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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday July 4th 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Happy Independence Day, Everyone!
Clear Pass High Tech Travel Security out of business
Leo applied for a “Clear Pass” that scans his iris, took his fingerprints, SSN, credit info and provides him with special security access. Cost him $100. But what it is, actually, is “cutsies.” You get to go to the front of the security line while many give you dirty looks. What a terrible idea and Leo never renewed it. And apparently, everyone else did as well because the company is now bankrupt. What happened to his, and everyone else’s personal information? Nobody really knows and Leo’s not convinced that their assurances of ridding personal data has really happened.
What’s the lesson here? When you give your personal information away, you may not be able to get it back when the company goes belly up and takes your information with you.
Adam Savage’s Twitter Revolt
Adam Savage of Mythbusters, takes a trip to Canada and brings his AT&T USB Connect data modem along. When he gets back, he gets a bill for $11,000 for “international” data use. Adam claims he only surfed for a few hours, while AT&T said he used 9GB of data.
So he uses his Twitter account to stage a rebellion and get AT&T’s attention. And they turned off his iPhone until he poney’s up. Look for the “hashtag” of #ATTsucks! AT&T eventually backed off and credited his bill.
The moral of the story here, get AT&Ts International Data Roaming plan when you go outside the country. $60 for 20MB, $5 for each add’l MB. And turn off EVERYTHING!
And the twittering wheel, gets the grease!
Leo’s in China
Leo’s in China, but take heart, all the calls for the next 2 1/2 weeks are brand spanking new. If you want to follow Leo’s China adventure, check out his friendfeed account at http://www.friendfeed.com/leolaporte.
Hour 1
Q Chris, Saganaw, MI – Capturing online streaming video on the net
Leo says it depends on where the live streaming video is coming from and what they’re using to encode it. UStream, for instance uses Flash. Leo says there’s a few ways to do it. One is a live screen capture. Leo uses Appliance for that. On the MAC, you can use W-Get and capture the stream coming in. On Windows, Videolan’s VLC will allow you to record it as you play it and capture.
Chris also wants to upload to YouTube, but they have a 1GB/10 min limit. Leo says if you have a pro and director’s account, you can upload unlimited. But you have to convince them you’re a content creator and not uploading copyrighted material. You may also want to check out Google video as they have higher limits.
Q Kevin, Stanton, CA – Options to cable …
Kevin says a solution to avoiding buying cable, is to get a “cable antenna” and that will enable you to get local channels at reduced cost. But Kevin wants to do DSL without a landline? Leo says you have to have a landline, but sometimes you can get RAW or Naked DSL so you don’t have to have a landline phone, just a line for your connection.
Q Zack, Milwaukee, WI – USB problems
His HP PC has USB issues. He plugs in his USB 2 device and it fails eventually and reconnects at USB 1.1 speeds. Driving him nuts. Leo says it sometimes happens due to low power. If it still does it with a larger power supply, then the theory may be that the USB controller is overheating and such, is slowing down. Try deleting the USB Hub controller and ports and let Windows reacquire them. It may also be a bad driver. But more likely, it’s a hardware problem and HP should really fix it. Zack says HP has been giving him the runaround.
Zack agrees as his mother’s computer has the same problem. Leo says at this point, you need to replace the motherboard as it could be bad chipsets. Look to see if your chipset is a VIA chipset as they had that problem recently. This is HPs problem. Write a letter to the CEO of HP Mark Heard - and mention you talked about this problem on Leo’s radio show. You will eventually get some recompense on it. Sounds like a bad design for the model. Also, TWITTER it. Many companies monitor Twitter and last thing companies want is a PR problem. Chiefly HP which has had PR problems in the past.
Hour 2
Q Stuart, Irvine, CA - Loves the Acer
Stuart has had several laptops in his line of work and says that there’s no better computer than the Acer Aspire One. Other great options are the Dell Mini, MSI Wind, and even Lenovo has a netbook. Leo says that Netbooks are great for travel and even as a terminal. But his general recommendation is that it shouldn’t be your primary computer.
Stuart also used the trial version of Carbonite and it stopped backing up after about 5GB. Is Carbonite unlimited if you buy the service? Leo says yes, it’s unlimited and a very valuable off site backup which will cover your hind quarters in the even your computer goes belly up.
Also, what’s the difference between RSS and Atom? Leo says that Atom is a “flavor” of RSS. It doesn’t really matter what RSS feed you use.
Q Michael, South New Jersey - Vista RAM
Michael has Vista 32 bit and it sees 4 GB, but it doesn’t use all of it. Leo says that some of the memory is reserved for the video card, OS, and other things the computer uses and as such, you lose almost a GB to hardware. Going to 64-bit will give you access to 4GB. And these days, almost all processors are now 64-bit anyway (except the original Intel Core 2 Duo chips, which are 32-bit).
Michael’s wireless internet drops out after being idle for awhile. Could this be due to Windows having a power managment option? Leo says yes, it could. The power management feature which will turn off power to some hardware.
Leo also says that Windows “Wireless Zero Config” feature can sometimes make your Internet connection “promiscuous” and it will try and join a stronger network, tossing you off whether it connects to another signal or not. Just disable the Wireless Zero Config option and it will make your wireless more reliable.
