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Sunday 6 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. 12 terrabytes of logs. 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.

Now we find that Google stretched the truth a bit on the privacy of the IP addresses of its users. They claim in AdSense EULA that you can’t really find out anything about users by an IP address, and that’s the part that Judge Stanton swallowed hook, line and sinker. But the music industry knows through their John Doe lawsuits that IP addresses are like someone’s address and phone number on the Internet. This is a major league privacy breach which may also be against federal law.

Leo says Google should deliver paper printouts of the information. It would be the equivalent of the contents in the Library of Congress.

There is a protective order, however, which sort of protects users that if Viacom uses the information in any other fashion that can prove piracy on YouTube, that Viacom will be held in contempt.

Researchers at Cal Berkley Labs have created the first radio out of a carbon nanotube!

You can transmit, receive, and can even hear music. It’s scratchy, but the point is, you can hear it! Is this how Edison felt?

Guests

Chris Marquardt - Tips from the Top Floor

Today, the subject is “motion.” You can either show motion in the picture, freeze motion in the picture, or do both at the same time. Motion is all about exposure time. Anything faster than 1/50 of a second will show you motion if the subject is moving (like a waterfall). The longer the focal length, the more effect of motion will have on a camera. Take more pictures. Experiment to see what exposure times give the image dramatic movement.

Tryin to First and second curtain of your flash can also show impact on movement. First curtain will flash just as the shutter opens, while second curtain flashes just before it closes.

Panning with the action. Panning with the moving subject will freeze the subject while showing movement in the background. Very stunning.

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Hour 1

Q James, Van Nuys, CA - Streaming mp3s onto his PS3

He streams his mp3s from Windows Media Player to his Playstation 3. However his mp3s are playing alphabetically. But when he uses a TVersity (a utility to fix it), he gets error messages that his mp3s aren’t available. There could be a DRM issue here, or TVersity may be getting confused by the links to the files’ location that WMP is using. Could also be a bitrate, or even the SAMPLE rate that TVersity is having trouble with. What you should do is see what’s similar about the files that are getting an error message on. That should point you in the direction of what’s going wrong.

Check out ORB. Leo likes it and it does a similar, but better job.

Q Jay, Pelican Rapids, MN - Firefox extension recommendation.

Aardvark, a Firefox extension, can view source code in elements. Great for those learning how websites are constructed.

Also, wants a digital SLR recommendation. Digital Rebel XTi or the Sony A200?

Leo isn’t a fin of the DSLRs. However, Nikon does use Sony sensors. Leo says you could go with Nikon D40, which is less expensive than the Rebel. Leo acknowledges his bias towards Nikon and Canon. It’s important to know that when you invest in a DSLR, you’re investing in a system. Save on the body and invest in the lenses. The glass is what is important. And as you upgrade, you upgrade the body and keep using those great lenses. And with Nikon, you have the legacy advantage of being able to use lenses going back decades (in manual, of course).

Q Tom, Victorville, CA - Thoughts on the Blackberry Bold? Or maybe the iPhone?

Leo can’t wait for the Blackberry Bold. Looks really good. Thinks that AT&T may get it first around August, then T-Mobile, Verizon and SPrint a month later. Cost is aroud $300.. The OS is upgraded, alot more functional. Leo is rather over the iPhone and is looking really hard at the Bold.

Where Blackberry falls apart is that their browser isn’t very good. That’s where the iPhone really excels. Still, let the early adopters jump in the deep end of the pool. Leo advises to wait on the Bold. Wait on the iPhone. Wait to see what others say about their experience.

Q Joseph, Pomona, CA - Connecting two laptops with a Verizon EVDO modem.

Check your TOS first to be sure you can do it, then go get a Cradlepoint router. It turns your EVDO into WiFi, can use multiple notebooks. You could create an “ad hoc” WiFi network on your laptop. It works that way. If you’re having trouble with both talking, turn off your security settings. You can also connect both via an ethernet crossover cable.

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Hour 2

Q Wendy, Los Feliz, CA - Grumpy with Google

Too many ads. Blocking access with China. Rolling over in the Viacom suit. They are just too powerful with the information they have. What are her alternatives?

VIEWZI is one. (more like a meta search engine though) Leo loves it. Breaks it down by categories. ASK offers “private” searching.

Q Thomas, Florida - Software Firewall recommendation?

Leo recommends Kimodo. But Leo thinks that software firewalls have a somewhat dubious value. Gives a false sense of security. Better to have a hardware firewall through your router. Bring along a portable router. But if you need a software firewall, the Windows firewall does guard against incoming packets.

Thomas also needs a good laptop with sound cards. Leo recommends steering clear of the built in sound card. Too noisy. Use a plug in microphone like M-Audio’s Fast Track. CEntrance makes one. Check out Broadcast Supply West.

