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Sunday January 24, 2010

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Posted one week after broadcast…

Tech News

What will Apple announce on the 27th?

Wednesday Morning, 10 AM, Steve Jobs takes to thr stage, for what may be the last time, to introduce what they have spent nearly a decade perfecting. Is it the much ballyhooed iSlate/iTablet/iPad/MacBook Touch? Leo says it’s going to have to be revolutionary to get people to want to lay down over $700 to buy.

Leo’s prediction - No “i” in the name. Apple will use the name to establish a new, unique category. It’ll be a Tablet with 10″ OLED screen showing 720p. With built-in wireless, ala the Kindle, that will be subsidized by the content you buy. It’ll do ebooks, magazines, movies, music, and a subscription for television. Look for Apple planning serious content deals as well.

Major Security Patches shipped by Apple and Microsoft

Both Redmond and Cupertino have shipped major OS patches this week for a zero day exploit that has been used by hackers who found vulnerabilities to Internet Explorer 6. This is the flaw that Google says China used to hack into their servers.

Even if you don’t use Internet Explorer, your email client may be using iExplorer by default for previewing an email. So, Leo recommmends going into Internet Explorer’s options, security, press custom level, set to high and apply. This will lock down Internet Explorer for use on the Internet, as well as use of I.E. for “local purposes” like email. Open Internet options, security settings, change from default to custom and turns it up to high. Then you click on “trusted sites” and add exceptions for https://*.microsoft.com and https://*.windowsupdate.com and that will make Internet Explorer safe. Do the same for the “Intranet” options.

Guests

Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine

Scott is back with news of a new concert in L.A. Scott will be playing with his group Mini Axes, at the South Pasadena Concert Center, 1509 Mission Street. 8PM Monday. They’ll be playing some interesting instruments and “neo primitive” world music. Come by and check it out and say “hi.”

Here’s a few questions Scott’s gotten from listener email:

Nick - Fan of Star Trek’s Original Season on Blu-ray. How is it possible for a 40 year TV show look so good on Blu-ray? Scott says the key is that they were shot on film, and film has an even higher resolution than Blu-ray. That’s the benefit of starting with your highest possible quality source material. And remastering that film by digitizing it and cleaning it up makes it even better. It’s also very important to store that film properly so it doesn’t deteriorate.

Leo says that another reason Star Trek’s Blu-ray has been so popular is that the special effects have been upgraded from models to computer generated imagery.

Scott - finding a good two channel stereo. How is it possible to get audiophile quality in a home theater setup. Scott says sure, but it depends on how picky you are. Purists would say “no way.” AV receivers are optimized for soundtracks, while stereo’s are optimized for music. Music really needs a two channel system, while home theatre is best with a multi channel system.

Chris Marquardt - Tips from the Top Floor

Today’s topic - Macro Photography. Macro is where you make small things really big. Closeup photography. Leo LOVES Macro photography. Point and shoot cameras have macro modes, but DSLRs really need a specialized Macro lens to get the best results. Chris likes the 100mm Macro lens so he can maintain a distance and still get closeup results.

Tips - you want a lot of light. If you’re close, you may cast your own shadow. A ring light can fix that, but any side light will help as well. Depth of field. The closer you are in macro, the less is in focus. So focus stacking can help. This is shooting multiple shots of the same image from a tripod with different subjects in focus and then combining them in Photoshop to get a master image. That’s a lot of work, but the results are really fantastic, making it worth it.

Chris is coming to the US this summer, going to San Francisco - for street photography, and New York for cooking photography. Checkout discoverthetopfloor.com for more information.

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Hour 1

Q Paul, New Mexico - Security issues

Paul made “the switch” to the Mac a few years ago, and he pays bills online. He discovered a hole that shows all his passwords for every site he’s visited. That rather freaks him out. Leo says that Firefox saves passwords in the clear. So you need to go to security tabs in your settings and click “use a master password.” This will require a secondary password that Firefox won’t display. But Leo says it’s still not that secure. Leo recommends Last Pass, which stores all your passwords securely.

Q Walter, Huntington, WV - Lower third ads during TV programs

Walter wants to know about those advertisements pasted in the lower third portion of the screen. Can he get rid of them? He’d love to get back to a pure screen presentation. Leo says it’s not only those on screen ads, but also the “bug,” which is the station’s logo. Unfortunately, there’s no separate signal or layer. It’s embedded. You could resize the image frame, but it could be prone to distortion. It’s a heck of a lot of work and there’s no easy way to rid yourself of it.

From the chat room, there’s this YouTube video which shows how you can use After Effects to remove the lower third ads.

Q Dave, Ventura, CA - laptop power issues

Dave recently bought an Asus AS1410 notebook. He’s having trouble losing battery charge per day. Leo says that sleeping the computer can do that, but Dave says it’s off all the time. It’s not a battery discharge issue either since he pulls the battery and it keeps the charge. It seems that something is drawing power on it. And it’s not only the Acer as this issue is fairly universal. Could be that some parts of the notebook is “always on” so it boots up much faster.

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Hour 2

Q Nick, Birmingham, AL - Leo’s Skypeasaurus

Nick loves Leo’s four screen “skypeasaurus” which is just over Leo’s left hand shoulder on the video feed. Leo uses it for his Internet podcasting and can have up to four guests on video chat via Skype at the same time. This is thanks to the Skypeasaurus that Colleen built.

