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Saturday 8 November 2008

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Tech News

The End of Windows 3.1

Microsoft announces the end of the line for Windows 3.1 as they have stopped issuing licenses 18 years after it’s release.

The election and the technology used to win it.

Using social networks, where people under 30 live, to perfection, the Obama campaign to get out the vote, raise record amounts of cash (some questioned as rather dubious) and win the election.

What is up with CNNs “Holographic” guests?

CNN used 35 cameras and a host of super computers to create holographic eye candy. Was it effective or just stupid?

Google dumps deal with Yahoo, Microsoft not interested

Poor Jerry Yang. Google has dropped their ad deal with Yahoo citing justice department monopoly concerns. Yahoo tries to revive the Microsoft merger and Redmond says “no thanks.”

Apple surpasses BlackBerry …

Brisk sales of the iPhone has propelled Apple past RIM to become the #2 smartphone manufacturer in the world.

WPA gets cracked … but don’t freak

It’s just the TKIP protocol. There’s a flaw in it. The fix is to use WPA 2. You’re router will have it as an options. Open 192.168.1.1 or whatever your brand is and select WPA2 from the Encryption pull down menu. You can also refresh your TKIP passwords every 2 minutes or less.

Regardless, NEVER use WEP instead! That was cracked in about 2 seconds!

AT&T announces caps for DSL

Caps of upload/downloads will be limited to 20–150GB a day. It’s just a test in RENO at the moment, but Leo suspects it will be expanded. And you can bet that once Comcast and AT&T roll this out, everyone will.

Guests

Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine

Scott has thoughts about the CNN Holographic correspondent. Scott was more impressed than most because you could look at the reporter from any angle and actually pan with it. Although, it wasn’t really holographic. It was a “tomogram.” Think Bullet time in the Matrix, only live.

Leo says they were doing similar stuff on MSNBC in 1996. Leo played a virtual character named “DevNull.” He wore a motion tracking suit and computers took the movement information and applied it to a virtual character. What was interesting was that they degraded the image so viewers would know the reporter wasn’t really there.

Scott said it was a pure stunt to attract viewers.

Cable cards. Scott and Leo talk about how cable cards are now replacing set top boxes. Many TVs have cable card access capability, but the unidirectional limitation has prevented them from catching on. Consumers soured on a cable guy installation, no video on demand, etc. But finally, cable cards come with two way capability (Tru2Way). It’s only been rolled out in Chicago and Denver for Comcast. Available through only Panasonic TVs at this point.

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Hour 1

Q Glenda, Laguna Beach, CA - High quality video for the internet

Glenda wants to make high quality videos that she can put on YouTube. Leo says you can use an inexpensive high def. camcorder for this. Canon HV30, Panasonic SD5. Both or low cost, high quality video cameras which make videos that are better than you can hope to see on YouTube.

Place the camera on a tripod. Don’t pan or zoom much. Be static with the camera.The less the camera moves, the easier it is to compress the image. If you notice Leo’s broadcasts on TWITLIVE.TV, the camera is locked down and leo moves around.

Edit the video on Adobe Premiere Elements for Windows, iMovie for the Mac. YouTube prefers H.264 quality.

Go to YouTube and sign up for a “pro account.” This will let you upload higher quality videos. Vimeo is another service that let’s you upload high definition videos for the Internet. But everyone’s on YouTube.

Q Joey, San Diego, CA - Computer doesn’t go to sleep

Joey tries to put his PC to sleep, but it won’t go to bed! Leo says this is a similar problem with just about every version of Windows. When you install new versions of Windows, Windows looks to see if the motherboard is ACPI complaint. If it made an incorrect decision - that it doesn’t support ACPI - Windows will install a non ACPI kernal. This is what causes the issue. Check with your device manager for AVCI support. If not, you don’t have a sleep compliant install.

Another way this can happen is movement of a mouse or a background process running. Download Microsoft’s “Autoruns” and it will show you what’s running in the background that can cause the PC to wake up. Hardware devices also can cause this. Go into your BIOS and turn off “wake on LAN.”

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Hour 2

Q Terry, Seal Beach, CA - Satellite TV ON INTERNET

Leo says these are either scams or you end up watching TV from places like Estonia!

