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Saturday February 20, 2010

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Posted one week after broadcast…

Tech News

Google gets sued over Buzz

In spite of the fix which allows users to opt out of Google Buzz, a woman in Florida has filed a class action lawsuit claiming her privacy has been violated and peronal information released online without her consent or ability to opt out.

Leo likes Buzz, but believes that Google either released Buzz too soon or didn’t understand the implications of how users would be affected by the lack of privacy.

40% not hired based on social media

According to a recent study, up to 40% of job candidates have not been hired because of their social media content. Many call it the “Google Test,” and it underscores that once something is online, it will forever follow you.

School accused of spying on students through webcams

An assistant principal is accused of spying on students by remotely turning on a student’s webcam and then advising the boy that he was engaged in inappropriate behavior in his home, and then cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in his laptop.

A class action lawsuit has been filed saying that student’s privacy is being violated.

Microsoft Announces Windows 7 for phones

Windows Phone 7 Series is the new smart phone OS by Microsoft. Leo says it looks gorgeous but we won’t even see any phones with the new OS until the end of the year.

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Hour 1

Q Ria, California - recording with captioning

Ria uses the Kodak Zi8 to record her lectures. She’s supposed to close caption them and is having trouble using Dragon Naturally Speaking to make subtitles. Leo says that while Dragon is the best for speech recognition, it doesn’t really work well in this regard. A wired, directional mic like the SHURE SM58 along with their XLR to USB adapter, is your best bet to increase your accuracy. Dragon works best when you have it as quiet as possible. But even then, it’s going to give you a lot of trouble. Leo recommends Podsinprint.com for transcription. Another

Leo also says that while computing power has helped, and the accuracy has improved, we still don’t have enough horse power to be able to keep up and that makes us far off from having a perfect audio transcription. We’re still about 1 in 20 word errors.

Q Chris, Riverside, CA - Making iPhone Apps

Chris has published two iPhone apps (Speak Aid, and Ghost Words). He used a program called Game Salad to build them, but would like to port the apps to Android and the new Windows Mobile.

Q Lanny, Simi Valley, CA - better performance with computer

Lanny just built a new high performance computer using the Intel i7 processor, solid state drives and 8GB of RAM. How can he speed it up? Leo says you can create a separate partition for temp files. You can delete the Windows.old files. What about Thunderbird profiles? You can go into your THunderbird profile and point it to another location.

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Hour 2

Q Jennifer, Long Beach, CA - wireless trouble

Jennifer has been “borrowing a cup of wifi” but hasn’t been able to get it of late. Leo says that while it’s common, it’s also illegal. Leo also suspects that someone caught on and locked it down. You also take a risk doing it over an unprotected network. Now you’ll need to get your own access. She says it’s too expensive. But Leo saysyou can get it as low as $15 a month from DSL Extreme.

What you may want to do is go to your neighbor and advise them that they have a wide open wifi access point. OFfer to help them locked it down and offer to share the internet costs. Change the SSID. Change the password and turn on WPA2 encryption. This will lock it down. Turn off universal plug and play (UPNP). Turn off WAN Admin.

Q Jeremy, Dianmond Bar, CA - Keyboard shortcuts

Jeremy wants to know how he can make custom keyboard shortcuts. Can he make them single key functions? Leo says it can’t be done because the single key already dedicated. Leo suggests a program called AutoHotkey. This will enable you to create custom hotkeys and mouse clicks. Leo also says you can get a specialized mouse for it as well.

Q Mark, Lake City, FL - Podcast/Skype issues

Mark does a podcast using Skype, and he has an intermittent issue of getting kicked off Skype, and sometimes everyone gets knocked off. Leo says it’s very common when you’re running a single conference skype call and “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch.” But here’s how Leo solved it for TWiT …

Leo solved the issue by creating the Skypeasaurus. He dedicated a spearate Skype to each caller and routed them into a separate track via a mixer. Leo also says a wired connection is always best. Also, hears typing when talking. Leo says that’s probably because the MACs onboard mic is active. Make sure you have a USB headset and make sure that’s active.

