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Sunday 13 September 2009

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Edited Audio

Posted one week after broadcast…

Tech News

Apple’s New iPods, what do you think?

Leo thought the Apple Press was fairly typical. Everyone was hoping for an announcement of the Beatles coming to iTunes (9–9−09, of course), but EMI nipped that in the bud. They don’t get it.

Surprises, no new iPod Touch with a video camera, but the iPod Nano has one, along with an FM Radio! Leo thinks that Apple is aiming square at the Flip Mino market, with more storage, mp3 player, radio AND the video camera. Quality isn’t better than the Mino, but it’s good enough for the web.

Steve Jobs told the Times that the iPod Touch is a better gaming machine and adding a camera would make it too expensive. But if that’s true, why is there room in the Touch for a camera? Rumors are that there’s a chip issue delaying it. Leo’s pretty sure we’ll see an iPod Touch with a video camera by Christmas or shortly thereafter, though probably not as good as the one in the iPhone.

Zune HD coming tomorrow!

The new Zune HD is coming out Monday, replacing all Zune product lines. OLED screen, HD Video. Another cool thing that the Zune will have is HD FM radio, which will sound amazing. Apple dropped their prices preemptively, and they added a radio in the Nano to go up against the Zune HD. But what’s up with no AM?!

New Canon 7D Out with amazing video

Canon’s new 7D DSLR takes what the 5D Mark II did for video and moves it to a mid-range level. 18MP, 1080P HD video. Nice camera.

NYTimes.Com getting unauthorized popups today

The Media and marketing division is aware of this and recommends that if you see this popup, to close out your brower and restart it. Leo says that should happen with ANY unauthorized pop-up as it’s no doubt malware.

Microsoft Employees - don’t take a picture of the boss with an iPhone

Steve Ballmer confiscated an iPhone from a Microsoft Employee and threatened to destroy it right there. Then later, Ballmer teased the guy over using the iPhone.

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Hour 1

Q Ray, Glendale, CA - Netgear’s new Homeplug Powerline kit

Ray is looking to get the new Netgear powerling netkit. Leo says powerline kits have been around for awhile, but they were slow and the signal wasn’t that great. But it has improved greatly. Is it worth getting? Leo still prefers WiFi. It’s probably as fast. But it doesn’t replace your ISP. It uses your powerlines to replace ethernet cables and some have more problems than others. It largely depends on how good your electrical is. And it’s not broadband over your powerlines. It’s just using your wiring instead of ethernet. Check out more at homeplug.org But it’s not Leo’s first choice.

Q Dave, San Francisco, CA - Saving Desktop icons

Dave loses his desktop icon positions every time he does and driver update. Leo says that’s the part of the update beast and it’s very frustrating. There’s a few programs you may be use including ICONOID.

“theundecided” in our chatroom recommends a utility called “FENCES.” It’s free, and allows you to draw labeled containers for your icons, pretty cool. But it can drag your system some.

“J5_JHallgren” in the chatroom also recommended a great site called Alternativeto.net which provides alternatives to popular applications and users can also vote on what works best.

Q Eddie, Los Angeles, CA - Canon EOS 7D thoughts

Eddie grew up with 35mm SLRs. Now he’s debating to make the switch to digital with the 7D or the 5D Mark II. Leo says you want to get a full frame censor if you can afford it. The 7D doesn’t have a full frame. So that leaves the 5D Mark II, which is obviously more expensive. A full frame gives you more light and sharper, more deep colors. And the 1080P HD video on the 5D is spectacular. But the 7D is still a nice rig.

Q Angela, Nova Scotia, CAN - Got her iPhone 3Gs

Angela finally got her Apple iPhone 3Gs and loves it. But being in Canada, she had to pay a pretty penny for it, as well as her Rogers Cell Phone Service.

Q Eduardo, Los Angeles, CA - bad laptop screen

Eduardo has a laptop that sat idle for awhile and now he gets no image on his screen. He replaced the screen, but that didn’t work. Leo says it could easily just be a Windows issue. He recommends getting a Linux Boot Disk. It’ll run an OS from your CD drive and you see the display, you know it’s Windows. If not, then you know it’s hardware. Backlight could’ve burned out, but you can still see a “ghostly image.” The ribbon that connects the screen to the laptop could be frayed, so if you replace the screen, replace the ribbon. And it could also just be a damaged video card. If that’s gone, it’s unreplaceable.

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Hour 2

Q Bob, Massachusets - Recovering cell phone data

Bob has a Nokia 6682 Cell phone and he dropped it in the sink. Now it won’t power on. How can he recover the data? The data may be stored on the SIM chip - which would be recoverable. But if it’s on the main phone board, it’ll be unrecoverable. One thing you can try is take the phone and put it in a ziplock bag with a cup of uncooked rice. in a few days, he should be able to power it up.

Q Pat, CA - Cheap desktop recommendation

Pat wants a cheap desktop computer but is worried about internet performance. Leo said that while a tad slow, Atom processor desktops use very little energy. They will work fine for simple surfing, but don’t be planning on watching video full screen. It’ll choke almost immediately. Music, audio, no problem. But you have to understand the limitations of the platform. The Atom processor computer can’t be sold with more than 1GB of RAM. You can boost it yourself, but Intel doesn’t let them be sold with just a GB.

Is AMD as good as Intel? AMD has done a great job competing with Intel and keeping them innovating. But the race is essentially over and AMD didn’t win it. But it still performs a valuable place as a competitor.

