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
Leo Links
 |
For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
|
|
Sunday November 30, 2008
Show Audio
|
Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Early numbers on Black Friday are up!
Sales figures on Black Friday were up about 3% over last year. A shock considering the state of the economy.
Is Cyber Monday really relevant anymore?
Cyber Monday, the day users do serious online shopping for the holidays, has traditionally been the Monday following Thanksgiving as shoppers seek deals from work. But with everyone having broadband these days, Leo doesn’t think it’s that relevant anymore.
MySpace Bully Convicted of lesser charge
Laurie Drew cyber-bullied a 13 year old girl on MySpace (pretending to be a teen boy) and the girl committed suicide. Drew was convicted by a California court of a misdemeanor charge of accessing computers without authorization. There was a mistrial of the more serious charge of conspiracy, which could’ve gotten her 20 years in prison.
Australia wants to “filter” the Internet
There is a proposal before the Australian Parliament to “filter” the Internet for everyone, whether you want it or not. They plan to have two black lists. One that pushes illegal material that you can’t get off of, and another that lists offensive content (which you can opt out of). Who determines who gets on what list? The Australian Government, of course. Forget the impossibility of policing such an concept, but it will slow down the net considerably. The Internet everything, bad and good. We should help parents to protect their kids online, but censorship isn’t the answer.
Online Gambling is down considerably
According to internet casino watchdog groups, the average online deposit is down from an average of $250 to about $20. Good news as online gambling can be a destructive thing, and the two biggest cheating scandals are in online poker.
Microsoft is killing ONE CARE
Admitting that there are better solutions out there, Redmond is dropping One Care and replacing it with a free package called “Morro.” Sales of One Care will cease this coming June.
Hour 1
Q “Scottish” Michelle, Los Angeles, CA - Google 411. How safe is it?
Is Google 411 safe? What do they get out of it? Well, with cellphone information costing nearly $2.00 a shot. Very expensive. Google’s free 411 is very attractive. It works on voice recognition and sometimes it’s inaccurate in what it hears you saying. But it’s free. 800–466–4411.
The larger question is, what does Google get out of it? Google’s primary business is search and advertising. They make billions on online advertising. And that advertising is effective because it’s targeted. More information, more effective targeting. The goal is to get users to rely on their services. The monetizing comes later. Privacy? Leo believes that Google’s information is macro-oriented. They look at aggregate information and analyze it. They don’t really care about the personal, micro, information other than to target you more effectively.
Leo also says that Google needs to give users the choice to opt in or out.
Q Mark, Riverside, CA - Wireless network dropping out
Mark has a wireless Airport and it drops out of the blue. Is it the Airport or the wireless service? Leo says it’s difficult to diagnose if the problem is intermittent. Leo suggests plugging the laptop directly into the cable modem and see if you can recreate the error. If it does, that points to the modem. Do this with each computer and device until you hone in on what’s causing the problem.
It could also be another device in the spectrum that is knocking the Airport off the network. Or, it could be the Airport is getting long in the tooth.
Wireless networking is kind of a black art. Microsoft has tried to address it by creating Zero Wireless Config to automatically configure devices on the network. The downside is that it makes your computer “promiscuous,” dropping your connection in favor of a more powerful network. Leo recommends, that if you use Windows, to go to the MS System Console and under services - disable Zero Wireless Config.
Leo says that checking for firmware updates can help some. But sooner or later, you may need to upgrade to a newer one.
Q June, Sonoma, CA - Photoshop printing trouble
June can’t print from Photoshop using her Epson R2400 printer. She’s tried deleting her driver and reinstalling. It worked for awhile, but the problem is back after she has messed with her permissions on her MAC. Leo says to not “repair permissions” unless you have to as doing so seems to be breaking the Epson printer driver. And if you do, at leat you know what to do to fix it.
Leo suggests updating the driver. Perhaps Epson has addressed the issue. Or, if you did that and the problem started, roll back to the previous driver.
Hour 2
Q Mary, Huntington Beach, CA - Update on her husband’s Antarctic adventure
Mary called last September to talk about online chatting with her husband while he’s in Antarctica. His website is at http://www.PolarTrec.com Look under Erebus Volcano Antarctica and you’ll see Mr. Woods Blog. Unfortunately, he’s too remote when on the Volcano to do video chatting. :(
Q Wendy, Los Alamitos, CA - Entry Level camera for a child
Wendy has a 9 year old and wants a digital camera recommendation for Christmas. Leo thinks it’s a great idea to get a child a camera and expose them to photography. She needs one for nature and close ups. And also shoot video. Almost all do video, though some don’t have sound. Leo is a big fan of the Canon Powershot Series. The A470 is around $100. 7MP. Video with audio. It also comes in colors, which is fun. A little more is the Flip Video Camera. It costs about $150. Shooting and editing video is a great skill to learn and photography is great for teaching kids to be creative. Picasa is great photo management software, free. Adobe Photoshop Elements is about $70.
