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Saturday 16 January 2010

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Edited Audio

Posted one week after broadcast…

Tech News

How Technology is helping the rescue effort in Haiti

The UN has a telecommunications group which quick deploys to danger zones and installs phone towers and internet access for rescue and humanitarian efforts. Within an hour, satellite access to the region was reallocated to provide satellite communications for rescue workers.

Twitter, of course, began buzzing immediately with traffic inside and out of Haiti. Search for #rescuemehaiti and #familyinhaiti. The Red Cross set up a text donation, by texting 90999 with the word Haiti. A $10 donation goes to the Red Cross for the benefit of Haiti relief. The word has gotten spread by Twitter and other social networks and within days, over $8 MILLION has been raised. And what’s cool is that the telecoms aren’t charging text fees for the donation. And T-Mobile is offering free phone calls to Haiti until the end of the month. Good for them.

Google gets hacked by Chinese Government, threatens to pull out

Google has discovered that the Chinese government has been hacking into Google and other companies in an effort to glean information about Chinese dissidents and steal intellectual property.

As a result, Google has announced a change in their policies pertaining to China. Google has announced that China has two choices - either change their laws pertaining to censorship or Google will completely pull out. Leo supports Google’s policy change and hopes other companies follow suit. Could Google’s flexing of their power change the world for the better? Here’s hoping.

Is the Nexus One finally an iPhone killer?

Steve Wozniak thinks that the Google Nexus One may be better than the iPhone, calling it his favorite gadget. Leo agrees. But Apple won’t be down long. They’ve got that long overdue and awaited iSlate/MacBook Touch (or whatever it’ll be called), and a rumor of an iPhone 4G, both coming real soon.

Leo got one and he says it’s a gorgeous phone. HTC/Google has knocked it out of the park. Best phone he’s seen. Gorgeous OLED screen. You can get it unlocked for around $600 or subsidized through T-Mobile for $179. Currently, it’s only supported by T-Mobile and AT&T, but is slated to come to Verizon in the Spring. Virtual keyboard, sorry physical keyboard fans, but Leo likes the interface. Voice dictation works great, but it has to upload the audio to servers and then download the text. The Application store is getting better. Great email, messaging. Background processing and notification of email, twitter and chat all the time. Leo’s now using the Nexus One all the time now. So that’s really saying something.

Leo’s Scale tells the world about his diet

Leo bought a scale that can “tweet” his weight to the world. The idea being that dieting in public will aid him keeping his feet to fire. You can follow Leo’s weight loss at http://twitter.com/leos_scale. Follow Leo and help him reach his goal!

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Hour 1

Q Brian, Middleton, OH - creating iPhone apps

Brian has created an iPhone app and wants to know what’s the best way to get the word out now that it’s been accepted by Apple. Leo says that getting Apple to accept it is the hardest part. But you still need a website to plug it, and then twitter about it. And make sure it links to iTunes so that when clicking on it, it loads iTunes to the app page there.
Avoid putting your own reviews up. But encourage others to review it on the iTunes store. Next, offer a Twitter promotion that gives it away free to the first 10 people who Twitter about it. Ask people to submit scary content to include in the next version. Get people talking about it. Get a Facebook fan page and get people to fan you.

The app is called Beserk Scareprank.

Q Joe, Ridgecrest, IL - HDTV recommendation

Joe has gotten the green light from the wife to get a new HDTV. Which to get? Leo says there are two choices still, Plasma and LCD. LCDs are thinner and work best in rooms with ambient lighting, while Plasmas are ideal for that movie experience where you can darken the room. Leo recommends Samsung, Pioneer, or Panasonic for Plasmas (their LCDs are great too). A 50″ is ideal for viewing from 10–15 feet away. And since Pioneer is getting out of the Plasma market (they will still support them though), now is a great time to get a Pioneer Kuro Plasma TV.

QJohn, Culver City, CA - iTunes doubling his songs

John’s iTunes has copied and duplicated all his songs! Leo hates it when that happens. How to get rid of them? A number of programs can fix it. For the PC - TidySongs is the one that Leo uses. But you want to be very careful. Make a backup copy anyway, just in case.