Terry also wants to know about the future of Net Neutrality. Leo is gratified that the Big O is very tech oriented and wants to appoint a cabinet level Chief Technology Officer. The idea being that to develop widespread access to the Internet and to focus on Net Neutrality.

To learn more, check out O’s transition website at CHANGE.GOV

Q Dave, San Francisco, CA - Audio editing options

Leo uses Adobe Audition. Soundbooth, Adobe’s new editor is similar, but not the same, unfortunately. For the MAC, Leo tried Soundtrack by Apple, the Logic Studio (both are more for musicians). An inexpensive option is Amadeus Pro. Allows multi tracks. But for recording, QBase or Producer. ProTools is what everyone uses. But it’s unbelievably expensive. Audacity is a freebie, but not as stable as Leo would like for audio recording.

Check out MoTu Digital Performer. Also, Apple’s Logic Package. You can try before you buy, which will help a lot.

Q Dutch, Leesberg, VA - G1 Data access

Talkin’ on the T-Mobile G1 Phone. He likes it. Doesn’t like that if he’s stuck on the 3G network, it doesn’t roll over to EDGE. What’s up with that? Look for a firmware update/patch. They’ve already released on. They should be coming faster since Android is open source.

One thing Leo noticed, you have to reboot the phone often to clear out the memory.

Q Lee, Cydell, MS - A few answers …

Vista not going to sleep: Lee says that in the BIOS, there’s a switch to turn off PC hibernation. You can reinstall the kernal itself. There’s a function key which will enable you to pick the kernel and install it directly.

Q Rob, Clinton, ONT CA - His PC reboots itself

His PC beeps three times and reboots. Cooling issue? Pay attention to the POST code. Google search for the post code and your motherboard for more info on what those three beeps mean. It’s probably that the motherboard can’t see the memory. But Leo suspects he’s right - it’s probably overheating. The other possibility is that there’s a problem with memory usage (leaking). Over time, it eats up to much memory that it will either crash the OS or the RAM fails.

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Hour 3

Q Theran, Ventura, CA - Computer Aided Design

Theran says we’ve reached a point where everything is designed using Computer Aided Design (CAD) software and built by computer. AutoCad is great for 2D blueprints, but not 3D.Theran recommends MasterCad ($800). He likes Rhino3D. There’s Blender, which is free and open source, but difficult to learn.
There’s also Google Sketchup. Free, but there’s also a pro version.

Read The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.

Q Gabriel, Laguna Beach, CA - Computer recommendation

Needs laptop for word processing and minimum CAD design. Leo recommends Dell, Lenovo, and Acer. Understand though, that low budget laptops will use intergrated graphics on the motherboard which are too slow for CAD design.

Q Jacob, SoCal - Watching media player files on the MAC

Jacob made “the switch” and needs to an iMac and wants to play his Windows Media files. Leo says if you bought WMA/WMV files on the net, the DRM won’t allow them to be played. But if you encoded some, you’re okay. Check out Flip4Mac. It will allow you to play WMA files in Quicktime. Another program to use is VLC Media Player. It’ll play just about anything and it’s free!

Q Howard, Palo Alto, CA - Update on the BlackBerry Storm …

He heard from a Verizon rep that the delivery date for the Storm is now the first of the year. Which is ironic since it’s available in the UK now.

Also, Howard needs some property management software that will have GPS capability in order to map his properties. Leo says you won’t be able to buy a product that does this out of the box. This is a popular problem for 3rd year computer science students. It’s called the “Traveling Salesman problem.” Leo suggests looking for a Google Map mash-up like Route Planner, which can handle it. In the past, the DASH GPS was a great option for this. But they’ve fallen on hard times and it’s probably going stop being made.

The Garmin Street Pilot 7200 will do it if you don’t mind manually entering in the data. MapPoint, by Microsoft. SONY GPS will import from Outlook.

Q Gary, Laguna Beach, CA

Podcaster of The Drift Zone. Wanted to call in to announce HiDef video in iTunes. Plus they’re going live with two way blogging, multi camera streaming, and more.

He wants to know about multi camera swtiching and streaming. Leo says the NewTek TriCaster is what he uses. It costs about $10K though and currently isn’t HiDef. But that’s coming. Can be used in the field. It’s small - about the size of a mini PC. Easy to learn.

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