Leo Laporte
The Tech Guy
2–5p ET Sat & Sun
- Home
- Saturday Show
- Sunday Show
- Past Shows
- Audio Archives
- Stations
- Chat
- Watch Live
- Forums
- Tips
- FAQ
- Glossary
- Contact Leo
Sponsors
- Angie’s List
- Carbonite
- DSLExtreme
- ESET NOD32 Antivirus
- GoToAssist
- GoToMeeting
- GoToMyPC
- Make It Work
- Stamps.com
Leo Links
 |
For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
|
|
Saturday June 26, 2010
Show Audio
|
Edited Audio | |
|
Posted one week after broadcast… | |
Tech News
Leo impressions of the iPhone
Leo is mostly positive about the new iPhone. He did get one on launch day and had a little trouble activating it. Fantastic retina display but there’s better cameras in other phones and most of Apple’s advancements here are “catching up” to other phones. Leo says the iPhone is great if your a fan and have an investment in iPhone apps, and you’ll pay through the nose, but the Android platform is now more modern and elegant. There’s certainly better phones out there, though.
Two big negatives - 1) Antennas: the left antenna (3g) and right antenna (wifi) and the u shape metal is the cellphone antenna. Trouble is if you “palm” the iPhone 4 with your left hand, you’ll lose connectivity! Steve’s reply? “Don’t hold it that way!” Or, you can get the Apple iPhone “bumper” case to protect and boost antenna connectivity. Leo says it’s a common problem in phones and it could be the root of all the dropped calls w/ AT&T. The other issue, brought up by Brian Brushwood, is there are “dots of yellow” on the screen. Leo suspects it’s a lamination defect of the glass screen. But the good news is that some say it just goes away as the glue dries. Leo says these two issues may be a good reason to stop and wait, consider other phones like the Android platform. There are better phones, and certainly better carriers out there.
What other good phones are out there? Well, [insert name of Android phone here]. There are some dynamite ones including the Nexus One, which has a beautiful AMOLED screen, true multitasking, and the widgets on the desktop are more usable. But there’s also the Verizon HTC Incredible, Sprint’s EVO. But coming up is the Droid X with Verizon that Leo says is amazing with a 4.3″ display, HDMI connectivity, 8MP camera. Dual LED flash. Expandable with miniS cards. WOW. And also coming is the Samsung Galaxy S. And later this year is the new Windows 7 phone.
Hour 1
Q John, San Bernadino, CA - Upgrading to Windows 7
John has a laptop that’s about 3 yrs old. He’s thinking about getting a netbook for those more mobile situations? Leo says that Windows 7 will run great on a netbook (in fact, netbooks was one of the reasons Win 7 was written modularly, to be more lightweight). Most come with Home Premium but you can upgrade (look for Windows Anywhere). You’ll have to buy an upgraded serial number and it’ll update what you need. What about running a monitor on it? Leo says you can, but only in VGA. Leo recommends the Asus 1201N Seashell. It’s much better for video performance.
John also has some old zip drives with Mac data on them. How can he import them? Leo says your first priority is to see if it’ll be seen as a drive. If not, you’ll have to find a driver for it. You’ll also probably need to buy a program which will allow you to read the Mac disks - check out MacDrive by MediaFour. Probably cheaper to just get a friend who has a Mac to read them. But once you see the drive and can read the file, you should be able to read it in Office.
Q Carol, Rancho Cuca Monga - Using the Mac when blind
Carol is blind and has a Mac. What can she do to navigate on the web? Leo says that the Mac has universal access. It’s in the system preferences pane. Turn on voiceover. Make it all keyboard enabled. Turn on “mousekeys.” Press the Option Key 5 times will turn mousekeys on/off.
Q Kevin, Palo Alto - Competing with the big guys online
Kevin sells online but the big guys have been buying up keywords preventing his site from coming up. And Facebook’s “Like” buttons can help because it then goes onto someone’s wall at Facebook, and therefore is free advertising. But Leo says it’s a “camels nose under the tent” and once in a little, Facebook will take over.
But Walmart, Amazon and eBay have completely taken over his business by buying out keywords from Google. Google doesn’t tell anyone how their search engine works and it changes often. Leo hopes that Google’s commercial interest is to make the best search results. But if they’re selling out to the big guys, that’s bad for everyone.
Kevin’s website is at TotallyCellphones.com.
Hour 2
Q Carl, Sacramento - Getting an Internet Radio
Attach:livionpr.jpg Δ
Carl wants to get an Internet Radio. You want one that has both ethernet and Wifi. Leo recommends the Livio NPR Radio. C-Crane also makes one. You want one that supports “Receiva,” which allows you to get a directory of internet radio stations by genre and location, as well as favorites. Some also support LastFM and Pandora. Leo also likes the Sonos, which is a bit pricier. What he likes about it is superior audio quality and you can control it with the iPhone. Using the Zone Players and the Sonos Bridge lets you have different stations in different locations in the house. You can play via iTunes with your iPhone or by Internet Radio.
