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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday November 29, 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
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Posted one week after broadcast… | |
Tech News
Leo’s daughter to give a speech on technology
Leo says his daughter Abby is going to be giving a speech on technology through the eyes of young people. Should be quite an interesting speech.
Cyber Monday is tomorrow, but is it really that big a deal?
Cyber Monday deals are coming tomorrow. But Leo thinks it’s made up by journalists hunting for a story. There’s no real evidence that Cyber Monday gets more sales than Black Friday.
Hour 1
Q Chris, Los Angeles, Ca - Syncing podcasts through Windows Media
Chris likes podcasts but thinks that using Windows Media is a hassle for listening to them. Leo agrees. You can sync using the Zune store if you have enjoy the Zune. For other mp3 players You can right click on the podcast after it starts and save as an mp3. Then sync it to your device in WMP. If you have a device that works with MediaFly, you can install a podcast catcher that syncs to an Android Phone.
What about stops and starts? Leo says that happens when there’s a lot of people listening online. But it’s getting better as bandwidth gets less expensive.
Q Earl, Huntington Beach, CA - backing up photos on CD
Earl is having trouble backing up his photos and data on CD. Leo says backing up through multiple CDs is called “spanning,” and the problem with them is that if one CD is bad, the entire backup is shot. Leo says that external hard drives are cheap enough that it’s worth investing in one to use as your backup.
What about making a slide show of pictures on CD to watch on the TV? Leo says backup programs can’t do that. Leo says to restrict backups to events. Take a chunk of them and burn them to CD. Picasa can do it (it’s free). Corel’s (formerly ULead) Movie Factory, Adobe Photoshop Album, Lightroom, Apple Aperture, even iPhoto will export that way. They can organize according to events and help you to organize them and burn to CD. But don’t let you CD be your only backed up option. CD will fail over time and considering it’s your entire family history, you need to have multiple archival copies. And huge hard drives are good for that. Using muliple hard drive means you can rotate them as well. There’s also Carbonite, Windows SkyDrive, and even Flickr.
If you want to read up on the world of “digital asset management,” there are two great sources: this article by Derrick Story, and The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers by Peter Krogh.
Hour 2
Q Victor, Carlsbad, CA - HD Video consistency
Victor is using his Canon 5D Mk. II to shoot video. He loves it, but he’s having trouble maintaining 1080p in iDVD. Leo says that iDVD doesn’t support it with DVD burning. You can burn a 1080p video file on a DVD, but some DVD players won’t support it. You really need to bite the bullet and start burning Blu-ray. Victor does have some success using his Apple TV to watch his video, even though it’s 720p. Leo says that most of the time, 1080p isn’t played back at 1080p. It’s simply too much information to play back progressively. And 720p still looks pretty great.
Leo says that Alex Lindsay imports 1080p at 540p. You get about 90% of the resolution at half the file size, which your computer will thank you for. And Blu-ray players are pretty cheap these days, under $150. Media costs? The Chatroom says Blu-ray discs are pretty expensive at about $17 each, more for dual layer. No wonder Steve Jobs calls Blu-ray a “bag of hurt.” And with HDCP copy protection required for Blu-ray, it’s another reason why you won’t see Apple supporting Blu-ray any time soon.
Q Bill, Roseville, CA - Website marketing
Bill has a site for couples and singles. He’d like to get the word out more. Leo says trying to get a site to go viral is a challenge. It’s like you won’t be popular until you’re popular. Even Facebook had that trouble until one day they “caught lightening in the bottle.” Adding features to keep the site fresh and addictive helps. This is how Facebook does it. Creating the network affect is what Facebook was able to do. And ultimately, Facebook is your main competitor, along with Linked In. And MySpace is pretty dead now thanks to the 800 lb. gorilla named Facebook. This makes it harder to start out. Leo suggests narrowing your focus. Find the niche and you’ll do well.
