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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday August 15, 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Friendfeed sold to Facebook
In what may be a validation on how great an idea Friendfeed is, Facebook bought it this week. Friendfeed geeks are dismayed, Facebook geeks look down their nose to FF geeks. Leo loves Friendfeed and he hopes it doesn’t change. But it only underscores just how fluid life on the Internet is. So, if you store something in the cloud, ALWAYS make sure you have a backup copy at home.
Palm Pre Phones home, snooping on users?
Palm got into some trouble this week when a user discovered that the Palm Pre phones home - a lot - and downloads where users have been throughout the day. Palm says that there is an option “opt out,” but that it’s part of their privacy conditions in their EULA. Leo says that’s a PR nightmare and he, for one, will not carry his palm until the policy changes.
Guests
Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine
Scott agrees with Leo that when doing video over Skype, use a wired connection. Cause you never know when problems with the wireless signal will crop up or the signal will become bad. Wired is far more secure and consistent for video conferencing.
What’s Scott talking about today? HMDI 1.3. Scott got an email from listener “Nick,” about paying more for HDMI 1.3 when features like “deep color” and ‘expanded color gamut” aren’t being used.Most Blu-ray discs don’t use these features. So what’s the bottom line? Scott says that TV shows and Blu-ray discs are mastered for 8 bit color. But virtually everything you buy today is actually designed for HDMI 1.3. So, there’s no point in trying to save the money cause it’s all 1.3 now. There’s also various “flavors of HDMI 1.3 (a, b, etc). And on the horizon, there’s HDMI 1.4.
Leo also buys the cheapest HDMI cables he can find since digital is digital, you don’t need to fall for the pricey arguments. And on the Internet, at places like MonoPrice.com, you can get great deals on cables. Not like at Best Buy where they sell “vanilla” HDMI cables for $100! Scott agrees. There’s no need to spend money on expensive HDMI cables for lengths under 12 feet. Scott also says you want to keep the length to no more than 10 feet due to white flecks, latentcy, etc. The longer the cable, the more distortion you may run into.
Hour 1
Q Steven, Riverside, CA - Video conferencing on Skype
Steven is having trouble with video conferencing on Skype. Leo says it’s probably a bandwidth issue, even if you’re using “high speed.” Leo says the upstream of your connection isn’t as fast as it needs to be to handle the video. Some things to try - make sure no one else is using your Internet connection, don’t do anything else in the background, use a wired connection, rather than a wireless one. Also, if using DSL, sometimes the connection gets slower the farther from the hub. And if your computer isn’t fast enough or is old, it just can’t handle the demands of video. You can try backing up your data, formatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows and all the apps, the computer will run faster and will help handle video. But it’s not Skype, it’s about as efficient as it comes in handling conferencing.
Other options to try are Oovoo and IVista.
Q Jennifer, Costa Mesa, CA - Evernote and the Pre, Win 7 upgrade
Is Evernote compatible with the Palm Pre? Leo says you can use the Internet version, and there’s an Evernote App for the Pre.
Jennifer also wants to know if she should do the $50 upgrade to Windows 7 and still be able to do a full install or should she buy the full version? Leo isn’t certain at this point. But there’s probably ways around it. Microsoft published a way around that with Vista. It was kind of a Hack and they want to see Vista on the drive. But a full Clean install is what you want to do. But Microsoft has ended the $50 upgrade offer. You can get a 3 computer family pack for $150, though. But Leo’s betting there will be a way to buy use the $50 upgrade for a full install.
In the chatroom, ‘Skynet’ is saying that yes, the upgrade will work as a full install.
Hour 2
Q Fred, Panama City, CA - iPod Touch Question
Fred wants to know how his iPod Touch can track him. Leo says that the iPod Touch has wifi and can track you with it. And it’s scary accurate in finding where you are. Leo says it uses Skyhook, which has mapped wifi access points all over the country like Google has mapped streets. If it freaks you out, you can just turn off your WiFi until you need it. It’ll also save on your battery life.
Q Jim, Ontario, CA - Flash Drive
Jim can’t get 16GB of information on his 16GB flash drive. File corruption. Leo says that you probably need to format the drive to NTFS. If you formatted to FAT32, there’s a limit to file sizes. But it may also be a bad flash drive. Flash memory can go bad or be defective out of the box. Do a through format to NTFS, not quick format. Then give it a try. If it doesn’t work, you have a defective flash drive. Flash drives are meant as a temporary storage medium, not a medium for long term storage. If the flash drive begins fail, toss it. They’re cheap enough to replace.
