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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday 27 September 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
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Posted one week after broadcast… | |
Tech News
AT&T Opens up MMS on the iPhone, still not Tethering
AT&T brings SMS messaging to the iPhone and Leo says “welcome to the 21st century!” No word, however, when (or if) AT&T will open up the iPhone to tethering so that users can use their wireless Internet connection with their computer.
Facebook’s privacy not so private
Even though the perception is that Facebook members have privacy and that when users message each other, it’s in private, that may not be the case. In fact, often, people accidentally message each other on the public wall and don’t realize it.
Twitter Users Twice as receptive to advertising
The Wall Street Journal reports on a study that says Twitter users are twice as receptive to advertisers. This can be part of the reason that Twitter has been reported to be worth 1 BILLION Dollars!
Guests
Gabe Sunday, Actor, filmmaker - My Suicide
Local student Gabe Sunday is a filmmaker, editor, and star of an award winning movie called My Suicide - made completely digitally. Little did he know he’d win award after award and get David Carradine, Joe Montegna, and Mariel Hemingway on board to act in it.
Gabe plays a young high school student who decides to make a documentary of his suicide for a class project. What Gabe thinks is interesting is that for the first time ever, kids know more about communication in the world than their parents and the movie uses that. Leo agrees saying that the movie, while an anti-suicide movie, speaks directly to kids where they’re at.
The idea is, you can kill part of yourself, without actually killing yourself. Getting rid of what you don’t like, etc. It’s a pretty great message.
While starring in the movie and shooting the video portions, Gabe also edited and co-wrote the film. The beauty of today is that you no longer really need to go to Hollywood to make it big. With video, computers, and the Internet, filmmakers are now everywhere. Leo adds that this is the “YouTube” generations first film, speaking in a language and with a medium youth understand.
Check out My Suicide’s Facebook page as well.
Chris Marquardt - Tips from the Top Floor
Today, Chris is talking about a small button on your Camera that can help Depth of Field. Depth of field is the area in your image that is in focus. Shallow depth of field is a small, shallow area in focus, while landscapes tend to have rather wide depths of field. The camera will always show you a wide open image to you get the most light for pre-visualization, even if you’ve set it for a shallower depth of field. Today, most DSLRs have an aperture preview button which will show you how things will actually look depth of field wise so you can more accurately previsualize the shot. So look for that feature on your camera and experiment with it.
Hour 1
Q Andrew, Brisbane, AUS - Low bandwidth caps
Andrew called to talk about how low bandwidth caps are “down under.” He pays a company called Telstra $30 a month for 250MB a month down! Andrew also thinks that all required security updates shouldn’t be part of the limits. It seems that more Aussies are turning off updates to save bandwidth, making a security risk for the rest of us. Leo says that’s about as bad as it can be and is part of the Cable industry’s effort to prevent users from dumping their expensive cable TV in favor of watching TV online via sites like Hulu.
Q Chris, Florida - Future of the iPhone
Chris keeps hearing that the iPhone will be available with other carriers sometime soon. What’s the story? Leo says that Apple isn’t talking on that, though Verizon execs have leaked they’ll have the iPhone sometime next year.
Hour 2
Q Don, Florida - Internet connectivity “in the sticks”
Don live in a rural area of Florida where he can’t get anything other than satellite access - which costs a lot and can be darn slow. Leo says this is a huge problem, and that the US needs a “Tennessee Valley Authority” project to wire rural areas of the country. There’s $8 Billion in the stimulus package for ‘rural internetification.’ Only the feds can do it, since population densities in rural areas don’t make it cost effective for private industry to invest in.
Q Bill, Sacramento, CA - video conferencing
Bill wants to use video conferencing to keep in touch with his family. Leo says he’s tried them all and Skype is the best. Computer to computer is free, but for video you need at least 600kb a second up and 256 kb down to really pull it off. But Skype does a great job for video conferencing. It’ll work all over the world and you can even use it for regular phone calling too with Skype in/out (for a cheap fee, too).