Q Justin, Windsor, NS CAN - Backup options with Linux
Justin skypes in using his Rock Band 2 mic! LOL. Justin is using Carbonite to back up his data, but it won’t run on Linux. Leo says that since you’ve already bought the Carbonite subscription, you can put your data in a central folder that Carbonite can see in Windows and it’ll back up. But Leo also says that Ubuntu has it’s own backup option with Ubuntu One. Ubuntu’s latest version LUCID LYNX is great. You can dual boot with it and it’s really seemless. Now, Ubuntu One isn’t as easy as Carbonite but it works. And you can get 50GB for $10 a month, 2GB free.
Q Amir, Tel Aviv, IS - Backup options
Amir is backing up about 4TB of data to his Drobo, following the 3–2−1 backup protocol. Man, that’s a lot of data! Amir’s problem is that Carbonite doesn’t back up external drives. Leo says no, it’s just the drive in the computer. And for that much data, you don’t want to backup to Carbonite anyway because it would take forever and you’d never catch up. You can cut it up into smaller bits or just backup absolutely critical stuff with Carbonite.
Q James, East L.A. - Getting a donated computer
James is disabled and on a limited budget. Are there charities that help limited budgets get a Dell or other computer for free? Leo says that there are a lot of organizations like the Computer Recycling Center who fix up older computers and offer them to charities and people on fixed budgets. They also recycle them. There’s also the Christina Foundation. And they not only donate all over the world, but offer training. You can also look on Craigslist but you may end up with someone else’s problem.
Q Alex, San Bernadino - making a phone app
Alex has an idea for an “App,” but he doesn’t know the first thing about writing it. Leo recommends eLance, where you can find freelance programmers and see who may be interested. There’s also marketers, consultants, and the like. Would he need them to sign an NDA? Leo says that ideas are a dime a dozen. The trick is it’s implementation. You want to be guarded about some details, but you can’t get help if you don’t tell people what your idea is about.
Hour 3
Q Jim, Montgomery, AL - the iPad and Keynote
Jim is concerned that he may not be able to connect his iPad with his Linksys router. Leo says that Apple has acknowledged that there are WiFi problems with the iPad but ironically, it works just fine with their own Airport. But will the adapter that is built for Keynote work in HD? Leo says not now, but it’ll probably change over time. And it’s 1024×768, so that’s really nice for a Keynote presentation. Sadly though, the iPad can’t “round trip,” meaning you can’t move it back to your Mac without losing some features. There’s also issues running video through Keynote. It’s really more practical to exit out of Keynote to run the video in Quicktime.
Q Bruce, Los Angeles, CA - AMOLED Screens in bright light
Bruce wants to know how well the screens perform in bright ambient light outdoors. Leo says that you have to turn up the brightness all the way and it’s hard to read, but useable. You wouldn’t want to have it that way all the time, but if you need it in a pinch, it’ll work.
What about screen covers? Leo doesn’t use them. There are companies that make them, but touch screens are a challenge because they’re conductive, you need an electical connection with the hand. Some make them, and their pricey, but the materials have improved and with Apple’s new laminate process, the screens are harder to scratch than they used to be back in the days of the Palm PDA.
Q David, Temecula, CA - the new iPhone
David got his iPhone and Leo’s jealous. David says he compared with the Nexus One, the Evo, and others and the screens just aren’t as good as the iPhone. Leo says he doesn’t see it, but can understand the vibe. It’s like a luxury car - it just feels like it’s better put together.
Q Rob, Columbia, TN - Audio issues.
Rob got a new Gateway laptop and was hoping to use it to capture audio. But it won’t let him since it has no audio jack. Leo says he has a hunch you can record the audio, but you can’t really hear it. Rob says his computer doesn’t have an audio input jack, so he can’t input an audio connection.
Since you have a USB jack, you can get an analog to digital converter which will allow you to convert and capture via USB. Griffin has one called the iMic which works well. Leo also recommends getting one that lets you choose between mic and line level. But it’s a really low cost solution.
Q Raymond, Irvine, CA - BLSoD!
Raymond’s Wife has a Black Screen of Death! A few quick flashes and then black. They connected to an external monitor and was able to see the screen after running a utility or two. They ran all the AVS options. Leo says that Raymond’s instinct to run on an external monitor was a good one. But since the computer no longer does, it seems to be worse.
Leo says it sounds like the computer is working, but the monitor isn’t driving. It’s probably a bad screen in the laptop lid. It’ll require repair. Hopefully, Raymond has it under warranty.
