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
|
|
Sunday July 25, 2010
Show Audio
|
Edited Audio | |
|
Posted one week after broadcast… | |
Tech News
Apple posts videos of other phones dropped bars
Is that a tad strange? Apple posted a video of the Droid X dropping bars almost instantly. Leo tried it with his and he can’t get the bars to drop at all no matter how he holds it. Maybe Apple should just shut up and give people their bumpers. Oh, and Leo ordered his bumper … 3 to 5 weeks?!
Microsoft Quarterly results doing quite well.
Claiming selling of 10 versions of Windows 7 every second, Microsoft announced record revenues of $16 Billion dollars this quarter.
Walmart wants to put RFID tags in your clothes
Rather than spend the time to price tags on pants, Walmart wants to sew RFID tags into pants they sell so they are easily scanned on check out. Privacy advocates are freaking saying they can then be used for tracking people. Leo thinks that overreacting.
Guests
Scott Wilkinson, Home Theater Magazine, @htcgeekscott
Scott has to add a clear up a few points to his answer from last night about expensive speakers with a lower end amplifier. Turns out impedance can cause receivers to to be maxed out and taxed, which will produce distortion and it could damage the tweeters in your high end speakers. Leo surmises it could also over heat the tweeters and cause damage that way as well. Scott agrees. Also, the sensitivity of the speakers gets affected as well, causing poor sound replication.
So the bottom line, Leo surmises, is to get the Speakers that best fit your amps and vice versa. Or, just keep your volume low with that lower end amp until you can afford a better amp to power those high end speakers.
Another questions came from “Gene” who’s building a home theater and wants to know what screen to get with his projector. Scott says since Gene is a movie guy, a 2.35:1 screen is his best bet. And the Panasonic LCD Projector Gene has is designed with lens memory which can zoom in and out with the touch of a button to accommodate TV and Movie presentations.
Scott’s guest this week on Home Theater Geeks is the legendary Bob Carver. Tune in and check it out. And you can record a video questions and post it to Viddler or YouTube, email Scott with the link and you’re question may get on the air.
Hour 1
Q Michele, Duarte, CA - Camera focus issues
Michele has a Canon Powershot G9. But when she goes to the zoo, it focuses on the cage, not the animals. Leo says that is a common focal point issue. What you need to do is change the focus from general automatic to a more point focus zone where it focuses on a single point in the image. Then prefocus and it should do it. Check your manual for how. Otherwise, you can just go up as close to the cage as possible and focus on the animals. The G9 also has a manual focus feature if you have no choice, but generally you want to use the autofocus feature.
Q Mike, Chula Vista, CA - managing podcasts
Mike loves podcasts but he wants to know if there’s a better way to manage podcasts other than iTunes. Sometimes they don’t get managed as podcasts better. Leo says iTunes does a very good job, but you can look at the settings and tell it to load the top three podcasts and you can even enable auto delete a podcast after you listen to it. But iTunes is better on a Mac than on Windows (which Steve Jobs calls a “bag of hurt”). Other Windows based options include Media Monkey, GPodder - which is specifically designed for podcasts, DoubleTwist (created by DVDJon), Songbird.
Hour 2
Q Marcia, Brea, CA - Droid X and Facebook
Marcia tutors senior citizens with computers and has a computer based hearing aid in her head! Leo says that’s an amazing technology. He also thinks Marcia is doin’ the “lord’s work” by tutoring senior citizens on computers and Facebook, opening up a larger world to them and reconnecting with old friends they may not have seen in decades.
Marcia got a DroidX and when they transferred her contacts, they updated all the phone numbers of her friends onto Facebook! Leo says that’s a common issues as the sync does tend to junk things up. In order to clean that up, you need to go into the Facebook application and set it to stop syncing the apps with the Droid X. You can also go into the My Accounts settings of the Motorola interface and uncheck the sync Facebook contacts option. Leo also says Marcia can use Google Docs with the Droid X and edit documents. Very nice.
Marcia’s Website is Putertutorlady.vpweb.com, and on Facebook here. Give her a “like.”
Q Jason, Redlands, CA - Backing up his Android phone
Jason has an HTC Droid Incredible and would like to back everything up on it before he “roots” it. Leo says that the nice thing about the Droid is you can root it with very little damage done. But it is a wise thing to do to back things up. Leo recommends App Brain and a backup solution called MyBackUp Pro - which backs up all the data with the 16GB SD card that comes with it.
