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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday 2 August 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Property Mgmt. Company suing tennant over Twittering
Amanda Bonham “tweeted” a complaint that she was sleeping in a mold infested apartment. And Horizon Reality is now suing her for $50,000, proudly claiming they’re a “sue first, ask questions later sort of company.” Amanda had 50 followers, and now, thanks to the news story, millions know about it. So, is Horizon Realty taking the wrong tack here and can people really be held liable for twittering something like that? Maybe Horizon should’ve been proactive - like other Twitter sensitive companies - and tried to fix the problem.
EP1 is a small, compact DSLR
Leo’s picked up the Olympus EP1 which is a real compact DSLR. You can get an adapter which can use OM1 lenses on manual. And Leo’s going to check it out.
Guests
Steve Gibson, Security Now (a TWIT netcast)
Security Now co-host Steve Gibson joins us today to talk about what retail companies are doing with your credit card number. Originally discovered by reporters at C’Net, Companies like Buy.Com and Orbitz offer “web loyalty programs” through third parties, during the purchase process will provide a coupon offer. One thinks innocently that it’s just their email address that they get, but it now seems that monthly charges are appearing on credit card bills of users who sign up for these partners. Most people sign up for it so they can get on with their purchase (since they interrupt your order). The web loyalty pays the retailer to get ALL YOUR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION. And they automatically bill you periodically without your knowledge or consent. SO DON’T DO IT!
Fortunately, Senate Commerce committee is looking into it.
Steve isn’t confident one can get these charges reversed since an agreement to sign up has been made. But this is certainly insideous! And Leo suggests people boycott Buy.Com, Orbitz.com or any other online retailer that uses these web loyalty programs.
Security Now is a netcast of the TWIT Network.
David Pogue, NYT Blogger Extraordinaire
David Pogue claims that cellphone companies add at least 15 seconds to each voice mail in order to add more time to a user’s phone time in order to pad their coffers and drain minutes. How much do they make? About $620 MILLION a year.David’s creating a “Take Back the Beep” campaign.
Cellphone companies have something called ARPU, or average revenue per user. Pogue says executives have admitted to him that they include these canned instructions on EVERY message. If you have Sprint, you can turn it off but it’s buried and hard to find. Other carriers, however, can’t. You can go to David Pogue’s website and find links to your cellphone carrier to complain about this nonsense.
One can avoid the canned instructions by pressing “*” if the user ues Verizon, “1″ for Sprint, and “#” for AT&T. But you have to know what carrier your friend is using when you’re calling them.
Hour 1
Q Charlie, Inglewood, OH - Video capture
Charlie has a Hauppage PVR 150 capture device and wants to know if he can record programs from cable. Apparently, it doesn’t run well under Windows 7. Leo thinks it runs okay in Windows Media Center - which is included in Windows Vista and 7. Charlie says it runs okay unless he’s using his computer at the same time and then it’s pixelated. Leo says there may be too high expectations here. TIVOs are dedicated to record, as such, it doesn’t have anything distracting it. You start using your computer at the same time, you drain CPU and hard drive time and the recorded begins dropping frames.
Thing is, that video is a bandwidth HOG. It takes up CPU cycles and it’s asking a lot of a computer to do anything else at the same time. Using Windows 7 will help.
Q Greg, Studio City, CA - Bi-lingual websites
Greg wants to create websites in iWeb that are in both Japanese and English. Leo says that iWeb is an elegant, but very limited website program. If you’re going to use it, then create duplicate pages manually with links on each to go to the next page.
Q John/Kay, Tejunga, CA - Syncing Palm to Google
Kay loves her Palm Pilot. But now she’s updating to a Palm Pre, can she migrate them from her Palm Desktop to Google and then to her Palm Pre? Leo says the Pre works seamlessly with Google Calendar. She uses Companion Link and it only goes to 2008. Leo says it’s pretty typical and to sync all that data would be quite a chore. But there should be a setting which would allow you to set how far back you want to sync. And to add nearly 10 years of calendar and address information may slow down the Pre.
Uncle Bick in our Chatroom says the Palm Desktop can sync completely to Google Calendar natively, so you don’t really need the Companion Link software. Leo also says that Kay should abandon the Palm Desktop sooner, rather than later as Palm won’t be supporting it soon.
Both Google’s Chrome Browser and Firefox have add-ons to create offline capability for Google Calendar. Sweet.
Hour 2
Q David, Ontario, CA - Rebuilding old TIVO
David is having trouble with his 8 year old TIVO. Leo recommends rebuilding it as the disk is probably very fragmented. Backup your shows if you can, then do a complete reset to wipe the drive and reinstall the OS. Then TIVO will update everything and you’re back up and running.
