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Tech News & Commentary
Christopher in Shreveport, Louisiana listening on 710 KEEL asked us: “I wanted to know what your opinion of a decent gaming laptop would be. I play mostly online MMOs.”
Christopher, The specs for decent gaming depend a little bit on what you consider decent. Some people are very casual and don’t care that much about frames per second as long as the game runs reasonably well, some people want to be able to compete and have very responsive systems.
The games you want to play will also have a great influence on how powerful a system you need. We have found that a lot of games don’t ask for much, a processor as basic as a Core 2 Duo and 2GBs of RAM might be enough to run the games, as long as you have a good graphics card, however, that may make them technically work but not run nearly as well as you need.
If you want a gaming laptop, and will not consider a desktop which would probably be a better choice if your main use is gaming, be ready to spend some money and to buy something with decent specs. Look for lots of RAM, the best processor you can afford and a discrete graphics card.
Look at the Lenovo IdeaPad Y series, for example, they’re not absurdly expensive, they’re in the neighborhood for $800 and have 4th generation Intel Core i7 processors plenty of RAM and hard drive space and good graphics card, that may be a good and relatively inexpensive option.
MSI also makes a great deal of gaming laptops starting at around that price and ending at several times that price, those may work for you as well.
You didn’t really give us a price range, although the word “decent” implies that you’re not looking for the top of the range. But we would be remiss without mentioning the Razer Blade and Blade Pro gaming ultrabooks. These are some pretty special machines, combining fast processors with super fast SSDs for storage, an NVIDIA GTX 870M video processor, and Razer’s very cool “Switchblade” user interface on the larger Pro model.
Switchblade has programmable soft keys that have small LED displays, so you don’t have to remember that “M1” means shoot and “M2” means cast a shield spell. You can have the key labels change as you change games. There is also a small 4” LED display that can be used as a secondary game display, or can play YouTube videos or a website (perhaps with a walk-through for your game), all without disturbing your game play on the primary screen.
The Razer laptops are much more than decent, and they are priced that way, but no decision should be made without understanding all of your options. In other words, buying a Toyota is fine, as long as you understand that Ferraris exist.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Larry in Hayward, California listens on KLIV 1590 AM asked us: “I got an iPhone 4 and i use it more and more for my day to day communication for reaching my email and text messages, phone communications and I’m more and more concerned about is if there is a way of protecting it against viruses or clear the memory from the phone to protect myself from the virus.”
Larry, Unless your iPhone is jailbroken, you really don’t have much at all to worry about. Smartphones are not structured the way computers are where most resources are shared, and that makes viruses very unlikely to be able to affect them.
The way apps work on a smartphone is through a design pattern called “sandboxing” every app lives and plays inside it’s own sandbox, and that sandbox doesn’t touch any of the other sandboxes that are home to any of the other apps. If the app needs to interact with the operating system, it asks the operating system to do things, it doesn’t directly do anything. For example, editing a contact isn’t an option, asking the operating system to do it is.
What this means is that a malicious app can’t change any files that don’t belong to it, and it can’t change any of the behavior of the operating system, so at worst it can ask for permission to access a phone’s contacts, or location, or photos, and send them to a malicious server, but it can’t do anything it wasn’t explicitly given permission to do.
Jailbroken iPhones and rooted Android phones don’t work that way though, apps can get low level access to the operating system and even other apps directories, so those phones are at a higher (though still relatively low) risk of getting infected by a virus, but if your phone is not jailbroken, don’t worry about it, you should be safe from viruses just because of the more rigid and restrictive structure of the operating system.
As for protecting “yourself” from the virus, we presume you mean your other devices, such as your computer. Any malicious software that was written to run on an iPhone wouldn’t work on your computer. It’s like one of those animal diseases that humans can’t catch…at least, not yet.
What should be of more concern to you are apps that phish for your data. The app itself isn’t a virus, but it collects information about you, such as banking data, and sends it to identity thieves who can clean you out.
As long as you’re getting your apps from reliable sources such as iTunes, Google Play, or Amazon, you should be safe. They check for these kinds of things. Getting apps from third parties, however, can open you up to trouble. Of course, installing apps from other locations usually involves jailbreaking your iPhone or rooting your Android, and that brings us back full circle.
Don’t jailbreak, don’t root, get your apps directly from Apple (or Google for Android users), and you should be just fine!
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Jeff in Carey, North Carolina listens via TuneIn Radio asked us: “I recently purchased a wifi camera, a Samsung W250F. I’m really enjoying this new camera and the cool features offered, and while not super expensive, I would like to have a case that is sturdy. That said, all the small cases I see offered at the big box stores tend to be rather cheap soft cases that do not seem to offer much in the way of protection. Can you give my some alternative cases that offer a more rigid shell? Keep up the great work Dave and Team”
Jeff, If you want to go the real sturdy route, you can look at a company called Pelican – we had them on our CES Part 3 show last January — they make heavy duty cases with foam inserts that you can cut to the shape of your camera. The cases themselves are not expensive, think $25, but they’re very bulky.
We have foundmore reasonable semi-hard cases on Amazon for about $10, and even heavy duty cases designed for your specific camera for about $6.
You should be able to find decent choices, but you will probably have to look for them online.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Brent Willis – CEO of Victory Electronic Cigarettes
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
Josh in Sparta, Tennessee listening on WTN – calling in via the App asked: “Trying to see what your opinion is of the best GPS unit for commercial vehicles. Garmin has one, PC Miler, Rand McNally, Cobra. Don’t want to spend $300 on a unit that isn’t going to be the best one to use on the road.”
Josh, The two big favorites with truckers seem to be the Rand McNally TND 720 and the Garmin dezl 760LMT. Both should give you everything you need, but out of those truckers seem to prefer the Rand McNally option.
We should mention that not everyone loves it, some drivers just see it as ok, but nothing too great, and many people have reported problems with the plug, but overall most users seem happy.
The main thing is do not even consider a regular GPS, professional units have useful features such as gas and expense logging, but most importantly the focus on truck friendly exits, rest stops, bridges, roads without low weight restrictions, and so much more, and those are all necessary tools.
You probably don’t need to be told this, but just in case, buying a decent paper roadmap to go along with your GPS is probably a very good idea, since we’ve found a lot of reports of drivers being routed in very strange ways, either being asked to drive an extra 20 miles, or being sent under bridges that will turn their rigs into trendy convertibles, so being able to double check from a trusted source is always good.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Dwayne in Flowood, Mississippi listens on 97.3 FM asked: “I got a question about windows 8.1, I did it before accidentally… I did split screen with two apps showing, and I cannot get it back again, I don’t know what I did to do that, but i would like to know how to do that.”
Dwayne, In order to split two applications, first make sure both applications are open and one of them is in full screen mode.
Next, move the cursor or your finger to the top left corner to see the apps that are opened. Then drag the app you want to split on top of the full screen, and hold it until it splits screen and then release.
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
Other World Computing (OWC): Power2U – AC/USB Wall Outlets in Almond, Ivory and White.
Phone Halo: StickR TrackR — Find any object you attach it to with your smartphone
PURE: Jongo Wireless Adapters — Allows you to stream all your music wirelessly to your home audio system.
Tylt: A plethora of USB charging cables for iPhone and Android phones and iPhone battery cases.
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!