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Q Don, Durango, CO - Windows Live One Care

What’s going to happen to Windows Live One Care? Leo says that Redmond is killing it. Leo can imagine that third party Windows AVS companies are griping over it and pushing Microsoft to kill it with Windows 7. But they promise a kind of lesser free version by 2010. And Leo says that Windows Defender is still alive and kicking. But, for now, a wait and see attitude is better at the moment and if you’re happy with it, renew for another year since it’s going to still be around.

Q Andrew, Baltimore, MD - iPhone doesn’t work with car iPod adapter.

Andrew says his iPhone doesn’t work with car iPod adapter. What can he do? Leo says that getting a charge adapter is one workaround.

Q Mark, Los Angeles - Display for MAC and PC

Mark wants to hook up both a MAC and PC to a single display. Leo recommends a KVM switch. They’re cheap and easy to switch with a slam of a button. You’ll want a digital one for an LCD monitor.

Sirius/XM is on the ropes, make file bankruptcy

Although they’re trying to get DISH to buy them, Sirius/XM exec Mel Karmazan wants to keep control. So they’re only choice may be Chapter 11.

Q Jeff, Van Nuys, CA - An answer to the Mac USB issue above

Jeff says Robert’s problem isn’t a blown port, but that USB ports in the MAC Mini can get corroded. He suggests getting a Q-Tip soaked with an acidic cleaner like Windex and clean the connector with it. Then, dry it with another Q-tip.

He also suggests the LA Final Cut Pro User Group for Ella.

[KFI - Amber Alert break caused loss of some calls]

Q Lance, Long Beach, CA - Missing menu bar in Microsoft Streets

You’ll need to edit the registry, so Leo’s not sure if you want to risk that. Back up your registry first. Here’s an article that will walk you through it.

Q

The Woz to be on Dancing with the Stars

This coming month, Woz will be tripping the Light Fantastic on Dancing with the Stars! Will he be using his Segway?

Jared wants to create an audio drama podcast for people to download. Leo thinks this is a great idea. The best deal in hosting is from LibSyn, which charges by storage space with unlimited bandwidth. You can have a blog with it and it automatically serves up the RSS feed. $10–30 a month. Another is MyPodcast.com, which is free.

Evan’s wireless router is wide open. How should he lock it down? Leo says that threats of neighbors stealing your bandwidth and doing illegal activities on your connection is prevalent. Also, people can watch what you’re doing if it’s wide open. Encrypt your router using WPA. Evan is using MAC address filtering, but that’s easily getting around and people can sniff your data. Turn on WPA encryption to keep you safe.

February 17th is three days away and Congress has voted to delay the digital TV transition to June 12th. Funny thing is, many TV stations are making the transition anyway and will be going off the air on the analog spectrum as planned. Note, if you’re on cable or satellite, you’re already digital, so don’t worry.

Should there be a delay? Leo thinks it’s been long enough. No matter how long you push it off, there will be people who won’t get it until they’re forced to. And only 11% of America gets television through Broadcast. So let’s pull the plug and get going.

Ron has a great fan website for the old Dial a Joke.

Q Mike, Green Bay, WI - New phone options for Sprint

Mike needs a new phone recommendation for Sprint. He’s lookin’ at a smart phone, but he also has a need for two way communication. Leo says that the BlackBerry Curve has PTT and is great for that reason. But also, being a Sprint customer puts you in prime position to get the Palm Pre when it comes out.

Robert was plugging in a power external hard drive and fried his Mac Mini USB port. What can he do? Leo says you may not have fried the chip if you can still use the USB 1.1 pipeline. How strange. No power, but you can use the USB line. But no 2.0? Leo thinks you did damage the port, but the good news is that you don’t have to repair the logic board. Try another port. Don’t go to Apple to fix it, but an Apple authorized dealer to repair it. You’ll save a ton of money that way.