Q Sylvia, San Pedro, CA - Cursor trouble
Sylvia’s mouse is possessed! Sometimes it runs over to the side and doesn’t work anymore unless she reboots. Leo says a failed or pending Windows update which may be causing the issue. Leo says that a Service Pack should’ve solved the issue. But if your SP didn’t install properly, Leo has a hunch that something has co-opted the system and you’re going to need to backup your data, format your hard drive, and reinstall your O.S. The unknown benefit here is that once you do this, your computer will be cleaned up and run just like the day you bought it.
Q Don, Columbia City, OR - Upgrading to Windows 7
Don is installing Windows 7, but Windows won’t let him because he’s running Vista. Leo says always choose “custom.” This will allow you to remove the Windows partition and then wipe it. Look under the “advanced options.” Select the unused space and it’ll install Windows 7.
Q Nicki, Lancaster, CA - Laptop Power issues
Nicki’s HP Pavillion 6000 laptop is having sound and power issues. Leo has a hunch there’s a short circuit in there which is causing issues for you. Could be a quick fix. So send it in right away before it gets worse.
Hour 3
Q Edward, Tejunga, CA - recovering files from a dead laptop
Edward wants to recover some files from a dead laptop with a broken power connector. Leo says that the power connector is usually connected to a motherboard. The manufacturer reqires a motherboard replacement. But if you can find a local guy who’s willing to solder the power connector, you’re back in business. But you can also get a USB Universal drive adapter and it’ll connect your laptop hard drive to your PC making it a secondary drive for your other laptop.
Q Juan, Sherman Oaks, CA - Backing up and synching data
Juana is a teacher and he needs to backup and synch data from one computer to another from a USB thumbdrive. How does he do that? Leo says what you want is a folder synchronization utility. Microsoft’s Sync Toy is a great, free, option. Sync Toy will copy over more recent files to your computer. Fantastic for data backup, syncing music and photo collections. It’s a great utility. Another option is Second Copy by Centered.
Q John, Wisconsin - still/camcorder options
John wants an all in one solution for shooting digital stills and video. The good news is you can get a great camera for under a $150. But even for the best you can get under $1000. Leo says that it all depends on what’s more important. All still cameras shoot decent video these days, even to the point where he doesn’t even recommend video cameras much anymore. In General, Kodak makes the easiest to use cameras. Big buttons, simple to operate. Leo loves the Canon Powershot/IXUS lines. But understand that the smaller the camera, the smaller the chip, the more marginal the low light performance. Going more serious (between $400–700), Panasonic’s GH1, micro 4/3′s camera (think of it as a point and shoot with removable lenses). But they aren’t cheap. It also does 1080p HD video. But at that price range, probably a better option is the Canon EOS T1i. Excellent DSLR camera that also takes amazing 1080p HD video.
Q iDoc Mark - What’s your favorite chip?
Fact is, Intel owns the industry now. AMD is still around and acts as a foil, but Intel has really surged ahead now and are easily the best, most aggressively priced chips on the market.
What’s the difference between patents and copyrights? Both copyright and patent law came from our founding fathers who felt the owners get to control what they create for a period of time and then the world should inherit it. But in copyright, Disney laws have managed to lobby Congress to extend copyright law. If you want to learn more about it, check out Larry Lessig’s site.
Q Gabby, Santa Rosa, CA - Video file formats
Gabby got a new Canon Digital Photo Frame. Although it was expensive, he likes it because it plays audio. The problem is that his Canon camera saves in .MOV (quicktime) format, while his frame plays MPEG files. Leo says there are many utilities that will encode it, but Leo says the best is to spend $30 and buy Quicktime Pro. It’s really worth having for doing just what you need. Choose MP4 as it’s far better quality.
Gabby also got a 27″ iMac this week, and was told he could hook up his DirecTV box to it. But it doesn’t work. Leo says the video in isn’t compatible for using as a TV set. Leo says it’s possible to do, but you need to do some research on how to make it work.
Have a great Geek week! And don’t forget to backup!