Q Bruce, Santa Clarita, CA - Blocking Spam

Bruce is new to computers and wants to know how he can block SPAM. Leo says “welcome to the club!” One way to get spam is if friends send you e-cards. Also, published email addresses on a webpage will fall victim to spambots that harvest email that way. The point is, it’s inevitable, especially if you use the same email address for several years. This means you need filtering. There are challenge respond schemes, but they are annoying and most will simply drop it. It also alerts spammers that your email is legit. Spam filters are ideal. Leo uses a three stage filtering plan. Stage 1 - get rid of obvious stuff through a remote server that intercepts the spam before it even gets to your inbox. MailRoute is a business solution. OnlyMyEmail is a consumer option. $36 a year, $24/year for kids. That’s a bargain. Stage 2 - Your ISP should have server side filtering like Spam Assassin. You can tune it’s aggressiveness to make sure you’re not losing emails through false positives. Stage 3 - Local spam filtering through your email client.

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Hour 2

Q Mark, Ventura, CA - Computer and Monitor problems

Mark is having trouble with his monitor with a “no signal” message. Leo says that means the monitor isn’t getting a signal from the video card. There’s a lot of issues that can point to this … is the hard drive spinning up? Did the power supply die? Beeps? If there’s three or four, that’s a p.o.s.t. code error message (power on self test). And that POST code message can vary depending on who makes your motherboard. Leo thinks that it could easily be a memory fail error. Check your RAM to see if it’s “seated.” Same for your video card.

Q Tim, Los Angeles, CA - Virtual OS options for MAC

Tim is looking for a Mac version of Steady State. This is a virtual sandbox which loads the computer OS virtually and restores it to it’s original condition when you reboot. Is there a Mac version? But Leo says there’s a much bigger market in the PC world for it. There’s no real free version that Leo knows of, but there are ones you can buy like Deep Freeze, which is available for the MAC.

Q Chris, Palo Alto, CA - Viruses on Network

He’s worried he’s going to get nailed by a virus from someone on his network. Leo says using your firewall and a wireless router keeps you pretty safe. But to protect yourself from “intranet” threats, the Windows/Mac software firewall keeps you safe from other computers on your network which may be infected. But you also need to watch your online behavior. Don’t go to suspect sites, don’t open attachments, keep Windows updated. And run a good anti virus utility like Nod 32.

Q Janine, Los Angeles, CA - television refresh rates

Janine bought a 240hz HDTV. Her installer says that no TV signal really takes 240hz. Leo says that’s correct. NTSC television only broadcasts at 60hz. The TVs then “interpolate” or fill in extra frames between to make the images crisper. Leo says that it’s great for action and sports, but it does make it look a bit “plasticy,” for normal TV. And there won’t be any rise in the TV signal. But that’s okay. It’ll look better for the things Janine likes to watch.

Leo also says that boosting refresh rates, adding gimmicks like 3D, etc. is like adding ‘fins’ to get people to buy another TV. It’s not really critical to get such a high refresh rate for today’s NTSC TV spectrum, but it won’t hurt it. It just depends on what you like.

Q Robert, Mission Viejo,CA - Netbooks

Robert is looking at Netbooks like the Asus Seashell and the HP Mini. Thoughts? Leo says both are great but that most netbooks are the same as they have the same processors, etc. What about the limitations? Leo says that the 1GB RAM limitation is imposed by Microsoft and other manufacturers to artificially slow them down so that it doens’t cut out their laptop business. You really need to try it out before you buy to see which one you like best. Leo likes the HP Mini 311, which is based on the ION GPU which is a superior video graphics chipset. A tad more expensive, but worth it. And you want to be sure you’re okay with the size of the keyboard and the screen.

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Hour 3

Q Ted, Carlsbad, CA - Audio with HDTV

Ted got a new HDTV and is amazed by the amount of detail he sees. Leo says that the HDTVs today offer more detail than when you saw the movie in the theaters.

