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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday June 6, 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Leo’s first impressions of the Palm Pre
Leo’s initial reaction … WOW. Gorgeous interface, with a new OS called WebOS, feels good in the hand. A great iPhone alternative. 3MP camera, 320×480 screen. Multitasking. Automatically syncs to your Google address book. Palm emulator. And elegant! Makes Leo’s iPhone look a little out of date.
But will it beat out the iPhone? No. With 35,000 applications and two years down the development road, and with iPhone vs. 3 coming this week at the WWDC, Apple’s firmly entrenched.
But the Pre is still a worthy contender. A close second.
New X-Ray at Airport sees through clothing.
The Low Energy back scatter Xray sees right through the clothing and shows “everything.” The TSA says they have a “privacy mode” which fuzzes out private parts. But this is certainly a privacy issue and even members of Congress believe passengers have the right to refuse. So much so, a law has been passed saying “no way, Jose.”
Dark Tangent makes Homeland Security Advisory Council
Jeff Moss, aka Dark Tangent, has been added to an advisory council to the Department of Homeland Security. Leo thinks this is a great idea to have a hacker who can give a skeptical point of view to how far reaching Homeland Security can get.
Have you tried BING?
Bing is Microsoft’s new search/decision engine. One problem, though, it brings up playable thumbnails of video, including hard core porn! That’s gotta get fixed.
Happy 25th Anniversary to Tetris
The obsession that is Tetris is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary. Invented by Alexi Cujitnov, a programmer in the Soviet Union, it had 10 levels. EA bought the global rights to it by simply giving him a 286 PC.
640AM WGST Atlanta, GA is our new affiliate!
Join us in welcoming a new affiliate to the TWIT Network, WGST AM640!
Guests
David Pogue, NY Times
David Pogue has been playing with the Palm Pre for awhile now and he’s our guest to talk about it.
So far, he loves it. There’s some compromises, but it’s essentially what the iPhone may have been if Apple didn’t have Steve Job’s ego to contend with. It can also hold onto things thanks to it’s tacky back. The UI is cool, but as you add more apps, it can bog down, especially when you multitasking. And the battery life issue will be addressed in a firmware update soon. In the end, it’s a solid second place smart phone for those who don’t want to be with AT&T.
Check out David’s new book - The World According to Twitter.
Hour 1
Q John, San Juan Capistrano - Laptop recommendation
John’s son is going to college back east and his university is requiring PC. They’re a MAC family. Recommendations? Leo quotes Walt Mosberg that the best Windows Machine he’s ever seen is the Mac Book Pro. The good news is that the MAC will run Vista easily. But the downside is, it’ll cost more as you’ll have to buy the Vista OS separately. For about $1,000 you can get everything you need. And don’t worry about 32bit or 64bit. That largely has to do with RAM, a 64 bit machine can address 4+ GB of RAM. Leo likes the Lenovo’s.
John is concerned he can’t transfer his son’s iTunes library. Leo says you can copy the library over just fine. Install iTunes first. Copy the library over to it. Then deauthorize the old and authorize the new. Then he can reformat and restore the iPod to Windows.
Q Alex, New York City, NY - Camera recommendation
Budget $400. Good zoom. Compact. Leo says that compact cameras with large zooms are hard to keep steady, especially at concerts due to the lighting. Leo suggests heading oer to Digitalcamerainfo.com for some great reviews according to specs. Leo likes Canon, Nikon, and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3. Panasonic makes one with an 18x zoom, the Lumix DMC-FZ18.
Hour 2
Q Randy, Austin, TX - Router configuration
Randy is configuring his router and needs to discover the IP address. Leo says that the cable modem should assign you an IP address. Also, Time Warner should give you the settings. You may even be able to go online to find it.
Q Braden, Travers City, MI - Google Video/YouTube limitations
Braden is frustrated that he can’t stream his film on YouTube because it’s too long. Leo says it’s ridiculous that limitations are placed on streaming video these days. He knows it’s because of piracy concerns, but come on. Braden wants to just show his film to the world! That’s gotta get fixed.
Until it goes away, you could try Google Video. Hopefully, that before Google Video goes away, YouTube will add extended content. Meanwhile, you can try Vimeo or Viddler.
