Leo Laporte
The Tech Guy
2–5p EDT Sat/Sun
- Home
- Saturday Show
- Sunday Show
- Past Shows
- Audio Archives
- Stations
- Chat
- Watch Live
- Forums
- Listener Map
- User Groups
- Tips
- FAQ
- Glossary
- Contact Leo
Sponsors
Leo Links
 |
For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
|
|
Sunday 28 September 2008
Show Audio
|
Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Microsoft planning a Windows 7 Giveaway
Oct. 27th, at PDC, attendees will receive a 300GB podtable hard drive with a pre-release of Windows 7.
Microsoft gets into Cloud computing
Also, at PDC, Redmond will debut the future - wherever you go, you’re online. So they’ve come out with Live Mesh at Mesh.com. Mesh seeks to link PCs, MACs, cellphones, wifi enabled mp3 players, anything that gets information to you.
Remember … SUNDAY IS BACKUP DAY!
Guests
Chris Marquart - Tips from the Top Floor
Chris is back fresh from Photokina and he has a lot of great news about the latest in digital SLR cameras including the Canon 5D Mk. II. 1080p full resolution HiDef, full frame chips. 21 GB. WOW! Check out this hidef short film shot on it.
First thing Chris noticed is that the megapixel race is far from over. The Canon 5D Mk II has 21 mp. Leo says the video is amazing. Originally, the mirror was in the way, but thanks to the live view mode and the DIGIC IV sensor, they’ve been able to get around it. $2700 out in October
Then there was the Leica S2. 37 MP medium format camera in an SLR body. Coming out next summer. Normally, MP will add more noise without a corresponding increase in chip size. But with a medium format chip, there’s plenty of room here. In fact, the lens can become a limiting factor unless you up the quality of the lenses you buy with it.
Panasonic brought out the G1, which has a new format called mini 4/3s. It has a hiRes electronic viewfinder. Has no mirror. It’s like a tiny camera inside the camera. Interchangeable lenses. And still smaller than a DSLR.
Kodak brought out a wireless digital picture frame with OLEDs (Organic). Eack pixel lights itself. 30,000 to 1 contrast ratio. Very thin. About $2000 US. Holy magoly!
A fun lens is called the “Lens Baby.” It can bend and make some stylish, alternative images with them.
There’s also the LOMO. A Russian built camera which is very basic, but has a kind of cult following. A film camera that proves that film is not dead.
Hour 1
Q Paul, Truckin’ in California - Keyboard for gaming
Paul is a serious gamer. He’s looking for a keyboard that can stand up to the abuse he puts them through. Keyboards are very personal for gamers since they keys can be custom assigned. Leo says the Microsoft Reclusa is what they use on the Ultimate Gaming Machine. Licensed from Razor. It has “bumper buttons,” programmable gaming hot keys, customizable profile hotkeys for quick switching, and blue LED backlit keys!
from the Chat Room - Try the Logitech G15, and the |Steel Series.
Q John, Bergenfield, NJ - HP Laptop failure issues
He has an HP DD9000 Laptop, which he says has a history of failure. He’s sent it in four times. Leo eludes to the fact that he doesn’t recommend HP for laptops. He feels that the DD9000 is a terrible design which HP has just decided to “live with.” HP has crunched the numbers and determined it would take about $300 per laptop to repair it.
Check out NotebookHingeCrack.com for more information on the trouble with these laptops and a class action lawsuit which may be in the making.
What laptops does Leo like? Lenovos. Panasonic Toughbooks are robust. But Leo buys most of his notebooks from Dell.
Q Ken, Palo Alto, CA - iTunes backup and restore issues
Ken had to restore his computer and he has music on his iPod which he’ll lose if he plugs it back into his computer now. Leo says he’ll need third party software like iPod Rip for the MAC to get the job done. You mount your iPod as a disc and copy the music right into iTunes.
Ken wanted to know about a Windows version. In the Chat Room, they recommend Anapod and Floola (Leo’s never hard of that one). Check out this link from Lifehacker on just how to do it.
It’s not really that hard to do and if Apple wanted us not to, they easily could’ve locked it down harder. But so far, they’re attempts are just token to comply with the RIAA.
Q Brian, Shelby, NC - Walmart dumping their DRM music
Brian was notified that they will be turning off all purchased DRM music in October. That means a whole bunch of unsatisfied Walmart customers who will have to back up their songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD, thereby losing quality. This doesn’t pertain to music purchased after February 21, 2008. Just BEFORE it. Leo thinks Walmart should keep the servers running or give their customers DRM free replacements. To just tell their customers to go to the added expense to burn them to CD and rip back for degraded mp3s is appalling.
On the Review side - He bought an iPod Touch and an LG Dare for music. Loves the Touch for the apps, books on tape, and, of course, TWIT podcasts!
Hour 2
Q James, Lake Elsinore, CA - Attaching pictures and email
James wants to send pictures to his daughter, but finds photo management software too complicated and the pictures too large to email. Leo recommends to upload pictures to an online album like Flickr and then send a link to your friends and loved ones. Another one is Picasa. It’ll pick up the pictures automatically from your camera and you can upload the pictures to Picasa album. And it’s free!
