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Weekend of August 24th, 2012

 

Dave and his team of tech experts answer more of your questions via the Ask Dave Hotline. In case you haven't yet, call us ... toll-free 1-800-899-INTO (4686) ... with any consumer electronics question, opinion, help another listener or tell us what your favorite app is and why. You can also participate via our FREE "Into Tomorrow" App (iOS/Android/Intel AppUp). Thank you for your participation!

ITTV Video Update

It's Back-to-School time! Are you ready? Rob and our KidsTech Reporter Caitlyn share some fun and productive devices and other ideas for students. Also, Chris Graveline takes us back into yesterday's most outstanding tech events on "This Week In Tech History".

Listeners & Guests on the show this week:

For ALL the details ... be sure to listen to the show by downloading the MP3 or clicking the RED & WHITE "Play" button on the media player, both on the right-hand side of this page.

HOUR 1:

Tech News & Commentary

 

Earl in McAllen, Texas listening via TuneIn Radio asked: "I'm looking to get my kid a tablet. There's a kid's tablet at Toys R Us. It's a Nabi, sells for about $200 and it comes preloaded with some kid-specific apps and games. Just wondering if we should go with that or if we should pay a little more and get something like the Google Nexus or a Samsung Galaxy Tab. He's 9 years old right now and mostly playing games on it."

 

On looking at this tablet from a technical standpoint, it’s pretty strong. It’s got a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen, which we prefer to the less popular, resistive touchscreen, since you can really just touch the screen, rather than having to apply pressure. It’s got an Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad core processor which makes it powerful enough to run smooth video and more of the power-hungry apps. It runs Ice Cream Sandwich and has 8GB of built-in storage that you can expand with a Micro SD card up to 32GB.

The reviews we’ve found online are quite favorable. It’s got built-in parental controls which allow you to control which apps your child can download and which websites they can visit. There also is a “Mommy/Daddy” mode which will give you full access, so that you can download certain other apps and other things that would otherwise be blocked. Like Skype. It does work on the tablet, but only in that “Mommy/Daddy” mode, so your kids can’t initiate calls without your consent.

The bottom line, you can get whatever tablet you want for your kids. This one has a rubberized case that protects it against falls or certain other things kids tend to do to tablets. That’s not to say it’s invincible. But, if your child were to break their tablet, would you rather them break a $200 tablet, or a $500 tablet?

For our listeners interested in the Nabi tablet, we didn’t see it online at Toys R Us, but it’s available at Walmart, Best Buy, GameStop, Target and Amazon for $200. By the way, the front-facing camera on the Nabi offers more megapixels than the Google Nexus. Nabi has 2 MP, while the Nexus has a 1.2MP camera. Both tablets cost the same and offer similar tech specs, but the Nabi does have a slight advantage.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

 

 

The "Into Tomorrow" team discussed the latest apps that they have been playing with recently.

 

Listener input:

• Listener James listens to us from Los Angeles California via our “Into Tomorrow” app. He Suggests “Major Mayhem”. It’s a total time waster, because once you start playing it, it’s really hard to stop. You start as a goofy animated Army cartoon character and you run around shooting NINJAS. Funny, because for once I'm shooting something other then zombies. This app is free on both iOS and on Android. Beware! It's very addicting.

• Listener Chris recommends "Penultimate" handwriting app, his son Andrew recommends "Where's my water?"


For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

Michelle in Michigan listens on 800 CKLW - The Information Station asked: I live on an island and my Wi-Fi goes in and out. I hear you talk about the antennas and I don't know if that's something I want or if that's just something you travel with. I want to know more about boosting my Internet because it goes in and out."

 

You can indeed get a booster antenna that you can travel with. We’ve used the C.Crane Super USB WiFi Antenna 3 and it has helped us get better reception. C.Crane claims that it can get a signal from up to a mile away from the source if there are no obstructions.

The Super USB WiFi Antenna 3 plugs into your USB port and is basically set up as a new network card. That may bring on problem along with it. As of right now, C.Crane doesn’t have drivers for Mac OS 10.8. So if you’re on a Mac running the latest version of the OS, you may have to wait until October for this particular antenna to work.

