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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Saturday 26 December 2009
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
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Posted one week after broadcast… | |
Tech News
Get a computer for Christmas?
Leo says that if you got a computer for Christmas, you want to “break it in” quickly by running something hard on it for awhile. A graphics heavy game, play some movies, run multiple applications. Leo says this will accomplish what the old “burn ins” years back. This way, if your computer goes belly up, it’s during the warranty period while you can do something about it. Also, with that new computer, get into the habit of backing up. Start with an external hard drive, but also have an off site option. SyncToy 2 by Microsoft is a great scheduled backup option. Also, Carbonite is a good option. Adopting a 3–2−1 plan for backing up is the best way to insure you wont’ lose your data due to a crashed hard drive.
Also, protect yourself against online badguys. Leo recommends Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s free and it’s the best free application to protect you from spyware and viruses.
Also, don’t click on rogue links or attachments.
Run Windows Update. In fact, set it for automatic updates.
Leo’s Christmas night … well, It’s Complicated
Leo saw the film “It’s Complicated,” last night and he says there’s an hysterical scene where characters are using Skype.
Guests
Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine
Scott joins us post holiday and he wants to talk about the year’s predictions he made in January of 09. Here’s what he got right, and wrong over the year:
1. DTV Transition on February. Who knew that Obama and Congress pushed it to June 12th. The transition has been pretty smooth with no real incident. Marginal analog areas, called the Cliff signals, don’t get the digital signals, but Congress is putting through a bill to create repeaters to reach those caught in those dead areas.
2. The economy would continue to be problematic when it comes to buying home theater. And while Scott was right, there are signs of stronger online sales and Black Friday sales went up .05%.
3. Prices would continue to fall. The average price of LCDs down 26%
4. More “green TVs” would come out. Scott was right. More energy star 3 TVs are being released. But Scott didn’t see California’s ban on energy hungry big screen TVs coming.
4. Scott predicted larger OLED TVs. He was completely wrong on this. The largest was Sony’s OLED 11″ TV for $2500! Now, Scott doesn’t expect large OLEDs for quite sometime, if ever.
5. Online video delivery would continue to grow. But it turns out that it’s largely through Blu-ray players with profile 2.0/BDLive connectors, rather than a TV Internet connection through Netflix, etc. Unfortuantely, there’s no universal access due to partnerships making it more exclusive. Scott also sees DRM as an impediment.
Scott will join us in two weeks live from CES as Leo goes on the road to cover Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Hour 1
Q Bob, Bentonville, AR - Connecting his guitar to his computer
How to connect his electic guitar to his computer. Leo says that the guitar has an “unbalanced” output, and when you connect the guitar to the computer, you get a buzz. Leo uses a “Henry,” which is a guitar interface that balances out the guitar’s output. But a USB Guitar Interface would work great. Then, you can record your licks using Audacity or any other recorder.
QArnie, Los Angeles, CA - email problems with iPhone
Arnies is having trouble emailing photos through his 3Gs. He can send/receieve email, but no photo attachments. Leo recommends tapping, holding down the picture image and select copy. Then paste it in. This way you get a full res image. But this is a short term workaround. Turning off the phone from time to time to reboot is a good idea to clear out everything. Check your outbound mail settings. What is your default mail setting? Try changing it to a different carrier to see if it fixes it. If so, then you have an issue with your mail account. And if necessary, going into iTunes and restoring the phone will also clear everything out and get it back to the day you bought it.
Q Bonnie, Los Angeles, CA - Safari issues
Bonnie’s Safari browser just won’t open. Leo suggests that if you also have Firefox (which Bonnie does), then you can go to Apple.com and download a fresh copy of Safari and install it. But Safari’s preferences may be corrupted. There are two places where the Mac stores preferences. Your library and the library for the system. Generally, you don’t want to mess with the system preferences folder. Just delete the Safari preferences. Open Finder, you’ll see the house. Click on your home folder and you’ll see a library folder. In there, is the settings are stored, including for Safari. But go into preferences and look for the preferences for that program. It’ll be com.apple.safari.plist. Delete it.
This should solve your issue. You can delete the other safari folder in the library folder, but you’ll also be deleting your favorites, etc. Try moving it to the desktop and then restart safari. That could help. Also, Fix Disk permissions. Leo calls it Apple VooDoo. OSX is based on Unix and every file as permissions associated with it. And sometimes they can get corrupted. Applications. Utilities. Run Disk Utility. Click on your mail hard drive. Then click on Repair Disk Permissions. It’ll take a few minutes to fix, so be patient.
After that, your next choice is a visit to the Genius Bar!
Hour 2
Q Amy, Westwood, CA - Protecting yourself against credit fraud
Amy is pretty unplugged. She doesn’t have a computer or Internet connection. But at 81, she’s enjoying listening to the show. But she’s worried bad guys can still get her personal information. Leo says that a credit card can be boosted by a hacked merchant. A waiter can be the one who scans your credit card number as well. The thing is, it’s basically insecure. But there’s a new credit card, called a smart card, which contains an RFID chip which can be read through the air. It’s highly unlikely, but technically possible.