Q Ryan, Irvine, CA - Leaving Google as a search engine
Ryan is a serious researcher and has given up on Google as a research tool. He finds Google is fine for product research, but doing serious research using it has become an exercise in frustration for him. SearchEngineWatch.com is great for serious search geeks.
Ryan also has a dead hard drive and wants to get his original videos off it. How can he get the data off? Can he get the videos off YouTube? Leo says that on the MAC, you can use TubeSock to copy the flv file and convert it to video. (it’ll also work on Windows) But it won’t be better than what it is.
Q John, Mojave, CA - Spybot is slowing down
John’s spyware is taking nearly 7 hours to clean and is hanging up on a file calle virtualmonde.dll. Leo suggests trying Microsoft Defender for a “second opinion.” Also, uninstall your AVS and download Nod32. Better for catching spyware as well as a great AVS (also sponsors the show).
Q Mick, Senecaville, OH - Black Market deals
Mick got a 1TB Hard drive from Buy.com for $70! But you have to apply for their credit card. Leo says you can get a similar hard drive from New Egg without the credit card requirement for about $100. New Egg also has a Corsair 16GB USB key for $20!
Colleen has found and Acer Aspire 1 Netbook for $250 from New Egg!
Hour 3
Q Linda, Hobart, AUS - Needs a smaller laptop
Linda travels a lot and needs a smaller laptop. But she’s concerned about security while being online while on the road. In a hotel, wiFi or ethernet, you’re on a shared network. So anyone can see what you’re doing. Anytime you’re using a public access point, it’s unsecured by nature. The only real way to secure yourself is by using a Virtual Private Network, or VPN. This establishes an “encrypted tunnel” and keeps it invisible to the outside world. Leo likes HotspotVPN. But that’s a US service. For about $10 a month, you get a private VPN to run. It’s best to use a VPN server that’s closest to you. And if you’re traveling internationally, you want to use a service that has multiple servers in multiple locations.
Another option is to use “Go to my PC.” You can then log into your home computer and surf from there.
Linda also has a question about installing MS Office. But she gets a message occasionally to get out her install disc when she’s working. Leo says to reinstall Office and install everything and it’ll stop.
Q Mike, Los Angeles, CA - Communicating with student overseas
Mike has a daughter going to England and wants to be able to keep in touch. Leo has some experience in this as his daughter is in France at the moment. He got her an Apple Macbook and loaded Skype on it so that they can make video calls for free. Leo also likes the Plantronics DSP400 headset to help make conversations sound better. You can also load up on Skype Out so that she can call anyone in the world.
You can also get an unlocked GSN world phone. You want to avoid roaming charges though. Leo got one that works with London carriers. When she gets to London, have her buy a local SIM card for a local number so she doesn’t get hit with roaming charges.
Q Debbie, Woodland, CA - Downloading online video
Her son lost his house in the fire and KCAL Channel 9 captured it on tape. The video was posted online and she can’t get it. Leo says that if you can see it in your browser, you can perhaps right click and save. KCAL has a right to disable it. You can, perhaps, buy a copy of the video from Channel 9. But if it’s a flash file, you need to do a few other steps. Check your cache for a “.flv file” in your temporary internet files folder. Then you can use a site like VIXY.NET to convert it to movie file. You go to the page featured through Vixy. There are other programs that can do it. Firefox has an extension called DOWNLOAD HELPER.
Q Bob, Torrance, CA - Java Virtual Machine Error
Everytime Bob boots up, he gets a Java VM error. Leo says there’s something in your startup that’s trying to launch in Java. If you download AUTORUNS, and run it, it’ll tell you what’s trying to run on startup.
Also, go to JAVA.COM and download the latest JAVA software and perhaps that’ll fix it. It may also be that it’s just time to start over. Back up your data, and then reinstall XP, formatting your hard drive. Over time, Windows does slow down, affecting performance, and installing and unstalling programs can cause your registry to get rather messy. Housecleaning may be in order for the New year.
Q Steven, Sherman Oaks, CA - Printer recommendation
Steven’s 87 year old grandma likes to play with Powerpoint and Steve wants to get her a new Printer. She doesn’t print photos. Leo says you don’t need much. Inkjet printers are pretty cheap, but the ink is rather expensive. In the long run, a color laser is cheaper. But for everyday use, a good Canon Pixma printer does a great job. There’s also Epson, which makes a great printer as well. What you want to be sure of, is not to get a printer that has an “all in one” cartridge. The more color cartridges it has, the better so you don’t replace all the ink just because you run out of cyan.
HAPPY 21st Birthday, Steven!
Q Sean, Bellfont, PA - Mac recommendation
Sean wants to get an iMac. Leo likes the 24″ iMac for Photoshop. The big screen gets you a lot of real estate. You want to spend your money on RAM. Don’t buy it from Apple, check out MacSales.com. It’s easy to add RAM to the iMac.
