Leo Laporte
The Tech Guy
2–5p ET Sat & Sun
- Home
- Saturday Show
- Sunday Show
- Past Shows
- Audio Archives
- Stations
- Chat
- Watch Live
- Forums
- Tips
- FAQ
- Glossary
- Contact Leo
Sponsors
- Angie’s List
- Carbonite
- DSLExtreme
- ESET NOD32 Antivirus
- GoToAssist
- GoToMeeting
- GoToMyPC
- Make It Work
- Stamps.com
Leo Links
 |
For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
|
|
Sunday 2 November 2008
- Show Audio
- Tech News
- Hour 1
- Hour 2
- Hour 3
- Peter, Santa Rosa, CA - Okay to run multiple spyware programs?
- John, San Diego, CA - Off Site Backup options for MAC
- Mary, Los Angeles, CA - DSL problems
- Mickey, Marina Del Ray, CA - Trouble with JABRA Bluetooth Headset
- Bob, Long Beach, CA - Excel question
- James, Norwalk, CA - Animated GIFs thumbnails can’t be watched
- Earl, Granada Hills, CA - Dell Browser trouble.
Show Audio
|
Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Microsoft’s Professional Developer’s Conference
The MPDC is an occassional conference held when Redmond wants to announce something new. And this year, it’s Windows 7 - which will come out sometime next year - and Azure. Everyone who came to PDC received a hard drive with Windows 7 installed on it. And so far, the word is very positive. Componentized so that a wide range of computers - from netbooks to desktops - can run them efficiently. User account control less noisy. Fewer icons on the system tray. It’s becoming a lean, mean operating system. But will the announcement of Windows 7 kill sales of Vista from now until 7 comes out?
“Azure” was also announced. This is Microsoft’s “cloud computing” projects. The idea is that your programs and data won’t live on the computer, but “in the cloud” (on the Internet).
Snow Leopard will have no new features.
Apple announces that there will be no new features for OSX Snow Leopard, but they will be focusing on making it more efficient. Polishing it up. This is very similar to what Windows 7 will be doing and is not surprising considering both platforms are extremely mature at this point.
Time Magazine’s Best Inventions 2008
The number one invention of the year … the Retail DNA Test $399. Is that the best we could do? The Tesla Roadster. The Apple iPhone. Hulu.com? That’s surprising. The Large Hadron Collider. The Global Seed Vault - a very interesting idea. A vault on the Norwegian Island of Spitzbergen contains collections of native seeds to guard against worldwide agricultural calamity.
Hour 1
Q Greg, Sherman Oaks, CA - Reinstalling Windows on new hard drive
Great has gotten a new SATA hard drive and is reinstalling Windows. Now it won’t boot up. XP may need a driver to run the SATA drive. Or, the install wasn’t completed correctly. Leo recommends wiping it and trying again. Also, you may want to go online and look for the SATA drivers that XP will need to run that hard drive. XP was written before SATAs were very popular. And it can be tricky to install - since XP will look for a floppy disk!
Q Rich, Garden Grove, CA - Problem with Outlook 2003
Rich is getting a message for installing Service Pack 3, but is that for Office or the OS? Also there’s a connection error on a second connection. Leo says he isn’t sure which one it requires, but using Windows Update will get you both. Just update it with the Microsoft Update (In your start menu). It’ll patch everything. It’s usually best to let Windows look for updates through the update utility.
Q Sheri, Murietta, GA - WiFi cruising with a cellphone
Sheri wants to surf via WiFi to avoid getting the data plan with her cellphone carrier. Possible? All WiFi-enabled phones can work on any open hot spot. You won’t need a data plan.
From the Chatroom: And if you get an unlocked smart phone, put the sim chip in it, you can use both wifi and the phone. Just be sure to disable the data feature (3G, EDGE). Also, a Touch will enable you to surf wifi. It’s just the iPhone with no phone.
Leo would recommend the HTC/T-Mobile G1 for this if it weren’t for it’s terrible battery life. 3 hours?!
Q Robert, Tampa, FL - Technological singularities
The coming Technological Singularity, or will technology become too smart and go in directions we can’t anticipate? Leo suggests a book called ‘The Age of Intelligent Machines’ by Ray Kurzweil. Ray’s premise is that technological advances occur exponentially. That means advances come faster and with greater leaps. There will reach a point where computers will be indistinguishable from humans when it comes to intelligence. This will mean machines will be smart enough to design and build themselves. Ray believes you’ll be able to eventually place your consciousness into a robot and live forever. Skynet anyone? MCP?
Kevin Kelly writess a great article called “The Technium,” but the assumption of thinking longer/harder to solve a problem may be an Achilles heal. Maybe insight (what he calls “thinkism”) or inspiration is the barrier that machines won’t be able to cross no matter how fast and smart they become.
