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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday December 19, 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
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Posted one week after broadcast… | |
Tech News
Avatar is the most expensive movie ever made
One day totals for Friday - $27 million ($3.5 for midnight shows alone). But according to insiders, Avatar needs to be the most successful film ever just to break even.
Google is active during a slow time
Usually, the holidays is fairly slow for technology and is largely due to CES coming next month (January). But Google is being very active with the new Google Nexus phone, plus acquisitions and Google Goggles!
Facebook catches heat for privacy changes
Facebook has gotten into trouble with members for changing their privacy settings and forcing them to go back into settings and reset them. Anyone who ignores this issue means that all personal data is PUBLIC! NOT COOL, Facebook! Complaints have been filed with the FTC claiming Facebook’s new settings violate federal law regarding privacy. Facebook’s response? They feel disappointed that these consumer groups didn’t talk to them first. REALLY FACEBOOK?!
Leo says it’s an illusion that there’s privacy on Facebook. Any game or quiz opens up not only your information, but your friends information as well. And Leo suggests people “scrub” their Facebook account and reset their privacy settings so that others can’t have access to private information.
Leo thinks that Facebook is suffering from Twitter-envy and it’s caused them to do things with their settings that are simply alienating their members.
Guests
Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine
Leo recently bought a 60″ Kuro for $3,000. Scott says if Leo can get it dialed in correctly, he got a great deal.
Scott saw Avatar and loved the technical acheivement. Says that while 3D doesn’t really add much to the film (though Leo thinks it’s interesting), but that the digital projected version is incredible. The CGI is so realistic, it’s amazing. The actors played the scene wearing motion capture suits and then applies the CGI characters over the movement. Looks incredibly realistic and the integration between live action and CGI is seemless. Very Photo-realistic.
But what’s disappointing is, the story is sorely lacking and while it’s a smash bang whiz fest with lots of explosions and amazing CGI, the story is unabashedly preachy and one dimensions. Rather like a video game plot, Leo observed. Scott agrees and suggests you bring ear plugs because it’s VERY loud.
Hour 1
Q Lynn, North Hollywood, CA - Adding music to video on Facebook
Lynn wants to add background music to a video. Leo says it’s rather tricky. Making a youtube video, there is technology in which will cause youtube to either put it down or add an ad to offer selling the song. On Flickr, they’ll just take it down, unless it’s private. On Facebook, it’s fairly closed and if you’re using it for private consumption and only exposing it to limited friends and family, you should be okay, but technically - it’s a copyright violation.
Q Mel, Tustin, CA - Windows 7 issue
Mel dual boots XP and Win 7. But when he starts to run Win 7, he gets a BSoD. Leo says it’s probably just a bad installation and Mel should just reinstall. But Mel said he’s done that more than once. Leo suggests running the Windows 7 compatibility checker on XP and his laptop to be sure. Mel also says an activation code he inputs is incorrect according to WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage). Leo suggests calling Microsoft on that one.
Q Theresa, Culver City, CA - changing webhosts
Theresa needs to transfer her website to a new host. She needs reliable email, eCommerce, Blogging, etc. Leo says that most companies support WordPress and email. Leo recommends an account on Gmail and have the website server redirect it to there. What’s the best host? There isn’t one, really. He does hear good things about Dream Hosts, Media Temple, and of course, Squarespace. But avoid the “$5 a month” guys. The support isn’t great and it’s usually a shared site.
Hour 2
Q Ryan, Winchester, CA - Vista SP2 issues
Ryan can’t get the computer to update to Vista SP2. It downloads, but won’t install. Leo says that there’s about 1–5% of users who simply can’t install it with their computer configurations. Especially, after awhile. There’s probably something on your system that is incompatible. It may also be a problematic download, so when you run the update, don’t run it on the fly. Download it as a standalone file and run it that way.
Would going to Windows 7 be a better idea? Leo says yes. But don’t just run the upgrade. Leo recommends backing up your data, wiping your hard drive and reinstalling Vista. Get the same version of Windows 7 as your Vista and when Windows prompts you, select upgrade. You can get the Windows 7 upgrade for $100 at NewEgg.com.
Q Chris, Los Angeles, CA - Wireless Bluetooth Stereo headsets for phones.
Motorolla has the S5 Rokr, which connects to an A2DP devices. There are many phones that support it. They are specifically designed to listening to audio. But you need both your headset and your phone to support A2DP to have it work.
