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Saturday 16 August 2008

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Tech News

The Beijing Olympics

NBC is broadcasting over 2000 hours of Olympic coverage live over the Internet.

Leo goes to the New Media Podcast Expo

Leo met other podcasters from all over the world, found some great new websites for new media, and even found sites like AllVoices.com, where social networking for citizen journalism is part of the scheme.

Netflix goes down for a few days, losing millions.

55 distribution centers all over the country were shut down for two days due to a software glitch. No movies were shipped out and Netflix estimates that it cost them millions in rental refunds. Netflix will be offering a 15% credit on their existing customers monthly bill next month while those trying out the service will receive an extra week. No word from Netflix what caused the glitch.

Leo’s jonsin’ on the BlackBerry Bold.

And why wouldn’t he? For $200, it competes very well with the iPhone. All it really lacks is the iPhone’s elegance. It has Blackberry’s Apps, stunning 64K color screen. The Blackberry Bold9000 by Sept. 15.

The RIAA has to pay!

Another bad day for the RIAA. They have to pay $173,000 to a Tonja Anderson a disabled, single mom, they threatened to sue. She took them up on it and WON! According to Business Week, Anderson was being extorted by the RIAA and the RIAA not only has to pay her the $173K, the court is making them pay court costs.

Here’s another guy who fought and won. Now he wants the RIAA to pay his court costs and is going to the Supreme Court over it.

Guests

Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine

Scott needs to clarify something that Leo said about 720p TVs and 1080i signals. The native resolution of a 720p TV is 720p, but if the signal is 1080p, a 720p TV can’t accept it due to too much data. However, it can accept 1080i since that’s interlaced (sends every other line ever other time). Then the TV deinterlaces it, or puts the lines together, and then upscales it 720p to play properly. That’s why using an upconverting DVD player isn’t the best place for the image to be upscaled. It’s much better for the HDTV to do the job. The trick is to try it both ways and look for the best picture. If you don’t have a true 1080pTV, don’t send it 1080p signals. Send it 1080i and let the TV do the deinterlacing and scaling.

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Hour 1

Q Tim, Jacksonville, FL - Making bootable DVD for PC w/ MAC

He’s trying to make a main OS boot disk with which to built multiple PCs. Leo says that you need to use a single ISO and burn it to DVD. The MAC doesn’t care if it’s for PC as long as it’s an ISO. You can mount the ISO images with Disk Utility to see the multiple ISOs and then combine them into a single image. The trick is going to be making it bootable.

Create the bootable ISO on your PC first. Then, copy the ISO over to the Mac by networking and burn it there. (thanks Chat User 999!)

Q Mark, Tustin, CA - Word open file problems

Mark is having trouble opening files in MS Word while using another program. They take too long to open. Leo thinks this may be due either strange fonts or using alot of fonts. Leo suggests creating a new document with the default font and save it. Then open it up. Windows will cache files to make them open quicker.

Part of the slow down may be the OS. Create an alias for your document. If you it opens lickety split, then perhaps it’s time to reinstall everything.

Mark also thinks that HiDef TVs are TOO hiDef. You can see too many defects in his favorite actresses face!

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Hour 2

Q Bob, Los Angeles, CA - Monitor and camera recommendation.

Bob wants to know what camera review site he recommends - Leo suggests digitalcamerainfo.com and dpreview.com. They’re ethical, concise interviews. Worth going to before buying a camera.

Bob also wants a monitor recommendation for his digital photography. Leo says color reproduction on computer monitors isn’t great. If you want accurate color representation and correction, you’re going to spend ALOT of money (like a few thousand dollars). Check out EZIO, which specializes in this. HP has just announced a line as well.

If that’s too much, Leo likes the Dell 24 monitors alot. The single biggest difference is the contrast ratio. The higher the number (say, 1000:1) the richer the color.

Q Matthew, Los Angeles, CA - Video Card Recommendation

Matthew runs his schools AV dept. and want to do a TV station via Stickam from his high school. Lookin’ for a video card with composite tuner. Leo uses an ADVC300 external encoder by Canopus. It’ll take the composite in and convert it to firewire. But an All in Wonder card from ATI or something from Hauppage will work as well.

From Twitter:

JamesD - Matthew can use Visual Communicator by Adobe. It has mobile camera support as well.

Q Andrea, Palo Alto, CA - Wants to start a podcast

Andrea wants to start a podcast and doesn’t know how to start. Leo suggests getting a Plantronics DSP400 USB headset. Another option is The Snowball. Then, setup an account at talkshoe.com. It allows for taking phonecalls and chatting with callers. Also, start an account at Wordpress.com to advertise it.

Then, you just do it. And you be patient. It’ll take a few years to find your voice and get good at it. Then people will notice.

You also need to use some guerrilla marketing to get listeners to find you. The key is you’re building a community, not just doing a show. And that’s what the internet is all about. Create forums and chatrooms to give your audience a place to congregate. And if you want to build a community, JOIN a community! Be a regular commentator and make a name for yourself. People will be more likely to listen if they want to follow you.

Q Mark, Lacey, WA - Trouble using fonts on UBUNTU

How can he permanently remove unnecessary fonts he doesn’t need? Leo says if those fonts keep getting reinstalled, then the OS is using those. And if you remove them, you’ll end up crashing your OS. The issue really is that fonts in Linux just isn’t great at all. Doing graphics on the MAC or on PC is really a better choice.

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Hour 3

Q David, Los Angeles, CA - Wants to archive his family tree on the Web

First off, it’s risky to put stuff like that on the web. There’s no guarantee that wherever you put it, it’ll be there a few years down the road. The Internet is just to fluid. So make sure you archive ANYTHING you put online. You’ll also need to re-archive it all as technology changes. Does anyone use zip disks anymore?

Leo likes GENI. It’s genealogically focused. You build a family tree that you can add photos, video, the works. And it stores it and you can search by it. You invite family members and make it a joint project. And best part … it’s FREE!

He also wants options for online storage. Leo recommends Amazon’s S3 storage and using Jungledisk. At .15 a gig, it’s dirt cheap.

Q Marie, Santa Clarita, CA - Buying a computer. Mac or PC?

Ah, the great religious debate. GET A MAC! She’s into photography and video. Tons of creative stuff. Better OS. You have the ability to use Windows. iLife built right in (iDVD, iPhoto, iMovie, Garage Band). The only thing the MAC is really lagging behind in is gaming.

Q Roderick, Los Angeles, CA - Archiving his DVDs

Can he create a media center PC which will read the ISOs and play them like a DVD Jukebox? Leo says XBMC is a great option. It’s a shareware version of the XBox Media Center. Plex is a port of XBMC which takes it to the next level. You can mount the ISO and then copy them to the hard drive. Then play them in Front Row. But that’s alot of room.

From Twitter - VLC Media Player will play ISOs.

Q Janice, Orange County - Trouble exiting iTunes

She has to C-A-D to close it out. Leo suspects iTunes is trying to quit Quicktime first and it won’t release the resource. Uninstall both. Then reinstall Quicktime first. Once it’s running, then install iTunes separately.

Q Esther, Temecula, CA - wants to copy her shows off the DVR

She has a cable company DVR. How can she rip it? There won’t be any easy way to do this except for the Analog hole. Get a video capture device like the ADVC110 and connect that to the output of the DVR, then move it to your PC via the firewire connection.

Q Larry, El Segundo, CA - How to get XP Service Pack 3 without using Windows Update?

If you go to the Windows Update site, look for the NETWORK update. This will be a separate download and burn to CD. You can also “slipstream” the updates into an install disk.

Q

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