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 December 14, 2008
- Show Audio
- Tech News
- Hour 1
- Hour 2
- Hour 3
- Barry, Littleton, CO - Computer isn’t doing what he wants
- Jim, Occidental, CA - Another computer conflict
- Bob, Vacaville, CA - Outlook Express solution
- Bill, San Francisco, CA - iPods & Podcasting
- Louis, Whittier, CA - DVD won’t play in player
- Mark, Palo Alto - BlackBerry Storm hassles
- Steve, Anaheim, CA - Wireless trouble
Show Audio
|
Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Why tech support sucks to bad these days …
Leo says the reason why tech support is so bad these days is because computers have actually gotten cheaper. Margins have shunk. And as such, computer companies have had to cut support to cut costs. But they now offer paid “gold” support which fills the gap. You need good solid support, you have to pay for it.
Leo finally got his D5 Mk. II.
Leo finally got his Canon D5 Mk. II and all he can say is WOW. Check out his images, and his HD video at SmugMug.
Leo’s off to France, but new shows still comin’
Leo is taking the rest of the Christmas season off to head over to France to visit his daughter, who’s studying overseas. But fear not, he’s prerecorded new shows for everyone to listen to. So stay tuned for a few year end shows and what’s coming in 2009.
Hour 1
Q Wendell, Los Angeles, CA - Portable Digital TVs
Wendell wants to know if portable digital TVs being made. Leo says this is a major issue when it comes to disasters. New digital portable TVs are available, but they’re costing over $200!
There is only one digital TV converter for portable TVs. But it runs with batteries. Jay 5 (in the chatroom) says it’s the Winegard RCDT09A. Cost is around $100. Luckily, you can use the $40 DTV Coupons courtesy of Uncle Sam toward it.
Q Bobby, Weaver, AL - Laptop OS issues
Bobby gave his old laptop to his son after he bought a new one. But he can’t install new Vista on the old laptop. It won’t let him. And now it just shuts down. Leo says what he needs to do is run the original recovery disks and reinstall the OS. It’ll format over everything. Then, if the shutdowns continue, then Leo suspects it’s a hardware issue. Sudden shutdowns are usually heat related due to faulty hardware issues.
Q Mike, Anaheim, CA - getting a new iMac
Mike wants to network his iMac and Windows together. One way to do this is to use Boot Camp to run both Windows and OSX on the same computer. Or, Mike can use either VMWare or Parallels to run Windows in a virtual environment. Or, the option could be to network Mac and Windows together and enabling file sharing. The Mac will act as a Windows device.
Mike is also concerned with running Vista. Leo says not to fear Vista. It’s mature now. But if he still wants to run XP, that’s fine as well. Microsoft still supports it.
Mike can’t get reception in his area, so he listens to the show on his iPhone using I Heart Radio. Mike would also like to listen to FM on his iPhone. Sadly, the iPhone has no FM receiver. But if he can stream FM music via WiFi, it’s doable.
OCT has a flash drive which doubles as an eSata connector. They come in 8–32GB capacities. Great for super fast (ReadyBoost) boot control.
Hour 2
Q Judy, San Francisco, CA - Email Hell.
Judy can’t get her Comcast email using Outlook. Comcast still works with Outlook, so it should work. You don’t have to use their Comcast software, unless you want visual voice mail. Then you need their Smart Zone software. Leo says to uninstall Smartzone. And then, clear out the email box on Comcast. It may be that the index in your account has been damaged, or that the mail box is stalling due to a clogged inbox. Make sure Outlook is deleting messages off your server. And never use the software your ISP is trying to push on you.
Another thing you can do is rebuild your .PST file. There are repair tools out there, Google “rebuild Outlook PST” for a whole host of them. Microsoft’s Office utility is called “Scan PST.”
Email Remover will clear out your email inbox and repair it. Or you can call Comcast and ask them to clear it out.
Q Tim, Dana Point, CA - Epson printer trouble
Tim installed new ink into his Epson R380 printer and now it’s not working. Leo says that you can use the clean jet utility in the software to blow out the nozzles. Tim tried that. He’s taken hundreds with it in the last year. Leo thinks it may just be worn out. Check out the Epson Artisan.
Q Dave, Palo Alto, CA - Internet access trouble
Dave can’t access his internet connection. It shows connectivity, but that’s all. Leo says that wireless troubleshooting is like a Hercule Perot Mystery. It could be a corrupted DNS cache, your TCPIP could be corrupted. Your wireless card could be broken or misconfigured. Your wire is faulty. Passwords incorrect. A failed router. The ISP is having trouble. There are way too many culprits that require investigation. Leo says that doing more diagnostics is required. Do the easy things first. Swap out a wire. “Ping” the router to see if you can talk to it. Click on Start. Type “Cmd.” Return. Then “ping [router address]”. This is usually something 192.168.1.1. Check your manual for what your router address is. Ping will send out a signal and wait for a signal back. If you do, then you know the hardware works. But you can remove the router and connect directly to your modem. If that works, then you know the router is bad. Try this with other things that you can swap out as well until you narrow down the point of failure.
