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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday February 15, 2009
- Show Audio
- Tech News
- Guests
- Hour 1
- Hour 2
- Hour 3
- Eric, Los Angeles, CA - Wifi connectivity in iTouch
- Chris, Virginia - Slow Internet
- Dale, Wisconsin - Printer problems in Vista
- Ron, California - Win98 and SATA
- Don, Arizona - Adding 2nd computer to OpenDNS
- Bob, Vista, CA - Backing up his hard drive
- Brian, Sherman Oaks, CA - Laptop CD won’t open
- Dennis, Panama City, CA - Hard drive crashed
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
New Cellphones more cameras than phones?
Samsung’s Memoir has an 8MP camera built in. Built in Xenon flash (the real deal). AutoFocus. 16x zoom (probably digital). Video camera. Big touch screen. Leo thinks it’s more camera than phone.
Sony Erickson Eidu 12 MP. TWELVE! Leo thinks cellphone companies have decided they can’t compete head to head with the iPhone, so they’re going to an area they can pull ahead and that’s the camera.
Apple users getting tired of Jailbreak nonsense
Apple has declared that jailbreaking the iPhone is a violation of the DMCA and therefore, against the law. Oh come on. What, are we renting our phones now? We should have the right to do anything we want with it.
Congressional Twittering Raising National Security Concerns
Congressman Pete Hoekstra (R), MI, was Twittering during a recent top secret trip to Iraq prompting the Pentagon to reconsider whether the popular social media activity is a national security concern.
In fact, many members of the government are following President Obama’s lead and are twittering.
Kindle 2.0 arrives
Monday, Amazon announced the Kindle 2.0. The Kindle changes the way we read as it allows readers to wirelessly buy and download hundreds of eBooks. The new one is about 1/3″ thick with a screen the size of a paperback. The screen is a little tough to read. But what’s cool, you can change the size and font of the text. With 2GB max of memory, you can hold over 1500 books. Currently, there are over 230,000 eBooks to choose from with Amazon having the goal of selling every single book they offer in eBook form. Another great feature is the automatic delivery of newspapers to your Kindle every morning. It’ll also read to you. And you can sync to multiple Kindles.
Cost … well, it ain’t cheap at $359. But at least you don’t have to pay your data fees, just the books you buy.
Guests
Chris Marquardt - Tips from the Top Floor
This week, we’re talking more about the effects of direction in light. The old thinking was always never to take pictures into the sun. But Chris is now of the mind that always relying on the light over your shoulder is very limiting. Leo says it was good advice for an “Instamatic.” But Chris now thinks that if you understand light, you can use the light to make the image more interesting, even if it’s in backlight. The foreground can go really dark, but many cameras are designed to counteract it, and you can always use fill flash to brighten up the background and even the light out, giving you the best of both worlds.
Another way of counteracting strong back or side light is to use a reflector to bounce the light back onto the subject. Granted, this can be dicey if you are alone and have to do both jobs, but the results can be truly stunning.
Directions of light can make textures “pop.” Long shadows or bounced light can really cause textures to come alive and stick out. It also adds to the contrast.
Check out Chris’ new site … http://www.chrismarquardt.com or Discoverthetopfloor.com for details on Chris’ latest photo workshops. He’ll have a landscape workshop in October in Germany as they shoot an old Abbey!
Our photo assignments … OPPOSITES! Shoot some, upload to Flickr and tag with The Tech Guy Group.
Hour 1
Q Warren, from Twitter - can the iPhone be used as a modem?
This is called tethering. And if you jailbreak the iPhone, you can. But since Apple thinks that is illegal, no, you can’t, unless you pay AT&T $60 a month for it.
Q Paul, Antelope Valley, CA - Unlocking his iPhone
Paul wants to unlock his iPhone and take it to T-Mobile. Shouldn’t he be able to? Leo thinks so. Once you have paid for the phone (including a set amount of time to make up for the subsidy), then yes, you should. You paid for it, you should be able to do what you want with it. Leo thinks cellphone companies act like they have a monopoly and are rather “piratical.”
Paul also wants to know if he can stream audio on the iPhone. Leo says “you bet!” Pandora is great for streaming music. You tell it what artists you like an it makes an radio station. AOLRadio. Last.Fm. Apps like Internet Tuner let’s you tune into 14,000 different radio streams. And I Heart Radio by Clear Channel for picking up the Tech Guy Show! In fact, Leo plugs in his cassette adapter and listens to his stream on the car radio!
Q Bill, Ice Road Capital - Trouble with Pinnacle TV Stick
Bill has a Pinnacle TV stick that plugs into his USB for watching HDTV. But it has a fault with overheating. What are his options for adding TV to his laptop? Leo says that Hauppage has a similar technology. The WinTV HVR1950 will turn your laptop into a TIVO recording HDTV, Cable TV. It’s great.
Q Patrick (via Skype), Baltimore, MD - Podcasting ratings
Patrick just started podcasting and wants to try and figure how people are watching or listening to him. Leo suggests Podpress. But the stats are very skewed. Downloads are slightly off as downloading is done over multiple streams therefore making your downloads inaccurate.
There is no accurate Neilsen style ratings as of yet, but what Leo recommends a free service called PodTrac. You need to add some code to your RSS link so that the traffic gets routed through PodTrac for more accurate readings. It’s free and is very accurate in it’s monthly, weekly, and quarterly reports.
