Weekend of June 15th, 2012 – Hour 3 – Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline

Tech News & Commentary

Kathy in Nicholasville, Kentucky listening on 1250 WVKY asked: “I have a wireless printer, brand new. I’ve paid for tech support and gotten the printer people on the phone. Sometimes it prints from my laptop and sometimes it doesn’t. Nobody seems to know what the problem is. Do you have any answers?”

It’s really hard to say exactly what could be causing the problem, given that we don’t know what brand of printer you’re using. So there is a plethora of issues that could be happening.

Without knowing what printer you’re using, and what operating system, there’s not a lot we can tell you, at least not a lot that can help you solve the problem. It could be a driver issue, for example if your printer came with drivers for XP that are not compatible with your computer that’s running Windows 7.

It could be a network issue that is totally unrelated to the printer itself, for example, you may have a router with a bad DHCP server that occasionally refuses to renew the printer’s IP address, so the computer and the printer can’t talk to each other. It can even be network interference, for example, if your neighbors are on the same WiFi channel, or if you have other electronics around that use the same frequency as your WiFi the signals may be interfering with each other and the information might be getting lost before it reaches the printer.

It could be that you actually have a bad printer that need to be replaced, wireless cards on printers can break just like they can with computers, or you may need to update your printer’s firmware if this is a known software issue that was fixed at point by the manufacturer.

But again, without knowing more, we can’t really address other problems that affect your particular model and give you a more complete answer.

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

“Into

Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager

Lisa in North Slope, Alaska listens on 88.5 FM asked: “Tablets … I want to get one that has to get reception on the North Slope of Alaska, which is limited. Wondering if an aircard works in any tablet. Can I buy it at Best Buy or if I have to go through a cell provider? Would a Wi-Fi tablet work with an aircard?”

Aircards will most likely not work with many tablets at all. The Archos 101 G9 comes with a built in aircard, and it allows 3G tethering from a cellphone. But, for the most part if you want connectivity on tablets you will need either WiFi or a tablet with a built-in 3G or 4G chip.

If you’re willing to pay for an aircard just for the tablet, consider getting a 3G or a 4G tablet. If this is an aircard that you’d use with a computer as

well, then maybe you should look into getting a MiFi type of device. You’ll pay a monthly fee like you would with an aircard, but the WiFi network it creates can be used with any tablet you choose, and you could even use it with your laptop at the same time, as it supports more than one device simultaneously.

You don’t have to go through a cell phone provider to buy either an aircard or a MiFi. You can buy them through third party stores like Best Buy, but you will need to get service from someone, which may mean a contract

or a prepaid plan. Either way you’ll be getting it from a cell phone service provider.

The challenge on the North Slope is finding good coverage. Alaska Wireless has invested in cell towers that cover the Prudhoe Bay and surrounding North Slope areas quite well. They sell the Novatel MiFi device for $79 and their mobile broadband data plans are priced about the same as anyone else’s. 5GB of data per month will cost $29, 10GB is $59, and 20GB is $99. If you’re not in the Prudhoe Bay area, then we’d need to know more specifically where you are to suggest a provider, but Google can find one for you also. Search for your zip code and the nearest city name, combined with “cell phone coverage,” and you’ll hit a gold mine of information.

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

Guest in this hour:

Faizon Love, Actor & Comedian

It’s with you 24/7 and keeps you connected when you’re on the go. But, most might not know your cell phone says a lot about you.

“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin

In 1933 at the 10th Funkausstellung, today known as IFA, several companies had already presented TV sets with bigger screens ready for the market, now about the size of a postcard instead of a postage stamp, with 180 lines and 25 frames per second. These receivers were expensive, but the engineer Dr.Walter Bruch from Telefunken developed a small and cheaper unit for the masses, named “Volksempfänger” which is German for “people’s receiver”. Two years later in 1935 the first regular TV broadcast in the world started in Berlin, with 90 minutes three times a week.

