Leo Laporte
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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday June 14, 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Leo’s thoughts on the new iPhone
GPS let’s you see where you left your phone and you can trigger and annoying noise to make it easier to find. You can also “kill it” with the remote deactivation feature which enables you to wipe phone in the event it’s been stolen. You can tap on people in pictures and focus. Video. Finally cut and paste.
What stinks? If you’ve had your original iPhone for less than two years, you’re gonna pay twice as much for it.
Leo also says that no matter what smartphone you use, iPhone, Palm Pre, et al, use Google Sync and maintain your calendar and contacts via Google. It’s extremely easy.
Iranian Elections show rioting via Twitter
The election results in Iran are reported as a landslide, but Iranians are rioting in the streets … and we found out on Twitter while CNN showed reruns of Larry King.
Leo says many news agencies are switching to analysis, believing they can’t compete with breaking news leaking on the Internet. Is this the turning point where people will get their news first from the Internet through social portals like Twitter?
Guests
Christian Kaff
Christian is an 13 year old podcaster of KaffCast! He likes to do “unboxings” where you open up new technology and show what’s in the box. He uses a pocket video camera and uploads to YouTube.
Chris Marquardt - Tips from the Top Floor
What to do when you have too much light. Use a short shutter speed. Although, that tends to lead to “frozen” moments. The other thing you can do is make the aperture really small (called “stopping down”). The downside of that is everything is in focus - even the background. Leo says he really likes shallow focus as it makes your image look far more professional. The other thing you can do is crank down the ISO. This is a good thing as it minimizes noise/grain - making your image very clear.
But you can get a “neutral density” or ND filter which takes some of the brightness away without affecting the color. You can even take several and stack them. This technique can really help adjust brightness beyond the limits of your camera. Polarizer filters do a similar fashion only less so. It’s rather like putting sunglasses on your camera. They’ll also give you a darker sky. Circular versions are better as they help with auto focus, whereas linear ones throw the auto focus off.
This week, the assignment is “altitude.” (please do so safely). Upload them to flickr.com with a Tech Guy group tag.
Hour 1
Q Aaron (Aaron B), Phoenix, AZ - Flash based games
Aaron was Leoville’s first mod. He’s mystified by Facebook games. Leo doesn’t get them either. And he’s noticed the computer has started to sllllooooooowwwwwww down. Leo says most of those games are flash based and frankly, flash games are memory pigs. You can reboot the computer to clear out the flash in RAM, and update your flash player, but frankly, Adobe needs to make it more streamlined.
Q John, New York, NY - Video podcasting issues
John does a podcast where he broadcasts live on Thursday via Stickam. But he has very limited video switching capability. He can’t afford the TriCaster, even though that’s cheap compared to an actual broadcast studio. What are his options? Leo says you can do it for free with CamTwist and a Mac. VidBlaster works great as does Boinx. All three are software solutions and can handle multiple cameras via USB and Firewire. You can do transitions, “lower thirds,” the works. Do HiDef? Not really worth doin’. Nobody really does HiDef.
When the camera moves, edges get jagged. That’s sort of the nature of the business as the video gets compressed to handle the bandwidth. You can increase the bandwidth, but the cost is prohibitive and fewer in your audience can handle it. Most can get a 500kb stream.
Most importantly, build your act and your audience. Improving image quality will come as the technology improves.
John’s podcast can be found at GuysfromQueens.com
Q Aaron, Los Angeles, CA - Reading via voice.
Is there a program that will do this? He wants to work while he listens to newspapers, et al. Leo says that the Amazon Kindle does this with it’s text to speech feature. But some publishers demand the feature be disabled. MIcrosoft and Apple both have text to speech built into the OS, but it reads EVERYTHING. You can select and area of text, but Aaron says it doesn’t really work.
Leo also hears of hacks which takes and RSS feed and converts it to speech. Google text to speech scripts.”
Q Ryan, Boston, MA - Stereo Bluetooth recommendations
Ryan wants a pair of stereo bluetooth headphones. Leo uses the Motorola S9.
Hour 2
Q Phil (Dr. Phil), Southgate, CA - Broadcasting web seminars
Phil does web seminars and wants to make them available online. Leo says it’s easy to do for free with live seminars on Stickam - they have a pay per view - and you can decide what to charge. Then you’ll also have it recorded and can collect for those as well.
Subscriptions can be done at Lynda.com (check out ScreenCastsonline.com ). Give some away for free and then people will join and pay for access.
Phil also has the Kindle 2, but wants a color reader. Leo says that eBook readers like an etch a sketch. As such, they’re very low power. As you get color, then power demands change and the technology is more complicated. But it’s coming. Leo believes that Apple will eventually have a tablet like iPhone device that can double as a color ebook reader. Maybe next year? But that’s just speculation.
