Latest Tech News

<< Last Week's Show (07-27-2012) | Next Week's Show (08-10-2012) >>

 

Weekend of August 3rd, 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 shopping time! Smart phones may be the most requested electronics this year. But, what is the most ideal cell phone for your kids? This week Rob shares some of the latest devices kids may be requesting. Also, Chris Graveline takes us back to the introduction of an important house appliance 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

 

Jaime in Tampa, Florida listens to the Podcast and asked: "What are your views on getting an extended warranty? Let's say you get a new phone and you want to get insurance on it. Is cell phone insurance a good idea?"

 

It depends on what your warranty covers and what you paid for your phone. Most warranties won't cover the stuff that actually breaks smartphones, cracked screens, water damage, those kind of issues. How often do you hear anyone complain that their phone stopped working after a few months before of a factory defect? If that's all the protection you're paying for, skip it.

If the warranty you're looking at covers some accidental damage, then it may be worth considering. It all depends on how much it costs and how likely it is that you'll use it.

Also, if you get a free phone and something happens to it, it's probably not as big a deal as if you paid $500 for a phone and something happened to it, so it all depends on how much having a free replacement is worth to you, and how likely it is that you'll be covered for what killed your phone and actually get that replacement.

 

For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

 

 

 

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

For Android:

On our NEW Twitter Page @itRadioShow ...

@ambbrynic said: "favorite app?? GasBuddy (on Android)!! I'm all about saving money so this app is right up my alley! And it's a plus to enter to win free gas with it, too. Improvements would be accuracy in location. Sometimes I'm headed east & some of the closest stations it shows are west. I think it'd also be cool to be able to share good deals with FB & Twitter through this app."

 

For iOS:

• Rob recommends: NBC Olympics, FREE


 

"I've caught the Olympic Games bug! I've enjoyed cheering for our Team USA. They've made us very proud as usual. I downloaded the NBC Olympics app and have been able to stay on top of the latest news and results. The app provides top news, results and schedules, TV listings, pictures, videos and more. I like the interface, too. Though, sometimes it was a little slow. If you're watching the Olympics, this is a good mobile companion. And, as of this broadcast, you have at least a week left before the games are over." -- Rob

 

 

• Chris recommends: The Weather Channel, FREE


 

"This app has been very useful to me, many times. I have had it for a while and I used to like it. But they recently did a complete revamp of the app, and now I LOVE it. It makes it very easy to get the weather information, not only for your area, but for anywhere in the world. You can save your favorite locations and scroll through them at a moment's notice. One of the things that I think is cool about the app, is the background image changes depending on the current weather conditions. If it's a sunny day, for instance, you'll see a clear blue sky with a nice bright sun. If it's cloudy, you'll see clouds, rainy will show a rain drops all over your screen, and so forth. You can also access the current radar maps for anywhere on the globe. The app is free in the iTunes store and works very well on the iPhone and even better on the iPad." -- Chris



• Andrew recommends: Brewster, FREE


 

"Syncs all your contacts from Facebook, any of your email account, address book or whatever, and organizes you contacts into one central location. AND! It does it for free. One of the best features with this app, is that it merges all duplicate contacts into one contact making searches quick and easy." -- Andrew


Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.

Isa driving through Mississippi asked: "I lost my iPad, but everything's saved to the cloud. How do I retrieve it?"

 

You kinda need another iPad. All the stuff you store on iCloud stays on iCloud ready to be retrieved, but not by logging onto a website and downloading it manually. You can just restore a new iPad to make it look and feel like your old one.

You do that by just selecting to restore from an iCloud backup during the initial setup of the new iPad.

There is an exception -- iWork documents are stored online and can be accessed through iCloud.com, the same goes for your iCloud email, contacts and calendar, if you were syncing those.

For everything else though, you're gonna need a replacement device, but if you know someone with an iPad, you might be able to convince them to let you borrow it to get your stuff back. Just make sure they sync it first so they don't lose their own stuff.

 

For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

HOUR 2:

Tech News & Commentary

Chris in Vermont calling in via the App asked: "How do tablets fit into your daily life? Jim just got one of the new Google Nexus tablet and I got his hand me down iPad. We love the tablets, but I'd like to hear you discuss, where do they fit in? When I'm at my home office I have my computer for everything and when I'm away from my home I have my Droid Razr for most everything. So, how do you use the tablets? where do they fit in?"

 

You'd be surprised where and when you find people using there tablets. From keeping you busy on a long trip, or using it as a remote control in the living room. There are very few things you can't do with a tablet. So it's really up to you!

Andrew (The Intern): I use it mostly when I goes to school. I find it much easier than carrying around a laptop and charger.

