Leo Laporte
The Tech Guy
2–5p ET Sat & Sun
- Home
- Saturday Show
- Sunday Show
- Past Shows
- Audio Archives
- Stations
- Chat
- Watch Live
- Forums
- Tips
- FAQ
- Glossary
- Contact Leo
Sponsors
- Angie’s List
- Carbonite
- DSLExtreme
- ESET NOD32 Antivirus
- GoToAssist
- GoToMeeting
- GoToMyPC
- Make It Work
- Stamps.com
Leo Links
 |
For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
|
|
Saturday December 12, 2009
Show Audio
|
Edited Audio | |
|
Posted one week after broadcast… | |
Tech News
Police drop charges on alleged pirate party goer
Police have dropped all charges against 22 year old Samantha Tumpac, who was arrested after her camcorder inadvertently picked up a few frames of Twilight: New Moon at a birthday party being held at the movie theater. Even the director of the film thought it was stupid and the producers of New Moon demanded all charges be dropped. A happy ending (considering Samantha wrongly spent two nights in jail), but Leo thinks this is an outrageous way for the movie industry to treat their customers. Yes, there’s piracy, yes, people sneak camcorders into movie theaters (even though most pirated copies are believed to be an inside job), but this wasn’t that.
The MPAA has complained for years that online video piracy costs the industry billions a year. If that’s so, then why do recent reports show that the Motion Picture Industry made more money this year than it’s over 100 year history?
Apple buys lala.com for a song
Apple bought popular online music site lala.com for around $70 million dollars. The site, which offered unlimited online replays for .10 a song or downloads for .89 each, but according to industry insiders, Apple has no plans to continue the service as it is.
MIT wins DARPA Balloon Challenge
Team MIT found every balloon in the Darpa Balloon Challenge in 9 hours using a concept called “crowd sourcing” to win the DARPA Balloon Challenge. Offering a financial incentive of $2,000 for each found balloon, MIT shared the DARPA Challenge prize 50/50 with those who found all the balloons. Cool!
Leo reviews the Nokia N900
Leo got a Nokia N900, which runs a new OS called MeeMo. Has a great 5MP camera that shoots both video and stills. The screen has an 800×480 screen. Very high resolution. Real slide up keyboard. A Mozilla based browser, which plays flash. The touch screen is “resistive,” so you have to use a stylus. But it’s very flexible and uses applications as well (though not nearly as many at this point). Leo’s not sure he’d recommend it at this point as it’s for the power user who likes to tinker with Linux, etc.
And because it comes unlocked and unsubsidized, there’s no carrier which supports it (although you can use it on AT&T and TMobile). Leo likes it, says it’s like having a little computer in your pocket. So you can use it not only with multiple carriers, but you can do thinks like tether, use Skype, the works.
Leo’s going to CES, will broadcast live
Thanks to an amazing broadcast box that Colleen has built, Leo will be able to broadcast/stream live with HQ Skype video, and it all fits in a backpack! Leo’s excited since he hasn’t been there in a few years and being able to stream live with parties, the show floor, the works. Should be a fun experiment.
Guests
Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine
Scott just got back from Korea where he visited the top secret Home Theater labs at Samsung. Much of what Scott saw were products that Samsung will be announcing at CES, so naturally, he can’t talk about it until then. But he can say this … they are going to be coming out with some amazing stuff which is going to rock the industry. Scott can say this … Samsung is strongly committed to LED illumination for their TV lines.
Scott says the facilities at Samsung are massive. So much so that they had to travel by helicopter from one building to another. And they’re building more. And with apartments for workers right there, it’s a city unto itself.
Scott will be playing in the Tuba Christmas concert at Disneyland this Tuesday at 2PM if you want to check him out.
Hour 1
Q Dave, Vacaville, CA - Why no digital copies on Zune?
Dave wants to know why Microsoft won’t allow to install digital copies of movies on the Zune HD? The current fad in the Hollywood is to include a digital copy of the film on the DVD/Blu-ray disc you buy. But they can’t be installed on the Zune HD. Leo says that plays right in to the attitude by the MPAA that their customers are all crooks. And the Zune in particular has it’s own proprietary copy protection which prohibits it (which is ironic considering that PLAYS FOR SURE is a Microsoft product!).
The result? Dave has announced he’s dumping the Zune and getting a new iPod Touch. It easily uploads the digital copy.
Q Michelle, Los Angeles, CA - Excel on the Mac
Michelle has a friend who’s using Office on the MAC and wants to transfer spreadsheets to his pocketPC PDA. Leo has a hunch that the SD card he’s using is formatted for the MAC, not FAT32. Format the card in the PocketPC device to FAT32 and that should work. He could also try saving it to another Excel format as Windows Mobile may not be able to read it. And synching can be done using MarkSpace.com’s Missing Sync, which will allow it to sync the Windows Mobile with the Mac. Another great app is Documents to Go.
