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Saturday, July 3, 2004

Show #53

It’s Independence Weekend on KFI! Celebrate your Independence by talking tech with me at 1–800–520–1KFI.

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Noon-1p

Chuck from Vista

has a number of reels of 16 mm film from his father-in-law, who was a spy. The film dates back to the 30s and he’d like to convert it to DVD. I wouldn’t recommend doing this yourself, or even sending it to a conventional conversion service, since this film is so old it needs special handling.

He reported that some of the film had a vinegary smell - that’s good. It means it’s acetate based and not particularly flammable. Nitrate film stock, on the other hand, is highly flammable, and should be transferred by an expert immediately. This isn’t going to be cheap. Search for “film conservators” on Google. I’d look for a historian who has an interest in the subject matter. Maybe The History Channel?

The Library of Congress has a good article on conserving old film stock.

Mark in Maryland

wanted some advice on spiffing up his site. He’s using the excellent Contribute 2 web design software from Macromedia. It’s about $100 and has much of the power of the more expensive Dreamweaver. Easier to use, too.

I like the site because it’s clean and easy to read - content comes first on a site like this. Text heavy is ok in this case. I would use a table to get the text to wrap around the graphic. And I have a problem with the nav bar disappearing when I click a link. Whatever navigation system you use, it needs to be consistent and available on all your pages: you don’t want your users to get lost or have to use the browser’s back button.

It’s also a good idea to check your site for accessibility with Bobby. If you want to learn more about web design I highly recommend Jakob Nielsen’s books, particularly Designing Web Usability, and Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed. Do as he says, not as I do!

Chuck in Winnetka

is looking for a new Mac notebook. He does web design, and is looking to do some iMovie editing and DVD burning. The iBook is a little slower, but a lot cheaper, than the Powerbook, and more than sufficient for what he wants to do. And now that you can get a Superdrive with the iBook (click the Customize button) I think it’s a very good choice.

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1–2p

Sheri in Rancho Cucamonga

wants to get her Internet Explorer Favorites into Firefox bookmarks. Firefox normally imports these when you first run it. However, you can also do it after the fact. Start by launching Internet Explorer…

1. Click IE’s File menu and select Import and Export….
2. Export Favorites to the default C:\my documents\bookmark.html

Now close IE and open Firefox

1. Click Firefox’s Bookmarks menu and select Bookmarks Manager
2. Click File and select Import
3. Import C:\my documents\bookmark.html

Greg in City of Industry

has inherited a Windows 98 laptop and wants to turn off the logon message which shows the old user’s name. Easiest way to do this is to type in YOUR name and then enter no password, just click OK. If this doesn’t work right way, read the more detailed instructions from Microsoft.

He’s also getting the text start up menu when he boots. To turn this off run the Microsoft System Configuration Utility. Click Start→Run… and type in

msconfig

then click OK. Click the General Tab and press the Advanced Button. Uncheck the “Enable Startup Menu” item.

Greg in Anaheim

is using Virtual PC on his Macintosh. He wants to know whether he’s subject to PC viruses. You bet. Within the Virtual PC environment everything that can happen to a PC can happen to you. In most cases the problem won’t spread to the host Macintosh, but whenever you’re running Virtual PC you’re running the virus. As with any other PC you should install an anti-virus and keep Windows up-to-date.

We also talked about the excellent Konfabulator. Apple is copying the idea in OS X Tiger with their Dashboard feature, but I you can get Konfabulator now. Once you install it, do try the Leo widget. I’ll have to get Arlo to re-write it, though. It points to the (late) TechTV web site!

Windows users have a Konfabulator like choice called DesktopX from StarDock.

John in New Jersey

was flashing the BIOS on his Elite motherboard and something went very wrong. Now he has a brick. Is there any way to recover it? ‘Fraid not, John. The BIOS is a small program stored on programmable non-volatile memory on your motherboard. It’s the first program the computer runs nd it tells the machine how to access the video card and hard drives so it can continue by starting up the operating system. Without a working BIOS, your computer can’t start up. In other words, you’ve given your computer a lobotomy; you cannot even access your floppy, so there’s no way to recover that BIOS. You’ll have to replace the motherboard. Badflash does offer a $25 replacement service, but I haven’t tried it.

Update: Some new motherboards can recover from this most serious of computer errors. MSI offers this feature. This seems to be a feature of the AMI BIOS.

Frank in San Diego

wants to video conference with his dad. They both have high speed Internet service, which isn’t required but will improve video quality. As will using the phone for audio, saving all the bandwidth for video. Windows XP still comes with Netmeeting - although it’s hidden. You can launch it by clicking Start→Run and entering “conf”, but I recommend using the video-conferencing capabilities built-into MSN Messenger and other IM products. You’ll also need a camera. Logitech makes cameras for this purpose, but you’ll do better with a camcorder if you have one. Analog cameras will require a card with video in (aka a video capture card) like Hauppauge’s WinTV. You can also use a DV camcorder with a Firewire/IEEE-1394 connector. In either case you’ll need drivers that make your camera look like a Video for Windows (VFW) device. OrangeWare makes a driver called WebCamDV that works great.

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2–3p

Max in Brea

wants to know what RAID is. Read Webopedia’s definition. RAID is a technique to combine multiple hard drives to provide better reliability or speed. Many new PCs and motherboards come with RAID onboard but I don’t recommend it for most users. It’s really better suited to the server environment. He also in interested in buying an Athlon based PC. I think Athlons are great - they offer superior performance for a lower price than the comparable Intel chips. And they’re 100% compatible.

Scott in Victorville

wants to take his old radio news casts off cassette and convert them to CD. First hook the cassette player up to your PC’s sound card. You’ll probably need an RCA to mini-phono cable to do that. Then get a program than can record from your line-in. MusicMatch works great, and it will split the casstte into individual tracks. For editing I recommend the free Audacity (works on Windows, Mac, and Linux). Finally you can use MusicMatch or any burning software to make a CD. Make an audio CD if you want to play it back on a standard CD player. Data CDs are for computer’s only.

Henry in Riverside

is buying a new Mac and wants to copy his iTunes music from his old G4 to his new G5. Connect the two with a Firewire cable and reboot the G4 while holding down the T key. The 64 will boot into Target Disk Mode. Its hard drive will show up on the G5 as an external Firewire drive. Now open itunes on the G5 and open the preferences. Click the Advanced tab and make sure “Copy files to iTunes Music folder” is checked. Then close preferences, select “Add to Library” from the file menu, and navigate to the G4′s iTunes library folder and click OK.

Irmalinda in Santa Paula

is looking for a small camera to take with her on her vacation. I use the very high end Nikon D70, and while it’s a great camera, it’s not small. For good quality pictures in a small package, try the Sony Cybershot T1, or Canon S400 or S500. I recommend Epson or Canon photo printers, or use an online service like Ofoto or Shutterfly.

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