Leo Laporte
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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday December 27, 2008
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
2008 Year in Review
Spore, the most copy protected game in history also became the most pirated game in history with 1.75 million pirated downloads within the first few days. Bill Gates retires from Microsoft, makes churro commercials with Jerry Seinfeld. Barack Obama becomes the first Internet President as he uses the power of the Internet to record fund raising and get out the vote efforts. The economy crashes and the tech sector begins to feel the pinch. But all in all, Leo thinks that 2008 was a great year for technology. What about 2009? Listen in tomorrow as Leo looks in his crystal ball for predictions.
Guests
Michael Smith and Alexander Moke, GirlGamer.com
Today, we’re talking gaming for girls. GirlGamer.com is a community for girl gamers. Studies show that girls play games almost as much as boys. Girls play all sorts of games from first person shooters, Mario, World of Warcraft, Roc Band (Alex’s favorite), Tetris, Bejeweled and more. Leo wonders if it’s a mistake to niche program games. Alex says it’s a mistake to try and get into the mind of girls if they’re not a woman. Girls though, really don’t care who makes them as long as they’re good. Some are oversexed, but she doesn’t mind.
Codes to join GirlGamer.com will be available here soon, so check back. And the site isn’t just girl centric. Boys who want to meet girls who share their interests in gaming. But it is a place where girls can go to socialize.
How can boys behave when girls are playing online? Follow the Golden Rule. Don’t say things you wouldn’t say in person.
Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine
2009 for Home Theater is our topic today. Leo says he gets feedback that most of what Scott reviews is rather pricey. But Scott says that the current state of the economy is causing Ultimate AV Mag to look at more affordable options.
But what’s coming in 2009? Well, CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) is next month and that’s where we’ll get a sneak peak of the future. Scott will be there and will call in to report. Scott says that the economy will cast a “pall” over home theater as brick and mortar retailers cut back or even close. But the good news is that prices will come down farther and faster. So we’ll see HDTVs come down in price fairly quickly. And the digital TV transition (2/17/09) is also driving home theater as people look to upgrade their TVs before the deadline. 80% get TV by cable/satellite, so they won’t really be affected. But the 20% that receive over the air broadcast television will be. Those will need to get converter boxes if they don’t plan to upgrade their TVs. The converter boxes start at $50, but the good news is that Uncle Sam has your back with $40 vouchers you can get at dtv.gov. Here’s the deal though. Digital TV has limited range. As such, those who live on the outskirts of the signal may not be able to receive reception right away.
Other emerging technologies coming include - OLED (Organic light emitting diode). These are the beautiful screens you see in cellphones and PDAs. Now they’re coming to TVs. Sony sold one this year, an 11″ OLEDTV for $2500! Larger OLEDs will be arriving later in 2009. But, then again, Samsung has decided to drop out since it’s just too expensive and can’t compete with plasma and LCD TV. Canon is bringing along SEDTV. Flat Panels where each individual sub pixel is a tiny “CRT” that work in concert to create stunning images. But sadly, again the SEDTVs are going to be expensive and may not be able to compete, economically, against LCDs and Plasma. And with the market as it is, we may not see SED catch on or even come out this year.
Next week - Scott will talk CES.
William Marc Salisbury, Entrepreneur and photographer
Talking social media and using it to further yourself and meet people. Facebook is where people conduct business. They network. People want to know more about people, who they are. Things you can’t get with a business card. Social networking sites give people that option. Facebook is doing the best job at this. And you not only can meet people and network, but you meet people you wouldn’t normally get to meet. Building the social network. Make people look good and they want to get to know you and spend time with you. Twitter is also great for getting the word out. Advertising your services in a brief and non-intrusive manner. Doors open in this fashion.
Tips for taking great portraits. Don’t get too far away. Get in there. Focus on their eyes. Don’t look at anything as a mistake, but don’t put up bad portraits either. If you can work with it, use Photoshop to work on it, tweak it, make it interesting.
Marc’s blog is at wmmarc.tumblr.com..
Hour 1
Q Bill, Harrisonberg, VA - Amazon Kindle
Bill wants to know if Leo likes the Kindle. Leo says he loves it and uses it to the exclusion to even paper books he has. WiFi access and store allows to download eBooks within a minute or two. About 6×8″. Special “eInk” screen that works great in daylight because it’s reflected light, but it doesn’t work well in darkness. Doesn’t paint the screen often to save power. Page flips flicker, but it’s rock solid. Uses SprintPCS wireless network. Can subscribe to newspapers and magazines which come uploaded automatically in the middle of the night. Turn off the wireless when not using it to save on battery power. Negatives - it’s a little klunky. Have to hold it at the keyboard otherwise you turn pages accidentally. Ungainly. But it’s great for traveling as you can store several books on it.
Q Marty, Los Angeles, CA - Linux, LAMP and servers
Marty wants to run PHP and Apache onto Windows for an application he’s going to market. Leo suggests he separate production and development servers. Leo thinks it’s much safer to develop and test on local servers, then upload the code to the actual site. And use Dreamweaver to get a real sense on what your site will look like.
Q Michael, San Marcos, CA - PDF Document passwords
Michael needs to crack PDF codes on some documents for a court case. Leo says it’s been done several times. Just go to labnul.blogspot.com to learn more and don’t do anything nefarious!