Hour 2
Q Tim, Huntington, WV - the Nook
What does Leo think of the new Barnes and Noble Nook eBook reader? Leo says that it’s not out yet (Feb 1), and many of their Barnes and Noble books are free from Google. Most of the better books are available through Amazon at this point. It has eInk like the Kindle, battery life is excellent. Same WiFi capability. At this point, if you’re looking to buy, the Kindle 2 is the better deal.
Q Susan, San Fernando, CA - NTSC - PAL tapes capture
Susan has some PAL tapes that she needs to convert. Where can she? Leo says there are many places that offer the service (Leo recommends Legacy Digital), but you can buy a multi-system VCR, or even a PAL VCR on eBay and capture the video into your PC.
Q Larry, San Francisco, CA - Dead monitor
Larry got a new Video card and his monitor died. He was playing WoW and suddenly, it went black. Did the card do it? Leo says the refresh rate could be set that could blow the monitor, but it’s unlikely. It could be a power supply issues. New cards are very demanding power wise. Corsair and PC Power and Cooling is where Leo recommends to boost your power supply. But it may also be that the video card is flakey. It may also be the video cable. But a bad video card can easily short out and kill a monitor.
Q Dr. Mom, New York, NY - Windows 7 UPC issue
Dr. Mom had a power surge that caused the monitor to stay on and the PC to “trip.” Her Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) should’ve handled that, shouldn’t it? Leo says yes, and he has a hunch her UPS has gone bad. Leo recommends APC and Tripp Lite.
Q Lott, Ft. Lauderdale, FL - WinTV and Windows Media Center
Lott got a WinTV card from Hauppage, but he only gets the main digital channels, not the secondary channels even though it supports QUAM. Leo says he’s noticed that. It works with their software, but not with Windows Media Center. Leo says that when broadcasters went digital, much of the software was slow to keep up and needs to be updated. It’s likely that Microsoft needs to update WMC. Keep scanning. Maybe even update to Windows 7. That could help.
Leo found a tech note that in Vista, Windows isn’t supporting subchannels. The Chatroom says you need to update it manually and insert the sub channels. That’s crazy!
Hour 3
Q Julie, Riverside, CA - Buyin’ a Mac
What’s the difference between the MacBook and MacBook Pro? Leo says he likes the MacBook, but it is a little slower. One advantage is that it comes with a polycarbonate case which is extremely durable. Ideal for college. 13″ screen. He’d double the RAM though. The MacBook Pro has a more powerful processor. In the end, there really isn’t that much difference between the chasis’. For a student, the MacBook is ideal unless you need more real estate in the screen. Get a MacBook.
Q Christopher, Canton, OH - WiFi Speed on the road
Christopher is a truck driver and he uses WiFi on the road. But it’s so slow. Leo says that’s usually because there’s too many truckers sharing the load. You could try an EVDO card like the MiFi, which will give you far faster speed because you’re not sharing it with a couple hundred others at the truck stop.
Christopher also wants to know about TV signals on the road. Leo suggests going to AntennaWeb.org and looking at the antenna’s they recommend for the areas you frequent.
Q Joanne, Los Angeles, CA - A new laptop
Joanne has a two year old computer running “Incredimail,” which she doesn’t care for. She wants to get a laptop running Windows 7. Recommendations? Leo says you can upgrade Windows 7 her existing computer. Leo doesn’t recommend it because it can make the computer less reliable and prone to crashing, but it can be done if done correctly. Additionally, Leo doens’t like Incredimail for a wide variety of reasons.
Getting a new laptop, Leo recommends Windows 7 and you can copy some data over to the new computer, and says that a Netbook may be ideal for what Joanne is doing. A little larger, and more expensive, is the Samsung NC20. Larger screen and almost a full size keyboard. Leo has one and really likes it.
Will a laptop be compatible with email, Facebook, Farmtown, etc? Absolutely! Add a WiFi router to your whole setup and you’ll have a network for both computers.
Q Gene, Tulari, CA - what to do with a box of floppies
Gene found a box of 5/14″ floppies. Can he get an old drive and put it into a modern system? Leo says that new motherboards don’t have floppy drive connectors. Leo says if you can find a USB floppy drive that reads 5 1/4″ floppies or an external drive. In the chatroom, Raymond is saying that Tiger Direct may offer it. eBay is probably your best bet. The Chatroom also come across a way to make a USB 5 1/4″ drive. Great challenge, though.
Q Don, Walnut, CA - Compacting email in Outlook
Don is running Windows 7 64 bit and Office 2007. He’s cleared out tons of his email messages and then re-compacted his Outlook file. Then it’s the same size! What can he do to lower that size? Isn’t it to be smaller? Leo recommends turning on Automatic Archiving and Compacting. That’ll probably make it smaller over time. Microsoft really made a bonehead move making email into one main file. That’s just corruption waiting to happen. Windows may also be mis-reporting the file size. Leo recommend exporting everything into a new PST file and then importing it back into Outlook. That could make it smaller to boot.
See you tomorrow!