Rob: To be honest, I thought I would be using my iPad more than I do my iPhone. But, it hasn't been that way. I think I am still struggling with how it fits in my life. I used to see it as a bigger iPhone without the phone part. But, it seems I'm quite happy with the smaller screen. It's more convenient to whip out an iPhone than an iPad to take a picture. And, you know how I'm addicted to Instagram. They still don't have an iPad version. I don't spend much time at home relaxing and watching TV. If I did, I would probably watch with my iPad more often so that I could Google people and shows I'm watching for more info. For now, the iPad serves three purposes: Email, Notes and Music (the iPod). When I'm on the road or at the office, I usually check my email on the iPad to get rid of messages I don't need in my Inbox. I find it's quicker to delete them from my iPad than it is from my computer. I always bring my iPad to meetings. I find it convenient to take notes with and then immediately email them to myself or those that were in the meeting with specific tasks and a recap. I also use it as my iPod, especially for my Zumba classes. To recap, I'd say the iPad is my iPhone's companion. Only use it when I want to save my iPhone's battery ;-)

 

For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

 

 

A Mimeograph in action

 

Steve listens to the Podcast and asked: "ASUS Dark Knight Wireless Router, wondering if you had any thoughts on that. I've been looking on the internet, it says it's top notch, It's a little pricey though, I found it for $169 something like that, $200, but I want to make sure it's worth every penny. I know I'm a cheap... cheap..."

 

Well, the ASUS Dark Knight seems to be a pretty high end router, it is multiband, high throughput. It allows for a main internet connection and a backup connection which even can be WiMax or 3G, automatic WiFi scheduling, so the network doesn't stay on when it's not needed, up to 4 guests WiFi networks per radio. It also allows external USB storage devices to be added to the network.

The problem you may encounter with this router is that it's actually more than you need. You might be able to buy a cheaper, simpler one that fits your needs just fine. If you don't need WiFi scheduling, or DoS protection, or Telnet access for setting it up, a cheaper router might do the trick just fine.

This router is almost an entry level enterprise router. If you think you don't need enterprise features, then you can go cheaper. But, if you like this model, it will probably serve you well.

 

For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

 

 

Andrew (the Intern) outiDorking the iDork

 

 

 

Charlie in Santa Barbara, California listens on KTIP 1440 AM asked: "How do you stop the unsolicited videos of funny animals and things like that, that popup on my screen?"

 

What you're seeing are flash ads on websites, you can stop them by disabling flash altogether, but that will obviously stop more than just that, or you can use some sort of ad blocker. If you use Firefox, Chrome or Safari you can use AdBlock as a browser extension, that will get rid of most if not all of the flash ads you see.

For Firefox, you can also look at Flashblock to specifically stop flash ads, which are probably the ones you're seeing. You can also head to better quality websites… who's showing you funny animals these days?

For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.

 

HOUR 3:

Tech News & Commentary

Willy in Columbia, Missouri listening online asked: "I have a Macbook Pro and I just recently upgraded my software to the Mountain Lion. I was running Parallel on there so that I can run my Windows 7 program as well. it was working well until I downloaded Mountain Lion. Wondering if you guys know anything about the conflicts there because I'm getting the message that my Parallel is now dysfunctional. It's pretty strange that Apple doesn't give you that information before you purchase those products."

 

Actually, Parallels released the information a while back. For Parallels to work under Mountain Lion, it has to be updated to version 7.0.15104, that long version number was released before Mountain Lion so that users wouldn't suffer any disruptions. You can still download the file.

You usually won't get notices about issues like these from the makers of the OS, you'll get them from the individual software makers simply because there are thousands of programs that will run on a given OS, and the company that puts it out can't test them all, instead they distribute early betas of the operating system so that companies can test their own software and adjust it.

You should know that if you download this file, running the installer will re-install Parallels, but it will not affect your virtual machines, so everything should still be there after the installation finishes, even if your computer says it's reinstalling Parallels.

If you want to be extra sure, just copy and paste the virtual machine to another directory and keep the copy until you've verified that your old virtual machine still works.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

Bruce in Los Angeles, California asked: "I have an ASUS Transformer tablet, I also have a G tablet that I'm not happy with. On both tablets I'm having trouble playing back videos. I may have an hour video and it randomly plays 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes, never the same, but it always plays only partially and then it stops. I can restart and go back to be beginning, it doesn't save the last position. I'm using ArcMedia Pro, I'm wondering if there's a better program that is compatible with my tablet. Again, it's a Transformer that's running Ice Cream Sandwich.?"

 

If you want to try a different app, we've heard good things about MX Media Player, it's been recently updated to support Ice Cream Sandwich and it can play a wide variety of formats including: avi, divx, flv, mkv, mp4, mpeg, mov and many others, so you should be able to find a lot of videos that will play in it.

It also offers multicore optimization, so videos should play very smoothly on your dual-core Transformer.

Another really popular app is QQPlayer, it's not really all that optimized for tablets, and it doesn't feature the dual core optimization, but it has a lot of fans and plays a lot of formats, so you may be happy with it.

The good thing about both MX Media Player and QQPlayer is that they're both free, so you won't have to spend any money to try them out.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

Dave asked: "Is there a wireless IP Camera available that doesn't require computer for a wired setup? For example, I am traveling without a computer and stay in a hotel room that has public Wi-Fi, I'd like to be able to take out my wireless camera (programmed with my FTP info, or email info) and just plug it in and have it start sending images.

