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Saturday, August 7, 2004

Show #63

Happy Saturday, and welcome to the Wiki!!

I’m giving away passes to the incredible DLExpo this weekend.

 toc | toc 

Noon-1p

James in Riverside: what’s the difference between DVD-R and DVD+R?

None worth mentioning. Read up on the differences in the DVD Demysitifed FAQ. I recommend buying a drive that does both, then trying both in the DVD players you’ll use most, just to see which works best for you. DVD Discs: +R Versus -R

Dan adds: “I’ve noticed on my macs, any iBook before the 900mhz G3 model do not read DVD+RW discs and simply spit them out as unrecognized media… even the 500mhz G3 model iBook will read DVD-R and DVD-RW fine - your mileage may vary”

Double check the web site for the drive or media makers to insure the media you are going to purchase is compatable with your drive. Also look for firmware updates for your DVD drive on the manufacture’s web site.

Mark in Santa Ana: how do I add a hard drive to my TiVo Series 1?

Mark in Santa Ana has an old TiVo and wants to install a bigger hard drive for it and move video from his TiVo to his computer

You need to ‘Pre-bless’ the hard drive before this will work. A hardcore site that includes info on video extraction is Dealdatabase.com/forum/. Leo Laporte’s Guide to TiVo will be released soon. Read the:

• Tom’s Hardware: Getting The Most Out Of Your TiVo

Bob in San Clemente:

Bob in San Clemente is considering the purchase of a Dell 8400 but is worried about the noise level
The 8400 is a fast, large processor so there could be up to six fans and when you add noise from the hard drive and burners, it will be loud. Liquid cooling is the wave of the future.
Bob was also worried about DDR2 latency issue, but Leo notes that most users would probably not notice a difference when using a processor a larger than 2 GHz.

DDR2? latency
BetaSat in the chat room recommends this article on Tom’s Hardware.

Don in North Hollywood: has Sasser!

Read up on the fix right here.

1–2p

Joseph in Huntington Beach: wants to convert video tapes to DVD

You need three things to do this:

1. A video capture card
2. Software to captre and edit the video
3. Software to convert the video to a suitable format and burn it to DVD

Looks like he’s good to go. It’s a little confusing for him because he has three different versions of Roxio’s DVD burning software. I’d uninstall them all and put the latest on: Creator 7.
Here is a good article from PC Magazine: Digital Video Guide: Converting Tapes to DVD.

Matt in New Jersey: looking to recover files from a formatted flash memory card.

Here is one freeware program that may help. It was described that it can recover both deleted files and files from a reformatted card so long as you have a card reader or the camera appears as a drive on your computer. Try Smart Recovery - Version 4.5

Mike in Phoenix: must have Mac utilites?

Mike in Phoenix has switched to Mac and wants advice on “must-have” applications
Every OS X users should have: LaunchBar and MacStumbler. What are your favorite Mac Apps?

• Fink - use it to install netork security apps Nessus, Nmap, & Ethereal
• Launchbar
• QuickSilver - Another Launchbar type app
• MacStumbler or Kismac
• Konfabulator
• Camino

Read Kevin’s article on Kismac.

He and his wife are joining me on the MacMania III Caribbean cruise November 7–14th. Hope you will, too!

Wendy in Lake Forest: had problems reading a DVD on her Mac

It was probably a UDP aka Packet Writing disc. Make sure your friend closes it before giving it to you next time.

Steve in Korea Town: Has a Mercury camera, wants to use it as a webcam

I’m not familiar with the Mercury, but for it to work with Yahoo it must be seen as a standard Windows video device: WDM. Open Preferences in Yahoo messenger and click the Webcam item. If you see the webcam you’re golden, otherwise you’ll have to find a driver for the camera that makes it a WDM device.

Neil in Rancho Cucamonga: web design problems

Neal in Rancho Cucamonga has a web site he designed using Front Page 2000 that some of his web customers have trouble viewing when they are using non-Microsoft browser.
Can’t see bottom half of his web page in Firefox, but it works fine in Internet Explorer.
Front Page sometimes uses java script improperly and this can cause problems. If you are using dynamic html this can also cause problems with browsers other than Explorer.

Run the page through the W3c Validator: http://validator.w3.org/

2–3p

Ruth in Buena Park: Is 98 as risky to use as XP? Ruth is also considering the purchase of a new computer.

Absolutely - even more so. And because it’s close to the end of its life cycle, Microsoft will soon stop offering updates to 98. You should upgrade to XP to be safer, and she should consider a Mac. Not only is it safer, it’s better at the things she does most: web design, video and photo editing, music and graphics.

Rich in Orange: wants to digitally copy old family photgraphs and Catalog

Rich is trying to scan and catalog old family photos that were made with a large format camera and needs advice on hardware and software.
First, you need to scan with a high-resolution to capture as much detail from the photo as possible. You should avoid using the automated scan choice, and choose color even though the photos are black-and-white. Choose 1200 dpi for your scanning and then examine your output. If the results aren’t what you are looking for, you will probably need to get another scanner. For cataloging you might look at genealogical software to store the photos. What is your favorite software for this task?

Michael in Lake Elsinore: disappearing hard drive space

Michael is losing hard drive memory space quickly.
Two things could cause this, a hard drive that’s dying or your computer may have been compromised and someone is using your hard drive to share files. If you see more activity on your network than can be accounted for based on your use, disconnect from the internet and see if the drive space keeps disappearing; if you are still losing space, your hard drive is probably on the way out.

Jeannie in Los Angeles: Wants to change the name of My Computer etc.

Jeanie is using Windows XP Media Edition and she is having trouble changing the abbreviations on the icons on the viewer.
This requires a registry edit and you might want to get some help with this issue.
Try Xteq’s setup: http://www.x-setup.net/

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