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Saturday 12 September 2009

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Edited Audio

Posted one week after broadcast…

Tech News

60th Anniversary of the first computer bug

Notorious hacker guilty of identity theft

Sixty two years ago, the Harvard Mark II was the first computer built and it also had the first documented computer bug, discovered on 9 September 1947 by Grace Hopper .

Albert Gonzales pleaded guilty to 19 counts of identity theft, computer fraud, and just about every other law designed to nail hackers. He was accused of using war driving to find unsecured wireless access points and hacking into bank systems to lift databases which contained credit card and other personal information. Working with about 20 others from Eastern Europe, they stole millions of dollars from ATMs and laundering it through dubious entities. He even buried a million bucks in his back yard. Gonzales faces nearly 40 years in jail, but will probably serve much of his sentences concurrently.

Leo says that while Gonzales’ actions were criminal, he hopes that this lesson is learned for companies like Boston Market, 7–11 and TJ Maxx to secure their wireless network.

Sega Dreamcast 10th anniversary

Happy Birthday to Sega Dreamcast. A cool gaming platform that just couldn’t compete with Sony’s Playstation. It had 480p, which no one had back then. Sonic the Hedgehog. Brings back memories of Colecovision, Intellevision, Atari 2600. Good times.

Steve Jobs Returns

Steve Jobs returned to the stage this week to announce new iPod Nanos (with Video recording) and updates to the iTunes Music Store. He took time to thank and pitch organ donation. Classy. The iPod Nany now has a video camera, but sadly, not camera for it’s major iPod, the iPod Touch, which Jobs claims makes a better gaming platform. Leo wonders if this is a mistake because the new Zune HD looks to be a major competitor.

Did Steve Jobs lie to David Pogue at the New York Times? Leo says at the very least, he spun things in a major way. Jobs claimed he never intended to put a camera into the Touch, saying they’re keeping the price low for a gaming platform. Leo suspects that’s not altogether accurate. There’s too much evidence out there including a tear down of the new Touch which shows space for a camera. Maybe the rumors of chip issues are true. Leo’s betting we’ll see a new Touch with a video camera in the near future.

And no Beatles! Apparently, the sticking point is EMI, which strikes Leo as being the last holdout music company that just doesn’t get it.

Guests

Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine

Scott is live from CEDIA today. Leo wants to get a new stereo receiver. Should he worry about SACD or DVD Audio if he only uses two speakers? Scott says you can still enjoy it as many receivers will down mix the extra channels and still give you fine quality audio.

The Oppo BDP83 plays SACD and DVD Audio and also has Wifi. Pretty cool.

Now, CEDIA. It’s in Atlanta this year. And though attendance is way down this year, there’s a ton of stuff to cover. One thing is a new Project ETAP media center from Pioneer. It has a feature called “managed copy,” which allows users to make a copy of their DVD for their own personal use. Leo says that some movies come with digital copies for iPod, etc. Lower quality. Scott says it’s not that. This is high quality, which uses Blowfish encryption to prevent widespread pirating while still allowing for personal copies. In fact, Pioneer is talking to Carbonite about having online backup of movies! It also has online shopping options. Auto Social Networking. Very cool. But it probably won’t be available until after CES next year.

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Hour 1

Q Craig, Redondo Beach, CA - Blu-ray recommendation

Craig has a Toshiba 50″ Plasma HDTV. Does he need a specific Blu-ray that upconverts his standard def TV? Leo says the TV will do a good job of upconverting. And since the Blu-ray will convert, you could try it both ways and see which does the best job. Leo recommends spending another $100 and getting the Sony PS3 Slim. That way, you not only get the Blu-ray player, but the gaming console to boot. Craig was also concerned because salesmen tell him that Plasma’s don’t do well with video gaming. Leo says not true. Plasma’s have a nearly instantaneous response time - which is ideal for gaming. You will need to keep it in a dark room because they are very reflective, but not to worry about response times. You will want to be careful of burn in, so don’t leave the game on.

Scott Wilkinson agrees. Plasma is much faster than LCDs in response times, but if you leave the game on for a long time (days) the static will create a burn in issue. Scott also agrees that sometimes the TV will do better upconverting DVDs. Set your Blu-ray player to 480p (un-upscaled) and then to 1080p and see which one looks better on the TV. There’s no right answer, so you have to use trial and error.

Another Blu-ray player Scott likes is the Oppo BDP83. It’s not cheap at $500, but it can play SACD and DVD Audio.

What about letter boxing? Leo says you don’t want to compensate for wide screen as it will distort the image, either cutting off edges, zooming in, etc. It’ll compromise the quality of the movie.