You can get a special RFID proof wallet that blocks the passive gathering of your information. But the reality is, you give out your credit card every time you make a purchase. So the only real defense is eternal vigilance by watching your credit card statements like a hawk. Now the good news is, so do the Credit Card companies. They are always checking and calling to verify purchases. If they suspect illegal activity, they will cancel your card and send you a new one.
One way to use your credit cards more safely is to use one time use numbers. Check online with your credit card company to get a new card once. Or a card number that’s used with only one merchant. Useful ways of protecting yourself. Another protection option is LIFELOCK.
Q Jared, Dunn Canyon, PA - Droid Apps?
Jared has a new Droid Phone. What apps are available for it? Leo likes EverNote. Seismic for Twitter. Task Killer is a good one which will let you quit and application. Pandora, Rhapsody, or LaLa. Qik let’s you stream live video from your Droid. Barcode scanners are great for pricing an item. You scan the barcode and then the utility will tell you where you can get it cheaper! Google Maps with turn by turn directions. From the Chat Room - I HEART RADIO, which plays radio from any Clear Channel station. And finally, Leo’s TWIT.TV application! The Droid Dock and Droid Dock for Cars make your droid easier to use statically.
Q Ted, Dankirk, NY - Mac or PC?
If he goes Dell, better to go with Intel over AMD? Leo says that the AMD is a budget processor that’s nothing wrong with, but the Intel is far more powerful. There’s nothing wrong with AMD, it’s a good choice if price is an issue, but Intel has surpassed AMD in price for quality performance. If he goes Apple with the 21″ iMac, but he’s concerned with being able to import .MOD video files. Leo says that iMovie can understand and read them.
Windows Movie Maker is an okay basic movie editor, but Adobe Premiere Elements is a better choice and for under $80, a bargain. On the Mac side, you have all you need with iMovie, but Final Cut Express is a great choice. Leo prefers Mac for video editing, but in reality, there’s little difference, save personal preference, between a Mac and PC.
RAM to start? 4GBs. Any more is of diminishing value, actually. Great jump from 2–4GB, a little more from 4–8GB. But after that, it levels off performance wise.
Hour 3
Q Rochelle, Torrance, CA - Problems booting up
Rochelle’s computer got unplugged while it was writing to the hard drive and now it won’t boot up. She gets a system error. Leo says that when a computer gets unplugged during writing, it writes “word salad” as it spins down the hard drive and sometimes corrupts the boot record as well. Leo suspect a critical system file got corrupted or overwritten and as such, the error happens. If you have the original system discs, restore the OS and you’ll be back in the game. If not, an OEM version of Windows 7 would be a good option. If you have a separate copy of Windows, just to running the repair option, rather than starting from scratch. Whatever you end up doing though, make sure you back up the data first.
Q Sam, Chino Hills, CA - upgrading to Windows 7
Sam has been using the eval copy of Windows 7 and now she has the full version of Windows 7 home premium. Should she return it and get the upgrade version? Leo says yes. Take it back and get the extra $100. You may need to do some jimmying, but you can use the upgrade version on any computer, go to Paul Thurrot’s WinSupersite for his guide on how to.
She also hooks her TV up to watch movies and it goes to sleep. Leo says go into the display settings and you can change them there. Also, consider using the Roku box to stream your movies directly to your TV without having to run your computer as your TV.
Q Adam, Fullerton, CA - BSoD problems
Adam gets a blue screen of death coming out of Sleep or 10 minutes after a cold boot up. Leo says that a BSoD usually means a severe error. Leo says he suspects a hardware issue. And since it’s a fairly new machine, this can be telling that the motherboard is probably bad. They may require you to restore the computer first to eliminate the software issue. If that works, then it was. But if not, then it’s certainly a bad motherboard and you’ll want to return it and get another one.
Q Manny, Sylmar, CA - e-Commerce hosting.
Manny is creating an e-commerce site for high performance auto parts. Leo says that there are a number of great providers like DreamHost, which can provide you e-commerce options that will match what you’re trying to do. Another host that’s a tad more expensive is Media Temple. They start at $20 depending on what you do and need.
Q Karen, Riverside, CA - Wireless Printer networking
Karen has a WiFi printer, but the speed is really slow using her two laptops. Will upgrading the router to an N router make it faster? Leo isn’t so sure. He says that while N routers are faster for surfing, et al, a B router should be plenty fast for simple printing. So, it’s probably a software issue. Make sure you have the latest driver for that printer. Go online to HP.COM and get the drivers for each laptop. HP’s networking stack for XP wasn’t that great, but Vista’s is far better. While there, go into the HP forums and see if anyone else is having similar issues and read what solutions they’ve tried that have worked.
See you tomorrow!