As for laptops, Leo recommends the Dell 1530. Beautiful, thin, lightweight. Nice Laptop.

Q OneBigM on Twitter - Designing a website. Needs database.

One heck of a question. You want a content management system. Leo uses Drupal. Provides special customization. But it depends on what you need.

Q Austin, Richmond, VA - Trouble with YouTube in Firefox 3

It may be that you need to clear the Flash cache. Flash saves your information. So, go to the Flash Player Settings Manager. You kinda have to use the web to do this. Weird huh? Clear it there.

KJ in the Chat room: A faster way by right clicking on the Flash window, selecting Settings, and then pressing the Advanced button. From there, you can examine the settings and clear them.

Stickam ChatRoom - the NoScript firefox extension will block the flash extensions.

Q Trent, Adelaide, AUS - Appalled by the iPhone providers Down Under.

Telstra is pretty much it in Aussie. And it’s government run. Too expensive. Data limits and caps. Leo recommends to use WiFi for data only and not use the plan. Leo says he’s seen screen shots that may give you the option to turn off the 3G data. The same issue hit Canada and it’s pure greed that holds back the users and places us technologically behind other countries.

Leo says that governments need to understand that technological development is a national security issue and isn’t good politics to let prices become artificially high with bandwidth low. It’s anti-competitive.

The iPhone is beautiful. Best cell phone ever made in spite of it’s shortcomings. But it’s expensive to use. The thing is, do you want to be the first one to use it no matter the cost? No need to stand in line. Wait. There will be plenty of them.

Q Mike, Chino Hills, CA - Reporting an disreputable electronics dealer.

Tried to upsell him. He just wanted the camera. They said okay, but then turned around and told him he’d have to wait five weeks to get it (after he paid, of course). This is a common bait and switch when you find an amazing deal. They will always offer a cheap deal, than push aggressively for an “up sell” on accessories. Then, they come back and claim it’s a backorder because they don’t really have it in stock and just want to try and upsell you on accessories. And they are usually gray market or OEM packages where they break up the kit and sell back each piecemeal.

Leo recommends to CANCEL the sale! It’s a classic bait and switch scam.

BBBOnline is where you can go to file a complaint.
Then go to vendors like Amazon you know and trust.

Q Carnig, - Frozen cursor on his MAC.

G4 Powerbook running Panther. His cursor is just plain stuck and he can’t even reboot to stop it. The good news is that everything else is working. Leo suspects the track pad may be dead. Plug in a mouse and see if it works. If it does, then the track pad is done. If it doesn’t work, then boot to your OS Disk, hold down the C key and see if it works. If it doesn’t, then reinstall the OS.

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Hour 3

Q Gavin, Ventura, CA - Suspects a virus in his MAC.

He’s continually redirected in his searches. Leo recommends going into your network system preference pane and look at your DNS server settings. It needs to match your ISP. Also, go to opendns.com. Look in the lower right hand corner for the replacement DNS settings. Starts with 208.67.xxx.xxx Check to see if there’s a hacked DNS server setting in there. Also check the “hosts file.” It may have been modified.

There may be a trojan in the wild that does just this. Two Anti-Virus companies (SecureMac and Antigo) have reported it, but it hasn’t been seen in the wild of yet … could it be now? Check out LittleSnitch to see if someone is running your Mac remotely by having the MAC “call home” somewhere. Search for a file called ARD Agent and move it out of the system folder until that hole is plugged.

A couple of “Tweets”:

Q Recovery Tweet - What about MetaCrawler to replace Google? It’s another Meta Search engine. But the question is, does Google see you when you use it?

Q Writerwoman - Finding your background desktop image …

This depends on what version of Windows. Rightclick on desktop, personalize, desktop background and it shows you the location.

Q Paul, Vancouver, BC - more site recommendations

Jing Project capture an image or record a video of your desktop. Jing is from the same company that makes Camtasia.

Also CamSpace, which allows you to use your hands as a game controller and turn any game console into a Wii. That’s really something to watch!

Q Sam, Downey, CA - Photo Website tip

ZoHo. Free office applications. Also, TheGreenGenie Green screening software.

Q Scott, Spokane, WA - Copied DVD won’t play

He ripped a YesVideo DVD and then burned it onto Toast. But the copy won’t play. Since the DVD was ripped, there was probably a file or two that wasn’t copied. Toast will make a direct, disk to disk copy that will get everything.
Also, use HandBrake to convert files directly.

Q Bob, Washington, DC - His DVD player revved out of control.

A CD disintegrated as a result. It is possible for DVD and CD players to “spin out of control.” Once thought to be an urban legend, but apparently, it’s true! What could have happened is that the disc was unbalanced and as such, shattered when it spun up.

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