Q Ron, Hollywood, CA - Digital TV transition

Q Robert, Anaheim, CA - repairing his Mac Mini

Robert was plugging in a power external hard drive and fried his mac mini USB port. What can he do? Leo says you may not have fried the chip if you can still use the USB 1.1 pipeline. How strange. No power, but you can use the USB line. But no 2.0? Leo thinks you did damage the port, but the good news is that you don’t have to repair the logic board. Try another port. Don’t go to Apple to fix it, but an Apple authorized dealer to repair it. You’ll save a ton of money that way.

Leo says that although a good quality webcamera like the Logitech Quickcam 9000 is great for every day webcam use, but using your Sony camcorder? will give it great quality video online, especially if you light it properly. Then, you can use Skype to make video calls anywhere in the world.

Can Natalie rip her dvds onto her iPod? Leo says yes, she can, but you need to re-encode the video into a format the iPod understands. First, you need to rip it first and you’ll need MAC THE RIPPER in order to rip it to your Mac. Leo recommends HANDBRAKE for MAC. This will convert it for iPod. Now, technicially, this is illegal, per the DMCA, but Leo doesn’t think people will get in legal trouble exercising their fair use rights. Leo doesn’t advocate piracy, mind you. But if you buy a DVD, you have every right to put a copy on your iPod to enjoy.

Q Ella, Tarzana, CA - FX Software

Ella’s son wants to get into movies and special effects, but the software is so expensive! What are her options? Leo suggests investing in a better video editing program like Adobe Premiere Elements. This is a great editing program for beginners. But he doesn’t need to spend tons of money of professional editing and effects software. Another option is to get involved into Alex Lindsay’s PIXEL CORPS. For about $50 a month, he can learn all kinds of effects software and assignments on learning his craft.

Q Evan, Los Angeles, CA - Wireless security

Evan’s wireless router is wide open. How should he lock it down? Leo says that threats of neighbors stealing your bandwidth and doing illegal activities on your connection is prevalent. Also, people can watch what you’re doing if it’s wide open. Encrypt your router using WPA. Evan is using MAC address filtering, but that’s easily getting around and people can sniff your data. Turn on WPA encryption to keep you safe.

Adam has an older 60″ Sony with a PS3. He says the HDTV is now cutting in and out. Leo says that the older rear projection model is probably experiencing a bulb failure and it must be replaced. It could also be a connection issue with the component connection. Try connecting via HDMI and see if the issue repeats. And the HDMI will look better anyway.

Mary has a MacBook with 2GB of Crucial memory. Can she boost the RAM? Leo says you need to be sure you can add more to it. Go to MacSales.com and check their RAM memory checker. Also, TransIntl.com. Leo thinks that odds are, you’ll just be wasting your money adding more RAM than it’s rated to take. It could also run into reliability problems. Leo understands that today’s applications require a lot of memory, but unless you’re doing any high end applications, 2GB is plenty for every day use.

Q Sandy, Redondo Beach, CA - Video camera recommendation

Q NoNottheMoose, on Twitter - connecting his Sony camera to the web

Leo says that although a good quality webcamera like the Logitech Quickcam 9000 is great for every day webcam use, using a camcorder will give it great quality video online, especially if you light it properly. Then, you can use Skype to make video calls anywhere in the world.

On the MAC, it’s easy to hook up your camcorder via firewire and Skype will see easily, and the quality is fantastic. On the PC side, your PC may see it as a Windows Video device. And if it does, then Skype will be able to see it. But it needs to be WDM compatible. But you need drivers to do it. You can buy third party drivers - like those from Orange Micro. You may be able to find them online.

Q Natalie, Orange County, CA - loading movies on her iPod

Can Natalie rip her dvds onto her iPod? Leo says yes, she can, but you need to re-encode the video into a format the iPod understands. First, you need to rip it first and you’ll need MAC THE RIPPER in order to rip it to your Mac. Leo recommends HANDBRAKE for MAC. This will convert it for iPod. Now, technicially, this is illegal, per the DMCA, but Leo doesn’t think people will get in legal trouble exercising their fair use rights. Leo doesn’t advocate piracy, mind you. But if you buy a DVD, you have every right to put a copy on your iPod to enjoy.

