For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the TWiT Netcast Network

Saturday 24 January 2009

«Previous Show

Next Show»

Show Audio

Edited Audio
64kbps MP3	16kbps MP3

Tech News

January 24, 1984

Twenty-five years ago today, the Apple MAC first shipped. First computer with a graphical user interface and mouse.

The infamous 1984 commercial that talked about big brother and a runner coming in smashing the screen with a hammer to introduce the Macintosh. “Why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” The Mac costs $2500. There was a lot of disk swapping as it had no hard drive. Wasn’t a great computer, per se, but definitely the beginning of something significant.

Twenty Five years later, Apple has it’s best quarter ever. $10 billion in sales.

Bad times for Microsoft

Even though their last quarter made $16 billion, Microsoft has announced layoffs of 5,000, freezing of salary, and numerous cutbacks as software sales slump by 8%. The only bright spot was online sales up 7%, server revenue up 15%, and XBox sales 8%.

Incoming Administration complains about White House computers

The incoming White House staff complains about the old software (they’re using XP) and email that doesn’t work. Leo says that’s not surprising and there’s culture shock as the Obama team was accustomed to using MAC and the White House is on Windows.

President Obama gets to keep his Blackberry … sort of.

He’ll have to use two devices … his Blackberry which is stripped down and customized, but it will be linked to a General Dynamics Secterra Edge which will encrypt everything. A very limited number of users will be able to access the ObamaBerry, and each one will have to be briefed by the White House
council about what communications are appropriate due to the Presidential Records Act. His staff will also lose the ability to IM.

Downadump virus continues to spread

About 1/3 of all Windows Machines that did not apply the October patch have been infected - about 9 million. Microsoft has instructed to turn off Autorun. It is the largest spreading worm in years. So, as Leo says - ALWAYS APPLY THOSE PATCHES! It’s spread the old fashioned way with a USB key - but once it infects one computer on the network, it quickly spreads to other PCs and as such, it’s hit so many computers. US Cert says that turning off autorun really doesn’t work - a registry edit is more effective. But as Leo says, someone who doesn’t apply Windows updates is not going to know how to edit their registry. What a mess.

Guests

Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine

Today, Scott is talking from “his lab,” where he tests all the cool HDTVs he gets to play with. Today, Scott is going to answer a listener question about why 120 Hz is better than 60 hz. What it means is that each individual frame of video is shown twice as long or 1/60th of a second. This causes “motion lag,” whereas 120 Hz will show each frame 1/120th of a second, which improves sharpness and detail. It can do this because the TV interpolates or creates frames in between each frame. It does this by comparing two adjacent frames and is able to create the stuff in the middle based on it. Artifacting can occur - depending on the TV, but the process is pretty smart at it. There are new 240 Hz TVs coming out as well and they will be twice as sharp as 120.

---

Hour 1

Q Brit, Los Angeles, CA - Switching to MAC

Brit uses a KVM switch to move from her laptop to her desktop and still use only one monitor, keyboard and mouse. Her husband, however, crippled their desktop by getting a virus. Seems she’s always reinstalling Windows to fix virus infections, so now she wants an 24″ iMac. Can she still use a KVM switch? Because the iMac 24 already has the monitor built in, the iMac 24 won’t work with the KVM. Leo suggests getting a Mac Mini instead as it’ll work fine with the KVM. The reason why the MAC is more secure is more that it is less than a target. Sometimes being less popular is all you need to be more secure.

Q Walt, in the Chatroom - Turning down contrast

Walt wants to know if turning down the contrast will save the battery life on his laptop. Leo says yes, it can, but it also impacts the quality of the image. Turn down the brightness instead.

Q Peter, San Clemente, CA - “Jumping Text” trouble

Peter bought a Dell Inspiron, but he’s having trouble with “jumping text.” The text will move to the top of the screen. Leo thinks the insertion point is moving and that it’s caused by inadvertent movement against the touch pad. Or, it could be a short circuit in the touch pad itself. Should he invest more money in repair? Leo suggests trying a separate keyboard and mouse to see if that solves the issue. If so, that’s a hardware issue. Peter is also using a wireless mouse and that could be causing a conflict. Leo thinks that Dell fixed a bunch of stuff, but not the real problem. Get back with Dell and escalate it to a higher support level.

---

Hour 2

Q Jason, Boston, MA - HDTVs and the hard of hearing

Jason says that closed captioning on HDTV is a mixed bag as HDMI cables don’t account for it and Blu-ray doesn’t support it at all. Leo says that HDMI wasn’t designed to support the CC data. Some cable tuners incode the CC channel into the video signal itself so that it can get through to HDMI, but this is a huge oversight in HDMI design. So, make sure to get a device that does hard video encoding. Dish Network has some players that does it.

Q Phyllis, Los Angeles, CA - Sound trouble

Phyllis has a Dell Inspiron 1300. But after she unplugged her headphones, she lost all audio. Leo says that the Dell is being too helpful and has switched the mixer to the headphone jack and turned off the speaker. You need to manually go into your audio settings and change it back. Fun huh?!

Q Randy, Orange County, CA - upgrading netbook hard drive

Randy wants to enlarge the hard drive on his Acer netbook, but he doesn’t have software discs that came with it. Can he move the files onto a thumbdrive? Leo says yes. There’s an install partition on the hard drive. Use Drive Snapshot and make an image of the 30GB partition (or even the entire drive). Then you can recover the image onto the new drive once you’re done.