Leo did it on the cheap (spent under $2,000) using four computers with four monitors running XP and routed into the Tricaster with a mixing board. There’s some tricks and there is an article at Leo’s Blog here and more from the TWiT Wiki as well.

These fans created a “virtual skyeasaurus” here.

Nick’s videos can be found at http://youtube.com/prestigebroadcasts

Q Tim, Sonoma, CA - Home Media Server installation issues

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Tim is setting up a home media server using PowerDVD 9. But it won’t let him get past the two-week trial. He’s uninstalled a dozen times. Leo says get rid of any cyberlink folder you can find. These companies are so scared you’re going to pirate their software, they go to extreme lengths to hide registration information - even onto the master boot record.

And who gets messed up? Tim, who bought the software and can’t use it! And the great irony is, you can go onto BitTorrent and download the cracked version because you can use it! This is why DRM doesn’t work. And those unlocked versions are stacked with viruses, too. Search Google and newsgroups to find others who have dealt with this issue and figured out how to solve the issue.

Q John, Elkhorn, WI - Audio Dropouts and Vonage

John uses Vonage Voiceover IP (VOIP) and he gets a lot of audio drop outs. Leo says it’s very common because most people don’t have enough consistent uploading bandwidth. Here’s what you can do to improve it. Vonage uses Quality of Service (QOS) to prioritize your voice packets for better results. You need to run your line into the modem, and then the Vonage voice adapter, then the Router. This will give you proper QOS for better VOIP.

Q Jason, San Francisco, CA - Movies

Jason has noticed that there are rental only DVDs that are different from the purchase versions and which has previews before the movie which you can’t skip. Leo says that with Netflix and Blockbuster - they have deals with studios which give them rental only versions as a kind of copy protection since you aren’t getting all the extras.

Leo says he wishes the movie industry should stop treating their customers like thieves and that thieves have no trouble getting the full versions simply by downloading them off the Internet. And these DRM schemes end up creating more pirates than preventing them. You want to defeat piracy, make your content easier to access in a manager your customers want, because Leo believes people want to pay for what they want and HOW they want it.

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Hour 3

Q Joe, California - Laptop bootup problems

Joe turned off his laptop and now he’s getting black Windows bootup options to a last known configuration and it just reboots. Leo says that closing the lid while shutting down may have caused it to go to sleep during shut down, corrupting a key boot file. To fix damaged Windows files, stick your installation disc in and select the repair option during the installation start up. Setup will then check all the Windows files and repair them. But if you have a restore disc instead, you need to be careful as the restore will blast an image onto your hard drive and wipe out your data. Another option is to type sfc/scannow from a command line. It’ll check the system files and replace any that are damaged.

But it may also be a dying hard drive. You can use SpinRite on it, but at $80, it’s actually cheaper to get a new hard drive. Spin Rite would analyzed your hard drive and mark any unusable sectors so they won’t cause trouble down the road.

Q Randy, Harrisonberg, VA - Nod32 instllation problems

Randy downloaded Eset’s 30 day trial, bought Nod32, but got the 64 bit version by mistake. He got the 32 bit version and was able to install it, but only in trial mode. Leo says that can often happen when you download the wrong version. So you need to talk to high level support to free up that 32 bit download.

Q Ray, Tustin, CA - lost cables

Ray lost his camcorder cable which connects the TV. Leo says it’s a standard cable that you can buy at Radio Shack - even better is monoprice.com. Can he use an audio cable? Leo says you could conceivably. You could even make one, but then you’re talking soldering.

Q Gina, Salinas, CA - videophones

Gina has been asked to become a sales rep for a Trump video phone. Leo says that ACN is the company and they use direct marketing to sell long distance. The problem is that in order for it to work, anyone you call also has to have it. And everyone has a comp[uter these days, which means Skype or iChat offers video chat for free. And that’s makes it even harder. And in addition, Skype has announced deals with TV manufacturers to put Skype capability on HDTVs. So that’s a tough sell.

Q Patrick, Alta Dena, CA - Normalizing music

Patrick wants to know if there’s a smart volume control for the iPod Touch. Some things are recorded better than others and there’s not consistent volume level. Leo says normalizing is what you need. You can do it in the iPod, but there is a normalize command in iTunes called “Sound check,” under the playback options, which will balance out all your music. The Sound check option may also now be available in the Touch.

Q Steven, Palo Alto, CA - SPDIF output

Steven has been making electronic music and wants to know about SPDIF out. Leo says that’s the optical out - fiber optic. It’s a standard digital output format for digital devices. Some headphones even take SPDIF.

Q Gene, South Dakota - Traveling and hard drives

Gene is a trucker and is concerned that all the shaking and rattling in his truck may cause his laptop hard drive to fail. Leo says that today’s portable hard drives are cushioned pretty good and are very robust. But it’s always a good idea to backup your data regularly just in case. Another option are SSD flash drives.

Q Joe, San Pedro, CA - Internet access problems and virtual memory

Joe’s hard drive is running out of space and he can’t get online anymore. Leo says that if you’re running out of hard drive space, that means less virtual memory is available. Especially if you don’t have a lot of RAM.
Get a larger hard drive - they’re really cheap now - and clean off that other drive, Joe!

Have a great Geek week!

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