Q James, California - Virus throwing him off-line
James can’t get online because of a computer virus. He keeps getting a popup “iframe” which goes to a site in Poland. Leo says that’s pretty typical and there’s probably more than just on virus infecting James’ computer. And also spyware, rootkits, and who knows what else? Leo says try running the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool, but with the issues James faces, it’s probably better to just backup his data and then format the hard drive and reinstall the OS from a known, good source. Then run Windows update until it’s completely updated. Then set it to automatically update Windows so you get every patch as exploits are found - and they will be.
James says he has a secondary hard drive where his data is. Leo suspects that viruses are living on a secondary partition or on his data drive. Leo recommends wiping out all partitions when you format. Also, go to an online scanner like Eset’s Online Scanner to get a second opinion.
Q Joan, Hollywood, CA - Fixing her computer
Joan has been using an old, DOS-based editor called VDE. She can’t get it to be read by any other program so she can upgrade. And she’s very techno-phobic. Leo says to check out Make It Work or the Geek Squad to come over and fix it. They will come to you and solve the issue. Leo also says that VDE has been kept up to date, so she could update that old program and use it on a new OS like XP or Vista. Hang in there, Joan.
Hour 3
Q Jim, Southern Ohio - Video camera recommendation
Jim got a Sony flash camera, but has no Firewire on it. That’s disappointing. Leo says that the new cameras that record to flash drives don’t need the bandwidth because it isn’t capturing video, it’s just copying a saved file from the card to the PC. But you need a camera that supports the format, AVCHD. Some software, like Pinnacle Studio 12 or Adobe Premiere Elements, can read the AVCHD video file natively. Leo prefers tape though for it’s archival advantages.
Q Steven, North Carolina - Coordinating Google Mail and iCal
Steven wants to know how he can sync and coordinate between Google Mail and iCal. Leo says that Snow Leopard’s iCal can take your Google Calendar information and sync it automatically. But Google Sync also works great with no additional software. Leo says also that in iTunes, turn off address book and calendar sync. Just use the Google sync and you’ll avoid duplication.
Q Grant, San Diego, CA - free ways to speed up his computer
Grant is hearing about a software firewall that can speed up his system performance. Leo isn’t much of a fan of software firewalls. If a hacker gets into your computer, they can punch a hole in that firewall and control it fairly easily. Leo says your router acts as a hardware firewall which is extremely effective and can’t be punched into. And since it’s outside your system, it doesn’t affect performance. Also, a lightweight AVS like Nod32 is great for protecting you from all the bad guys out there. What about CC Cleaner? Leo says it’s a registry cleaner and he’s not much of a fan of them because you can do more harm than good. Spybot Search and Destroy? Spybot works great, but is also “long in the tooth.” Windows Defender is far more up to date and will work better. Also, work Firefox. Faster and more secure browser than Internet Explorer.
Q Kip, Newberg, IND - Live video feed between two buildings
Kip’s church wants to link live video between two buildings. Can he do it? Leo says it’s depends on it’s speed. Kip says they have fiber optic. Leo says that’s pretty fast alright. Leo says you can get HD video over a 100MB network. Try testing it with VLC Media player by Videolan. Not only do they have a player client, but also Videolan Server, which runs video on a network. It’s all free, and not only between two buildings, but as many buildings as the bandwidth will support. You’ll need to connect and get the video into your PC, but it’s a great option that’s free!
Q Terry, Murrieta, CA - Apple Store
Terry was at the opening of the new Apple Store in Murrieta and was amazed by the line going around the block to go in. Leo says that’s amazing. It’s only a store. He likes the Apple employees who have hand held computers to help sell thinks directly from the floor so you don’t have to wait in line to buy something. Sweet!
Q Jim, El Monte, CA - Working virtually
Jim has a job which allows him to monitor work virtually but it’s Windows based software which doesn’t allow his iSight camera to operate. Leo recommends Roboto or uStream to record in flash and stream. Leo says it’ll work on just about anything that runs flash. If it doesn’t work, your Flash may be broken or out of date. There’s also a setting in flash to block flash streaming. R/C on any flash video and enable it. Try Firefox as well, as Explorer may be too limited.
That’s it gang, have a great geek week! And remember to backup. Backup. BACKUP!
