Saturday 17 January 2009
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Tech News
Busy news week.
Miracle on the Hudson with Flight 1541 making an emergency landing in the Hudson River, saving everyone aboard. Wow.
“Downada” virus infects nine million computers in TWO weeks!
There’s a new virus hitting computers all over the world. It starts off slow, but then exponentially increases to Sasser proportions. How did it get past Microsoft’s firewall? It exploited a flaw in the server firewall in late October. Users who didn’t apply the patch Redmond put out were quickly infected. The update you need is “MS08−067.” Get that, along with the January Microsoft Malicious Software removal tool.
Steve Jobs steps down from Apple for Six Months to focus on health
Citing his health issues are more serious than he thought, Steve Jobs is taking six months off as CEO of Apple. Tim Cook will be taking over day to day operations in his stead. Get well soon, Steve!
Leo’s diggin’ Windows 7
The Beta edition was released during CES and millions downloaded it. Leo says that it’s the version of Vista that Microsoft should’ve released. Win 7 is the OS Microsoft should’ve released over Vista!
Circuit City to close it’s doors
Facing liquidation and bankruptcy, Circuit City will be closing all stores and selling everything. Sad to see Circuit City go, but this is a great time to pick up clearance deals before Circuit City closes it’s doors forever.
Guests
Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine
This week, Scott is at the National Association of Music (NAM) show. Scott saw the new Roland VP770 keyboard synthesizer which does vocoding, harmonization. He’s also seeing the V Piano which recreates piano sounds, but not by sampling (taking an actual recording of a sound and assigning it to a key). Sampling has it’s limitations, like no shifting capabilities. But the V Piano may use modeling - which recreates sound using mathematics that models the sound. That should be exciting.
Another real cool thing Scott saw was a digital violin bow with tiny sensors that detect the velocity and angle of the bow and sends them via bluetooth to your PC, storing them as data to electronically manipulate and emulate a violin.
Hour 1
Q Rick, La Crescenta, CA - Converting hi-8 tapes back
Rick wants to digitize his home movies shot on hi-8. How can he do it quicker than real time? You won’t be able to speed up real time, but you can just dump it straight to DVD. HP, Panasonic, LiteOn all have DVD recorders. Connect your hi-8 onto it and record it to DVD. You’ll take a slight hit in quality since DVDs record in MPEG2, and you have to do it in real time, but it’ll work. If you have an analog connection in your video card, you can also connect and capture directly to PC. Then you can edit it. Leo says to figure out what you really want to keep in the highest quality and capture that to PC, the rest dump directly to DVD.
The good news is that Rick has a firewire connection, so he can hook up his Hi-8 to the PC and capture directly to his PC’s editor. Then he can edit it. Choose the highest bitrate your program can take and chances are, the quality will be better than the original.
Q Sam, Mount Crawford, VA - has promiscuous WiFi
Sam’s AT&T Tilt keeps picking up other neighborhood WiFi signals and wants to know how to make his Tilt stay more faithful. Leo says that this is a common problem. In the radio power settings, look for wireless LAN power mode and select “best performance.” If that doesn’t work,play with other power settings. You can always rely on your AT&T data connection, but that’s much slower. Use WPA2 AES for extra secrity.
Q John, Lennox, MA - Installing Ubuntu
John is having trouble with using Vista and wants to try Ubuntu Linux. Leo says that’s a great and fun option, but it’s user supported and as such, many hardware options aren’t supported with it. Leo recommends creating a LIVECD to Linux boot the CD to his computer. If it works out of the box, then install it. John has tried it, but he doesn’t know what the default root password is. It’s in the documentation. You may need to use the command “sudo” which will run as root, but in “terminal” mode, not a graphic interface. But if you need that, then maybe Windows is what you need. But Linux is great for kids to learn. And Linux is running most servers, so it’s running the World.
Hour 2
Q Kitty - Worried about hackers following her online
Kitty says she got hit by several viruses that have accessed her computer and stole her data. She’s worried that hackers are reading her email and following her online. Leo says hackers aren’t really interested in personally pursuing the people who’s computers they infect. In fact, the longer they can quietly exist on your computer without you knowing, the better. Leo recommends Kitty change all the passwords, or even the accounts themselves. Advise your Internet service provider as well. Then,simply back up your data, wipe your hard drive and reinstall Windows. Apply all the patches and you’re safe again.
