Leo Laporte
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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday June 21, 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Iran Unable to stop Twittering
With Iran blocking News agencies, cell text, Internet and Social Networking traffic, about the only way to get the word out is Twitter. And Iran can’t seem to stop it. The great irony is, that the coverage through Twitter is far better with video posts to youtube and on the scene reporting with 140 characters or less. Viva La Revolution!
Twitter has been so important to the the movement in Iran, that the US State Department requested Twitter delay scheduled maintenance in order for the word to continue to get out without interruption.
Leo thinks that the freedom fighters of the future may very well be geeks with computers, rather than minutemen with guns.
Steve Jobs recovering from liver transplant surgery
The WSJ has reported that Steve Jobs underwent liver transplant surgery a few months back and is on schedule in his recovery. Apple is apparently mum on if true or not, but Leo got a cryptic corroborating email back then that Jobs had just checked out of a hospital in Memphis. It could be that Steve’s desire for privacy motivated his handling it back east. But details are sketchy.
Jammie Thomas loses again
Jammie Thomas has lost her second trial against the RIAA. A jury awarded the Recording industry of American $1.92 MILLION DOLLARS! Ouch. That’s $80,000 a song for the single mother.
Hour 1
Q George, Aliso Viejo, CA - Laptop recommendation
George needs to get a new computer. Leo says that nobody is really good at support anymore. But Dell is the best of what’s left and you can purchase extended “gold” support if needed. HP has great hardware but they load their computers up with trial ware that boggs the system down and needs to be wiped off in order to get proper performance. Fujitsu is good as well.
Laptop purchases are very personal. A compromise between design, size, weight and power. A netbook, for example, is very light and small, long battery life. But they’re SMALL! The Dell Adamo is beautiful. For a desktop replacement, the Dell Studio 16? is good - Leo uses that one. Lenovo makes a great business laptop. If you’re using over 4GB of RAM, you need to be sure you get Vista 64 (most come with it).
An don’t forget Mac laptops. Although still expensive they did drop prices by about 15% and they’re beautifully made.
Q Alec, Garden Grove, CA - Website/Blog recommendations
Alec is starting a blog and wants to know how often to update. Leo says you need to update every day with good quality content. Keep it fresh and well designed. Go to forums on other sites and become part of their community. Participate. Trade links with other sites. Use keywords in the first 1500 characters so Google can find them. Get a site map that’s Google approved.
Q Chuck, Plano, TX - Cross platform networking
Chuck has networked his Mac and his PC and the Mac is having trouble seeing his PC. Leo has been troubleshooting the same problem lately. He recommends going to PracticallyNetworked.com - it has a series of troubleshooting steps which may help you.
Hour 2
Q Jean, San Francisco, CA - Recording with Digital TV
Jean needs to know what she needs to do to record video from both her digital TV and her analog TV with a box. Converter boxes can cause hassles since VCRs can’t change channels, you have to manually change it and you can’t watch something else. Solution - TIVO! Getting a digital video recorder (DVR) can take the digital signal, lose the converter box, and you’re good to go. Only downside is a monthly fee (you can pay lifetime, though).
DTVPal Plus or Zinwell ZAT950A converter box can work with old VCRs by using an IR blaster to change the channels. Some DVD recorders can work if you’re using a RAM disc or rewriteable discs. But once you finalize them, you can’t rerecord on them. There’s even a DVD recorder that has TIVO functions as well.
Q Nick, Providence, RI - Laptop problem
Nick got a Lenovo laptop that he loves. But he’s having trouble with web browsers crashing over and over again. Is it an update gone bad? A patch? Leo wonders if a bad video driver is the culprit. Or, try another login. If something is running unique to one account, it could fix it. Boot up in safe mode. If it works, then you know it’s a driver issue. There could be corrupted or conflicting DLLs.
Q Mark, Palo Alto, CA - Buying Ads on webpages
Mark wants to know how to find out traffic to determine if buying ads one pages is a good idea. Leo says there are three places you can check in, but they’re at best estimates. ComScore. Quantcast. and Compete. Google Analytics are very accurate as well, but they’re better for the site itself, not the advertiser. Leo prefers cost per impression, rather than cost per click.
Q Sean, Carlsbad, CA - Updating hard drive
Sean ordered a new hard drive, but when he received it, it’s already 5 years old! Leo says that’s because it’s an IDE drive and they don’t really make them anymore and you’d probably need it for the age of your computer. Sean is worried that after all this time if the performance will be affected. Leo says it’s possible - the reading arm could’ve stuck to the platter or the bearings may have frozen up. But if properly stored, it’s almost certainly fine.
