Leo says if the head unit in the car has bluetooth, that would be the easiest way. Dave says his car does not have bluetooth, though.
Another possibility is to connect the phone via USB instead. Or he could try getting an adapter, like this one from Belkin, to go from the iPod 30 pin connector to USB.
This week's gadget is the NewerTech Power2U USB outlet. What it does is that in addition to the AC plug outlets, the Power2U adds two convenient USB charging ports. The new version has safety for kids, has been boosted to 20Amp version for commercial use. Leo just installed them and he says they were easy to install and work really well! Note though - The Power2U USB device requires the 16 cubic inch electrical box. But they're only $15 at Amazon.
This week's gadget is an update of one of Leo's favorite gadgets -- the NewerTech USB 3.0 Universal Drive Adapter. Newertech calls it the "Swiss Army Knife" of Disk Connectivity because it lets you turn pretty much any old hard drive you have into an eternal storage device. Great for getting old data off a drive without installing it into your PC or getting an external enclosure. $30.
Autorun software on the USB key may be the culprit. There was a virus that got transmitted via USB keys running autorun, and if Zach's USB key has autorun, it may be wreaking havoc with his Internet connection.
It could also be that the USB driver is corrupted and it could be affecting the network stack. If it's powered and drawing current from the system, his power supply may not be powerful enough to handle it. Try using a USB connection that doesn't draw power and see if there's still a problem. There could also be a motherboard issue at work.
Manuel has a Lenovo A2109 Tablet and he'd like to hook up a portable hard drive to it. It isn't working because his portable hard drive isn't powered, and the tablet doesn't seem to be giving it enough power to work.
Chris is wondering whether or not the USB external drive connected to his Mac Mini is causing it to boot up so slow. Leo says it probably is, and he recommends choosing StartUp disk in the settings so it'll boot up directly by the SSD. He should also try disconnecting the USB drives before booting up. The Mac Mini may be scanning the drives to mount them first when booting up.
Judy bought a new Dell computer and the USB ports aren't working. She contacted Dell and they actually made things worse by tweaking the drivers and formatting the hard drive in system recovery. Leo says that putting the computer back to the way it was is an easy fix for Dell, and they're looking for a software fix. But Leo thinks it may be a bad USB hub on the computer itself and that's a hardware issue. To get a replacement, Judy will have to go through a lot of steps. It's important to backup the hard drive before she does because they will wipe the drive when repairing it.
Jason has an ATI All in Wonder USB TV Tuner and wants to know if it would work on the Google Nexus 7. Leo says probably not since it's an Android OS and it probably wouldn't have the drivers.
Tom wants to get a new USB headset in order to use Skype. Leo recommends the Plantronics 655. It's what he sends podcasters and guests on TWiT, and it works great.
Leo says that is strange, but it is just a preview. It's likely that John will need to either reinstall Windows 8 or go back to Windows 7. He can even contact the manufacturer or his computer and ask them to send him the recovery discs. They'll probably do that for around $10.
It's important for everyone to know that they should be careful not to install these previews or evaluation copies on a primary computer.