Q Martino, Downey, CA - Laptop OS compatibility
Martino’s laptops have Vista, but most of his software is compatible to XP. What can he do? Leo says that you can try installing software in “Compatibility Mode.” Most software will run this way with no trouble. Worst case, you can use VMWare and run XP virtually on your laptop and access the programs that way. But Microsoft is very good with it’s Compatibility utility. You just select XP compatibility when installing your software and you’re good to go.
Q Gabriel, Caracas, VEN - Video upload
Gabriel has a 13″ MacBook and can’t import video via USB with his camcorder. Leo says that chances are his camcorder only transfers still images via USB and you’ll need to use the firewire connection. But if you don’t have a firewire connection in your MacBook, and the 13″ doesn’t right now, you may be stuck.
Q Jean, Jackson, MI - Microsoft Word lawsuit
Jean hears that Microsoft has to stop selling Word. Should she be concerned? Leo says no. Don’t worry. The story is that an East Texas judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling Microsoft Word over patent violations using XML which is owned by i4i. The judge is well known for making patent judgments like this and is rather activist, which is why the case - although legit - was brought before him. Redmond has 60 days to stop selling it. Leo says long before the 60 days are over, the issue will be solved. Chances are, Microsoft will settle out of court - probably for around the $200 million price tag the judge recommends. No need to worry. That’s chump change for Microsoft.
Q Morgan, Los Angeles, CA - Contact standards
Morgan has been importing various contacts and she has a lot of duplicates. Leo says that this is due to most sources having a variety of formats. There is a standard known as VCARD. Leo recommends importing everything into Google Contacts and Calendar, then sync to Outlook. It’s free, will auto populate with just about any interface or smartphone, and it’s become the defacto standard.
Hour 3
Q James, Los Angeles, CA - Vista boot up issues
James still has XP partition on his computer and he gets an annoying option. Leo suspects that when upgrading from XP, it’s XP partition and boot loading information is still on the hard drive. It’s pretty easy to fix. In Vista, you can modify the startup and tell Vista to always boot up to Vista and not show the bootup menu. System properties, Startup and Recovery. Set the menu time to zero.
Q Jamie, Newcastle, England - Webcam recommendation
Jamie needs a new Webcam, recommendations? Leo says ideally, a camcorder is the best, but the Logitech Quickcam 9000 is an ideal webcam option. Leo uses this often for Skype interviews. What about the audio? Leo says it depends on what you’re doing and he would’t rely on it. People tend to look at the screen, not the camera and aren’t talking into it. Takes practice to talk into the camera. Also, the microphone is omnidirectional and distant so it picks up EVERYTHING. Leo recommends using a headset like the DSP400.
Q Ruth, Irvine, CA - Transferring VHS Tapes
Ruth has a bunch of movies on VHS. How can she burn them to DVD. Leo says that they have a copy protection called “macrovision” on them which prevents copying. You can buy an anti-macrovision device, they work okay, sort of. It goes in between the VCR and the PC. But if you have an all in one, there’s nothing you can do. And technically, it’s a violation of copyright.
Q Scott, Hyperia, CA - No bookmark on Zune
Scott has a podcast that he loves to download, but it comes in as music, and it loses it’s place when he watches in more than one sitting. It’s very annoying. Leo isn’t sure how the Zune knows it’s not a podcast. You may need to adjust the genre tag to “podcast.” But it may not pay attention to it. Mark the file as writable, not read only. Change the genre and move it to the podcast section. This should tell the Zune. Here’s an article on how to do it.
Scott is also having trouble watching the PGA Championships online. He’s tried clearing settings, clearing cache. Leo suggests uninstalling and reinstalling FLASH.
Q Ron, Riverside, CA - Boot up problems after upgrading
Ron says he’s upgraded parts of his system and the hard drive doesn’t boot up. Leo says the “power on self test” or POST test has failed. You need to look in your documentation to see what the failure error means. Sometimes, it’s a flipped power cable that is shorting the motherboard or card on the hard drive. Double check the jumpers as well.
But if you just need the data on it, you can try using some data lifeguard tools. But if you can’t get the hard drive running in the first place, you’re still stuck. If the drive is fried, the best you can hope for to get the data is a data recovery service and they’re NOT cheap.
Q Steve, San Diego, CA - reinstalling Windows
Steve is going to reinstall Windows but is concerned about losing bookmarks, settings, etc. Leo says that Windows File and Settings Transfer Wizard will help you with this. But don’t forget to also backup your data.
See you tomorrow!