Q Scott, Los Angeles, CA - Camera lens recommendation.
Scott has a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi. Lookin’ for a step up in his lenses.
Speed equals cost. The faster the lens, the more expensive the lens. And on the Rebel, there is a lens multiplier of 1.6. This means that you have to multiply a lens focal length by 1.6 to get it’s “true” focal length. The f stop doesn’t change though. Also, this effects the shutter speeds and aperture settings. You want to be aware of the multiplier which will tell you the minimum shutter speed to prevent camera shake.
Leo thinks that you should get the best lenses you can afford now and worry about upgrading the body later. If you want to learn photography, a 50mm prime lens is a great lens (or, a 35mm lens for the XTi to keep the multiplier in mind). The Canon EF50 1.4 is a great lens. It’s at Amazon for about $300.
The kind of lens you get depends on the kind of photography you’re doing. Landscapes mean wide angles, whereas portraiture means more telephoto so you’re not up in your subject’s face.
Here’s a great website that teaches you which lenses are best to use for what situation, as well as digital photography in general. And don’t forget Chris Marquart’s Tips from the Top Floor!
Q Kevin, Las Vegas, NV - Uninstalling Office 2004
Kevin has “removed” the application. But it continues to show up in his trash! Leo says that MACs come with trial versions of Office and it could be popping up thanks to this. Kevin tried AppZapper to get rid of it, but it didn’t. Not even secure erase got rid of it. This is baffling.
Kevin is also interested Sasuki by SaveSoftware to synch iCal with his iPhone.
Q Kathy, Murrietta, CA - GPS Navigation recommendation
Leo still recommends the Garmin Nuvi. But Kathy is wanting a 4.3″ screen, street name announcement, and live traffic (which is an additional subscription through XM or MSN Direct). The Garmin Nuvee 260 or above (except the 270) has it. Live traffic is built into the Nuvi 370. But what’s Kathy’s budget? $299, which is easily the budget for the Nuvi 370 (but it doesn’t have the 4.3″ screen though). The 370 also comes with a year subscription to FM Traffic.
The Nuvi 275T has FM traffic, speaks street names, bluetooth. It’s replaced the 370.
Go to the Garmin site and on the right site you can select the features you want and it will give you the recommendation.
Q Bobby, Hayward, CA - Camera recommendation for a dream trip
Bobby is going to Egypt. Leo was there in January and agrees it’s a trip of a lifetime. But you don’t want an expensive looking camera on your shoulder. A good point and shoot that fits in your pocket. Leo recommends Kodak’s EasyShare V1285 for easy of use. $200. 12MP. Large LCD to see the pictures after you take them. Bring a few extra SD memory cards to swap out after they fill up. You can get huge cards up to 8GB, but Leo recommends against putting all your eggs in one basket. Pick up some good 1 or 2 GB cards and just swap them out.
Another option is the Canon Powershot G9 if you’re looking for something more advanced.
Hour 3
Q Eric, Camarillo, CA - iPhone is locked up.
Sherry had an invisible shield on her iPhone and now she can’t unlock it. Leo thinks there may be an issue with the touch screen. Reset the top button until the White Apple comes up and it restarts. You can also try a full restore. It is a computer, afterall. Connect it up to iTunes and do a reset (function + on/off switch together). Keep holding past the white apple until iTunes connects to it. Do NOT restore from a backup. It’ll prompt you to restore and it’ll format the flash drive and you can start over. But if you’ve been synching up, that’s not a problem. If that doesn’t fix it, it’s “Genius time” at the Apple Store.
Q Barry, Littleton, CO - The new Nano is screen reader compatible
Great for the visually impaired. And, the new 4th Gen Nano has an “enable spoken menu” option when you boot it up. It’ll read every menu when you activate it through the “click wheel.” Which would not only be great for the visually impaired, but also for when you’re driving and want to listen to tunes.
Q Larry, Davis, CA - Vista is hiding his files!
He uses QPlayer for audio sound ques. But can’t find the files anywhere! QPlayer probably has a database which it uses to save the files. “Vertical applications” can often have unusual choices since they tend to be for limited audiences and are proprietary in nature. Look at the modification date of the .dat files you have and chances are, that’s the file you need. But it’ll be sound ques of dozens of files.
Larry also says he copied the files over to another drive, but Leo thinks it may have been misread as a “temporary file” and wasn’t copied. Check with QPlayer on how this is done and how you can transfer the que’s from one computer to another.
A worst case scenario, a root kit may have made some of your files disappear if it has this kind of extension.
Vista may be doing something odd by hiding the files and you need to enable the “show hidden files” option in your documents folder.
Q Pam, San Bernadino, CA - SP3 problems
Pam’s son downloaded SP3 and ran into problems. She got an error message about “service pack 4.” Leo says there’s no SP4 and that sounds fishy. Windows will roll back to SP2 if you have a problem installing. Run Windows update periodically to see if it’ll install. If not, it’s a driver issue and you just have to be patient until Microsoft adds the drivers you need to run it.
