won’t let you stream because they want you to see their ads. There was a way. Quick Player. But they went out of business last April. Check out radioBee.com It’s free and uses Java. Verizon uses VCast, which you have to pay for and that’s why they don’t want you to be able to use your data plan to stream.

Q Dave, Santa Ana, CA - Downloading YouTube videos to his PC

How? Without special software, you can’t save flash video. For Windows, try Keepvid. It allows you to paste the link and then go to Keepvid which they will convert for you.

Firefox has a good extension called Video Download Helper. But, believe it or not, MikeB recommends RealPlayer 11. They’ve stripped everything. Make sure to click on the FREE player. The Real Player agent will let you download YouTube videos. There’s also a free download manager option in Internet Explorer 7.

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Hour 3

Q Olivia, Rialto, CA - why does Yahoo messenger look different on her daughter’s laptop?

Chances are, you’re using an older version. Update and chances are you’ll have the same version. One downside about using instant messengers is that you have to use what your friends use whether you like it or not. But Leo recommends Trillian or Pigeon (for Windows) or Adium for MAC, which are multi client and talk to all of them. All three are free with pay versions that do more.

Q Bryan, Palm Desert, CA - Slimline projector recommendation?

There’s a lot of great work being done with pocket style projectors. Leo likes Epson. There’s also the Casio. But what we’re seeing is that higher quality, low power projectors are becoming more reliable. And in the future, you’ll also see cellphone based projectors.

But remember that when reading reviews on this stuff, toss out the best and worst.

Q Lawrence, Oceanside, CA - His MacBook drops the AirPort when going to sleep.

Apple says it may not be fixable. They suggest a workaround where you let the screen sleep, but let the system stay alive. Check out MacRumor’s forums where they’re talking about this very thing.

Q Jeff, Lancaster, CA - Runtime errors in I.E. 6

You can’t do anything other than turn off the runtime error settings. Internet options, advanced options. Uncheck RunTime errors. Uncheck notification. Or, you can use the latest browser. I.E. 7 is a great browser.

Q Len, The Poconos, NY - Security System recommendation?

Leo recommends x10 for good budget stuff. They’re those annoying popup camera ad guys. But they don’t do those anymore and make some great wireless webcams. Also, check out Home Security Store. They handle a wide variety including more high end.

Q Kenny, Tyler, TX - DSLR Recommendation?

Leo likes the Nikon D60. Check out the DigitalCameraInfo.com. The thing about choosing SLRs is that you’re choosing a system now. Committing to the lenses. Olympus makes a fine camera, but nothing beats Nikon lenses. Period. And its legacy of great lenses can still be used.

Q Diane, Oakland, CA - her computer won’t power on.

Your PC’s power supply is fried. Plain and simple.

Q David, East Brunswick, NJ - Needs a wireless repeater.

Stay with your manufacturer or one that uses the same chipset. Turn off the wireless on the DSL modem and use with a repeater using WDS.

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