Tech News & Commentary
Marly promised a link to the shower to go, you can have a look here.
Joe in Hazelton, Pennsylvania listens online asked: “I’m in the market for a new computer I want something that has good audio. Unfortunately all my past computers if you listened to the motherboard audio, the microphone recording level was never loud enough even at 100%. Do I have to get a separate sound card to get good audio? And if so, what would you recommend? Or can you just get a computer with good onboard audio? The last computer I bought was 4 years ago and it just doesnt have good audio. Also is celeron slower than a pentium processor?”
If you want a laptop with good audio in general, there are some made with better sound cards, and you can go with those, but if all you want is a better microphone no built in mic is gonna be better than a standalone USB microphone, and those are not that expensive, think around $100 for a BlueMic Yeti Pro USB Microphone.
If you’re not looking for a laptop, since you just said “computer,” then you can shop for a good standalone soundcard for your desktop, there are many good ones out there, several of which are made for music recording in particular and can capture extremely good sound. Most of those cards also won’t cost you a great deal of money, for example, an M-Audio Audiophile 192 will likely cost you around $70.
As for Celeron being slower than Pentium… it depends on what you’re talking about. An original Celeron chip was slower than a comparable Pentium 2 chip, but a current generation Sandy Bridge-based Celeron will likely outperform any old Pentium chips.
The thing here is that, Pentium processor are old, if you’re looking into buying a new computer Pentium won’t really be one of the choices anymore, you’ll likely be faced with Celeron vs a Core-i-something processor, whether that processor is a Core-i3, Core-i5 or Core-i7 they will all outperform a current generation Celeron, but that current generation Celeron will still definitely outperform most of, if not the entire, Pentium line.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Jonathan in Panama City Beach, Florida listening on Supertalk 94.3 WXRZ asked: “I need to know about how to roll back my iPhone iOS 6 to 5.1.1”
Well, there is no legitimate way of doing this. The only way to do it, is to Jailbreak your phone but we don’t recommend it because you can void your warranty or even ‘brick’ your phone. Now, that being said, we do know of a process to do the downgrade.
Also, this process only works on iPhone 4S to 3GS, it doesn’t work on iPhone 5. Anyway, these are the steps on how to do the downgrade.
First, you’re going to download a program called “Redsn0w” version 0.9.15 b1.
Second, you need to download iOS 5.1.1
Both of these downloads can be found using a search engine, like google.
Third thing you do is jailbreak your iOS 6, and remember it will be a Tethered jailbreak.
Now that you’ve jailbroken your iPhone on iOS 6, run Redsn0w again, except this time click on EXTRAS, then MORE, then RECOVER, then scan your 5.1.1 iOS
Now get your iPhone, plug it into the computer and put your phone into what’s called DFU mode.
Once you got it in DFU mode, you go back to Redsn0w, and click on EXTRAS, then MUCH MORE, then DISTANT.
after that Redsn0w should automatically downgrade your phone.
Remember though this process can void your warranty with apple or any other retailer as well as brick your phone, so honestly I don’t recommend you doing this.
If you had ever backed up your iPhone to your computer using iTunes and you still have a backup of the phone from the time when you were running iOS 5.1, you might be able to use that to roll back your phone.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Brian David Johnson, Futurist with Intel and author of Vintage Tomorrow
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
In 1928 the time finally had come for the world premiere of television, after many years of intensive research and development around the globe, with Germany as focal point. The venue: the 5th “Grosse Deutsche Funkausstellung” in Berlin, today known as IFA the number one global show. The screen, developed by Denez von Mihaly, was as tiny as a postage stamp, just an inch and a half, square, with only 30 lines and 900 pixels. Von Mihaly received the first license “to build and operate” a television station from the German Post.
Lynn in Tupelo, Mississippi listening on “Super Talk” 102.9 WWMR asked: “I’m going back into nursing school for my bachelor’s. what would be the best either notebook or tablet to use for my homework and stuff.”
Unless nursing students are using any kind of sophisticated 3D software, your needs will be met by just about any laptop, so you can feel free to choose something that isn’t too high end.
Tablets are a different story, we probably wouldn’t recommend a tablet for what you need, it will make typing long assignments difficult and you may not be able to use all specific software your school may require. Tablets might be useful for specific tasks, but they won’t replace a laptop for overall functionality, and they simply won’t be enough for your purposes on their own.
If you plan to use your computer at the school and not just at home, you may benefit from the light weight and long battery life of an ultrabook, so keep those in mind. They will cost you a little more money, but you could get something portable like a 13.3” HP Spectre or a 14” Toshiba and stay below the $1000 mark.
Ultrabooks are nice and will come below the $1000 price level even for brand new devices, but — before Mark can mention it — let’s not forget about the MacBook Air. If you’re on the fence between a notebook or a tablet, then the 11-inch MacBook Air might be a good fit for you. The model with 64GB of storage sells for $999 brand new. If you look at the online Apple Store, they have refurbished units for even less.
A refurbished MacBook bought from the Apple Store carries the full one year Apple warranty. Especially with Windows 8 being such a huge departure from the user interface that many of us know so well, Mac OS X is actually closer in many respects to Windows 7 than Windows 8 is.
Do take care to see in advance whether your studies will require you to run any Windows-only apps, though. That might make your decision for you right there. But if it’s all web-based, or at least not Windows ONLY, the MacBook Air is a solid machine with excellent build quality and blazing performance.
By the way, if your studies will have you working web-only (email, web browsing, and online apps are sufficient for your work) then you might want to look at a Chromebook. The Samsung Chromebook sells for less than $300 and it’s extremely small, light, and well built. HP also has a slightly more expensive model, but it comes with a 14-inch screen, which is the largest on any Chromebook.
Chromebooks run Chrome OS and are utterly dependent on an Internet connection, and to a large extent your Google account, but for many users this is not an impediment. And the price is certainly right! Cheap computer, free software, and no hassles with having to back things up because you’re already in the cloud.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Greg in Dacatur, Illinois listening on News Talk WSOY 1340 AM asked: “Does HP make good computers for college applications?”
Unless you’re buying a Lenovo, Toshiba, Samsung, Apple or Asus, you can’t beat HP for reliability!
HP scored slightly below the halfway point on the latest reliability surveys we’ve seen, so you’re not looking at a super reliable brand, but you’re also not looking at an “oh my god! don’t buy that!” brand.
If the price is reasonable enough, they’re probably a safe enough brand to consider. The truth is that for the most part, expensive computers outlive cheap computers, so if you buy a relatively expensive HP it may outlive a cheap Lenovo, the reliability rankings give you a general idea that if you buy a Lenovo, it’s more likely to last you longer or break down less than a comparatively priced Dell, but if the specs and the price are good enough, you can probably still look at an HP, halfway down the list and consider it a safe enough purchase…
Just keep in mind that, for a similar price, surveys say that Lenovo, Toshiba, Samsung, Apple and Asus machines will probably encounter fewer issues.
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
HDRadio: FM/HD Insignia Table Top Radios with 10 presets
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yo — Now with Dave’s face on them! — A clever solution to tangled earbuds.
iolo: Copies of: Drive Scrubber – Erase data so it can NEVER be recovered.
Magix: Music Maker 2013 Premium – Make Music Now! With More Sounds. More Possibilities.