It seems every camera requires wired setup with a computer at that location? How come none of them will work by themselves on a free public Wi-Fi without a computer?"

 

It doesn't work that way because in order for the camera to access a wireless network, free or otherwise, it needs to be configured to connect to that particular Wi-Fi network. Every camera is a little different. However, they all generally need to be configured via a computer on the same network as the camera.

On a computer, it's easy to just click on the name of a network and have it connect. It's not so simple for these cameras. You need to be able to go into a setup menu and tell the camera which Wi-Fi network to look for, and input any network keys, if it's a secured network. Once you do that and the configuration is saved on the camera, you can usually unplug the network cable and use the Wi-Fi.

You mentioned trying to use it at a hotel, while you are traveling. A lot of hotels (and public hotspots) require you to log into the Wi-Fi by clicking something in your browser, even if it's a free network. Sometimes all you need to do is click an "accept" button and then you are connected. Unfortunately, in these cases, you won't be able to use these cameras, as the camera, obviously, has no way of clicking any buttons. There's also the issue of adapting your network to your camera. A lot of cameras require that you forward a port to them so you can access them remotely.

You won't have access to the settings of a hotel router, so you won't be able to forward any ports or change their configuration in any way. In fact, even the hotel might not have access to the router if they're using a third party to maintain their network.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

James in Cleveland, Ohio asked: "We have a wireless home network and I just bought a new laptop. We both access, my wife and I. But she's having problems on her Gateway with Windows XP since I connected. Her question is, is my laptop causing her problems or not?"

 

No, you're in the clear here… WiFi networks are designed to be able to handle far more than 2 devices at the same time, even if they're right next to each other, and don't require the user to do much to make the devices play nice with each other either.

The only way you could really be causing a problem for your wife is if you had both manually set your computers to use the same IP address, but typically, if you know enough to manually set IP addresses, then you'll know enough not to set two machines on the same network to the same address, if you don't know enough, then you'll let the network assign you an address automatically.

Assuming you didn't touch the IP settings for both computers, her problems should be unrelated to your computer being on the network, in fact, her computer may just be getting old, XP Professional came out over a decade ago!

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

 

 

Dane in White Bluff, Tennessee listens on 99.7 WTN asked: "I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 computer and having problems with it running slow. Was wondering what would be a quick and easy way to maybe free up some RAM and maybe do some cheap tricks to get rid of some of the stuff on it."

 

From what we can find, the Inspiron 8200 is a 2.2 GHz Pentium 4, 9.3 lbs "laptop" with a 60 GB hard drive, that can take up to a maximum of 1GB of RAM... no matter how much RAM you try to free up, it may always struggle with newer software (the computer in front of me is using 5.6GB of RAM and still has plenty of unused RAM to spare...).

You can try to uninstall anything you're not using, sometimes software leaves services running in the background to look for updates, or perform background tasks while the main program is not running, getting rid of software you don't use may also get rid of some of those services.

You can download software like Free RAM Optimizer that will kill all the software that's residing on your RAM and apparently dormant.

The easiest way to free up some RAM and generally make your computer ran faster may just be to stick to software that it can run, if the recommended specs for the software you want your computer to run exceed your laptop's capabilities, then it will either run slowly or not at all.

Try to run as few things at the same time as possible, close any programs that you're not using, so that the ones you are actively using have access to the most RAM they can get.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

Luke in New York listens online asked: "When will the 3-D Blu-rays go down in price?"

 

They may not go down in price any further for a while. A few years ago, Hollywood realized that Blu-ray really wasn't becoming a very popular standard, and it wasn't replacing DVDs at all, so they lowered Blu-ray prices to about $5 more than DVD prices, and so far that's where they have stayed.

$5 over the price of DVDs is probably not too bad for Blu-Ray users considering the better quality. The real threat to Blu-rays are digital downloads and as those become the norm, we may see Blu-rays drop in price to compete. For now, though, Luke, they'll probably stay around the same.

Unless, of course, you mean Blu-ray players, in which case the prices are declining on those all the time. You also mentioned "3D," one of Hollywood's great hot buttons right now (although the bloom is coming off that rose). Right now you pay a premium for 3D content and 3D players. When will that come down? We can't say. But it will. Remember that the players add some additional hardware to support 3D, so until there is simply NO market for players without that hardware, someone will charge you more for having it.

But the premium you pay for the movie discs themselves is evaporating, and soon 3D Blu-ray movies will cost the same as standard ones, which will always cost slightly more than standard DVDs.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

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

This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners

AT&T: iHome Portable Rechargeable Mini Speakers

C.Crane: Senta Forty Premium Wooden Headphones

Microsoft: Copies of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013 Software

NQ Mobile: Activation codes for NQ Mobile Vault (Premium Version) – An Android app that keeps your text messages, pictures, and videos safely hidden from prying eyes.

StrikeForce Technologies: Several Download Keys for GuardedID – anti-key logging software

 

Tweet

Download Our Show

Listen To Our Show

Amazon Links »