There are other options, but to be honest, they’re mostly just generic antennas that plug into a USB port and don’t even come with a name. We haven’t tried any of them, but quite a few are so inexpensive that you can try them without putting too much money on the line, think $10-$15.

For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

Michael in Pembroke Pines, Florida listening via our iPhone App asked: "Had there been any updates on when Apple will unveil the iPhone 5 or the elusive smaller iPad?"

 

As usual, Apple has not said one word. Except that they will have an event on September 12th. Many people are expecting this to be the launch of the next iPhone. Now, whether it will be called the ‘iPhone 5,” is still up in the air. Given what they did with the latest iPad, we wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just called “The New iPhone.

The “smaller iPad” is still just speculation. Apple tends to be very tight lipped about their products before they are released. There has been a lot of people quoting “sources” saying that there will be one. And there very well may be. We’ll just have to wait and see, come September 12th.

For all we know, the “smaller iPad” is probably being confused with a “bigger iPhone”. Meaning that instead of making a smaller iPad, the iPhone will be much bigger.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

Jerry in Franklin, Tennessee listening on 99.7 WTN -Super Talk asked: "I've been looking for a laptop. Most of my choices have this shiny screen. I'm looking for something with more of a matte screen like my PC monitor. Can you give me some options on that and tell me why I can't have more as far as selection on that?"

 

You may need to look at more expensive models and direct from the manufacturer. Matte screens these days are mostly aimed at professionals, not regular end-users. They typically come in very high resolutions, and come as an option on more expensive, business oriented laptops.

Glossy screens display brighter colors, and better, deeper blacks, but the colors they show aren’t always as accurate as the ones shown on easier to calibrate matte screens. So it’s common for professionals in design and editing to use matte screens and pay a premium for them.

Now, for end users, glossy screens usually provide nice vivid colors without the premium price tag, they’re easy to clean and they’re more than adequate for everything a regular computer user does, so matte screens are usually more of a pro feature these days

If you want a cheaper alternative, you can look for a matte or anti-glare filter for your glossy screen, those are available from several companies and may help you get close to the matte experience without the business laptop price tag.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

HOUR 2:

Tech News & Commentary

Chris from Moline, Illinois, listening via the Android App asked: "Our cellphones, Verizon, are our main source of internet connections. We use PDAnet and Foxify to tether our Android to the computer. For the first 2 years I had a 3G phone, and it would take about a week to use 1GB of data, now with 4G I can use a gigabyte easily in one day and I swear I haven't changed my habits. Yes, I am a heavy internet user, but I swear I haven't changed my habits and it has more than doubled when we are in 4G are a. So, I'm wondering if you or any of your listeners have had the same experience and if so, do you have any explanation. I've told people that switching to 4G is like drinking from a firehose, I don't have any technical basis for that, but that's sureeee what it feels like."

 

As far as we can tell, LTE does eat up more bandwidth when using certain services. VEVO and Netflix seem to increase the quality of their streams when they detect a user is on LTE, but other sites like YouTube seem to treat 3G and 4G users the same way.

Probably the main reason for LTE users to be going through more data is that things load faster, so they load more of them. They go to more websites in the same time, or load more videos because they don’t have to wait for them to buffer. The same website sometimes also loads more images because at the higher speed it doesn’t take as long for each image to load, or they may look at the first 10 seconds of a 3 minute video, but in that time the whole video may have loaded, where on 3G it may have barely loaded anything beyond the first 10 seconds.

The other obvious reason is: people like playing with their new toys. LTE is fast and people probably use it more when the first get it, over time you may find your usage drops a little when the novelty wears off.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

 

Margie in Jackson, Michigan listening on 800 CKLW- The Information Station asked: "Will the iPad Mini have the same things that the iPad does, only be smaller, or will the iPad Mini have a lot less options than the regular iPad?"

 

We know absolutely nothing about the smaller iPad, including whether or not it will ever actually exist. Right now all we have are rumors and all the rumors are consistently saying is that the smaller iPad will be... smaller.