Randy also wants to know if he can dual boot the MAC OS on it? Leo says yes - but there are some driver issues. It’s also an illegal act that is a violation of the terms of service. So, let your conscience be your guide.

Q Sally, Los Angeles, CA - Making her XM Bluetooth capable

Sally wants to listen to her XM radio with bluetooth headphones. Can she? Leo says that unless the radio comes with the capability - and some do - it can’t be built in. But there are aftermarket bluetooth broadcast dongles which you can plug into the headphone jack. There’s the iTech miniJack dongle. You can then pair it to the headset. The BlueTake BT430tx/i-Phono Plus has a miniJack capability as well. And you’ll also have to charge it at night via USB.

Q Nicholas, Garden Grove, CA - Losing quality capturing HD video

Nicholas can’t import his digital video onto his PC in full quality. Leo says that JVC decided to save money and use USB 2.0 as it’s connection and it ends up with reduced quality because USB can’t handle the stream. You’ll need to buy the optional Everio ShareStation dock that comes with firewire. Check, some don’t. Then, you’ll be able to capture the full quality image of the video camera thanks to firewire’s larger pipeline. Leo also suggests importing at 540p, instead of 1080i. It’s roughly the same quality at half the file size. And your computer will thank you for it.

Spotmonk, in the chat room, says that the Everio’s DVD burner will burn HD video to standard DVDs that will play in a Blu-ray player. Thanks!

Q John, Northpoint, FL - HP LCD monitor as a TV

John wants to use his HP LCD computer monitor as an HDTV. Leo says you can, but you’ll need a tuner. The easiest way is the cable or satellite TV tuner box. You can then connect it through the TVs DVI port. Not a bad idea since computer monitors are generally better and sharper than TVs. You can use your PC to do this, but you want to be sure you use a TV tuner card that handles HD signals and can scan for “dot” HD channels.

Q Chris, Muscle Springs, KY - organizing his mp3 collection

Chris has a bunch of old MP3s that he wants to organize. Leo recommends Media Monkey. It’ll go out to the net and pull all the song’s meta data and cleans everything up, organizing them into albums and will even add the artwork!

---

Hour 3

Q Peggy, Van Nuys, CA - Blu-ray backwards compatible?

Peggy is looking to upgrade to a Blu-ray player, but she’s concerned that they won’t be backwards compatible. Leo says yes, they are and in fact they do a better job with it because they upscale the DVD image and it looks as good as it can get. So fear not, upgrade away.

Q Kevin, Topeka, KS - HTC Tilt

Kevin has the HTC Tilt and uses it as a modem for his laptop. He’s concerned with security, however. Leo says that there are a lot of exploits, but at this point it’s rather premature to worry about it. You should not make your Bluetooth discoverable. That will protect you. Using it as an internet modem doesn’t really expose you as it doesn’t interact with the Data. Inevitably, it’ll happen, but at this time, it’s more a product of an overactive imagination than an realistic threat.

Kevin also wants to know if he can use the multiple iPhones on the same account. Leo says yes, you can use as many iPhones as you want.

Kevin’s laptop is suddenly choppy while watching DVDs. Leo says that’s a result of “bit rot” as you’ve installed other software and the processor is busy doing other things. Create a profile that you use to watch nothing but movies and won’t install anything but what you need, thereby optimizing performance. Check that your processor’s “speedstep” isn’t on when watching movies. It may also be that the DVDs your watching are too demanding as they have complicated menus/features that are choking your processor.

Q Ron, Fallbrook, CA - what’s new with Palm?

Ron didn’t hear about the New Pre, obviously as he wants to know about what’s new with Palm. The Pre is a lot like the iPhone, but with a new slide up keyboard. Slick, new OS. Negatives - Sprint only at first, but Leo suspects more coming for other cellphone providers. It’ll be in a few months, so keep your eye peeled for it.

Q Jennifer, Chesterfield, MI - Yahoo hassles

Jennifer is having log in trouble. Leo suspects she’s been hacked in yahoo messenger. It’s not that hard to hack your password if it’s a dictionary name or even by the security questions. Then, all questions get changed and you’re stuck. Remember Sarah Palin? Leo says you could still pursue Yahoo and get it escalated, but it’s hard because they don’t know you’re actually you. But in the end, you may have to just start a new account and write off the old one.

Q Susan, Ontario, CA - runtime errors

Susan is getting a “runtime error” and being asked to debug. Leo hates these messages as they are essentially useless to the user. Go into your internet options and look under advanced options for “disable script warnings.” Check it and you’ll never see those stupid error messages again.

Q Regina, Encinitas, CA - Parallels on the MAC

Regina has a new Mac, but can’t get her pedometer recognized on the MAC. Leo says the problem is that Parallels is running both OS simultaneously and as such, you have to tell Parallels that the USB port you place your pedometer in is for Windows. Assign it and you’ll see it.

Q Jonathan, Ladera Ranch, CA - Sync trouble w Palm Centro

Vista 64 Bit won’t sync with the Vista 64 bit OS and the Palm Centro. Is it compatible? Leo says that often this problem creeps up in the 64 bit world. It could be a driver or incompatibility with the OS. But Leo says it’s supposed to. Syncing is a kind of black art.

Q Jerome, Orange County, CA - DVD burning compatibility

Jerome is having compatibility trouble with burned DVDs on his TV. Leo says that the format on a DVD player is finicky. Make sure the software your using is burning media DVDs and not data DVDs. Also, make sure the DVD is being closed properly as if a PC can read it and a DVD player can’t, that is often the culprit.

---

«Previous Show

Next Show»