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Sunday 4 January 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
This week is Leo’s 5th Anniversary of the Tech Guy Show
Happy Anniversary, Leo!
Two biggest tech trade shows of the year begin …
MacWorld Expo and CES begin this week. Sadly, though, Steve Jobs will not be giving the keynote, being replaced by marketing guy Phil Schiller. He’s the demo guy. But it’s causing rumors of Steve’s health deteriorating and Apple hasn’t done much to quell the rumor mill. Cupertino’s explanation is that they’d like to get beyond the notion that Steve Jobs is Apple. Also, Apple is pulling out of MacWorld Expo after this year as they feel they get just as much runway out of their own events. Leo agrees, in the Internet age, huge trade shows don’t really make sense anymore. And really, January is a terrible time to announce a new product since the Christmas rush is over.
At CES the big news may be 3D TV. Hollywood is getting behind this technology now that it has matured past the red and blue geek glasses. And this is the first year of the Steve Ballmer Microsoft keynote.
Ssome people wonder if it’s a good idea to wait until after CES to buy tech. Leo says no. Stuff at CES is rarely available after the show. In fact, it’s usually later in the year. MacWorld Expo is different as new MAC stuff is available almost immediately after. But that’s all changing with Apple pulling out.
Guests
Chris Marquardt - Tips from the Top Floor
Today, we’re looking at the best pictures describing the word HUGE. Check out the Tech Guy Group at Flickr. Today we’re talking the best HUGE pictures from our latest assignment.
The first one Chris liked is the Catedral São Pedro de Alcântara by Fernando Chagas. Second is iPhone vs. Spinny-Thing by Michael Senechal.
The new assignment … SILHOUETTE. Take a picture and upload it to Flickr, tag it with silhouette and add it to the Tech Guy group.
Hour 1
Q Eugene, Vallejo, CA - Hard drive issues
Eugene went to the Geek Squad to get some work done on his PC, but his hard drive only has one file on it now. Leo thinks this may be an image file and was done by the techs. He suggests talking to the techs at the Geek Squad and finding out what they used to make the Image. Could be Norton Ghost, TruImage or Drive Snapshot. Until he knows, he won’t be able to read it.
Q Mic, Los Angeles, CA - Digital Picture Frames
SD cards for his digital picture frame are formatted in FAT32. Problem though is that FAT32 will only handle about 500 pictures. So anything above around 1GB is wasted space. Is there a workaround? Can you reformat to NTFS? Leo says it’s not a given that it will work in some picture frames.
Q Ken, Simi Valley, CA - email attachments in .htm
Ken gets emails with .htm attachments and they’re blocked. Leo says that .htm is a webpage. When someone sends you that as an attachment, you have to be careful as the .htm code could have suspect code in it for spyware or even viruses. Reading it as text is much more secure. Turn off the “preview pane” in your email program and that will prevent any nasty payload from going off. The #1 way to get infected now is preview in email of .html email.
Q Denise, Cleveland, OH - Recording streaming radio online
Denise wants to the Mark and Brian radio show streaming radio online and recording it. Leo says they need a podcast to make it easier. Leo says that the C Crane CC Witness is good option. Griffin makes one called the Radio Shark. Both are like a VCR for broadcast radio.
Recording over the Internet, Applian makes software for Windows that records Internet radio and video. On a Mac, Radio Shift (thanks JayWire).
Hour 2
Q Edward, Valley Glen, CA - Importing email from one PC to another
Edward got a new PC and wants to transfer his AOL email from one PC to another. He has to go online to see the stored mail in the latest version of AOL. Leo thinks that’s a heck of a flaw. One thing you can do is To check your personal filing cabinet. Once you read them, they’re stored there. This is an AOL folder inside of an application folder. C:\DOCUMENTS AND USERS\ALL USERS\APPLICATION DATA\AOL\C_AMERICA ONLINE 9.0\ORGANIZE. That folder has your email. Copy it and get it into your new PCs AOL file cabinet.
Here’s a link from About and this link as well, which may be able to talk you through recovering your email - get it off and then perhaps it’s time to move on from AOL.
Q Travis, Seattle, WA - Security on a wireless network
Travis is on a wireless network at school and is concerned about security. Leo says he’s right to be. Data on wireless is broadcast and anyone else on the network can pick it up. Travis’ best bet is to set up a VPN (virtual private network). Leo recommends HotSpotVPN (about $10 a month), then log into it and everything you do will be encrypted.
Q Andrew, Laguna Hills, CA - Bluetooth headset problems
Andrew is having trouble with his BluAnt Supertooth 3. He gets a lot of echo and troubles picking up the phone’s address book. The Supertooth does sit on the visor of your car. But it doesn’t really work well on all phones. So, chances not getting the address book is a compatibility issue with your phone. As for the echo, it may be just a bad “batch” of manufacture.
Q Marco, Los Angeles, CA - ITunes and audio books
Marco is rather annoyed that his audio books don’t get recognized as audio books, but instead as music. Leo says rip it as an aac file and then change the extension to m4b. Then, in the options under “media type” for the item, you can change it to “audiobook” (thanks Justin, chatroom) and then right click on it and select “get info.” Under options, there is a check mark for “remember playback position.”
Marco also wants to know about Bit Torrent P2P. P2P is a peer to peer networking file sharing movement started by a program called Napster. The idea being that bandwidth is shared by everyone using the system. But music piracy cropped up and took it over. Napster ended up being shut down by lawsuit. BitTorrent, however, is different in that pieces of each file are divided up amoungst several, even hundreds of users. So, instead of d/ling it from one PC, you d/l it from several at the same time.
Hour 3
Q Charlene, Yucaipa, CA - Windows Live Photo screensaver crashing
In XP, Right Click on desktop, select “display settings.” Click on the screensaver tab. Select the Windows Live Photo screensaver setting. But if it’s crashing, then it’s damaged and it won’t be easy to fix. The best thing to do is restore and then perform Windows update to stay secure. Afterwards, head on over to Get.live.com and it will let you reinstall the Windows Live Photo program.
Q Eric, Castro Valley, CA - 50″ HDTV suggestion
Eric’s parents are going to get a new 50″ HDTV. Plasma or LCD? Plasmas look better with deeper colors, but are very reflective - so get one only if you can make the family room dark or it has no windows. With ambient light, LCDs are a better choice, even though they’re a little more expensive. Leo says that his favorite plasmas are the Pioneer Kuro and Panasonic. LCD - Sony and Samsung are best. And probably around a 47″ is the best buy.
Q Wanda, Alta Loma, CA - Computer recommendation
Wanda’s son loves computer games and they need a new computer. Budget $1000. Leo says that unless your playing a game with serious graphics, like World of Warcraft, that just about any computer these days will handle it. Go to Dell, get an XPS or Studio Core 2 Duo with 2 GB RAM and an NVidia video card (avoid integrated video card).