Q Donald - VMWare recommendation
Donald has gotten a coupon to buy VMWare Fusion. Good? Leo says it’s great. It works on the MAC and allows users to run Windows virtually. Another good option is “Parallels.” But Sun makes a free virtual options called Virtual Box. So, for free, you can run download Windows 7 RC1 - which will run until March - using Virtual Box, and you’re good to go. And you can preorder Windows 7 for $50 from Amazon and you’ll get it in October.
Donald also has a computer that’s ligh sensitive. It will wake up when he turns on the lights. Leo says that’s a bizarre issue - Tony King in the chatroom theorizes that it could be that if your mouse is IR sensitive, that could happen. Or maybe you hit the mouse while reaching for the light switch. Also, MACs have a Wake on LAN feature - but if you’ve disabled it, then there may be a mini power surge that happens when you turn the lights on, waking up the computer. Might be a good idea to get a new surge protector.
Q Tim, Burbank, CA – large hard drive disk utilities
Tim wants to know if he needs disk utilities using OSX. Leo says you can, but you don’t really need it. Most OS these days don’t really require that periodic system maintenance anymore. Backing up is more important. Leo likes SuperDuper for that as the backups it makes are bootable. Leo also recommends AlSoft’s Disk Warrior if you’re determined to do defrag. But on the whole, hard drives work until they don’t.
Leo thinks it’s funny as Windows users are so used to spending money and effort on utilities to keep their computer in shape. But on a Mac, you just don’t.
Q Joe, Long Beach, CA – PC died, smoking. PC Recommendation
Joe’s PC died. He replaced the power supply. That didn’t do it. Leo said that if the power supply smoked, it could’ve easily spiked and bricked the motherboard. Can Leo give him guidance on what to look for in a new PC? He uses Pro Tools and Sony Vegas. And ProTools won’t work with a 64 bit machine.
Leo says first off, the hardware will be 64 bit. But unfortunately, the software won’t. And you could really use that extra boost in RAM for those applications. Leo says you can max out the RAM to around 3.5 GB and it should work fine. You can download the 32 bit version of Windows 7 and that’ll get you through March 2010. Maybe by then, ProTools will produce a 64 bit driver. Then you can upgrade to Win 7 or move back down to XP.
Chipset wise, there’s only two really to look at – Intel’s Core 2 Duo and I7 and you really don’t need the I7. So get the Core 2 Duo unless you’re severely budget minded. But don’t go too cheap as they will use cheaper components. Stick with a brand like Dell.
Hour 3
Q Don, California - Recovery CDs don’t work
HP sent Don two different recovery CDs and neither work. He’s missing some system files and the recovery CDs are requring a floppy! HP says it’s normal and may take 6–8 hours to complete. But it doesn’t complete! What does he do?
Leo thinks you have to boot to the recovery disc, where a “virtual floppy drive” will run during the recovery process. Most likely, the hard drive is dying and that’s why the computer isn’t finishing the restoration. It may not even be the entire drive. It may just be a small portion of the drive that’s failed and it contains critical system files.
Q Kevin, Orange, CA - VirtuMondo virus?
Kevin ran Spybot and got a virus called “Virtu Mondo,” but no other AVS can find it. Leo thinks it may be a “false positive,” or, it just may be something new. Symantec has a Virtu Mondo removal tool, and Malware Bytes will also remove it. Google is your friend.
Q Judy, Los Angeles, CA - update stopped
Judy was going through update on her MAC and it seemed that her computer was hung up and she turned it off. Leo says that was the worst possible thing to do. It may have been writing to your hard drive and spewed out dying data while you turned it off. If you’re lucky, the computer actually did hang while doing the update and since it’s incomplete, you can’t run Windows. Leo suggests running Windows software update again. If that doesn’t fix it, then your only option is to reinstall your OS. Start with the least drastic and work towards the total reinstall.
Q Brandon, Palmdale, CA - Windows loading issues
Brandon has an old school Dell XP2400, but he’s missing some critical system files - the NTLDR. The NT Loader is what loads Windows. So if there’s a hard drive error that is preventing NT Loader from running, the best bet is to run Windows Installer, which will give you a REPAIR option. This may or may not work.
DON’T RUN THE DELL RESTORE DISC?. That will wipe your disc clean and make it just like the day you got it.
Another option is to run SPIN RITE. It’s about $90 - which for today’s hard drives is pricey. You can run it though and it will repair your hard drive. But for the cost, you’re better off just backing up your data and get a new hard drive. Then reinstall everything.
And start backing up your hard drive! You should have an external hard drive and run Microsoft’s Sync Toy. Burn data to DVDs and mail them to your folks. Or BOTH! If you only have one copy of your data, you don’t really have it.
Q Nick, Texarkana – Win 7/MacBook Tale of Woe
Nick tried to install Win 7 on the Macbook, but he can’t get Vista sound drivers from Apple because he doesn’t have Leopard. Leo says Apple wants you to buy Leopard, so they won’t make it easy to get the drivers. Leo says there’s a sound driver at centralgadget.com (http://www.centralgadget.com/macbook-having-windows-7-audio-trouble-weve-got-your-driver-fix-444/). He hasn’t tried it, but it’s worth a go.
Another idea is to talk to a friend who has Leopard just for the drivers. (shhhh). That and buy Leopard.
Q Ed, Torrance, CA – Trouble starting Firefox
Ed thinks he may have a worm. He can’t start Firefox. He reinstalled it and it was okay for a brief time. And now it won’t run again. Leo thinks maybe Firefox is stored on a hard drive where the sector may be “flakey.” This could be a hint that your hard drive is starting to go. Try running Spin Rite by GRC.
