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Saturday 04 October 2008
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Happy Tenth Birthday to Google!
Google turns 10. Created by grad students while in College, Google has not only revolutionized internet search, but more importantly, internet advertising. They rank pages by who’s linking to it. And it works. Now, they’re looking for their next big hit. Is it Chrome? The Google Phone? Google Docs? The Cloud? Music? What’s next? Where are they going in the next 10 years?
The G1 Android phone coming soon.
Now available for pre-order. Leo hopes to get one to review soon.
Obama releases iPhone App.
What it does, is go through your contact book and if it finds people in battleground states, it harvests their information. Then, when you call them to talk about voting, you can input whether they’re vote for the Big O or not. Great idea for getting supporters more involved. McCain campaign is a tad slow on stuff like this, but they do have an application on Facebook which helps in a similar fashion.
Guests
Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine
More on the 120hz, 240hz LCDs. Double and quadruple the refresh rates. There are those who find that the 120hz LCD imparts a “video look” to movies. However, the 1080p 240hz doesn’t. This is because the bandwidth is larger to accommodate the frame rate. The problem though, is that the look is almost too vivid. There’s little grain, makes it too sharp in motion. Scott though, likes the detail even at the expense of the grain. So this comes down to the age old argument of analog vs. digital preferences. If you’re in the market, make sure you can turn off frame interpolation. That’ll make it look more natural.
Look for a whole day of Scott answering questions with Leo on October 19th!
Hour 1
Q Ed, Ontario, CA - Cellphone/digital camera recommendation.
Ed needs to buy two digital cameras and a cellphone. Ed needs a basic phone, with calendar. AT&T Customer. Of course, there’s the iPhone. But it can make you crazy. The onscreen keyboard is difficult. The new Blackberry Bold is coming to AT&T. The advantage is that the BBerry is great for email. Crisp screen. Good calendar/desktop apps. Synchs seamlessly with your desktop.
Camera wise, Leo thinks that the Canon Powershot cameras are very good, especially for teens. Leo likes the Canon SD1100IS. Leo suggests going to dpreview.com and compare. But in reality, just about any of the mainstream camera makers will work great. Leo just likes the Powershot line a lot.
Q Mark, Santa Ana, CA - Making a Video Montage
He wants to create a comedy gaffe real of political gaffes. Is there a central repository of such video clips? The problem is, one side isn’t as net savvy as the other. Networks subscribe to services that record this stuff. So, your best bet is to search the Net for content. Everything is on the Net these days.
Hour 2
Q Glen, San Diego, CA - Skype on a SmartPhone
He wants to get into VOIP on a cellphone. Skype Mobile on the Instinct? Not a lot of success yet. Usually, it’s used on unlocked phones. But Leo says a lot of cell providers don’t like it for obvious reasons. Sprint is the least likely to block it. Great data network. Will work better on wifi. Check out FRING. It’s a program which adds Skype to alot of cellphones. In fact, iPhone users should get it now,before Cupertino kills it!
Q Bob, Decatur, GA - How to supress mic feedback?
Using EQ will help kill the frequencies that cause feedback. Check out prosoundweb.com/church there’s a great article there on taming that feedback. A lot has to do with mic and speaker setup and location, supressors from Sure/Sabine.
Scott Wilkinson calls in to suggest a feedback suppressor from Sabine, Derringer, etc. They use specialized equalizers. Most EQs have wide bandwidth which causes other frequencies to be cut when you limit it. So the suppressor will automatically find the frequency and limit it. Feedback limiters/suppressors can cost anywhere from $100 up.
Q Daniel, Orlando, FL - Upgrading the hard drive for Apple TV
He has an Apple TV but his hard drive is nearly full. Can he connect a Drobo system to stream to it? Leo says sure. Firewire would be better, but you can use USB to use it. Just point iTunes to it as the source. Leo also says you can hack your AppleTV directly to work with Drobo.
Q Spencer, Los Angeles, CA - iWeb and .mac
Spencer has a family account on Mobile Me, but his multiple sites and has to relog in to iWeb every time he wants to update them. Better way? Leo says to make a script that will handle the process. Spencer is pushing the envelope with iWeb and Leo recommends the script from MACOSXHINTS which will automate this process for you.