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Hour 2

Q Zac, Orange County, CA - Facebook safe for kids?

Zac wants to know what Leo thinks about Facebook being safe for kids. President Obama said people should pay attention to what they do online because when you go find a job, it will follow you. And then there’s a safety and privacy issue. People have been known to find out things not only about you, but also your friends - Facebook has that law of unintended consequences. Make sure your privacy settings are such as only your friends can see what you do. Only friend those you know in real life. And don’t post personal stuff about where you live, what school you go to, etc. Just be cautious and you’ll be okay.

Visit ConnectSafely.org and safeteens.com

Q Jathan, Seattle, WA - Virtual networking on the iPhone

Jathan uses Mocha VNC along with RDP on his iPhone to remotely access Windows. But there’s a few things he can’t do. He wants to VPN without restrictions, but not lose speed connectivity. Leo says that’s tricky. RDP has a few clever hacks that speeds it up. You could try VNSEA, but you have to jailbreak it to use.

Q Kevin, Los Angeles, CA - Midrange wireless headphone recommendation

Leo likes the MotoRokr S9. They take getting used to. There’s also the S805. They seem to get good reciews. From the chatroom, Sony DRBT22, replaced by the DRBT101. Coleen uses a Sony model. Other option, Jabra Halo. Very lightweight and cool.

Q Phillipe, San Diego - Snow Leopard

Philippe likes Snow Leopard because he can now annotate PDFs. Leo says that’s a great feature. But is it enough to compel an upgrade for most? Well, only if you really need that feature and will put up with the hassle of things that are breaking. Apple is fixing it - they released an update this week. But is it really ready for prime time? Not yet.

Phillipe is using YouTube and mispelled his user account. How to fix it? Leo says you can’t really. You may have to delete it and then wait 90 days until it’s freed up and take your chances. Sorry, Phillipe.

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Hour 3

Q Ryan, Warroad, MN - Stop Motion Animation

Ryan has a son who wants to get into stop motion animation with Lego’s. Leo says that Brickfilms.com is a great place to visit for tutorials and reviews on software. If he has a mac, iStop Motion by Boinx is a great one, Alex Lindsay recommends it. On PC, check out Animator DV and Stop Motion Station. But you can also download Virtual Dub for free and it’ll take a folder filled with images and turn it into an animated clip that you can alter the frame rate for.

Q Ray, Irvine, CA - CAD problems

Ray has AutoCad and SolidWorks running on his Acer and it crashes a bunch. Leo suspects the video card isn’t up to snuf. Video cards for laptops are always less powerful. AMD Athlon processors are just not as efficient as Intel and it may be that the processor, coupled with an inferior GPU is causing your Acer to run out of gas. Will freeing up virtual memory help by making a dedicated swap file? Not really, maybe some benefit, but don’t spend a lot of effort on that. Leo says that Windows ReadyBoost may help speed up the cache, but you need REALLY fast flash memory for it to work. Putting a flash drive in your laptop wouldn’t be cheap, but it could make the difference.

Q Sarah, Mancato, IL - Updating Snow Leopard

Sarah has lost some of her old MacBook system files while migrating to her new MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard and isn’t getting full functionality. Leo says the Mac Migration Assistant runs really well. It’ll migrate everything from your old Mac to your new Mac. But Leo says the real problem is that you’re not really seeing anything different. Right click on the folder and you’ll see the stack setting under displays, and view content. Also, in Snow Leopard, things are rearranged, so you may not have a downloads folder. Look in your home button and you may find it there. You can drag and drop them onto your sidebar with no problem. You can turn your old macbook into a hard drive using “Target Disc Mode” and copy everything in your home folder over. That’ll give you your data, file settings, etc. You can also copy over your applications folder and it’ll reinstall them just fine.

Q Ralph, Mission Viejo, CA - Hotmail trouble

Ralph can’t get into Hotmail. Can’t even log onto MSN. Used three different machines. Try Live.Com, where you can log in using your MSN credentials. It’s possible your Hotmail account was deleted. Leo thinks that most likely, the router is blocking the page. Reset it, look for a firmware update and install.

Q Judith, Long Beach, CA - updating an old mac

Judith runs OS9 because of a program she uses. Is there an equivalent program that will allow her to upgrade to a new computer using OSX? Leo says you can export a database into a transport format which you can then import into something new. Filemaker has an afford utility called Bento, or it’s big brother File Maker Pro. Both will work and you can try before you buy. There’s also Open Office which will work and it’s completely free.

See you tomorrow!

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