Leo Laporte
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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday September 13, 2008
- Show Audio
- Tech News
- Guests
- Hour 1
- Hour 2
- Bobby, Cheyenne, WY - Taking up podcasting
- Irwin, Singapore (via Skype) - Teaching kids computer programming.
- Chris, Mayfield, KY - IPTV & MPEG4
- James, Colton, CA - Recording church sermons for a podcast
- Lisa, Los Angeles, CA - Looking for a good monitor.
- Mark, Burlingame, AL - Moving data from one computer to another
- Hour 3
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Google’s Chrome gets explained by Comic Book
When Google released Chrome, they sent out collectible editions of a comic book explaining why Google has made a new browser. More and more things are done online and Chrome is made to take advantage of that.
Google Chrome is a new browser which Google says is designed for web based applications like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Spreadsheet. Based on WebKit, an open source browser engine. Nifty feature is that you can take any webpage and make an application out of it.
The latest Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld commercial
They move in with a “real family,” in a strange 4 minute commercial. Is this really just a 4 minute sitcom?
The New Nanos are out.
Are these gadgets so advanced in their technology that it’s all about adding “chrome and fins” to make them prettier and get people to buy them even when there’s no reason to? It’s what Detroit has been doing for years!
No higher capacity, no price drop. Sure, they widened the screen (same screen as before only turned on it’s edge) and added the accelerometer is cool because you can shake it to shuffle. But hardly worth trading in your own model for the new colorful one.
Guests
Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine
Scott fot a listener email from Edward Hanson, who wants to build a home theater for the hearing impaired. How to set up a surround sound, etc. To get true surround, you do need hearing in both ears. But if you don’t have the use of one ear, you can’t hear stereo or determine direction accurately.
But the brain can compensate and adapt somewhat. Scott hears of a technology which helps the hearing impaired enjoy music and audio. AirSound is a company that has developed a single point stereo which emits two channel sound that envelopes the entire room from one speaker source. This holds promise for those with hearing in only one ear to hear stereo sound. There’s also Orbit Sound, which uses the AirSound technology to create simulated stereo and surround.
In our chatroom, a listener says he does something similar by placing his speakers all on the same side!
Scott also has special earphones that he wears. He goes to an audiologist who makes molds of the inside of his ear and custom earbuds are made from them. It helps those with fading hearing to hear the full range of audio experience without distorting the sound by turning up the gain.
Hour 1
Q Mark, Los Angeles, CA - Mac Issues with MS Office X
His friend has “Office X” which can’t be updated anymore. Should he upgrade to MS Office 08? Leo says don’t bother with `04, stick to `08. It has the latest support for office 2007, which was a major rewrite of the MS Office architecture.
He also has hard drive issues. Leo says hard drives can die. It could be a result of power issues. Could be simple failure. A certain percentage of hard drives do die within the first year.
Q Jonathan, Irvine, CA - XP Pro doesn’t update
His XP Pro stopped updating. He’s trying to install SP3, but it won’t work or even recognize it. Leo suspects there are proprietary drivers in Jonathan’s computer that Windows doesn’t support natively. The Windows that came with the computer probably has a special driver set that created it.
Leo recommends backing up the data onto an external drive or DVD, then run Windows install from scratch, completely reinstalling the OS. Sometimes updating isn’t the best way to handle an update.
Then, while inputting the data back, if Windows doesn’t see the file and transfer settings information, there isn’t much in the way of over rulling it. It’s possible that the files were rendered unreadable and were corrupted by the File/Settings transfer wizard, which is very unreliable. It’s happened to Leo a few times.
More from the ChatRoom - Moving from Service Pack 2 to 3 can cause compatibility issues and failures with FAST files.
Hour 2
Q Bobby, Cheyenne, WY - Taking up podcasting
Bobby wants to start a podcast about video games and music. He’s using WordPress to publish it. But what does he use for the podcast portion? Leo says there’s really only one called PODPRESS. It’ll create all the feeds, has a built in media player on your site for those who listen online, and copy to portable players. It’s a great utility. Bobby also has an album out at http://www.tinyurl.com/bobbysmusic.
Q Irwin, Singapore (via Skype) - Teaching kids computer programming.
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Irwin teaches kids computers and wants to know if there’s any utilities can help teach kids programming. Leo suggests ALICE, which was done by Randy Pouch (the Last Lecture). Another option is SQUEAK, which is based on SmallTalk.
Q Chris, Mayfield, KY - IPTV & MPEG4
Chris works for a company that installs IPTV as part of telephone packages. Interesting idea. More and more people are starting to watch TV on their computers. So IPTV makes a lot of sense. What’s cool is that anyone can be a broadcaster now. Leo likes it for that. But the quality will vary. And how will you find the stations, by surfing or by an online cable guide kind of thing? Looks like it’s just like before, a gate keeper that tells you what you can watch or choose from.