Hour 2
Q Henry, Sun Valley, CA - Visual Basic for Applications
Henry wants to write and application without having to use Excel. Can he use Open Office? He can’t seem to find a way to compile it. Leo says you can write in VBA Script using the Windows Scripting host. But a stand alone wouldn’t work because they need the DLL files to make sense of the commands.
Leo would like to see programming being taught starting in middle school. Tools like “Alice” can teach younger kids how to program in 3D environments. It can be tons of fun for them. For older kids, Python is great. Even Visual Basic is great for high schoolers. Too bad it’s tied for Windows though, that makes it expensive for schools.
Q Christian (12), Bakersfield, CA - Making his podcast popular
Christian does a tech podcast called Kaffcast on youtube where he talks about technology. How does he get the word out? Leo says to start a blog on Wordpress. that you can embed your YouTube videos in. That way, Google can find you and people who are searching will see you. Have fresh content all the time, too. Use keywords that are topical so that people can find you by your content. Also use Twitter.
Q Pat, Redondo Beach, CA - Add/Rmove program trouble on wife’s PC
Pat is trying to uninstall a program. But it won’t get rid of it. But he can’t use it either. Nor, can he reinstall the program to fix it. Leo says that there’s a log file that the program needs to uninstall. If it can’t find it, then that’s where the uninstall will fail. Pat will need to go into the program files folder and find the program folder in question and perform a manual uninstall. Delete the entire folder. Then, this is where it gets tricky, you need to go into the Windows Registry (Start, Run, “Regedit”) to remove any entries. BE. VERY. CAREFUL. HERE. as you could make things work by screwing up how Windows operates. Probably a better way is to use My Uninstaller by NIRSOFT.NET to remove everything. It’s safer. Another possibility is to perform a system restore, but that’s really only for restoring Windows System files.
Q Jim, Corona, CA - Mac Migration trouble
Just got a MAC Book Pro. But he’s having trouble moving his files and programs over. He’s getting an error message saying his other mac isn’t responding using Super Duper with just about a minute to go in the migration. He tried Target Disk mode by hooking both together and same error. Time Machine backup? Same problem - network error. Both books are the same OS. Drives are fine.
Leo suspects that there’s a hardware incompatibility which is causing a crash (kernal panic). There may be a driver issue as this is the same issue that creeps up from a Tiger to Leopard migration. Heed the warning and don’t use the migration assistant. Just copy the data over and reinstall the applications. Sure you have to reactivate everything, but you get a fresh install of everything.
Hour 3
Q Kathleen, Pasadena, CA - iPhone vs. LG Insight
Kathleen’s carrier offers both the iPhone and the LG Incite. Which should she get? Leo’s experience with iPhone killers are that they’re not even close. The iPhone isn’t perfect, it has no voice dial, or cut and paste. But the applications alone (over 5,000) make it worth it. The elegance it also has is something all smart phones lack. Leo says you go the iPhone and you don’t get disappointed. He’s tried all the killers and he keeps coming back to the iPhone. LG makes good phones, don’t get him wrong, but they feel like “me too” phones. But you should try before you buy. The Insight does have a better camera, turn by turn directions, and wifi.
What about a GPS for under $200? Leo says the Tom Tom One 125 for under $100 is a great GPS. There’s also the Garmin Nuvi 250 for about $150. She also wants Bluetooth and Leo suggests the BlueAnt Supertooth Lite.
Q Brett, Akron, OH - iPod Touch as a PDA?
Brett wants to get an iPod Touch and use it as a PDA. Leo says this is a great idea as the Touch is really a sophisticated, portable computer that you can carry around. And you can automatically sync it to iCal using Mobile Me. Great idea.
Q Chris, Palo Alto, CA - Computer crashed bad
Chris forgot to backup his hard drive and his computer crashed. The good news is that his drive may not be gone. He may not be able to boot it up to Windows, but he could use it as a data drive to get his data off. But should he use the repair process? Leo says no. Don’t make any changes just yet. In all likihood is that Windows will replace the damaged system files and may overwrite some valuable data. Take the hard drive out and put it in another computer as a secondary drive. Then access the data and get it off that hard drive. Before you modify/repair the disk, backup that data. Then you can put it back in, reboot, and repair it using your Windows disks.
Q David, Covina, CA - Internet Explorer works, Firefox doesn’t
David can’t figure out why his Internet Explorer works, but Firefox doesn’t. He just updated SP3 and that’s when the trouble started. Leo suggests getting Firefox 3. But he thinks that some spyware is gumming up the works. Buried deep within the advanced settings spyware will co-opt it and redirect your firefox traffic to their servers in order to gleen your private data. THey’ll also delete your system restore points to prevent you from going back to a good install. Go to the Firefox settings/ advanced tab, network settings and look for a proxy. If there is, you’re infected. Run anti-spyware programs, do an online scan with both eSet.com/onlinescan, PC Pitstop, or antivirus.com (Trend Micro’s Housecall). Do this in Internet Explorer and see if something pops up. And when you see the problem, probably the best thing to do is back up your data and reinstall Windows. Malware and viruses have gotten so pernicious these days that the only sure way to wipe them out is to reinstall.