Q Ron, Hisperia, CA - Slow booting PC

Ron is noticing his XP rig takes almost 10 minutes to boot up. Leo suspects that what’s slowing down his startup is all the programs that run resident in the background. Each one has to load up before it runs. You can look in your MSCONFIG editor (start, run, msconfig, enter). Uncheck all the stuff that is bogging your box down. Also, your AVS will slow you down if it’s scanning on startup. Also, viruses and spyware can slow down startup. But XP does slow down over time.

Check out BlackViper.com to find out what services you can turn off as well.

If you have a MAC, iMovie will work great for editing. On the PC side, investing in Adobe Premiere Elements is a good buy.

Happy Tech Valentine’s Day!

Okay, it’s a stretch, but geeks make better lovers, right?

Beware the Secret Valentine’s Card Virus

There’s a secret admirer email floating around saying a “Secret Somebody” has a card for you. Click on the link to see it. And BLAMO, you have a virus. So follow Leo’s advice and don’t click on links.

Leo also says that giving someone’s personal email address to a third party is a recipe for disaster. Companies will collect these emails and sell the lists. So be sure that 1) you vet the third party’s EULA for what they’ll with it, 2) it’s an invasion of privacy. Better to respect people’s privacy and don’t give away your friend’s email. If you must, then give out a free email account that can be used as a mail drop for stuff like that.

Valentine’s Text Etiquette

An article from 9news.com states that “texting” shouldn’t be used as the sole way of expressing their love, but do send a text on Valentine’s Day is a convenient way to show you care. The study was done by AT&T, so is it any wonder that they’d have results that say getting a Valentine’s Day text is okay?

It’s official, Pioneer is getting out of the TV business by March, 2010. Leo says that although Pioneer is the best in Plasma with it’s Kuro, sales figures say that plasma sales are way down (they can’t compete with LCDs on the showroom floor), but that Samsung sells about 95% of the market. Vizio is also getting out of the Plasma business. But Scott feels that Plasmas are still better in color and contrast and are great for home theaters that have no ambient light to combat with.

So, is plasma dead? Scott hopes not. Panasonic has a new plasma technology called Neo PDP. Should people stay away from Pioneer plasmas since they’re getting out? Scott says no. Pioneer will still support their plasmas and they’re in the business for another year anyway. So, if you have the scratch, go ahead and get that Kuro.

Q Adam, Riverside, CA - HDTV trouble

Adam has an older 60″ Sony with a PS3. He says the HDTV is now cutting in and out. Leo says that the older rear projection model is probably experiencing a bulb failure and it must be replaced. It could also be a connection issue with the component connection. Try connecting via HDMI and see if the issue repeats. And the HDMI will look better anyway.

Q Mary, Anaheim, CA - Adding RAM to the MacBook

Mary has a MacBook with 2GB of Crucial memory. Can she boost the RAM? Leo says you need to be sure you can add more to it. Go to MacSales.com and check their RAM memory checker. Also, TransIntl.com. Leo thinks that odds are, you’ll just be wasting your money adding more RAM than it’s rated to take. It could also run into reliability problems. Leo understands that today’s applications require a lot of memory, but unless you’re doing any high end applications, 2GB is plenty for every day use.
But on your next computer, go 4GB from here on out.

Q Jared, Long Beach, CA - hosting Audio

Jared wants to create an audio drama podcast for people to download. Leo thinks this is a great idea. The best deal in hosting is from LibSyn, which charges by storage space with unlimited bandwidth. You can have a blog with it and it automatically serves up the RSS feed. $10–30 a month. Another is MyPodcast.com, which is free.

Q Sandy, Redondo Beach, CA -

Sandy is part of a comedy troop and wants to do an online TV show of their theatrical performances. How should she do it? Leo says you’ll need more than one camera for complete coverage. And since it’s for the Internet, you can get cheaper cameras that you can invest in more than one. Leo recommends the Canon HV30 - it has the benefit of a tape back up for archive and has external mic jacks so you can use mic booms on stage for better audio recording.

If you have a MAC, iMovie will work great for editing. On the PC side, investing in Adobe Premiere Elements is a good buy.

Saturday February 14, 2009

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Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine

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