Q Chris, Los Angeles, CA - Carbonite & Satellite
Chris uses satellite internet. Thoughts on using Carbonite? Leo says he wouldn’t recommend it. Sat limits are low, as is Sat upload speeds (not much better than modem, frankly). So it’ll mess you up. Leo recommends rotating external hard drives and take one off site - to work. Or, burn DVDs and burn them to your mom for safe keeping.
Also, use an automatic backup sync program like Sync Toy to automatically backup to your hard drive each week so you don’t forget.
Q Duke, Tejunga, CA - Laptop hard drive dying
Duke’s hard drive is starting to die, he used SpinRite on it to bring it back but now wants to clone the drive so he can replace it. Leo says image the hard drive to an external USB Hard drive. Drive Image XML or Image for Windows.
Hour 3
Q Randy, Redwood City, CA - Blocking incoming streaming
Randy has a friend who can’t get streaming in the office due to IT blocking. Leo says that you can get around it but the company has the right to block the traffic not only because you’re using company resources, but also due to keeping down bandwidth costs.
One thing you can do is use Wireless Internet connections via a cellular provider. One upcoming device will be MyFi, by Verizon. It’ll enable you to tether your computer to your cellphone and surf via the 3G network.
Q Kurt, Thousand Oaks, CA - Needs a tech makeover
Kurt could use a complete tech makeover. Leo says that would make a great reality show. Phone/Internet service. There has to be a better way than getting it peacemeal. DSL Extreme and cutting the landline? Leo says that for safety reasons, you really need a landline. Get the minimum service is about $5–10 a month which is just for emergencies. And the best part is, it gets it’s power from the phone company so it’s always on. But 30% of America is now without a landline. Leo says that you can use Skype to make incoming and outgoing calls to not only computers (for free) but also to phones as well (for a very affordable charge - $99 a year unlimited). And you can get a Skype Box and Phone to make it just like your normal phone. Leo also says that “Asterisk” is a great virtual PBX board if you’re needing multiple lines and are on a budget. There’s also Ooma, but how long term will they be? Leo just doesn’t know since all the costs are in purchasing the hardware. That seldom works long term.
Leo also says that Google Voice is going to be public soon and that may be a very affordable competitor to Skype.
Kurt and his wife also just got a pair of BlackBerry Storms. How do they get their information to them? Leo suggests Google. Use the exchange server and it’ll automatically populate all your contacts, calendar, email, etc. to your smartphone. The beauty of it? No matter where you are, you can get it. And you can have multiple email addresses associated with that account as well for pop3 logging in. Then, you can phase out the old one to get the new one.
Q Danny, Bellflower, CA - Video Capture, best way?
Danny wants to archive some old tapes and was wondering if he can do more than one digital capture session at once. Leo says no, the stream is way too waxing to do that. What kind? Leo recommends the Canopus ADVC 110 because of Firewire. Hauppage also makes a capture card which works great.
Danny also wants to know about a PCI video card that he can expand to multiple monitors. There are ways to do it, like USB devices which connect multiple monitors. For flight sims, the best way to go is AGP video cards.
Colleen suggests the Saffire Radeon HD4850X2, crossfired and based on the ATI 4850 video card. PCI Express. You can handle up to 4 monitors! Check it out at http://www.Twit.tv/picks
Q David, Los Angeles, CA - long range wireless router
David wants a long range wireless router which he can hook up a hard drive to in order to back up any computer on his network. Leo says 802.11n is the longest distance right now. You’ll probably also want to get some external antennas to increase your signal and blanket your area. You’ll need an omnidirectional antenna and a lot of power. You’ll need to put the antennas on the roof of your place. One site to check out is RadioLabs.com.
As for adding a hard drive, look for them with USB ports. Linksys, Netgear, DLink. All have models for this. You’ll want to start with the antenna and then get a router and pigtail for that particular antenna.
Q Dylan, Los Angeles, CA - podcasting
Dylan wants to get into podcasting. Does he need special software? Leo says no. You just need to record your show and then put it on a server - Leo recommends Libsyn. Then a feeder program to make “trick out your feed.” Leo uses Feeder. But Libsyn is a one stop shop.
Have a great geek week, everyone and don’t forget to back up!