Mark’s podcast is called Talking Space.

Q David, Hartford, CN - Backing up DVDs

David would like to rip and back up his DVDs. Leo says that everyone with kids should know how to do this. Leo recommends Slysoft AnyDVD and CloneDVD. A free option would be Handbrake.

Q Boyd, Los Angles, CA - making iPhone apps

Boyd has been using a program called Appcelator Titanium to port iPhone apps. It requires little for coding, you link “widgets” together and then export to whatever platform you want. It’s open source and free, and you use it in concert with the Apple SDK.

Check out Boyd’s Aviation YouTube Channel.

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Hour 3

Q Jason, Green Bay, WI - Faster 3G access

Jason uses his Blackberry to tether internet access and sometimes it’s REALLY slow. If there something he can do to have a more consistent faster 3G access? Leo says that there are cellphone amplifiers that help - 5Barz is one. But it may not be the signal. It may be the cell site is just plain busy. And since Jason is a trucker, chances are everyone is sharing that same bandwidth at truck stops, therefore slowing it down.

Q Jim, Fairwell, MI - Replacing a laptop

Jim wants to replace his laptop and he’s more confused than ever. What does he do with it? Banking, photo and video editing, some gaming (mostly flash). Leo says that for what Jim is doing, he’ll want a lot of RAM, widescreen monitor. Blu-ray player. Leo says that HP is pretty good, but Leo’s a Huge DELL fan. You’ll want to pay for the Gold Tech Support though. The knock on HP is that they tend to load it up with junky software trials. REquest a stock Windows 7 install. It may cost you a tad more, but worth it. Leo also likes the Dell Studio 16 - which is an ideal desktop replacement.

Q Don, Fontana, CA - wifi security while traveling

Don would like to have a network while he’s traveling. Leo recommends getting a wifi router for your laptop. That way you’re secure while on the road. Also, you could create a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or use GoToMyPC.

Q Ken, Fairfield, IL - backing up securely

Lee is concerned about backing up his digital photographs. With the life expectancy of CDs and DVDs, and knowing hard drives fail, what is his best long term reliable solution? Flash drives? Leo says that thumb drives are by far most reliable and are a good choice. Just not a cheap choice for large storage sizes. But the key is to not rely on any one option. Use the 3-2-1 rule (3 copies, 2 different media types, 1 off site). What about security concerns with something like Carbonite? Leo says that Carbonite uses AES encryption and you keep the key. You can also use something like True Crypt as well. It’s free and open source.

Also does Open Office have the same date limits as Excel? Leo says that chances are it doesn’t. But it’s free to try and find out. Also look into the spreadsheet options for Google Documents.

Q Chad, Los Angeles, CA - Outlook and limits

Wants to know if Outlook still has the 2GB pst file limit. Leo says he believes so and he hates that they put all your email into one master pst file. He recommends using Google Mail. Larger limits. Safer security.

Q John, West Covina, CA - power surges

John had a power surge and it killed his computer even though he has a UPS. Leo says that if you can prove the UPS failed, it has insurance coverage as part of buying the UPS. But you’ll need to prove the UPS failed in order to have it covered.

Leo thinks it’s more likely a power supply failure. Take the drive out and put it in a working computer. You may not be able to boot from it, but you may be able to read from it. If not, your only option is DriveSavers, and that is obscenely expensive since they have to take the drive apart in a clean room to get to your data. Yet another painful lesson in backing up!

Q Ray, Tustin, CA - Turntable volume

Ray has a surround sound amp and when he plugs in his turntable, it only plays at half volume. Leo says you need a “preamp” in order to get it all up volume wise. Or, look on the back of the surround sound app for a dedicated turntable plug port.

See you tomorrow!

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