From the Chatroom: Powerpress is another WordPress plugin that has become the plugin of choice since Podpress isn’t maintained anymore.
Hour 2
Q Robert, Carpenteria, CA - Trouble in Photoshop
Robert is fiddling with pictures in Photoshop and he can’t get the line to see where he’s been drawing while using the Lasso tool. From the Chatroom: you may be working in the wrong layer.
Q Brad, Cypress, CA - Projecting video
Brad needs to find a media player which will him to play AVI video in slow motion, but also zooming in and out and project on a powerpoint projector. Suggestions? Leo recommends VLC Media Player. It does both. The controls are a tad clunky and takes getting used to, but that’ll do the job.
Q Mark, Washington State - Google Analytics
Mark’s wife (http://queenofcheese.com) uses Webalizer to analyze her web traffic. But when they compare it to Google Analytics, they don’t match at all. Leo suspects you’re confusing visits with page views.
In the chatroom, they suspect that Robots are skewing the data in Webalizer. Webalizer counts them, Google Analytics does not. In fact, Leo suggests putting a file called Robots.txt to judge what robots can and cannot see.
Q Scott, Long Beach, CA - Connecting Aiport to Fax Machine
Scott is trying to link his PC to his USB fax machine using an Airport Express. It won’t connect to the PC. Leo says you’re trying to do it via a Wireless Distribution System (WDS), which is rather sloppy a standard and requires the same chipset. Leo recommends buying a compatible Router that the Airport Express will work with - like an Airport Extreme. Or, better yet - get a compatible repeater or wireless print server for your router. That’s probably cheaper.
Hour 3
Q Eric, Los Angeles, CA - Wifi connectivity in iTouch
Eric wants to know if he can tether his HTC Diamond to the iPod Touch. Leo says there’s a program Called WMWiFiRouter which may be able to do it. Costs 20 Euros, but there’s a 30 day Trial.
Q Chris, Virginia - Slow Internet
Chris is getting very slow interet connection via WiFi. Leo suspects there’s a lot of interference or if you’re at a great distance. Things like baby monitors, microwaves, your cordless phones may be sharing the same 2.4 Ghz freq. Try changing your channel. Go higher. Often, this will solve the interference problem. Also, WiFi doesn’t work well through metal like a screen or old walls that have metal lashes built into the plaster.
Q Dale, Wisconsin - Printer problems in Vista
Dale can’t select a printer to default nor print. Leo suggests uninstalling your printer and drivers. Go online and get the new drivers and reinstall. Leo thinks that the issue isn’t the printer. There may be a registry key that’s “locked” and you can’t write to it. So, you can’t print. You may also have a wayward printer driver that’s asserting itself.
Devicereg_Szdata under the registry. Look in there and you may be able to see what printer is set at default. Check here for more information.
Q Ron, California - Win98 and SATA
Ron has a program he needs to run on Win98, but he’s on Vista. He has tried to dual boot Win98, but needs to also install a SATA driver. Leo says the problem is that Windows will look for a floppy drive to get the drivers. There are probably no SATA drivers for Win98 either. Come motherboards will emulate the drivers, but you’ll need to look at the specs to see if they support Win98. You may also trick the program using Compatibility Mode.
CodeMorph in the chatroom suggests using VMWare. Download and install the free VMWare player. It’ll let you run Win98 inside of Vista.
Leo loves Virtualization. It’s the future of operating systems.
Q Don, Arizona - Adding 2nd computer to OpenDNS
Open DNS is a third party Domain Name System which takes the place of your ISPs DNS. You replace it in your network router settings and your computers will get that information from it.
Q Bob, Vista, CA - Backing up his hard drive
Bob has a full hard drive and wants to ghost it over to his backup drive. Then, replace it with a terrabyte drive. Leo says that just about every drive manufacturer has a “byte for byte” drive copying program which will enable you to transfer all your data to the new hard drive. Do the BitCopy to the new drive. Then pull the old one and make the new drive as your master drive. The new drive should boot right up.
Bob also wants to tether his TMobile phone and use it as a modem. Leo says that TMobile is pretty good about this, but it doesn’t have that great of a high speed network. So you may want to go with a different carrier - like Sprint. They’re pretty good at allowing it. Check out PoweredForums.com for an overview of which carriers allow tethering and which do not.
Q Brian, Sherman Oaks, CA - Laptop CD won’t open
Leo says that what’s likely is a software issue. It may also be a mechanical issue as the spring is worn out. But likely, the software just won’t spit it out. The only fix either way is to bring it into the shop for repair. If software, Leo suggests downloading Ubuntu Live CD that you can boot from. And then you will know it’s a software issue. Another thing to try is to shut down. Then, as you reboot, then the problem is software and Windows needs to be reinstalled.
Q Dennis, Panama City, CA - Hard drive crashed
Windows won’t load. Leo says it’s either a bad hard drive or a corrupted system file that won’t allow Windows to load. Run SpinRite. If SpinRite says the drive is okay, then the data is corrupted and you’ll need to reinstall the OS. You can also use something like Norton Disc Doctor to rebuild the disc.
Have a great geek week and don’t forget to BACK UP!