Q Tara, San Francisco, CA - Making a Wiki for her website.
Tara has a website called The Costumer’s Manifesto. It has ads and great information. But it’s gotten so big that she needs to create a wiki to organize it. She wants to keep her ads though, to pay the bills.
Leo says Widgets are in javascript and html. Wiki has it’s own language. The issue is that you can’t cut and paste. Wiki won’t understand it. Use the template that wiki provides. Leo uses PMWiki which is an easy to use template for this purpose. There’s also MediaWiki. You’ll need to host it yourself with a dedicated server, though, as web hosts will want to reserve their own ads for it.
You just need to find someone who understands building wikis. You may need to hire or get someone computer savvy to incorporate it. Look on Craigslist. But it’s totally doable.
Q Gene, Brooklyn, NY - Trouble with MacBook profile
Gene made “The Switch.” Now, everything has stopped working in one of his profiles. Leo has had this happen. It may be related to security settings. What you can do is log on and copy your data from the profile folder into the “shared folder.” Then you can abandon it. You can recover the old profile, start profile with shift key - that gives you a safe mode - clear preferences folder - repair permissions … but it may take more work to recover it than to simply create another.
Leo suspects a program installed may be causing the problem. If you can eliminate which program it is, then you can simply uninstall it.
Hour 3
Q John, Bowling Green, KY - How to capture and record streams w/ Media Center.
John wants to record streaming Web video. Vixy will let you enter a YouTube URL and convert it to save it. But the only way to capture live video streams is to use a screen capture utility like Camtasia and record it to video. But the result isn’t that great.
IN the chatroom,KiwiNerd records a lot of TWIT and posts it on Odtv.me. She uses a program called REPLAY MEDIA CATCHER by Applian.
Q Tony, Ontario, CA - Connecting a hard drive to a video camera
Tony is looking for a way to connect a 500GB hard drive to a video camera. Leo says the problem Panasonic SD5 camcorder. HiDef onto memory cards. Bring along your computer and you can offload them during the evening. That way you don’t lose anything to calamity. Leo suggests a tape based camcorder like the Canon HV30. More reliable. Safer. You don’t run the risk of losing everything like a hard drive camcorder would.
Q Susan, Acton, CA - iMac or MacPro?
Susan does a lot of graphics and photo editing and videos of her Andalusian horses at her ranch. Leo says she needs both speed and power. Leo says that believe it or not, Susan can do what she needs with an iMac. Nothing she does requires the hefty investment of a MacPro,which doesn’t even come with a monitor. She should invest in the 24″ screen, though. The iMac will work great for her.
How will it work with her satellite internet? Leo says it should work but that she should verify that with HughesNet. She’s also concerned about stamps.com, but they’re going to go all web soon, and that’ll work with any computer. Leo also thinks that making “The Switch” will take some work, but will be worth it in the end. Don’t abandon your Windows, just yet. Make it a gradual transition and slowly integrate the Mac back in.
For video importing, MIRO or Pinnacle Systems make some good mac stuff to import analog video with time/date stamps.
Susan’s website is Sommer Ranch.
Q Laura, Los Angeles, CA - Has a hacker hit her?
Here homepage has been hijacked. She gets a popup window that tells her to download AntiVirus2009. DON’T DOWNLOAD IT! It’s a scam. Leo says a “browser helper object” has been hacked to change her home page permanently. But that doesn’t mean a hacker is in her system. It’s probably spyware. Run your AVS and AntiSpyware software. But unfortunately, they’re getting smarter. The virus/spyware is getting deeper into the system to where the AVS can’t get all of it out. Try a system restore point. That sometimes will go back in time and wipe out the spyware. But even then, spyware can modify that as well. So the only way to be safe is to backup your data and reinstall Windows.
Software will not protect you. Only your can protect you. Backup your data. Keep the Windows updates installing through automatic updates. And practice Leo’s Rules of Safe Computing.