Braden’s film is Be Here Now.
Q Henry, San Diego, CA - Opening PDF forms
Henry can’t seem to open PDF files in XP. One problem may be that security software could be blocking javascript and many PDF files are written in JS. Another thing. Don’t try and open then in your email account. Save them to your PC and then open them. Your Email client may not support reading PDF files.
Q Andrew, Denver, CO - Home Theater Recommendation
Andrew has a “man cave,” and would like to create his own home theater system to use for parties and movies, etc. 7.1, 5.1, 2 channel? Which should he get? He doens’t think he’ll need a whole lot of power. Leo is going to put on Andrew with Scott Wilkinson tomorrow to help. But generally, with a $600 price range, there’s plenty of “Home Theater in a Box” options. Leo’s a fan of Onkyo.
Q John, Mission Viejo, CA - Firefox problems
John is having trouble getting to his Gmail in Firefox. Leo suspects his profile is corrupted. Try SafeStart from the Firefox folder. If you can, then you can delete your profile and start over. You can launch Firefox with the profile manager. Click on start, run, then type “Firefox -P”
Hour 3
Q Arthur, Aliso Viejo, CA - Connecting Networks
Arthur has two separate networks - one for business, one personal. How does he link them together with NAS and VPN? Usually, you’d use a smart switch, but a router can do it. Many NAS can handle it as well. Arthur has turned on DHCP. Leo says that’s a good way to do it. But Arthur says the two networks can’t talk to each other. What gives? Leo says that they’re on two different network subnetssand for security. You can set the routers to “bridge mode,” and that will allow for file sharing on the NAS, as well as communication. But you lose the insulation of your business network from your home network.
It’s possible to isolate then and allow them to communicate, but it takes three routers, not two and it’s more complicated to file share.
Regardless, turn on WPA or WPA2 for wireless encryption and security. Change the password and default name, turn off universal plug and play and LAN administration. And you’re locked down and secure.
Q Mark, Carlsbad, CA - Weblog options
Mark has an online business and wants to build a content management system for his company website. CMS is the current way to run a website because it takes the updated content and marries it with a template to create a new page. It’s far easier than rebuilding each page every time you want to update your website. It’s far easier for anyone to update the blog/page because they’re doing it with what looks like a word processor.
Wordpress is great for it as it’s very easy to setup and operate. If you want something more custom made and be able to handle storefronts, etc. Leo recommends http://www.drupal.org/DruPal. It’s free, but you really need a DruPal expert to run. Joomla is flexible, powerful and also free.
A hosted solution is SquareSpace. But it’s not open source or free.
Q David, Venice Beach, CA - Facebook/MySpace Accounts
David wants to promote his business on social sites like Facebook/Myspace. But don’t you need to add friends to be seen? Leo says no. Facebook changed it by adding “fan pages.” This lets people see your page and then become a fan and it’s a great way to add and promote what you’re up to. You can add photos, movies, etc.
What about MySpace? How does it add HTML code in his profile to add things since he can’t do a line break? Leo says MySpace is very poorly designed and as such, it causes problems. Try <br> and <p> to create line and paragraph breaks.
Check out David at Wacky-Wax on MySpace.
Q Brandon, Grand Forks, CA - Synching Calendar in Pre
Brandon just got his Pre. 3rd in line. Got the last one! But how can he get his Calendar on it? Leo uses iCal and you can sync to Google Calendar. Then, make a duplicate Google calendar that your Pre can pick up. Leo also uses a program called “BusyMac” which can sync more than 5 calendars.
Q Keith, Lomita, CA - Camera recommendation
Keith wants to buy both a Camcorder and Still Camera in one. Leo recommends the Canon 5D Mark II for shooting not only excellent DSLR stills, but 1080p HiDef video. But it isn’t cheap at $3200! Canon has a cheaper version called the T1i which records in 1080p in 20fps. Leo says that’s a great option within Keith’s budget. Cost is about $600–800 with lenses in a kit.
For a dedicated video camera for $2000 budget. Leo says that the Canon Vixia HFS10 is a good choice.