Q George, Waltham, MA - Optical character recognition
George has sight trouble and needs a program that can read whatever he scans accurately. Leo says that Nuance is a choice, but it’s rather limited. Leo says that Omnipage and Paperport are the programs Nuance offers, and he’s mystified as to why they wouldn’t recommend them. The full version of Adobe Acrobat has OCR and Text to Speech support.
Q Roberta, Oklahoma City, OK - Slingbox and TVs
Roberta accidentally ran over her laptop and replaced it with a Mac. She likes to use her Slingbox and wants to know if she can use it off her computer and display it on her flatscreen? Leo says the easiest way is to use the Slingbox Slingcatcher.” Hook that up to the TV. You can figure out how to hook the computer up if you have a DVi-HDMI converter cable. You need to have your screens “mirrored” in the settings preference page. Make sure the settings of your TV are the same as your computer. That usually helps to sync the signal.
Hour 3
Q Mary, San Diego, CA - Gibberish on her computer
Mary suddenly gets “gibberish” while she’s writing a letter and has to reboot her computer to clear the error. She changed the keyboard and it still does it. That’s good news because that means it’s a software issue. Go into control panel and in regional/language options, advanced tab and make sure you’re using English, United States and the roman character option is checked. Then, the Language page, details and double check to make sure your keyboard settings are defined to use a US keyboard. It may be that the language file gets damaged when sitting in memory. If it persists, a reinstall of Windows may be necessary. Or, you just put up with it, which stinks, but could be less hassle.
Q Sal, Orange County - Plasma Recommendation
Sal wants a recommendation on a good, 50″ Plasma. Leo has both LCD and Plasma’s in that range and a plasma works best in a dark room. But if you have a room with ambient light, and LCD is a better choice. For a dark living room, and at night, there’s nothing better than a Plasma. Pioneer and Panasonic is making the best plasmas. Sadly, Pioneer is pulling out and you can get a great deal on a Kuro right now if you can find them. And Pioneer will still support it.
Sal also has a Mac Mini and every time he reboots or the mini goes to sleep, he has issues with his USB hard drives. He has to unplug them or turn them on/off. Leo says that it’s not normal for a USB to get disconnected while asleep on the Mini. Check your power settings. Uncheck “put the hard drive to sleep.” Also, go to the Apple Mac Mini support forums, it’s a great source of information on Mac issues.
Q Chris, Carbondale, IL - DNS trouble
Chris is having trouble with his ISP DNS going offline. Leo says it’s a common problem and he recommends OpenDNS. It’s free. You don’t have to use your ISPs DNS and can replace it. OpenDNS offers not only more consistent, but it offers filtering and is more secure against DNS exploits.
Q Jeff, Woodland Hills - printing wirelessly with Snow Leopard
Jeff can’t print wirelessly with his HP Laserjet in Snow Leopard. It’ll print hardwired via USB, it can be seen wirelessly through his Airport Express. But he can’t print. A printer with a parallel port will probably won’t be supported. You can get a USB to Parallel port adapter. That could work. But wirelessly, Apple simply broke connectivity with some older hardware and unless you have a driver for it, you’re better off downgrading back to Leopard since that worked. This is one of reasons why Leo says wait on upgrading to Snow Leopard. There simply isn’t enough there to warrant and upgrade, but enough of a change to cause trouble.
The Chatroom says that current updates have included HP drivers, so try running the update manager and hopefully, the driver has been included. HP also did some serious updates of drivers as well. An option is a TWAIN SANE drive on the net which will help with older printers. Leo doesn’t know if that’ll work, but it’s worth a try.
Q Stan, Murietta, CA - Recovery issues
Stan is up against a 15GB recovery threshold on his hard drive. Leo says that’s probably because there’s so much on his hard drive that there isn’t enough room to put a recovery file onto it. Generally speaking, Dell will have a recovery partition which contains the installation files for Windows so you can restore it. Moving to a new version of the OS, you can format the hard drive completely and that will take out that partition. But Leo suggests leaving that partition intact, just in case.
Q Dan, Ontario, CAN - HP/Snow Leopard trouble
Dan’s GF has an HP printer which isn’t listed or compatible with Snow Leopard. Leo says Apple provides most printers drivers, but they obviously missed this one. Go to HP to see if they’ve written one. If not, Google the TWAIN SANE driver and see if that will give you connectivity.
Scott upgraded to a Blackberry 9700 through T-Mobile. He hears a “buzz” when he gets a text message. Is there a batch workaround to reformat the phone numbers in Outlook? Leo says that in the Outlook settings, you can change the number format.
See you tomorrow!