Q Robert, Brea, CA - Broadband options with no landline phone
Robert wants DSL but doesn’t want a landline to deal with. Leo says what you want is RAW or BAR DSL. This is DSL without a landline and it’s required by law to be offered as an option. Phone companies have to carry it, but they hate it. Ask for it anyway. And if they balk, go to a third party carrier like DSL Extreme and ask them to help you acquire raw/bar DSL. The third party carrier has a vested interest in helping you. Another option is to get broadband cable service. It’ll cost about $10–20 more than if you already have cable, but may be worth it.
Q Jamie, Renovo, CA - A PDA recommendation
Jamie needs to replace his old PALM PDA and is concerned about viruses using a new Palm running Windows Mobile. Leo says running update often will solve that problem. Jamie also wants to know if he can transfer his iTunes music and Applications from an iPod touch to an iPhone. Leo says yes, it’s possible. When connecting the new iPhone to iTunes, you will be asked if you want to transfer your applications to the new phone. They’ll download automatically after you say yes. As for music, iTunes doesn’t offer that option as an anti piracy measure, but there are third party software solutions that will help: AnaPod Explorer being one. There’s also SharePod and Foola for this as well.
Q Scott, Corona, CA - Vista crashed during backup
Scott was backing up his hard drive when he had a power outage, crashing his PC. Now he can’t read his hard drive. Is the Data lost? Leo says no, the data is still there, but most likely the table of contents file is damaged and as such, the hard drive isn’t readable. Leo recommends getting a file recovery utility - there are dozens of them - like Active Undelete, Test Disk, or Recuva which can help recover your data. There’s also Handy Recovery. These will repair your TOC file and allow you to recover your data.
Hour 3
Q Doug, Los Angeles, CA - Vipre AntiVirus opinion?
Leo hasn’t used it, but it’s made by Sunbelt software and they make really good stuff. Leo used Sunbelt’s personal firewall for a long time.
Doug also says that solely relying on cellphone use at home is problematic for 9–1−1 issues. Cellphones get routed to the Highway Patrol for one, and during a power outage and your battery runs down, you can’t call 9–1−1 service unless you have that copper wire. Get the True basic service, $10 a month just to cover you.
Q Joe, El Segundo, CA - Website gets redirected
Joe has a website which, when Google searching, gets redirected to “Rapid Spyware/AntiVirus 2009″ a spyware removal scam. Leo suspects his web page is compromised by a trojan and it’s being redirected as a search result. Leo also suspects that the Google results themselves may be corrupted. This may be due to his site being compromised and he should contact his ISP and have them investigate the issue. The problem also happens on Yahoo search. Therefore, it may be an HTAccess mod redirect based on the referral as as well. This can happen on a shared hosting site where a single server can get hacked and infected.
In the chat room,Zepatos, pointed to a forum post from TechSpot that has the exact same problem.
Joe’s real website is Orsillo Photography, his blog is here.
Q Chris, Boise, ID - Lithium Ion battery life in his iPod
Chris wants to know if the ion battery in his new iPod have a memory issue. Leo says that memory issues are a thing of the past but that you need to completely charge the battery, deplete it and recharge it again. And then, every so often, completely deplete it and charge it again. This will keep battery capacity to it’s maximum. But understand that these batteries have a limited cycle and after about two years, the battery will need to be replaced.
Chris also wants to know why drives are separated into multiple drives. Leo says that before XP, Windows just couldn’t see the entire hard drive and using a disk partition would allow for the entire drive to be seen, as two divided drives. This can cause a problem if the C drive gets “filled.” Problem is that Windows will point to My Documents drive even if you’re wanting them on the D drive. You can right click on My Documents and point it to the D Drive to after you’ve moved your data over to the D drive. This can save you some space. Leo says you can join the drive into one master partition using something like Partition Magic or another partition management utility.
Q Bob, Dayton, OH - His computer runs really hot
Bob has a dual Xenon powered Mac and it generates a TON of heat. Leo says that keeping the variable speed fans clear and dust that blocks down on airflow, running a tad warm is how the machine is designed. You may have to worry about the video card before the logic board.
Q John, Sherman Oaks, CA - Analog Emergency TVs
What’s going to happen to emergency TVs after the digital handover when the analog window goes dark? The fact is, the TVs are going to go dark. You can buy a portable TV that’s digital (there is one, but pricey) and there are analog to digital converters that are battery powered. If the antenna has a way to access the converter, you’re golden. But if it’s just a retractable antenna, you may have to get into the guts to connect it.
Radio Shack sells the Accurian - portable ATSC Portable Handheld TV for about $200.
This is a huge hole in the digital handover which Uncle Sam must address before an emergency or cataclysm occurs. And perhaps this is another reason to delay the handover to digital TV.