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Sunday, October 24, 2004
Show #86
Software offer: X1 has kindly offered my listeners a discount coupon for their excellent PC search software. It’s free to try for 30-days. $49.95 to buy with the discount.
https://www.x1.com/cart/?discount=KTVH5
toc | toc
Today’s news items
Bush and Kerry have both answered a 12 topic questionnaire from the Computer Technology Industry Association. Bush (or, more likely, his staff) responded to each question with detailed, thoughtful answers that showed, for the most part, a good understanding of the issue. Kerry, unfortunately, did not.
When asked about the Federal government’s role in fighting spam Bush replied, in part, “The problems associated with SPAM cannot be solved by Federal legislation alone, but rather require the development and adoption of new technologies.” and pointed to the CAN-SPAM act as a step in the right direction. Kerry’s answer, in its entirety, “I am open to considering the best means available to ensure people do not receive unsolicited email.” John, love ya babe, but get some staffers with a clue.
Computer trivia question of the day
What did Douglas Engelbart invent?1
A. CRT monitor
B. Ethernet
C. Vacuum Tube
D. Mouse
Noon-1p
I like what Roger McGuinn is doing with his music. Check out his podcast at Roger McGuinn’s Folkden
Jim in Florida - External HDTV tuner for the PC
There’s at least one for the Mac: El Gato’s EyeTV 500. Makes me think there must be some for the PC, too.
Hauppauge makes an HDTV internal PCI card but not an external box.
Ahh. Here’s one for the PC.
Mark in Maryland - wants help designing his site
He runs www.myvirushelp.com - he’s an anti-virus reseller. I would make a couple of points, first it’s confusing to have a nav bar on top and to the left - pick one. Second, make sure your navigation remains the same on all pages. When users go to your message boards they may get lost. I’d also put something on the front page that describes exactly what you do, both so newcomers know where they are, but also for the search engines.
I recommend any of Jakob Nielsen’s books. My favorites are Designing Web Usability and Homepage Usability
I also recommend the Visual Quickstart Guide to HTML and any of Lynda Weiman’s books.
Steve in Reseda - has McAfee Security, is SP-2 safe to install
It should be - it works fine with McAfee - but do read my recommendations for a safer SP-2 install. And backup before you begin!
1–2p
Mark in Winnetka - online store scam
He was able to escape from a seminar where the leaders promised they could help him set up an online store (for an exorbitant price) and optimize his search engine results. You’re right to be skeptical - the Internet gold rush has attracted many scam artists who over promise and under deliver.
I don’t think it’s a bad idea to set up your store with an existing provider, but choose someone reputable like Yahoo stores. And, while no one can put your site at #1 on Google, there are legitimate Search Engine Optimization consultants who can help you organize your page for best results. But they can be expensive and probably aren’t worth it when you’re just getting started.
David Lawrence adds: GoDaddy offers great e-commerce solutions. His merchant account (Visa or Mastercard) charges 30¢ per transaction. plus 1.5% American Express is only $5/month(!) for small business (up to $5000 in sales per month). He uses XCart as his shopping cart on his 10 Quick Steps site.
From Rene: I looked at the American Express Merchant site and it actually says the merchant must have less than $5,000 annually not monthly to be eligible for the $5.00 flat fee.
BlueBoi: Free Shopping Cart (No Server Side needed) http://www.nopdesign.com/freecart/
Dyslexic Chris in Dana Point - concerned about privacy
He’s worried about the 21st Century Access to Banking Act.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” — Benjamin Franklin, “Historical Review of Pennsylvania”, 1759
Here is the full text of the Patriot Act and 21st Century Access to Banking Act
Kevin in El Segundo - SP2 disabled Windows Safe Mode
Like Jim in Florida, Kevin can’t get into safe mode after upgrade. It hits a file beginning with mus then restarts.
JohnDgeek writes:
I have had this problem hapen to several of my clients computeres. In all the cases
of it not booting to safe mode it would stop at mup.sys2 and crash. None of our
systems have SP2 yet installed. We were able to fix the problem by forcing BIOS to
re configure the IDE drives. I don’t have the documentation in front of me to do
this but in most cases this worked. The one case this didn’t work was because the
hard disk was bad.
UPDATE: In BIOS insure Caps Lock, Scroll Lock, and Num Lock are all on. Next hit
the key combination of Alt+F then Alt+E. You will hear a beep after each as confirmation.
Save the settings and reset. if you still have problems booting then you will want to
try and re install the operating system.
I’ve looked for documentation on this mus.sys file and there is none. Might be Dell specific. Any thoughts?
Trent sez: here is an option when you press F8 that says ‘Don’t restart windows on crash’ if you select that and then enter safe mode you will get an error number.
2–3p
Paul in Encino - got hacked in Yahoo Games
I think that’s very unlikely. Yahoo Games use Java which is generally considered very secure.
Noel in Laguna Beach - plugging in his firewire camcorder crashes Windows XP
Only way to diagnose this problem is to swap stuff around. Try a different cable. Try the camera on another computer. Try reinstalling the Firewire drivers.
Ed in the chat room says: make sure you’re actually using the firewire connector. Get a real firewire cable.
MechMan adds: If the firewire is not motherboard mounted, the card or the PCI slot may be bad. Move the card to another PCI slot and try there. If it still happens, the card might need replacing, especially if you can hook the camera up successfully on another PC.
Sam in Glendale - looking for a new HDTV
I like the Samsung DLP HDTVs - they give you the best bang for your buck. Read all about HDTVs in the Stereophile’s Guide to Home Theater.
Andy in East LA - Can I put drives bigger than 120GB on my G4?
He helps out at East Los Angeles College (sounds like they have some good computer classes there and a new G5 computer lab!) but is trying to upgrade his old silver G4. Check www.everymac.com - a great place to get more information about your Mac. Tackie reminded me that www.lowendmac.com is also good.
Richard adds: I have a G4 (silver door) dual 1.25. (OSX) I added 3 more 250Gig Hard Drives for a total of 1 Terabyte! Worked like a charm, however it overheats now. Soon after turning it on, it quickly throttles up to top speed with the fans. It sounds and puts out heat from the back like a hair dryer on 24/7. Drives the wife crazy.. So, beware.. Think about just adding a Firewire drive.
Chat Logs and Show Audio
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Show Archives | |
1 Answer is D: The mouse. In 1964, the first prototype computer mouse was made to use with a graphical user interface. Douglas Engelbart’s computer mouse received patent # 3,541,541 on November 17, 1970 for a “X-Y Position Indicator For A Display System” More can be found at http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_computer_mouse_patent.htm (↑)
2 * corrected from mus.sys (↑)