Q Paul, Buena Park CA - Router issues
Paul’s Linksys router won’t see their laptops. If they router works with the desktops and not the laptops, can they be over filled? Leo says not likely. There’s probably a settings issue. Leo says to check and see that none of them have old DSL connection software on it. Uninstall that, along with any wireless connection software and use Windows built in wireless connection utility. Also, check that your laptops can support WPA encryption. If not, that could easily be the culprit. Leo suggests resetting the router and starting from scratch. Check to see if you can connect. If so, then you can turn on any needed security features.
Also, update the firmware in your router. There could be a bug that has been fixed addressing this issue. You launch the router interface and then see if there’s new firmware. Update it.
Q Ian, Vancouver BC CAN - Fun podcasting
Ian wants to do interviews over Skype and wants to know what to record with. Leo uses hardware, which is complicated. There are software options like Pamela (Windows) and Call Recorder (Mac).
Ian’s podcast is rather interesting, called Two Guys Being Animals.
Q Danny, MT. Laurel, NJ - Laptop numlock trouble
Everytime Danny hits his num-lock key, he gets numbers when he input letters. Leo says that’s the point of the num-lock key on the laptop. You can disable the num-lock key in Windows and it won’t do anything. Look under your Control Panel.
From the chatroom - Web6602 says he has the HPD9730US and an update caused the problem Danny is complaining about. Reboot your computer and hit the ESC, F1 or whatever key you need to press to get into your BIOS setup. Once in there, look for the NumLock settings and disable it.
Q Rich, Poway, CA - Demanding no data service
Rich followed Leo’s advice and called Verizon’s Retention department and told them either they give him a phone for his calendar w/out the data plan or he’s bolting. And they did! But the phone they gave him is being discontinued. So next phone, he’ll get the data service again!
Hour 3
Q Dick, Kansas City, MO - DSL trouble
Dick has been told by AT&T he can’t have DSL. Leo says that DSL is limited by distance and if you’re too far from the nearest “hub,” you simply can’t get it.
He’s also having trouble networking his computers that don’t see each other, fileshare, and print. He uses a Belkin router. Leo says that Dick has to troubleshoot the file sharing options. Leo recommends surfing to Practically Networked for tips on what to check. Chances are, you’re just missing an enabled option.
Q Jim, Stevensville, MT - Digital imaging
Jim has an ICC color profile for his camera, printer and monitor. He wants to upgrade to an HDTV monitor and wants to know if he can apply that ICC profile. Leo says he doesn’t know of any. You can do it manually with a colorimeter, but one of the problems in digital photography is the difference between reflective and transmissive light from image to screen to printer to monitor. And over time, they need to be changed. Age, warming factors of the monitor? And then there’s HDTVs. Leo doesn’t know of an HDTV out there that can apply a custom ICC profile automatically. From the Chatroom - there’s profiles like Movie, Gaming, Dynamic, etc. that the TV has, but they’re far from accurate for the needs of digital imaging. So doing it by hand is your only option.
Q Richard, Spotswood, NJ - digital photography advice
Richard just picked up the Canon T1i and loves it. Leo says it’s a great entry level DSLR for someone who wants to get serious about digital photography as a hobby. Richard wants to know how he can learn to get the most out of his camera. Leo says that Derrick Story’s book The Digital Photography Pocket Guide is a good place to start. Then, there’s podcasts like the Daily Photo Tips with Chris Marquardt. Joining communities like Flickr can be beneficial as you post your pictures there and solicit feedback. You learn a lot that way. But in the end, you learn by doing, so take a LOT of pictures. You’ll feel it in your gut when you get a good picture.
Richard also wants to know about photo processing. He has a 13″ Macbook Pro and wants to know what software to use, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom or Aperture? Leo says that for free, Google’s Picasa is a great free app. And you can download free versions of Lightroom, Aperture and Elements to try before you buy. But every photo Leo takes goess through Adobe Lightroom.
Ellie wants to know more about iDisk, which frees up space on her cellphone. Leo says that iDisk is a feature of MobileMe, a pay application for the MAC. People’s opinions of MobileMe vary on how well they use the feature. iDisk gives you 10GB of space to sync up data from the iPhone to MobileMe. And since it’s a closed, Apple only ecosystem, does everyone need it? Google works great for similar issues and it’s free.
Q Brian, Houston, TX - Laptop recommendation
Brian is looking to buy a new laptop and is thinking about “making the switch” to the 13″ Macbook Pro, but for $500 more, why does he want one? Leo says that over 90% of laptops over $1,000 sold are Macs. Mostly because of security, the included software like iLife. Some of that extra money is a nameplate premium. Is it worth it? If you like Macs it is.
Have a great geek week!