But ISPs routinely deny they’re having outages. So you can’t trust them when they say everything’s okay on their end.
Q Lee, Chino Hills, CA - Laptop shuts down, keyboard not working.
Lee was having keyboard troubles with his Lenovo laptop. Now his computer won’t boot. He removed the battery and let it sit for awhile and then put it back in and it works fine. Overheating trouble? It may be that the computer is lacking disc capacity. Right Click My Computer. Manage. See Disk Management in storage section. This utility will allow you to merge the two partitions. delete one partition that’s empty and expand the other. But backup first. Get an external hard drive to back up to. They’re dirt cheap now. Then get DriveSnapshot.
Leo also suspects that since the computer worked after removing the battery, it’s more likely a software issue. Image your hard drive and then do a restore from your recovery disks. That’ll probably solve it.
Q Varten, Irvine, CA - Computer crashes
Varten is having trouble with his computer crashing after running an application called “Team Viewer.” Leo says it’s a culprit. There are two causes of a sudden crash. One is heat. The other is a software memory leak - where an application “eats” memory and doesn’t release it. Chances are, this Team Viewer is poorly written and is causing the trouble. Remove the application and it will solve the problem. Actually, it’s probably better to wipe your system (backup first) and start over as the application probably rewrote your kernel and that’s the issue.
Hour 3
Q Barry, Littleton, CO - Computer isn’t doing what he wants
Barry has a 3.0 Ghz Mac. His Mac is crashing on him. (Beachballing) Leo says to create a test account to see if everything is working. If it is, then you have isolated it to your account. Clean out the cache. Press shift when you boot into your Mac. This will give you a safe boot. If that works, it points to software. If not, it’s a hardware issue.
Barry also says that his iTunes Library is on his Drobo. It could be that the culprit is the Drobo, but unlikely. Try disconnecting it and reboot. See if that frees it up. It may be that a hard drive sector isn’t being read.
This is all trial and error to narrow down the culprit. But Leo’s instinct is that this is a hard drive issue.
Q Jim, Occidental, CA - Another computer conflict
Jim is having a conflict with a USB device he uses with his computer. Is there another option other than just disconnecting the device? He uses XP. Tries to remove hardware safely, but it pops back and says can’t remove it. You could try changing the file system from FAT32 to NTFS, but it’s a common windows problem for both and currently, there doesn’t seem like a fix.
Ken, in the chat room says that under System Restore the USB drive is being monitored. Disable this. It may help. Tools from NearSoft can be used to release it. Paul Andrew, from Microsoft, recommends a program called UNLOCKER which helps.
Q Bob, Vacaville, CA - Outlook Express solution
Bob has a solution for Judy. He says that Comcast changed the SMTP number to 587. This caused him to lose connectivity in Outlook Express. When he was able to change it to 587, he was able to use his Outlook Express again.
Q Bill, San Francisco, CA - iPods & Podcasting
Bill got his daughter an iPod Nano. How does he download podcasts? Leo says that downloading through iTunes is super easy. You go to the iTunes store, the click on the podcasting link. Podcasting is free. Select a show and press “subscribe.” Then, go into your iPod’s settings and set it to “sync up to most recent shows.” But if the shows are “episodic,” you want the three least recent shows.
You can also subscribe through Windows Media Player if you want to listen from your computer or with another MP3 player like Zune.
Q Louis, Whittier, CA - DVD won’t play in player
Louis says he’s got a DVD that won’t play in his computer. Leo says that’s copy protection on the DVD. The Movie companies don’t want you to play DVDs on computer as they think you’re going to rip it (the horror!). The copy protection happens when the DVD “autoruns” thereby running computer software that disable the ability to run the DVD. Hold down the SHIFT key when you put the DVD in and it’ll disable the “autorun.” Then you can open your DVD player and select the movie to play. The only other culprit is if the DVD player software is out of date.
Louis also wonders if the USB issue can be handled by going into the task manager and canceling the process. Leo agrees, but only if you know which process works for it. Unlocker is really the best way to go.
Q Mark, Palo Alto - BlackBerry Storm hassles
Chris can’t pick up any of Leo’s feeds with his BlackBerry Storm. Leo says the iPhone isn’t much better. That’s because most smartphones don’t have enough processor to watch flash based video live. Verizon has VCast, but it’s specially encoded.
Q Steve, Anaheim, CA - Wireless trouble
Steve is getting full bars on his wireless computer, but is getting limited access due to being “out of range.” Leo says to remove “zero wireless config.” It confuses WiFi and makes your computer “promiscuous.” That’s the trouble. Right Click My Computer. Select Manage. Services. At the bottom is “wireless zero config.” Double click and disable.
