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Saturday, July 24, 2004

Show #59

Hot and hazy in Southern California - perfect weather to talk tech! 1–800–520–1534.

Noon-1p

Tony in Los Angeles

has a friend who wants to remove the vocals from Elvis songs (he’s an Elvis impersonator). Use AnalogX’s free vocal eliminator. It works with Winamp. It works by swapping the phase of the left and right channels - canceling out anything recorded equally in both channels, usually that’s the vocals. Results can be quite good - and quite awful - depending on how the song was mixed.

There are also hardware solutions for this like the Thompson Vocal Eliminator. Can’t say if they sound better or not.

John in Brooklyn

uses a Beta version of Mozilla and is receiving a warning when trying to check his mail that states the ‘In Box is being processed’ and he can’t access his mail for hours, when he re-starts his computer the message disappears. Two possibilities come to mind: It could be your ISP and you might want to discuss the problem with them. Or there’s something wrong with Mozilla. Re-index or re-build the mailbox. You might also try Mozilla’s new Thunderbird for your mail. For help with Mozilla try Gunnar’s Unofficial Mozilla Help Page.

He also says his mouse and keyboard won’t wake up the computer. Check the power settings in the BIOS and Windows to make sure they’re set properly. Do make sure Hibernation is turned off - it’s a much deeper sleep than “sleep.”

Judy in Huntington Beach

says popups are killing her! You can add the Google toolbar to Internet Explorer, but the best method to avoid pop-ups is to use Mozilla or Firefox, Don’t forget to turn on pop up blocking in the preferences and breathe a sigh of relief!

John in Walnut

He’s getting a C++ runtime error when he surfs the net. A damaged, missing, or corrupted Visual C++ runtime could cause this problem. If you have your Windows install disc you can use the System File Checker to replace damaged system files. Click Start→Run… and enter sfc /scannow.

There is an obscure bug in Windows that could be causing this error. Read the Microsoft Tech Note for details.

And I’m not picking on Norton Internet Security (ok, yes I am), but some have had this error pop-up when NIS is running. Try disabling NIS and see what happens.

1–2p

Lisa in Burbank

is switching to DSL and wants to know how to protect her computer. I recommend a router to start. (See our discussion of routers vs. software firewalls in the Main/MustHaveSecuritySoftware section.) Routers isolate you from the Internet and provide much of the protection of a software firewall without impacting system performance or reliability. The only thing a router does not do well is monitor and notify you of suspicious outgoing activity.

Naturally you’ll need anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Read the Main/MustHaveSecuritySoftware article for a list of my recommendations.

Roger from San Diego

is trying to sync his AOL address book on two computers. The AOL address book is stored on their server so it is strange that you don’t see the same address book on two different machines. AOL does offer free Intellisync software that will let you use Outlook as a go between. AOL Keyword: sync

Heather and husband Mike in Pasadena

want a high-capacity hard-drive based MP3 player. They use iTunes but also have a large CD collection which they’re converting to MP3. What player should they buy?

If you buy your music from iTunes you must buy an iPod and likewise, if you use other music stores you can’t use an iPod. (Well that just changed today - Real Networks has reverse engineered the iTunes copy protection and offers iPod compatible songs now).

The Creative Nomad Zen is a good choice if you are not already hooked into the iTunes music store. It has the largest hard drive: 60 GB. I also like Sonicblue’s Rio Karma because it plays the most formats including MP3, WMA, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis music files. Unfortunately, it only sports a 20GB hard drive.

Mike is removing the copy protection (or DRM) from his iTunes purchases by burning an audio CD then converting it into MP3. This decompression/recompression degrades the sound quality. You might do better by finding a copy of DVD Jon’s PlayFair decrypter which strips out the copy protection without damaging the music. It’s not easy to find; Apple has done a good job of pushing it underground.

Theresa on the road to Las Vegas

has a friend that doesn’t need dial-up anymore but wants to keep her old AOL address, can she do this?
You have to keep the AOL account, but you can dump the second dial-up line and you can save $7 a month by subscribing to AOL’s cheaper Bring Your Own Access account (AOL Keyword: BYOA).

AOL also offers a “Light Use” plan for $4.95. With this plan you only get 3 hours of online time, but you are able to keep all E-mail addreses and still use any and all of AOL’s features. You just have to get your E-mail at AOL’s website.

2–3p

Brent in Highland

is looking for a analog to digital video converter, he uses Dazzle but wants something better. I like Pinnacle System’s Firewire Movie Box DV. Ed in the chat room recommends a Canopus ADVC 100 internal card.

Chuck in Glendora

is having a problem with Windows XP, when he tries to view his Favorites he has URLs that keep appearing even though he has deleted them. It’s another case of spyware infection. In this case he has something called Search Assistant or Windows SA. Start by using the Windows Add/Remove Control Panel to remove Windows SA (nice of them to put an uninstaller on the system anyway). The company also has a web site that claims to uninstall its software.

Donna in West Hills

can’t access IE or Outlook after her teenage son has been using his IM or Live Journal
Downloading music can often allow virus and Trojan horses and AIM can also cause problems if you click on links that are sent through IM. You probably have spyware and should use the same programs recommended for Chuck. You should also create an individual accounts for each user and stop using Internet Explorer. Use a browser from Mozilla.

Mike in Glendale

Glendale wants use his laptop to connect with to the internet while on the road
There are several ways to do this, and it depends on where you want to access the internet from. You can install a wireless card if you want to surf from Wireless Hotspots like those in Starbucks.

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