Ted wants to know about the Panorama Sound Bar and how does his maximize his optical audio hookup. Leo says that the TV is designed to feed speakers and the best way to do it is to get an AV Receiver that supports 5.1 surround sound. You can try to take the optical straight from your TV since the Samsung HDTV supports optical Audio and you won’t lose any quality at all. But what about optical cables? Leo says that digital is digital and you can get the cheapest cables from monoprice.com. Anyone who says you need high quality HDMI cables are upselling you.

Ted also love that his iPhone uses Bluetooth to play music in his car. Leo says that’s one of the cool things about today’s new cars, they use A2DP for amazing music via bluetooth.

Q Jim, Los Angeles, CA - Copy protection and uVerse

Jim watches TV on the AT&T UVerse Box. How can he capture video and save it? Leo says that copy protection prevents it, mostly. But you can use the analog hole - which is using the analog output to connect to your PC for capture.

Q Jared, Los Angeles, CA - running out of space on the Curve

Jared has a friend who’s running out of space on his Blackberry Curve and he’s not getting as much free space as he’s expecting. Can he defrag it? Leo says you can’t defrag a flash memory. But you can maybe reset it back to scratch. But make sure you also erase the data associated with it. He can also pop out the microSD card and reformat it. Or even get a larger one. Go into options, security options, general settings, and there is a reset to factory settings option. But you’ll want to sync first so you don’t lose everything because reset will wipe the phone clean. (thanks, Dr. Mom!)

Q Mary, Garden Grove, CA -

Mary has an Olympus voice recorder which records in Windows Media format. She wants to know how to listen to Windows Media Files on the MAC. Leo says that Flip4Mac is what you want. You can get it for free through Microsoft. Can she save them and burn to CD? Sure. You may need Quicktime Pro, but absolutely. Another option is to open the files in iTunes, which will convert them automatically and then you can burn them to CD with no trouble.

Q Alan, Fondaloc, WI - Laptop lifespans

Alan listens to the show using I Heart Radio on his Blackberry Curve. He bought a laptop a few years ago which died already. Laptops take more heat and also get jostled more because they are mobile. So it’s not surpising that it has a limited lifespan vs. a desktop PC.

Q Joy, Los Angeles, CA - overriding the password

How does Joy override a Windows password on a second hand computer? It’s Windows 2000 professional. Leo says that Windows 2000 was more secure. You need to download some software and burn it to CD so you can crack it. If you bring it in to a store, they’ll just reformat the hard drive and reinstall the OS. If they do it for under $50, it may be worth to do. But it’ll probably be cheaper to just go out and buy a [[ISBN:B0029QMDZI|netbook] when all is said and done. Second hand computers aren’t really beneficial as they are old and slow and probably won’t run modern software. PCs are really cheap today and you can buy a brand new one for a few hundred dollars.

Q Cameron, Mesa, AZ - Hard drve full

Cameron’s hard drive got full overnight?! Leo says that’s fairly odd. There are a few programs you can run - Disc Inventory X gives you a visual of what’s on the hard drive and are color coded. He found a clone of the computer, could he just delete it? Leo says yes. It’ll be safe to dump it. And using Time Machine on a partition isn’t that safe because if the hard drive dumps, you lose the partition. Use it on a secondary drive like and external.

Q Rose, West Los Angeles, CA - scratches on DVDs

Rose wants to know why some DVDs play better on one machine and not another. Leo says that there’s a lot of redundant data on a DVD should it get scratched. And some DVD players are better at recovering that data than others. Cleaning the DVD is a good option and you can go to a Gamestop where they will clean your DVDs by buffing surface scratches out. But you can do it yourself as well.

Q Dominic,Diamond Bar, CA - Hiring website professionals

Dominic needs a website programmer who can build him an online database. Suggestions? Leo recommends going to elance.com. This is a freelance site which you can specify the services you want and they’ll match you with someone who can do what you need.

See you tomorrow!

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