Still, it’s very democratizing and it should cut the costs of creating new programming. And ANYONE can create a network online. So the sky’s the limit.
MPEG4 is the new standard for IPTV. It’s scalable. Great quality. Low bandwidth. Great choice and the wave of the future.
Q James, Colton, CA - Recording church sermons for a podcast
James is his church’s AV guy. He wants to start recording his pastor’s sermons so they can put them online. GREAT IDEA! The easiest is to record it and then put them online for download later. You can record directly to a laptop by patching the audio into your laptop. Or, you can record to compact flash or even directly to an ipod with the Griffin ITalk Pro.
Software for recording - on the MAC side Garage Band will handle everything from editing the files to publishing to podcast. On the PC side you can download Audacity. It’s open source and free. Spend a little and you can get Adobe Audition which has all sorts professional tools. Get a great theme song. Date the podcast so they know which week they’re listening to. Save it to MP3 as the format. Everyone listens to that. Make the format mono and with a low bitrate (like 32 bps) so it’s easy for everyone to download. Use iTunes!
Q Lisa, Los Angeles, CA - Looking for a good monitor.
Lisa does digital photography and needs a really good monitor. Her monitor is horribly inaccurate colorwise and she can’t fix it. So she needs a new one.
Leo says that LCDs aren’t. very accurate when reproducing color and really accurate monitors are going to be expensive. The bottom line is that the majority of people are going to be viewing your pictures on affordable, inaccurate monitors anyway, so even if you want to have accurate colors (like the widescreen 24″ monitors from Eizo, you’ll end up mixing downward anyway.
Q Mark, Burlingame, AL - Moving data from one computer to another
Mark has two laptops that he has to link and move data from one to another. Leo recommends turning on Windows file-sharing and use either an ethernet or firewire cable. You don’t need a “crossover” cable anymore for that. The software auto senses cables and the data from one laptop to another.
A good choice for synching one laptop to another is Microsoft Sync Toy. But it can easily be used as a drag and drop using file-sharing.
Hour 3
Q Diane, Riverside, CA - Publishing a book on Lulu
She has written a book but Lulu won’t accept it because of format issues. It may be that her word file has errors in it. Lulu will accept other formats, and putting it in a PDF format will be accepted and a better choice.
Leo also recommends that Diane update her Word either online or through the office updater. And BACKUP that book! Leo suggests getting an 8GB USB thumbdrive. Buy several so you can switch them out when backing up. On the MAC with Leopard, you can use Time Machine to do the same thing.
Q Cathy, Chatsworth, CA - Ad-blocking problems with Norton 360
Blinking pop-up ads are driving her crazy and Norton 360 does nothing. Leo thinks Norton is overkill. It’s bloated, slows your system down, and does little for stuff like this. The big deal is changing your behavior.
In Leo’s experience, the best ad blocker is one built into the browser. And the best browser is Firefox. By itself, it’s safer than Internet Explorer. But it alsso has an add-on which you can install called AdBlock Plus. It works better than anything in the world in blocking unwanted ads and doesn’t bog down your system like Norton 360 does. And if you REALLY want to be secure, download NO SCRIPT and add it to Firefox.
Q Lindsay, Northridge, CA - Worried about security.
Switching from dial-up to DSL. Leo says it’s no more dangerous being on broadband than it is to be on dial-up. But he does recommend that Lindsay get a router. A router is a very effective hardware firewall that protects you better than any piece of software. You’ll want to make sure you change the default name and administrative password. Turn off WAN administration. This will prevent any remote access to the router. Turn off UPnP (universal plug in play). Turn ON WPA encryption. Not WEP - that’s too easily cracked.
Go Belkin or Linksys for wireless N routers. Fast and very secure. And follow Leo’s Rules for Safe Computing. And apply all the patches from Windows.
Q Sherry, Natrona Heights, PA - Lost her Windows Password!
Download EBCD. Unfortunately, this will cost you about $30 now. This is the Emergency Boot CD. Burn it to CD and then put it into your affected computer. Boot the PC and you can clear the passwords with the EBCD utility.
A few other options, from xp99 in the chat room, is to follow this tutorial (free). The Ultimate Boot CD.
Basically, what these utilities do is boot your computer into Linux in order to access your Windows registry and reset the passwords.
Q Mike, Corona, CA - Running Outlook from multiple networked computers
Mike runs a network server attaching all his computers. He’s worried about running Outlook on more than on PC at the same time. The key here is to close out Outlook in one computer before you open it in another. Because otherwise, you’ll end up with syncing conflicts. Microsoft Exchange Server could handle it if you absolutely need to access the Outlook files simultaneously.
