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Saturday, November 27, 2004

Show #95

 toc | toc 

Mikkel Aaland joins us in the 1p hour to talk about Photoshop Elements Solutions and Shooting Digital.

Today’s news items

That grilled cheese sandwich with the picture of the Virgin Mary (or someone) on it sold for $28,000 to the Golden Palace online casino.

Microsoft poo-pooed Finjan’s report last week that a malicious web site could bypass the browser warning and download bad stuff to your PC. The hole in Internet Explorer even affects Windows XP systems with Service Pack 2 installed. Now that a French web site has posted demo code, Microsoft says it’s working on a patch.

Noon-1p

Shell in San Diego - crashed iBook

Apple’s Software update failed in the middle of an install, now her iBook won’t boot. Fortunately it actually starts loading the OS - she’s getting the spinning gear. First thing to do is to try a safe boot: reboot and hold down the shift key. That will check your disk and run fsck, the disk check utility. If that doesn’t fix things, you’ll need to reboot with your OS X install disc (insert the disc, reboot holding down the C key). If you can see the contents of your hard drive I would back it up immediately to an external drive or a USB key. Then re-install the OS using the “save settings” option.

Bill in Ohio - movie freezes halfway through

This is normal on dual-layered DVDs. Most commercial DVDs are dual-layered. The pause occurs as the laser changes angle to read the second layer. If a DVD properly mastered you won’t notice the pause, but sometimes it’s difficult to avoid. He’s looking for a DVD player smart enough to read ahead and avoid the pause. I don’t know of one. Do you?

He also wanted to tell people about the disk check feature of the iPod.

Jim in Florida - looking for an easy to install Linux

He’s downloaded a bunch of Linux distributions (from the Linux ISOs site). He found Debian very tricky to install, though. I recommend SuSE as the easiest to install, and most complete distro. Red Hat Fedora and Mandrake are also good. Debian and Slackware for intended for experienced Linux users. Gentoo is pretty cool. And SimplyMEPIS is an up and comer. I do recommend using a Live CD distribution first, because you can try it without actually installing it.

If you don’t have the patience or bandwidth to download a Linux, you can buy a disc cheap from Cheap Bytes.

1–2p

Mikkel Aaland joins us in the 1p hour to talk about Photoshop Elements Solutions and Shooting Digital

New in Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0:

• RAW support
• 12 and 16-bit color (per channel)
• Red-eye removal that works
• The healing brush

For the price there’s nothing better, but if you don’t need RAW support Mikkel says you should also look at Microsoft’s Digital Image Suite.

Nikki in Iowa - wants to set up her first web site

She uses Macromedia’s Contribute - that’s an excellent and easy to use program. She also has Macromedia Studio MX, which included the very powerful Dreamweaver web designer. That’s what I use, and most pros recommend it, but it can be tough to use. Work your way up from Contribute. You can learn more about web design at www.webmonkey.com and www.lynda.com.

A listener writes: An excellent book to start with is HTML for the World Wide Web: Visual Quickstart Guide by Elizabeth Castro. [I agree! It’s the first computer book I ever gave my daughter. —Leo]

Nikki’s current site is: http://sims2fashions.tk/

Ira in Manhattan Beach - DVD player for his new HDTV

Look for progressive scan, 3:2 pulldown, and a digital connector (DVI or HDMI).

I recommend the Toshiba SD-5970
-Serpent

2–3p

Scott in Riverside - wireless networking

He has Macs and Windows, anything to understand about Wireless networking. Good news, Wi-Fi is the same for Windows or Mac. Apple calls 802.11g “Airport Extreme” but I recommend buying a Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, or SMC wireless access point. It will work fine with your Airport card.

Mike in Murietta - difference between Centrino and Pentium IV HT

Centrino is a marketing designation for a laptop with an Intel Pentium M chip, Intel chipset, and Intel Wi-Fi. The Pentium M is an excellent chip, comparable to a Pentium IV, but cooler and requiring lower power. It’s the best choice for a laptop when battery life is a concern. If you are looking for desktop power in a laptop and you don’t mind a larger size and short battery life, a Pentium IV HT is going to be faster.

Mike’s a former computer executive who makes hand-tooled saddles now. Visit him at www.mshelhart.com

Mikey in Ontario - my favorite Macintosh programs

There are two I couldn’t live without: LaunchBar and Konfabulator. But I have a list of 38 programs that I recommended on the recent MacMania cruise. I’ll post them as soon as I get a chance.

Doug in Garden Grove - infected by MidAddle

MidADdle is an extremely irritating ad presenter that’s apparently also very difficult to get rid of. He’s tried Ad-Aware and Spybot, plus manual removal instructions, to no avail. In cases like this you’ll have to use a program like Hijack This, then post the log on one of the anti-spyware forums like Spywareinfo.com.

Read my SpywarePrevention instructions.

A listener writes: Spyware Guide has an online spyware scan that works well.

If you’re curious about seeing how Spyware is installed on your system without you knowing it, check out Benedelman.org. In his article Who Profits from Security Holes?. Benjamin Edelman visits one website that he identified as installing Spyware and tapes what happens to his system. You can see this demonstration of Spyware in action via the Windows Media file he has posted a link to in his article.

Kevin in Crestline - is my password secure?

It is when you enter it on a secure web site (look for the solid key or padlock at the bottom of your browser window). If a site is not secure any password you enter is sent as plain text and can be intercepted by a hacker.

Joe in Buena Park - bluetooth headset recommendation

I’ve tried a bunch but like Jabra’s FreeSpeak BT-250 the best for comfort, reliability, and battery life.

I recommend the Logitech® Mobile Bluetooth® Headset
-Serpent

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