That’s it, we know nothing about any features that it may or may not have, and we’re unlikely to have any information about it until Apple introduces it, assuming they’re planning on even doing that.

Apple does tend to limit features on “lite” products, so sometimes an iPod Touch will not inherit every single iPhone feature that it could, the same may happen with the smaller iPad, if it’s a real product that Apple actually intends to put on the market. At this point we just don’t know. Is it September 12th yet?

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

Mike in Springfield, Tennessee listening on 1590 AM - Bringing the world to your neighborhood asked: "I see that some of the new laptops being sold are advertised to include an upgrade to Windows 8. Can you tell us what major changes we can anticipate to be included with this upgrade? Also, my son has seen articles stating that Microsoft plans to make the Windows 8 OS compatible with the XBox OS. Can you comment on the subject?"

 

Well... the most obvious new feature is the new start page with it’s Metro style active tiles (which does not at all resemble a mid-90s AOL home screen...) 

 

 

But, Windows 8 includes many other big changes: a brand new search function, a redesigned and re-branded file explorer, native USB 3.0 support, better support for multiple screens, a new and improved file copy dialog, faster boot-up times. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 changes included in Windows 8, most of them probably less than super exiting features, the kind that are only technically a change, like “arial black is now ever so slightly blacker...” but there are also some very big, very exciting changes, so you should notice the difference as soon as you upgrade.

Now as for XBox and Windows sharing an OS or even features, that’s not likely to happen. Those rumors probably come from the fact that Windows 8 doesn’t call it’s built in games “Windows games” or anything like that, but “XBox Windows”, that doesn’t mean your XBox and computer will have any kind of special new connection, it’s just the name Microsoft is using to market it’s Windows games.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

 

 

Alex in State College, Pennsylvania listening on 103.1- Happy Valley’s Place to Talk asked: "I just got the Google Nexus 7. It's unlocked, it's hacked, I've got my custom ROMs on there and it's pretty sweet. I was just wondering if I could use a microphone headset with that."

 

Sorry, it looks like you can’t. The Nexus 7 does not support a 4-pin microphone jack which means you won’t be able to use a wired headset like the kind you normally get with phones.

It seems that Bluetooth presents the same problem, you will get audio, but the microphone won’t work.

This is actually kind of a big omission by Google because it doesn’t just rule out microphones, but also credit card readers like Square. We’d expect them to change that for future releases.

For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

HOUR 3:

Tech News & Commentary

Cathy in Columbia, Missouri listening on KFRU 1400- News Talk asked: "What computer would you suggest for a 'dummy with computers?' Never used one before."

 

Since you’ve never used computer and you don’t know how much use you’re going to get out of one, you can look into some cheap models to learn with. If you find that you’re advancing so fast that you want to use very heavy software, these may turn out not to be the models for you. But odds are that you won’t run into that problem any time soon.

You can look at something like an ASUS A-Series. You can find some models on Newegg.com for as little as $350 and they come with a nice big 15.6” screen.

You can also look at a Toshiba Satellite C855 for about $400. It also has a big screen, a pretty large hard drive and it should be comfortable to learn on.

A Lenovo G575 will cost you just $329 and it comes with a dual core processor, and the features you can expect from the other two. They’re not super powerful computers, they won’t last forever, but you can use them to learn on without investing a lot of money.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

Christopher in Baton Rouge, Louisiana listening on 107.3 WBRP- Talk 107.3 asked: "I have an Android Tablet and I run into the problem with opening too many programs when I'm doing searches and it says I can't open any more because I've opened too many. I don't know how to clear them out. If you could tell me so that I can watch videos and do other searches it would be appreciated."

 

What’s probably happening is not that you’re opening too many programs, but too many browser windows. Every time you do a search your tablet will try to open that search in a new window, eventually the browser will use up all the windows it’s allowed to use at once (which is typically not much more than 5).

