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Saturday, September 11, 2004

Show #73

Remember September 11 with these amazing pictures from various Ground Zero cams. (Thanks JSKS for the link.)

 toc | toc 

Today’s news items

The latest version of the MyDoom virus has a resume from the virus writers seeking a job at an anti-virus company.

Microsoft, has won a US patent for tabbing from link to link while browsing. The USPTO must be stopped - this capability was in Lynx years before Microsoft had even heard of the Internet.

New products to watch for:

Tivo and Netflix have announced a plan to offer downloadable movies.

Tony writes:
The maximum queue at Netflix is 500 movies. Don’t ask me how I know. :)

Remember SysAdmins Samba 3.0.7 is coming soon—Yeah!

Hitachi has published a spec for cell phone hard drives!

RIM has released its Treo killer: the Blackberry 7100 - $199!

jsks writes:
Sygate Personal Firewall has been updated: Download Now!

Noon-1p

James in Los Angeles - buying advice for an LCD HDTV

In plasmas and LCDs both look at the native resolution. You’d like a screen capable of 720 lines of resolution (so it can display 720p programming without upscaling). Also look for a fast screen. Look at a sports program or action movie and watch carefully when things are moving fast. Slower screens will show ghosting or smearing.

Michelle in LA - stopping Messenger Service pop-ups

Michelle is getting pop-ups and having problems accessing Outlook after using a spyware removal program

The best way to stop Messenger Spam is to update to Service Pack-2 . That will turn on the Windows firewall. You can also disable the Messenger Service (select Services from the Administrative Tools menu).

She’s also having problems with Outlook - it stopped downloading new mail after she ran Spybot and removed some system level spyware. Make sure you check your settings. Reinstall Outlook. And if that doesn’t work try Winsock XP Fix to repair your Winsock installation. You might also want to run the Microsoft System File checker to replace and repair key system files. Click Start→Run and enter sfc /scannow

D2 writes:
Michelle can run, “Detect and Repair,” from the Outlook Help Menu. Better yet, remove old mail profile and enter again.

JJ in Anaheim - which chip: AMD vs Pentium

He’s doing 3D rendering and video editing and wants top performance. Look at the benchmarks on sites like AnandTech and you’ll see that the AMD FX 64 kicks butt. It’s very pricey, but the 64 bit Athlons are, in fact, the fastest chips out there now.

Listeners Write:
My Athlon 64 (this is the desktop thing not FX or Opteron) costs ~250 bills.

The Athlon 64 XP is great. My benches on the Athlon 64 3200 kick all my clan members P4′s

1–2p

Todd in Massachusetts - recovering damaged data

Does tech support for Jamaica’s Haile High School in Montego Bay.

He’s trying to recover an external hard drive for them. The drive mounts and he can see folders and some files, but others are damaged. First step is to make an image of the drive with a program like Norton Ghost. That way if the file recovery programs make things worse you can go back to step one.

I also recommend PC Inspector a free file recovery program that doesn’t modify the hard drive (make sure to restore to a different drive).

Scott in Mission Viejo - looking for home media server

He wants video recorded on his Tivos, or music and pictures on his PCs, available to every TV and stereo in the house. This is a very exciting new category. Tech TV gave its Best of CES award to Denon NS-S100 but it’s very pricey. Voom!, a satellite HDTV provider also will offer a media server, and I think it’s done right.

I think we’ll see many good solutions in the next year or so - but right now I don’t know of a perfect media server.

From Kevin - What about the Toshiba SD-h400 tivo/dvd player? It can be found for as low as $200, and comes with free TIVO service. If you pay the standard TIVO fees of $13 a month, you can use it as a media server. Sure, it’s not perfect, but it’s quite a deal. You can use it wirelessly to stream music and even download the TIVO guides from your home network :)

From RooBen - For a Mac-based solution there is also eyeHome from elgato. It can be paired with their eyetv to record and share television shows as well as different media from a mac to different televisions. The setup can also be wireless as you could use an Airport Express to spread da love through the air.

Dion in Burbank - scanner problem

He has two Epson Perfection 3170 photo scanners that both do the same thing. They work fine on Windows 2000, but on his two XP machines the scan comes in out of order. It previews fine, but the final scan is jumbled. I don’t know what’s wrong. Do you?

jsks writes: Epson Perfection 3170 Support

2–3p

Paul in Rancho Cucamonga - Learning LAMP

Paul wants to take the next step in web design. He’s heard me talk about the LAMP platform - Linux Apache MySQL PHP. This is a common combination of applications for web sites: the Linux OS, running the Apache web server, PHP programming language and the MySQL database. All four are open source and free software.

There is a book on the subject, but I recommend task oriented learning. Get a basic site set up on a LAMP based server then start adding capabilities. Learn by doing.

jsks writes:
Great Web Development Resources:
W3Schools
WebMonkey

Kared in Alberta, Canada - building your own digital video recorder

In the States I don’t usually recommend this, since Tivos are so cheap and work so dang well. But you can’t get Replay or Tivo in Canada, so building your own makes sense. If you plan to use Windows I recommend SageTV or Snapstream. On Linux the best choice is MythTV. Check the hardware compatiblity requirements for the software you use, but a good hardware MPEG-2 recorder is the Hauppauge WinTV 250.

SageTV
Freevo
MythTV Call for Help 2.0 Article

Seth Wilson (also in Canada) writes:
There is a great step-by-step guide to hacking a Tivo so that it will work in Canada. Check out Tivo Canada. Might save you some loonies. :)

Michelle in San Diego - wireless print server

They make ‘em. DLink and SMC both make print servers for USB or LPT printers using IPP - Internet Protocol Printing. I haven’t used them yet but here’s a good review from Wi-Fi Planet.

sambqt writes:
Airport Express is a great solution for wireless USB printing. Works for Windows as well as Mac. Additionally, it streams music wirelessly, is a wi-fi access point, wi-fi repeater, and it does Windows.

Trevor Evans says: Linksys also makes them as well, and I like their results.

Pablo in Monrovia - likes the new iMacs, but how upgradable are they?

Not very - you can add memory, airport, or a bigger hard drive, but that’s about it. I don’t think upgragability is the issue it used to be anyway. I do worry about how hot the new G5 iMacs are though. You might want to take a look at one in the Apple Store before you buy. They should be in stock later this week.

David in Los Angeles - DLP vs. LCD rear projection

David wants to know about DLP versus LCD rear-projection systems, they are leaning toward a Samsung
I prefer DLP and I love the Samsung DLP HDTVs - best bang for your buck.

Ed from Albuquerque says: Also check out front projection DLPs, esp for bang for buck. Take up almost no space (ceiling mount) and the screen size option are perfect flat and hide away. Shopping for one myself.

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