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Saturday December 11, 2004

Show # 99

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Today’s news items

IBM has, in fact, sold its PC division to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo for $1.4 billion and $500 million in debt. Lenovo is now the number three PC maker after Dell and HP. There’s a good history of the IBM PC at Internet News.

Bad mouse! Even though four other movie companies have decided on the HD-DVD format for their movies, Disney has opted for Sony’s Blu-Ray, ensuring that there will be a Beta/VHS style format war in the new Hi-Def DVDs. Disney said they’ll start putting out Blu-ray DVDs as soon as the players are available in 2006.

Mike B’s trivia question of the day

In 1975, the MITS Altair 8800 appears on the cover of a magazine. The accompanying article inspires Paul Allen and Bill Gates to develop a BASIC language for the Altair. What was the magazine? ¹
a) PC Magazine
b) Byte
c) Family Computing
d) Popular Electronics

Noon-1p

Hans in Westlake Village - Making PAL format DVD

He has European friends and wants to make DVDs that they can play back. I recommend buying Adobe Premiere Elements - it’s the best low cost video editor and can author PAL DVDs. The difference between PAL and NTSC is described here.

Frank in Palm Springs - keeps receiving blank emails

My guess is that it’s spammers looking for valid email addresses, but I’ll take a look at the headers to see if I can figure it out.

Nancy in Oceanside - wants to play her iTunes music on her stereo

There are lots of great units for using wireless networking (802.11g) to connect your stereo to your MP3 collection on your PC. All of these will work with iTunes on Windows, however, in order to play songs that you’ve purchased from the iTunes music store, you’re limited to using only Apple’s Airport Express unless you remove Apple’s DRM (Digital Rights Management) software from each purchased song.

The Roku Soundbridge is very slick - it works with iTunes, too but will not play DRM protected songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

You might also want to take a look at the Squeezebox from Slimdevices ($279) and Apple’s Airport Express.

To get remote control capabilities with the Express you’ll need to also buy the Keyspan remote.

1–2p

Dave in Ontario - HD radio

It’s coming. FM radio that sounds as good as CDs - AM that sounds as good as FM. At least that’s what the ads say. But how good is it in the real world? I don’t know yet because I haven’t heard it yet. Read more at Crutchfield’s web site.

Leo et al - check out WOR’s HD Radio website if you want to hear what HD Radio sounds like on the AM band; the codec has come a long way in terms of quality. It’s particularly interesting to hear how the HD Radio receiver copes with loss of the digital signal. The site also includes a FAQ, pictures of the WOR transmitter shack with the Ibiquity exciter installed and a coverage map of HD vs. AM.

Robert in Missouri - getting data off his old Mac floppies

To read Mac disks you need MacDrive from Mediafour. There’s a free trial at the web site.

Dave in Ontario - dropping the land line for a VoIP phone

I use both Vonage and Packet8 and love them both - they’re very inexpensive and since I call Canada all the time I save a bundle. The issue with using them for your only phone is that if the power or Internet goes out the phone won’t work. 911 works differently, as well. You have to register with a Public Service Access Point and your calls will go there then be forwarded to the appropriate agency.

Chris in Mission Viejo - Vonage user

He’s happy with it. Since he has SBC DSL he kept the minimum phone line for emergencies. He did have some trouble with the router locking up due to excessive traffic. He turned on DTU MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) and set it to 1450 to fix the problem.

Slight error, it’s not DTU but MTU. It is found on the setup or filters tab on most Linksys routers. Many DSL users have to set this from 1492 to 1450 for best proformance. All newer Linksys routers lower the MTU to 1492 whenever the router is setup for PPPoE. — Glich minor edit by Kalic

2–3p

Tanya in Calabasas - moving Windows data to a Mac

She just bought a new iMac and wants to move her data over from her 1998 Compaq Presario. Unfortunately the Presario doesn’t have a CD burner - that would be the easiest way. I think the next easiest thing to do would be to buy an external hard drive case, remove the old drive from the Compaq, put it in the external case, and hook it up to the Mac firewire port. You’ll be able to copy over all your old data and you’ll get an external hard drive for backup.

From LunaHa1o:

That is a great way to move your data from computer to computer. I agree that most don’t keep the elegance of the Mac look. However, I have one that looks sleek on the desk next to the iMac. The Vantec Nexstar 2 is a great product and nice looking. One thing, that old compaq computer may have a larger form factor hard drive. It can still be used to get the data off, but may not fit into an external enclosure. There is a 5.25 inch Vantec Nexstar 2 enclosure if you need the bigger form factor. Those that were linked to have USB only, but there are versions that have Firewire and USB ports. Either are fine and will ork equally as well. The iMac has both and really only matters with your personal preference and free open ports that you have available.

Dan in Woodland Hills - are Mag LCD displays ok?

They’ve always been a good budget choice. I haven’t used one lately, but I’m sure they’re fine. Make sure to examine the monitor before you buy - compare it, if you can with other monitors. I use, and recommend the Samsung Syncmaster 191T.

Dorothy in Mission Viejo - getting Windows 98 to recognize a thumb drive

She inserted the drive into her Windows 98, it couldn’t find the driver, but she clicked OK and now it won’t give her the chance to search for the driver again. Open the System Properties control panel, click Device Manager, and remove the entry for the USB device (it will have a Yellow ! or Red X next to it). Then install the driver from the disk that came with the thumb drive - it contains Windows 98 drivers, XP and Mac don’t require drivers. No disk? Try a generic driver. (Maybe this one will work.)

[Slick, Tucson/AZ]
Leo, you made a comment about flash drives as large as 1 GB…
SmartDisk FireFly 20.0GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive
I have loved mine for a very long time. Now, Best Buy carries them.
I think Buslink has some models, also.

John in Huntington Beach - wants to chase off dogs with a motion detector sprinkler

Get a motion detector that turns on power - connect your sprinkler to it (use a surge supressor to protect yourself) and watch out dogs!

From sobenson, Greenville,SC:
You could just use this, it is exactly what you are trying to “MacGyver”. Scarecrow Motion-Activated Sprinkler.

Chat Logs and Show Audio

¹ Answer is d) Popular Electronics (↑)