Tech News & Commentary
Steven listening via the Android App asked: “Quick question. I kinda washed my bluetooth in the washing machine, it came out clean but not working so well, so um what do you guys recomend for a new one? I have a motorola that flips open. It needs to connect to 2 phones and have good sound quality.”
Depending on your budget, you have plenty of options. The Plantronics M55 will cost you around $50, and it’s comfortable, well built and it provides good call quality.
If you want a headset than can do more than your phone, the Jawbone Era comes with built in voice activated commands and is touch sensitive! Having said that, $130 may be a little much to pay for a fancy bluetooth headset.
The Plantronics Marque M165 might also work for you, it’s not really as good as the M55 when it comes to noise cancellation and overall voice quality, but it should meet your needs.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
Comments from our COOL “Into Tomorrow” HOT Summer Giveaway!!!
Charles from Wilmore, Kentucky listens on WKLT 1230 AM Says: “I think your broadcast is great, no need to change it. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!”
His Reason for wanting to go to Berlin with us: “I was stationed in West Berlin from 1968 until 1973. I was Chief of Electronic Operations for the Berlin Communications Electronic Control Center of the 1946 Communications Squadron which was the traffic control agency for Tempelhof international airport. I would like to see the city with the wall taken down and the united Germany.”
Alan in Chillicothe, OH said: “I wasn’t sure originally…but now IntoTomorrow.com is bookmarked — and that’s how I listen!”
Thinks we can improve the show by: we need to update the graphic overlays used for the show and make them more clean/fresh looking
if you want to keep up the “into tomorrow” look then you should be more progressive with your overall look (this goes for lower-thirds, etc. on the video program)
Reason for wanting to travel: I am a tech junkie and love trade shows, this would be a highlight of my life!
Alan entered from Mesa, AZ listens via our FREE “Into Tomorrow” App every week and Heard about the giveaway in the weekly Tech News Letter. His Reason for wanting to join us in Berlin for IFA: “I am a techy at heart. Spent the better part of my working career managing special events and trade shows for a Fortune 50 Company. Photography and technology still my passion. Plus I love German Beer”
Paul in Apex, NC heard about the giveaway: on the Radio! Hopes to win the Berlin trip to IFA and says: I will new product before the economy took a dive I stay up with what new as best I can Have not been able to afford to go to CES or any of the trade shows sense.”
You may enter ONCE a week … AND … when you call-in, using our FREE APP or 1-800-899-INTO (4696) and we can HEAR you … we will BONUS you with yet another entry!!! Good luck!!!
David from Windsor, Ontario Canada listening via 800AM CKLW The Information Station asked: “I want to build a Budget PC for $250-$300. What motherboard would you recommend and what RAM?”
$250 to $300 is a very tight budget, so you will have to buy just about the cheapest parts you can in all areas.
The ASRock FM2 series of motherboards by AMD will cost you around $49, it supports up to 16GB of RAM, which is a lot for a $300 system. MSI sells their A55M series for around the same money, you can also install 16GB of RAM on them, and we’ve heard they allow for good overclocking options, though we haven’t really tested that ourselves.
As for RAM, you probably need to decide how much RAM you can afford to put on your inexpensive computer, considering you still have to buy a processor, a power source and who knows how many other relatively expensive parts, your budget for RAM memory is probably pretty low.
For $69 you can get 8GB of RAM in 2 4GB modules, from Crucial, but that may be more than you even need, if you’re working on such a cheap build.
Buying 4GB for Kingston will drop the price to below $50, so that may be worth considering… keep in mind you still don’t have a processor or any kind of storage, and at this point you’d already be spending about $100 of your $250 dollars.
It’s hard to tell you exactly what to look for without know more about what you want to use your computer for, but if all you’re looking for is savings, you should probably stick to cheaper parts and be realistic about your needs, if you think you can get by with a 250GB hard drive, but having a terabyte drive would be nice, try to stay closer to the 250GB option, otherwise your cheap project will turn very expensive very quickly.
You might also want to look at pre-built discounted systems if your budget is that low. We’ve found systems running Windows 7, Windows 8 and various flavors of Linux all selling for under $300, some below your $250 mark as well.
For example. $229 can buy you a 64-bit Windows 7 desktop, with 4GBs of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, and a dual-core AMD processor. Not bad, for such a low price, and it may top what you can build for that little.
By the way, the ASRock FM2 motherboard that we saw for $49.99 featured on board AMD Radeon HD 7000 graphics and a Hudson D2 socket for the AMD Athlon X4 processor. What all that tech speak means is, this will be a pretty snappy performer despite its very low price. It won’t be an Intel Core series CPU, but it won’t cost like an Intel Core series CPU, either.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Tony Jarboe, CEO – Expertory.com
Jim from Idaho Falls, Idaho listening via 1260AM KBLI East Idaho News asked: “I have installed windows 8 on my HP Desktop at 32 bit and I’m having some problems. I thought I better install 64 bit. How do I save my files on my hard drive in the 32 bit format and reload them into the 64 bit?”
You shouldn’t need to do anything to your files. Any file you save will open under 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems (otherwise emailing a Word doc to someone who didn’t have just the right computer would be a huge problem).
Most 32-bit programs will also run under a 64-bit operating system, not all of them will, but the ones that won’t are almost exclusively some antivirus software and device drivers.
So after the 64-bit OS is installed, you should just be able to open whatever files you have saved without any issues, just make sure you don’t delete them during the installation process… and please, back everything up before you do anything.
Hard drive formats don’t depend on whether the operating system is 32-or-64 bits. The disk format is the same. That’s also true for the files you create, like your Office document files. Those don’t change going from one OS to another. Now your applications MIGHT have to change, depending on what you’re using.
Also, 64-bit Windows isn’t magic. More bits isn’t automatically better. The advantage of a 64-bit operating system comes when you have more than 4GB of memory in your computer. The 64-bit Windows will allow you to address memory beyond that 4GB barrier as a single contiguous memory space. That is, quite simply, better.
And just because you DO have a 64-bit version of Windows running, most experts will tell you that you’re still better off with 32-bit versions of your various applications, like Microsoft Office, because they’re more compatible with addons and plugins.
But the world is moving on from 32-bit operating systems, that’s for sure. Apples new Bootcamp 5.0 no longer supports 32-bit versions of Windows and it’s been ages since we’ve seen a computer maker ship a machine without 64-bit Windows. However, to be fair, it’s been ages since we’ve seen a new computer with less than 4GB of memory.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Craig in Tullahoma, Tennessee calling in via the App asked: “My son has a Nexus 7 and he has a bunch of pictures that somehow came from his Google+ account taking up disk space and he wants to know how to remove them. If you could help I’d be greatly appreciative.”
To delete photos from an album on the Google Nexus 7, you need to get in to “filmstrip” display mode. There are two ways to do that. If you open an album and tap on a picture, you enter the full screen picture viewing mode. If you pinch the screen to zoom out, you will enter filmstrip mode where you can swipe left and right through a scrolling slideshow of your photos.
Simply swipe down on any photo you want to delete, and it’s gone. It’s that simple. You can also get in to the filmstrip display mode right from the album display by tapping to open the album and using the selector in the upper left hand part of the screen. Choose filmstrip mode.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yo — Now with Dave’s face on them! — A clever solution to tangled earbuds.
Akitio:Neutrino Thunder Duo – 2-bay Thunderbolt Hard Drive enclosure
V Moda Headphones: a variety of styles of the DJ Inspired, Hollywood Designed Headphones
Ventev: An assortment of tangle-free USB cables and battery cases for iPhones