Laptop or desktop computers and any components within.
Hardware
What's a Good, Affordable Laser Printer?
Episode 1759
Richard fromRichard is looking for a good Laser printer that doesn't look like it's been put together like an erector set. Leo recommends Brother's laser printers. They're excellent and inexpensive. Other good laser printer brands to look at are Samsung, Epson, and HP.
How Can I Prevent My Audio Receiver From Turning on and Off?
Episode 1759
David fromDavid's Denon AV receiver turns on/off randomly. What's going on? Leo says that all home theater gear are computers now, and as such, they are all solid-state. As such, they're not very fixable. But it could be an intermittent power spike that is causing the AVR to turn on/off. A power conditioner could fix it by providing a steady supply of power without interruption. That's the one solution that David can try. Absent that, it's probably cheaper to buy a new AVR rather than try and repair it. Power conditioners include Trip Lite, APCC.
How Can I Get My External Hard Drive to Be Read?
Episode 1759
Brett fromBrett has an external hard drive that has his Plex Media Library on it. It has over 500 movies on it. But he's been having issues with it now. His PC can read only random movie files. Leo says the hard drive is starting to fail, and Brett needs to back it up asap and replace it. Leo thinks the hard drive is experiencing a soft failure, meaning that the drive has some corruption of the hard drive catalog, and it could be fixed. Leo recommends SpinRite, which can read bad sectors and move the data to a healthier drive sector.
Sam Abuelsamid and the Shifted Model Year
Episode 1759
Sam Abuelsamid joins Leo to talk about how car companies are now putting out new cars during any time of the year, not just in the Fall.
How Can I Digitize My Old Albums?
Episode 1759
John fromJohn wants to digitize a record album of his mother's appearance on the old game show Queen for a Day. Is there a turntable that he can get, which can convert it to an mp3? Leo says that Crossley makes a turntable with a USB connection. There is also Victrola and ION. They make them as well. And you can get them as little as $100, and it also includes a CD burner. Just do a search on Amazon for a USB Turntable.
The Giz Wiz and the Flex Brew
Episode 1758
The first gadget of the new year from the Giz Wiz is the Hamilton Beach FlexBrew, which offers 3 ways to brew coffee. You can make up to 12 cups with ground coffee on the carafe side or use a dual-purpose single-serving K Cup pod or ground coffee on the other. The included pod holder and single-serve grounds basket handle both options.
Apple's New High End AirPod Headphones
Episode 1758
Leo says that Apple's new $550 Airpod Max Headphones are too cheap for high-end headphones, and too expensive for just about everything else. But he says that while these fit into a gray area that's going to use computational audio driven by 10 core processors. So customers have a supercomputer in each ear. It will support things like surround sound and will take an imperfect stream of audio and make it better. But Leo will never buy them, even though while they are pricey status symbols now, they may end up being worth the price down the line as the technology improves.
What's a Good Portable Speaker to Connect to My Laptop?
Episode 1758
Elizabeth fromElizabeth wants to be able to listen to music from room to room that can plug into her laptop. Leo likes Ultimate Ears UE Speakers. Leo likes the UE MegaBoom.
How Can I Restore My RAID Backup to a New Hard Drive?
Episode 1758
Spencer fromSpencer removed a hard drive from his RAID array and now he's having issues. Leo says some of the data needed from the reboot was on the missing hard drive. Can he just repartition the RAID? Leo says that the safest thing to do is copy off the data and then reinstall Windows. Then restore. That should copy the master boot record and get it all back to normal.
How Can I Run Windows on My New m1 Mac MiniM
Episode 1756
Myra fromMyra recently got an M1 Mac Mini to replace her old Windows machine. How can she run her Windows teaching programs with her new Mac? She hears that Parallels isn't perfect for running Windows virtually.
Leo says that the M1 doesn't use BootCamp anymore, so it is virtually the only option now. Leo says that VMWare Fusion is the other virtual option. But both VMWare and Parallels have yet to release an M1 version. However, Parallels has released a technical preview version that you could try. But there is another challenge. You need a special version of Windows.