Q Keith, Boise, ID - Booting with multiple operating systems
Keith needs to restore a master boot record on his Windows 7 machine. He says that Windows 7 is the first version of the OS he’s really liked at all. Leo agrees. Keith tried to install Kubuntu Windows Boot Manager but it overwrote the Windows MBR and he can’t boot unless he plugs in the external drive that houses Kubuntu. Leo says that’s true and frustrating. There’s a way around that though. Leo likes GRUB - a loader that lives in the Master Boot Record and loads to give you the choice of what version OS you want. Leo uses GAG, and what’s nice about that is you can boot via CD and choose from there. From the chatroom - BURG.
Q Ray, San Francisco, CA - Using old laptop for email
Ray’s friend has an old Thinkpad laptop which she uses for email, but she can’t see pictures or video, just a “red x” in the corner. Leo says since Ray is across the country, using GoToAssist may enable Ray to go into her computer via remote control and fix the issues rather than try and do it over the phone. But the easiest thing is to either do a system restore or even a complete system recovery. Back up her data first though.
And since she hasn’t done any updates, Leo can almost guarantee she’s got a ton of Malware gumming up the works. Also, run the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool, maybe Malware Bytes, definitely run her AVS - Leo likes Microsoft Security Essentials. Probably the best thing at that point is do run a complete system recovery, format the drive and start over.
Hour 3
Q Doctor Mark, Chatroom - smart phone issues
Mark’s Blackberry Curve microSD card got corrupted and he can’t get a computer to see it. Leo says that if you run DiskUtility on the Mac and it doesn’t see it, chances are the card is damaged or scrambled and has died. Flash memory has a limited amount of writes and can die sooner or later.
Mark has also had trouble with the TWiT Chatroom client. Leo recommends XChat Aqua. It’s a native chat client that’s much more stable than browser based chat options.
Q Don, Rhode Island, CA - SACD copy protection
Don just bought a Sony Blu-ray player and wants to know if he can make backup copies of his SACDs? Leo says it’s probably copy protection that prevents it. But Leo’s sure it’s only a matter of time before that’s circumvented, if it hasn’t been already.
Q Steve, Canyon Country - Camera recommendation
Steve is heading to Alaska for a cruise. What’s a good portable camera to bring along? Leo says there are so many varieties, it depends on what features are important to you. For under $200, Leo likes the Canon Powershot SD780. It doesn’t have a super long zoom though, which is the trade-off for the compact design Steve is looking for. Get a few extra SD cards though.
Q Frank, Salinas, CA - backing up
Frank has been working hard to backup his computer to an external hard drive, but his computer is now starting to not see his drives. Leo says it could be that the external drive enclosure may be acting up. So testing the enclosure by using a USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter cable that can plug into the bare drive and then plug it into the USB port of your PC. If it works, you know the case has failed. What hard drive makers are best? Leo says they’ve all had their share of trouble, but Leo prefers the Western Digital Caviar drives. Green are great for laptops, while black are best for desktops. NewEgg.com is the best place to get them price wise.
Q Oromay, Alberton, Montana - Browser popups
Oromay is getting a pop-up saying she’s using an outdated browser and recommending Internet Explorer 8. Leo says that older versions of Internet Explorer have security issues which can cause major problems. Leo agrees that she must upgrade to IE8. Another is Google Chrome (Leo’s favorite right now) or Firefox. But Leo says even if you use another browser, you still need to update IE because many email programs render previews of email in Internet Explorer. And make sure to do all critical updates in Windows.
Oromay also has an HP Mini and wants to know if she can get an external drive for it. Leo says it’s a wise thing to do since there’s no other option to backup. But don’t spend a lot of money on one. Get another drive to plug in via USB and you’ll be able to have a backup.
Q Wade, Alberta, CAN - HTC Legend
Wade has an HTC Legend and wants to know Leo’s thoughts. Leo says it’s a beautiful phone. It’s got an OLED screen, 5MP camera. Very close to the Incredible if not exactly the same phone. Phone have different names in the US and outside the states, so it’s likely to be the same. Also runs Android 2.1. Leo’s a total Android fanboy now and proudly admits it.
Q Dale, California - what to do with decades of old slides
Dale has 3,000 slides he’s taken of Yosemite, and Europe. THey are for both left and right. Leo says there are services that can take those left/right slides and convert them into 3D stereo images and burn to a blu-ray player for about a buck a slide.
Have a great geek week and don’t forget to back up!