All you have to do to solve the problem and keep searching is open your browser and you should see a button that will show you all open pages. We can’t tell you exactly what the button will look like because it varies depending on the browser and the version of Android that you’re running, but it most likely will look like a small stack of 3 or 4 squares with a number in front of them indicating how many pages are open.

When you find that button, press it and you should see a list of all the open pages, just close the ones you don’t need...that’s it! You should be able to open new ones now until you reach your limit.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

Joe in Miami, Florida asked: "Answer me this Tech Heads: You can send a video Tweet right from the Twitter app on the iPhone and iPad. So why hasn’t video-Tweeting caught on? Why don’t people do it? Am I the first? Something tells me I’m not."

 

We’re guessing that it's because it's kind of annoying? Tweets are short and to the point and you see a whole long list of them by different people. With videos, you just see a link and have to click on it and sit through it. It's also a little uncomfortable for the person recording it, compared to coming up with 140 characters to type quickly..
 
TwitVids are probably more to show something cool than to send out a tweet, kind of the same way TwitPics work.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

 

 

Peter in Olympia, Washington listening to the Podcast asked: "I am trying to figure out how to backup my phone, from the address book to notes to whatever. I have a Samsung SCHU900 (the no longer supported Flipshot). I do not have access to the Verizon Wireless get it now feature, even though I still have Verizon Wireless Access."

 

There is hope, even if you don’t have the original software. There is backup software that you could purchase that will allow you to back up all your personal information to your PC.

One company that has this software is DataPilot. You could backup your contacts, calendar, text messages, photos, videos and ringtones. Once there on your computer, you could either save them, just so their backed up. or transfer them to a new phone.

The software is called (cleverly enough) "Cell Phone Data Transfer" from DataPilot and it sells for about $35.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

Jim in Idaho Falls, Idaho listening on 690 KBLY -East Idaho's Talk Station asked: "I have a Windows Vista machine. I have installed Windows 8 on it. I had some trouble and I had to rebuild my hard drive. This time I installed Vista again and partitioned the hard drive. What I want to do is put Windows 8 on the partition. I was wondering how to do that. I was thinking I could move the hard drive information off of the C drive onto the H drive."

 

When you install Windows 8 you should be asked which partition you want to install Windows on. The installer will literally ask “Where do you want to install Windows?” and show a list of partitions below, there’s no mistaking what it’s asking you. In your case, one of the partitions should be of the same size you gave your new partition.

Doing this will install Windows 8 on the new partition, but it won’t move your files. The thing is, this shouldn’t really matter.

When you’re using Windows 8, you should see your other partition, the one that has Windows Vista on it, and you should be able to access your files from that partition, as if you were opening a folder on your new partition, you can move any files you want manually, but if you don’t want the hassle of dealing with two sets of files, you can just open them straight from where they are now.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

James in Erie, Pennsylvania listens on 1450 WPSE -Your Money Station asked: "I play the tumpet and I played the National Anthem at a minor league baseball game. They sent me a copy of it, but it's in a VOB format. I cannot get that into any of my systems. I cannot translate that into an MP4 format, for example, so I can edit it in Audacity. I have Windows 7. There's so many so called "Free downloads" online, but as soon as you start to do something, you have to pay something to get a program to do this."

 

If you want to convert VOB to MP4 using an actually free tool, you can try WinFF.

WinFF is free and it'll let you convert the video in a very simple way, you basically just select it and choose MP4 as your format and either "widescreen" or "fullscreen" and it will take care of the rest.

You can also try Any Video Converter, it has several paid versions, but you should be able to use the free version to convert VOB to MP4 as well.

If you're not interested in converting the video, but you'd be happy with just being able to watch it, VLC Player will play VOB files and you can download it for free.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.

 

If you have any questions about any of this week's show info, please email us here.

This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners

Corrosion Technologies: Several bottles of CorrosionX -- A few squirts of CorrosionX clean contacts & connections & keep them protected for months (in salt spray environments) to years.

Ergotron: A Universal Tablet Cradle -- This accessory converts a monitor mount to hold a tablet or eReader. Works with most popular tablets and eReaders, including Apple iPad, Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle.

Microsoft: Copies of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013 Software

 

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