Hour 2
Q Duane, Santa Clarita, CA - OnStar isn’t working
Duane’s OnStar doesn’t work. Leo says that your dealer needs to replace the analog OnStar equipment with digital variants. It’s up to each dealer to determine if they will upgrade the equipment, digitally. If your car has dual analog/digital mode, you won’t need it.Are there third party companies popping up to provide this service?
Q Daniel, Upland CA - Video Card Recommendation
Daniel has an autistic daughter and a therapy room. He needs a video card to record composite video from a live feed to the therapy room. Leo recommends Pinnacle Systems and Hauppage. They make external devices you can hook composite video to and capture to PC. A DVD recorder is a good idea. All have composite in. Press play and record. No PC involved. Another option is a wireless camera that you can then pick up from your PC and record directly or watch from your TV live.
Q Sean, Santa Clarita, CA - BSOD spyware - AntiVirus 2009!
Attach:antivirus-2009-website1.gif Δ
Sean gets a BSOD due to Spyware. Works in XP. Then pops back to the screen. Repeats every 5 minutes. Leo hasn’t seen this before. Sean says that he downloaded AntiVirus 2009 - which is SPYWARE! Sean has been bitten by the AV 2009 bug. The BSOD is a FAKE screen. A screen saver.
There is a program from Malware Bytes that will uninstall AV2009. But you don’t know what else has infected your computer since. Reboot your PC in safemode. Run the Malware Bytes. it’ll remove the AV2009. Reboot.
So, Sean will have to backup his data first. Then format his hard drive and reinstall windows
If you get a popup saying you need AntiVirus 2009, BEWARE - THIS IS SPYWARE AND CAN DISABLE YOUR COMPUTER!
Q Janine, Murietta, CA - Backup software.
Janine has heard of a free backup software. Leo says Windows uses something called “Sync Toy.”
But Leo has a another option just for data. Get an external drive and drag the my documents folder over to it once a day. But Sync Toy is a good option.
But what’s also important is to have “off site” backup. Back up your data and keep it in another location. CARBONITE (one of our sponsors) does this online. But also, you can just keep backup discs at work, or a friend’s house, etc.
Hour 3
Q Peter, Santa Rosa, CA - Okay to run multiple spyware programs?
Yes. You can run them in concert. However, spyware is getting smarter to the point that AntiSpyware programs are getting less effective. But yes, you can run them in concert, but it’s faster if you do them one at a time.
Q John, San Diego, CA - Off Site Backup options for MAC
John wants an off site option to backup for Mac. Leo says Carbonite is working on a MAC variant, but until then, Leo recommends MOZY. DOTMAC/MOBILE ME gives you 20 gigs if you have it. Another option is JUNGLE DISK, which backs up to Amazon’s S3 service. They’re dirt cheap and charge by the month.
Course, you can also back up directly to CDs and then send them to a friend or family member for safe keeping.
Other backup options include ChronoSync. Regardless of which option you choose, be like NIKE and JUST DO IT!
Q Mary, Los Angeles, CA - DSL problems
Mary continues to have problems with DSL and is just about ready to dump it for cable. Leo says there’s many reason why Internet access can drop off. A splitter can eliminate interference that’s caused by DSL in the phone line. A network Interface gives DSL a dedicated line from the pole in order to clean up the signal.
Other problems could be that your router. If you can hook up the modem bypassing the router, then you know the router is the culprit. But if it persists, then it’s a connection/ISP issue. AT&T may be onto something on interference on the phone wire.
Going to cable may be a fix if it is phone wiring. But frankly, they’re both pretty equal and cable Internet access comes with it’s own set of issues. The real differences are in the ISP themselves.
Q Mickey, Marina Del Ray, CA - Trouble with JABRA Bluetooth Headset
Here JABRA BT530 won’t work well with her new car (Acura). The headset has static. Leo thinks there’s radio interference from the Car’s Bluetooth frequency. You may be able to disable it by pulling a fuse. Ask your dealer’s service department. Also, try unpairing and then repairing the JABRA in the car. The Jabra may sense the busy frequency and choose another.
Q Bob, Long Beach, CA - Excel question
Bob uses Excel 2003 Pro. He can’t hit F2 and edit a cell. As far as Leo knows, the function commands still work. Try Shift F2 or Cntrl F2. If that doesn’t work, your F2 key may be remapped. Go into the keyboard utility in Control panel and see what the F2 key is mapped to. Also, check to see if the “F-Lock” key is activated which is locking the function keys.
Q James, Norwalk, CA - Animated GIFs thumbnails can’t be watched
James has noticed that he can’t watch GIF animated files in Vista. Microsoft’s response is they don’t want to support it because it’s an “animated file format.” Download Irfanview and you’ll be able to display them again.
Q Earl, Granada Hills, CA - Dell Browser trouble.
His browser is provided by Dell? Leo says it’s Internet Explorer that’s been customized by Dell. But now he gets an error message when he goes to Amazon and several other pages. Leo has a hunch that the browswer doesn’t like secure pagess (https). It could be a damaged certificate. The plugin for flash may also not be working. Reinstall flash and see if that helps.
Have a great Geek week!
