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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday July 11, 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Guests
Steve Greenberg, Author of Gadget Nation
Steve Greenberg, author of Gadget Nation is our guest talking about inventing, intellectual property, patents, and what to do when you get a new idea for the latest, greatest thing!
Hour 1
Q Steven, Long Beach, CA – Search Engine Optimization
Steven has an online store and wants to know if SEOs are legit and worth the money. Leo says they aren’t worth it and it’s a scam. You can do most of it yourself. You can’t really improve your ranking artificially. The ranking Is based on how many other pages are linked to you. So, the more sites that link to you, the more “Google juice” you get. And here’s the thing. If Google thinks that you’re trying to artificially juice your rankings, they can delist you. SEOs try using “link farms” to juice your rankings and Google will delist you over it.
1. Get other sites to link to you. Go where your customers go and get similar sites to link to you.
2. Title your page effectively – use keywords in your title that makes it easy to search for you. Google bases your search on the first 1500 characters of your site. So use that to your advantage.
3. Register your domain for over a year. Sites that reg from year to year provide a red flag for Google.
There’s a website called Buzzle which has more information on it. http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/6-10-2005-71368.asp
What about tags? Google ignores them.
Q Christy, San Jose, CA – EVDO trouble with netcasts
Christy can’t watch Leo’s netcasts on her EVDO network. She only gets “freeze frames.” Leo says that EVDO is, at best, 1.2MB down, 356K up. In theory, it should work okay. But it isn’t consistent. This has to do with 1 – the distance you are from the tower and 2) how many are using the EVDO connection on that network as you do. It even has something to do with time of day. EVDO is okay for basic stuff, but it’s a house of cards for consistency. But for heavy duty functions like streaming video, you’ll have hit and miss. Leo says the good news is that Leo does do an audio stream at twit.am. And on the horizon is 4G and WiMax. So be patient. Help is on the horizon. Just not today.
Q Fred, San Gabriel, CA – Home theater problem
Fred’s Onkyo Receiver bleaches out his signal. Is that a common problem? Should he reset it? He’s got a cable box and DVR connected. It works great directly connecting to the TV. But when going through the receiver …. Scott says to go into the receivers video menu and see what it’s set to. Resetting would solve the issue. Onkyo will “clip above white and below black.” This is because the video numeric range goes from 0–255. The Onkyo only looks at 15–235. Ideally, the receiver should be able to pass them through, but the cheaper Onkyo’s don’t and as such, it clips them off. But there’s a good chance that’s not it. It may be an interaction issue. So try the reset and see if that opens up interaction.
Q Kevin, Marina Del Rey, CA – recording old VHS tapes to digital
Kevin wants to get a device to capture his old VHS tapes to digital. Wait for Blu-ray? No. Blu-ray is WAY too good for the quality of the VHS. The VHS will do the job. Leo recommends the Canopus AVDC 110. It does a brilliant job. Capture into Adobe Premiere Elements and burn it on your computer’s recorder. For the MAC, you can use iMovie and iDVD. ElGato makes a great capture device in USB called ElGato Video Capture $89 with composite in and l/r audio. Works great to record in MPEG4 for uploading to YouTube as well.
Hour 2
Q Bob, Wildemar, CA – Plasma or LCD
Bob bought a Panasonic Plasma HDTV but is LCD better? No. Plasma is far better if you can darken the room. Trouble is plasma’s are being discontinued as LCDs are far more popular. This is because they are much better in ambient light.
Also, what about MP3 players? Ipod or Zune? He wants a subscription service. Then Bob should get a Zune. The Zune marketplace has a subscription service that’s all you can eat every month. The downside is that once you stop the subscription, the music stops. But if you don’t mind that, then fine. An 8 GB Zune is plenty. You also can’t use a Zune on a Mac. You can also use other services like Rhapsody. The Zune interface is nice. Supports podcasts.
The iPod is better for usability, but it doesn’t have a subscription. FM Transmitter? The problem with them is that near a metro area is that in the city, there are no free frequencies. If you don’t have that problem, essentially in terrible reception, then you’ll have free frequencies to take advantage of. And they all work about the same.
HP Media Center – is there a way to hook it up to your TV? Yes. Look for a DVI out on your computer. HDMI is even better. But with DVI will get your HDTV plugged in no worries.
Q Jay, Atlanta, GA – Doin’ what Leo does
Jay would like to do what Leo does, but how does he make a living at it? He chiefly wants to do it privately like a tech consultant. What’s his first step? Leo says that make sure you’ve got a website with testimonials to assure those who have been bitten by bad tech guys before. Be bonded. Is there an Apple certification track? http://training.apple.com/certification is a good place to start. Leo says that certifications are useful for getting a corporate job. But it isn’t really necessary for anything else other than for PR purposes. Find a source of referrals. Get involved in the Chamber of Commerce to build word of mouth.
Hour 3
Q Ron, Joshua Tree, CA – Windows One Care backup
Ron wants to know about backup options in Windows One Care. Leo says that Microsoft is killing One Care this year, so eventually, you’ll need to be looking for another option and there are plenty.
Make sure you have WPA encryption to keep yourself safe and secure (choose a good password). You’ll have to turn on file sharing so other computers can share the drive as well. See the drive and copy files to it. Map it to all the laptops. Sync Toy by Microsoft is a good option for auto backup.
Using a cell modem to get to the internet and linking two laptops on one service. Leo suggests the Cradlepoint router. Plug the EVDO card into it and then it turns the router into a wifi router that both laptops can log into. Verizon is working on MyFi, which uses a small credit car device that does the same thing and could be a huge product when it comes out. Supposed to be $40 a month, which is much cheaper than EVDO. And if you have MyFi, you can install Skype on your smartphone and completely cut the Cellphone carriers out of the long distance pie.
Q Roger, Palo Alto, CA – Gaming on the iPhone
Will Roger be able to connect his iPhone to video monitor to play games? Not at this point, but there’s talk they’re going to open up that data stream to third party developers. It is possible since Apple does show the video stream of what an iPhone does in real time. But they won’t let anyone play with it unless they jailbreak the iPhone. You can use DemoGod and Screen Splitter Apps. But it’s Really SLOW. Certainly not fast enough to game with.
Q Donna, Riverside, CA – Going from Win 98 to Vista
Donna wants to upgrade to Vista from Win 98, but isn’t sure all her apps will work. Leo says the data will go over easy. In fact, uses an external drive to guarantee backup. It’s the apps, network settings, etc. that won’t move over well unless you install them natively. In fact, why stick to Vista when you can download Windows 7 now for free and use it until next March? It’s as reliable, if not more so, than Vista.