Q Santiago, San Francisco, CA - Connecting hard drive to network

Santiago has a Mac network using Airport Extreme. He wants to connect a hard drive to it so he can access it from all over his network. Does it have to be formatted FAT32? Leo says only if you are planning to connect that hard drive directly to the computer. But if just over the network, it doesn’t matter what it’s formatted to. Santiago complains that the hard drive does time out with large files. Leo says that can happen when saving or copying large files over wireless. The signal can come and go and that can choke the copy process.

Q Michael, Los Angeles, CA - updating from ME

Michael’s wife has a Sony Vaio running ME. Can she run things online? Leo says don’t! ME hasn’t been updated in a long time and it’ll almost certainly be infected if you go online with it. Leo says you could run Linux on it. Leo says that if she needs to go online, why not just get her a new Netbook? Cheaper, faster, more secure.

Q David, Boston, MA - NY Times pop-up warnings

David is concerned about these pop-up warnings. How can you avoid them altogether? Is there something on his computer? Leo says that if it shows up before you launch the browser, then something is on your computer. But if you go to a site, then it’s from that site. Leo says that popups happening before you open the browser means you should be running your AVS scan to get it off. Run Windows Update religiously. Follow Leo’s Six Rules for Safe Computing. And run the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool Start. Run, type MRT, enter. Let it run. This will clean stuff off. Then get Nod32 as your AVS. Leo uses it, but it is a sponsor. Still, they’re great.

But in the end, if your system is compromised, they will invite others as well. It’s probably just best to backup your data and then wipe the hard drive and reinstall from a knownm, good source.

Q Mike, Glendale, CA - wire open networks

Mike is stunned by how many wide open wireless networks are out there. It’s usually easy to find with the ID “Linksys.” Leo says he calls it “borrowing a cup of WiFi.” But how to secure it? WEP? WPA? MAC? Leo says that mac address filtering isn’t really security. Every packet has your mac address, so what’s the point? So avoid MAC. WEP was cracked in about 30 seconds because of a fundamental error. The only one that works is WPA encryption.

Mike also wants to know if you can run system restore if you get infected. Leo says it can, but these days hackers are very sophisticated and turn off access to system restore. So it’s rather a moot point.

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Hour 3

Q Robert, Chicago, IL - iPhoto library error

Robert is getting an unreadable library error in iPhoto. Leo says file corruption is the culprit here. In the most recent version of iPhoto, they make a single, massive furball of a file with photos in it … sort of. It’s actually many files disguised as a single file. Find the file, and CTRL Click select “Show file contents.” Look for the “originals” file. With luck, the database is damaged and not your originals. Copy both the Originals and Modified folders to a thumb drive and you would have saved your photos. Then, if you open iPhoto with the option key - it’ll create a new iPhoto library for you. Then move the originals and modifed folders back in there. Watch your hard disk carefully for awhile as it could be starting to fail. And Backup! Backup! Backup!

Q Christian, CA - Re-building her old PC

Christian wants to rebuild an old computer so she can play with some other home brew op systems. Leo says it may be a bit problematic to get a motherboard for an old processor, so you may have to replace the processor as well. And then comes the RAM, video card or hard drive. May as well just build a new computer from scratch. And that’s not as cheap as just buying a new one. But that may not matter to Christian since she loves to tinker.

Q Jessie, Novato, CA - Updating from XP to Win7 or “The Switch?”

Jessie thinks that upgrading from XP to Win7 may be more problematic. Should he just make “The Switch,” to MAC? Leo says they’re going to be about the same. XP to Win 7 isn’t that big a leap though. There’s a few differences from Windows to Mac that take getting used to. Button location, browser menu attachment, etc. But there’s many similarities as well. But Leo thinks the differences between Mac and PC is really overplayed now. And you can get cheaper PCs, much cheaper.

Q Marsha, Brea, CA - Website disappeared

Marsha’s site disappeared, but is in “redemptive mode.” Her ISP Host won’t return her calls or emails. Leo says that it’s possible that the registration was done with Marsha’s son’s email and it’s coming where you expect because they will only respond to email of record. But if that’s not it, then it may be so small an organization that they don’t really offer quality support. If they don’t respond, you may be out of luck. Try going to the domain registration company and tell them that your host has failed and see if they can help get control of your domain from the registrar and get your site back.

Q Darryl, FL - Burning XVid to DVD

Darryl wants to convert and XVid video so he can burn it to DVD. XVid is an open source version of Divx and it’s a great encoder for keeping the space down. It’s very popular. It’s a “broken” variant of H.264 via Divx. The issue is you have to have an xVid codec installed. And then re-encode it to MPEG2 to burn to DVD. Leo suggests iMtoo’s converter. It’ll read and convert just about anything. $15. VLC may also be able to do it. The Chatroom says Total Video Converter. “Super” from erightsoft.com (thanks Fred).

Q Jedson, CA - BSoD problems

Jedson is getting the dreaded blue screen of death. Leo says BSoDs only really occur now if it’s a serious crash. It may be a driver crash or that Windows is corrupting causing the crash. Rather than try and troubleshoot, it’s much easier to just backup your data and reinstall.

Q Maria, Chatsworth, CA - Screen icon sizes

Maria’s computer runs XP Pro, but her windows are over sized with HUGE icons! Leo says the screen resolution has been changed, making everything really large. Leo recommends Maria get a “youngin” to help her reset the screen. Leo says that Make It Work can come in and fix it lickity split. And they’re very trustworthy. 877-MAKEITWORK.

Q Mark, Irvine, CA - Imaging

Mark made an image of his hard drive onto his secondary hard drive. Leo says it’s fairly easy to restore that image once you get a new primary drive.

Have a great geek week … and don’t forget to BACK UP!

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