Q Brandon, Apple Valley, CA - Compaq computer overheats
Brandon updated his Compaq to a Core 2 Duo and it shuts down when it gets too hot. Leo says that while the motherboard may support the chip, it doesn’t necessarily support cooling the chip. Leo says that when you install a chip and it’s heat sink, if you put too much paste on it, it can actually cause the layer to be too thick and prevent heat exchange. Make sure your fans are cleaned and working. And remember that your case fans may be too small to keep the computer cool enough. When you upgrade your chips, it’s a good idea to upgrade fans as well.
Q Walter, Alta Loma, CA - Digital Transition
Well, the digital transition happened. He has a digital TV and tuner. But he can’t get his digital channels. Did he rescan? Leo says the problem with digital TV is that it doesn’t degrade gracefully. When it gets marginal, it goes black. So a lot of people from fringe areas can’t get digital TV without improving their antenna. Should he get a regular UHF antenna or a 4 bay digital antenna? Leo says that Size isn’t really what you need.
What you need is a dedicated digital antenna. Check out AntennaWeb.org Enter in your location and it’ll tell you what antenna is best. Leo says that the YAGI antenna is best.
Q Thomas, Bristol, CN - Forms extensions
Thomas uses GoLive and Forms extensions but his current hosting site doesn’t support it. Leo says you’re best to call a web host in advance to see what they do and don’t support. Ask them if there’s an option they do support. LiquidWeb and Dreamhosts are good choices according to the chatroom. And you may have to upgrade your hosting to get this sort of extension support.
Q Sonja, Tampa, FL - Laptop lifespan
Sonja Got a Toshiba Laptop in the fall of 08, and now it’s dead. The CPU is gone. According to Toshiba, they are saying her laptop isn’t covered as it was only has a 90 day warranty. Leo says a 90 day warranty is rare and criminal for such a high cost investment. It’s important not to assume a full year warranty when you buy anything. Read the fine print.
Can you overdo security? Yes. Don’t use a security suite. Just a single antivirus program like Eset Nod 32 will do. Get a router as a firewall. But your first line of defense is your behavior. Practice Leo’s Tips for Safe Computing and you’ll be as safe as you can get.
Hour 3
Q Greg, Whittier, CA - Buying a new iPhone
Greg hears he’ll have to pay full price for a new iPhone to replace his 3G. Leo says not actually. If you go to Apple.com, you get a little discount, but it’s still fairly steep. But that’s nothing new. Most phones are subsidized and as such, you have to run the full course if you want to get a new deal, but then you have to re-up. But at least you’ll still be able to get the iPhone 3.0 software upgrade for $10.
But since he doesn’t have video with his 3G iPhone, he’s seriously thinking of jail breaking his iPhone to take advantage of video. But Leo says the frame rate is pretty low and and processor just isn’t fast enough for decent video. Also, there’s no jailbreak for 3.0 yet. So if you jail break it, you can’t upgrade to 3.0. Leo doesn’t really think jail breaking is worth it.
Leo also thinks a mistake that Apple isn’t giving their loyal customers a better deal considering it looks like they’re bringing out an iPhone every year, when most cellphone companies insist on two year contracts.
One thing you can also do is go to AT&T and tell them, if they don’t give you a better deal on the iPhone 3GS, you’re going to walk in favor of the Palm Pre and Sprint. Vote with your feet and tell them you’re not going to take it anymore.
Q Saul, Sacramento, CA - Even his clients listen to Leo!
Saul says that more and more of his clients are listening, and learning from, Leo!
Saul’s website is myfriendlytech.com
Q Harold, CA - AVS is expiring
Harold is getting a sales pitch for his ISP to use their own AVS software. Leo says they probably have a deal with MacAfee to provide free AVS and they’ll know what AVS you’re using. To make your system something they use, they can reduce their support costs. But you don’t have to use them.
Another issue is that they tend to give you a full suite of software. And that’s overkill. The real key is your behavior online. This will protect you against a great many viruses and worms looking for vulnerable computers on the Web. And follow Leo’s Tips for Safe Computing. Also, if you haven’t updated Windows you can’t stop there. Change your updates to automatic. Get a router.
Q Jimmy, Gathersburg, MD - Expending DVR hard drive
Jimmy is having trouble expending his old Motorola DVR with another hard drive. Weaknees is a good place to start. But many proprietary cable company DVRs simply haven’t been hacked to know how to upgrade it, and many would require firmware hacks which you definitely do not want to do. That’s the think with these proprietary DVRs, they’re locked down really good.
Q Noah, New Hampshire - “pendrive linux.”
Noah wants to boot his PC to a USB drive so he can run Linux. But the tricky part is that the hard drive can’t be written to. You can modify them to be “persistent,” Ubuntu will do that.
Leo recommends going over to distrowatch.com.
Have a great geek week!
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