Rob in Hoboken, New Jersey listening online and calling in via the Free App asked: “I have a question about cell phones. Mobile phone screens are getting bigger and their processing speeds are getting faster, but still these phones can’t get you through a full day even if you’re using them lightly. When do you think manufacturers are gonna realize that battery life is a real issue for users?”

You could argue that manufacturers are starting to get the picture, the best example of that is the Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx obviously, but let’s be honest…how many phones are coming out with the RAZR Maxx’s battery and how many are coming out with huge screens?

Battery technology evolves very slowly and manufacturers seem to think that a big flashy screens will attract more buyers than saying: “this screen
is normal sized, but the battery won’t die on you so quickly”. To be honest, barely any apps are benefiting from the multiple cores on newer phones, the slightly bigger screens don’t make much of a difference to most users, and everyone complains about battery life, but there’s a limit on how much better battery life can get.

Manufacturers can’t slightly shrink the screens and go back to using a single core processor and suddenly get twice the battery life, it will just
be marginally better, and saying “we have a pretty ok phone, you know, nothing great, but the battery lasts a little bit longer” doesn’t sound as sexy as saying “this screen is huge and crisp and the processor has 2 (or even 4) cores!”

People already expect smartphones to have lousy battery lives, until decent battery lives become a standard feature, people will expect to have trouble making it to the end of the day on a single charge, and will be open to putting up with that in exchange for cool features that they want to have.

There’s a reason people left their dumb phones with batteries that would last the better part of a week or longer, for their smartphones that double as shiny paperweights by the later half of the day… people prefer cool features to good batteries… at least for now.

There are exceptions, however. We’ve already mentioned the Droid Razr Maxx. The iPhone 4S has “decent” battery life. The Droid 4 doesn’t have the Razr’s OLED screen, and while that means it’s not as bright, it also means that the battery life on the Droid 4 is very good, even without the super- battery from the Razr Maxx.

Battery life needs to be one of those features you shop for, just like a dual core processor or 4G LTE support. A good bit of advise is to check several independent sources who’ve done a run-down test where they stress the battery. Compare their numbers to get an idea of what you can expect. We don’t run benchmark tests like that, we use the phones ourselves and report what we find under real world conditions. Since there are good days and bad days with any smartphone, you want to look for benchmarks when making comparisons.

Finally, plan for the short battery life. Get a device like the PowerMat Dual 1850 that we rave about here on the show. It’s a very compact backup battery for your smartphone or tablet. It supports both iDevices and anything Android that uses the mini-USB style power plug (which is all of them, now, but older devices may not). The PowerMat Dual 1850 isn’t very expensive,
we saw them for under $40 at Amazon, and it can be a life saver if you’re stranded somewhere and find a dead phone battery.

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

Andrew in State College, Pennsylvania listening on 103.1 WRSC asked: “I have an IP camera and I’m trying to access it outside of the IP Address that it’s hooked to. I did the port forwarding but I can’t seem to get into it.”

Unless you have a static IP address, you’re going to need to set

up a Dynamic DNS service. When you use one of those services, your computer or router lets the service know that it’s address has changed,

and the website updates it’s records, so you’ll get a regular URL (think: AndrewsCamera.dyndns.org, or something similar), and that URL will always point to your IP address, even if it isn’t static.

Once you have that set up, you should also consider making your cameras IP address in the network static, that way the port forwarding will always work, if it’s dynamic, today you might be forwarding to the camera, but tomorrow IP assignments might change and suddenly your network will find itself asking your phone or a computer for access instead of the camera. You can assign the camera a set address by accessing it’s settings.

The other big thing is, make sure your camera has a built-in web server. Some cameras require other software to view its video stream, while others will have a built-in web server that you can access from any browser. If your setup doesn’t work, don’t assume your camera necessarily comes with a built- in web server.

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.

KidsTech visited Jungle Island with Into Tomorrow, here are some pictures from the trip.

KidsTech at Jungle Island

Caitlyn and an orangutan	Interviewing the orangutan trainer	The iPad app they use

Using the iPad		Caitlyn feeding a kangaroo



Caitlyn holding an alligator	Dave petting a kangaroo	On stage with the trainers