HOUR 3:
Tech News & Commentary
Samantha in Miami Lakes, Florida online asked: “I have a friend who lives in Dublin, Ireland. She’s coming over for the summer. If she has the iPhone 4 on whatever the carrier is there, what does she need to make the phone work here?”
Assuming she doesn’t want to put up with roaming charges, the first thing she should look into is whether her iPhone 4 is carrier locked or not. The iPhone has been for sale unlocked for a long time in Europe, and many phone companies sell it, so it is possible that she either got it unlocked from the start, or can get it unlocked by her cell phone company for a cheap fee (O2, the first company to sell the iPhone in the UK and Ireland will unlock it for some of it’s users for about €10 ~ About $14 U.S.).
She also has the option of unlocking the phone herself, it will be free, but it will also require re-syncing all of her information and the phone will likely become carrier-locked again the next time it gets a software update. Once the phone is unlocked she needs a local a micro-SIM card, she’s only likely to be able to get a micro-SIM in the US from AT&T since no other phone companies are using them yet. The good news is that only difference between one of those and a standard SIM card is the size of the plastic around the chip, T-Mobile has been known to have their own sales people cut normal SIMs into micro-SIMs for iPhone 4 users, and they work just fine, she could even do it herself if she doesn’t mind taking the risk.
Once the phone is unlocked it’s just a matter of finding a decent plan for the phone, T-Mobile offers several plans that don’t require a long term contract, they even offer a pre-paid plan that would give her unlimited minutes, texts and internet for $70 a month, she doesn’t even need to cancel it before she leaves. Since it’s prepaid if she doesn’t pay she doesn’t get the minutes, texts and data, but she doesn’t owe any money.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Group Discussion:
Apple Genius Bar Service
Rob’s iMac is sick and has been checked-in to the Apple Hospital. We went twice to the Apple Genius Bar this week to hopefully get the problem solved. We’ll know when we get back from China.
Has your visit to the Genius Bar been favorable — or did they leave a lot to be desired? Call us now: 1-800-899-INTO.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Forward With Ford Reports…
| HOUR 3 GUESTS | ||
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| Rob was able to parallel park for the first time in his life — with Park Assist! | Bob Struble, President & CEO – iBiquity/HD Radio | The world’s first seat belt airbags (featured in the new Ford Explorer) |
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| Ford thinks “Green” | HOPS = Human Occupant Package Simulator (Motion Capture Research) | Rob & Jewel |
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
Dr. Walter Bruch worked on the giant electronic camera he had developed for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. In 1937 during the Funkausstellung, today known as IFA, a clearly advanced model of the camera was presented for live broadcasting. One of the interview partners was Paul Nipkow, who was baptized the “father of television”, who’s famous mechanical Nipkow disc had become obsolete with the new electronic capturing. Dr. Bruch went on in the early 50s, to invent the PAL color TV standard for Europe.
That’s this week’s IFA Update brought to you by Messe-Berlin. Be sure to visit IFA-Berlin.com
Clinton calling via the Android App listens to the Podcast asked: “Hello Dave and guys, I listen to you through your podcast, I listened to you at work on XM radio but XM changed your schedule and now it’d be right in the middle of my sleep, so now I have to resort to the podcast, I enjoy your show very much. My question is, is there a way to create a restore disk for your computer after you get it virus free and reinstalled windows, so that the next time you can just pop in a disk and boot up and have your system back. Thank you very much.”
There are several tools you can use for free, we’re going to name just a few, but there are tons of others, it’s great that you’re thinking ahead, many people don’t realize the importance of a backup before they need it. We try to mention on the show at least once a week to back up your data, always! OK, anyway, one that may fit your needs is EaseUs, it’s free, it can make a copy of your hard drive and burn it into a bootable DVD.
You can also have a look at XXClone, it’s not free for commercial use, but as long as you’re just using it for your home computer you can use it legally for free and it will back up your entire hard drive to a second hard drive. The downside of doing this is that you’re basically left with a second healthy hard drive, but if there’s a problem with your main drive you may have to swap them as opposed to inserting a bootable DVD and using it to fix the drive.
You can also try DriveImage XML, it’s also free for personal use but paid for commercial use, and it will back up your hard drive and allow you to restore it from the back up, but you will have to create a separate bootable CD on your own so you can access the backup. DriveImage won’t let you burn your backup directly to a DVD, but it will let you save your backup in chunks small enough to each fit into a DVD if you chose to copy them manually after the backup is finished.
There are many other programs that will do what you need, Norton Ghost is an example that has been around for a long time and does a very good job, the downside is that you will have to pay $70 for it. Whichever program you choose keep in mind that there will be fairly long period of time between popping the disk and getting your system back, all of your hard drive data will need to be re-written first, but any of these solutions and many more can help you get your computer back to a healthy state if you remember to back up when things are running well.
You may want to consider using a flash drive, or thumb drive, instead of DVDs. Most recent computers can be configured in their boot menu to boot from a USB drive, including a flash drive. Once you get Windows and your various applications installed and, as you said, “virus free,” you will probably realize you have a great deal more than will fit on one or two DVDs. But flash drives exist in much larger capacities. 64GB models can be purchased from your local office supply store. That extra space will make it easy to store the image in one place, and it will also make it faster on the restore. DO make certain your computer can boot from a USB drive, though, before you trust this technique.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Ron from the Space Coast of Florida, listens via Stitcher and asked: “Hi Dave, When I try to watch some shows on Boxee, it says I can’t see them in my region. I have set with my town here in Florida. What could be the problem?”
It depends on what you’re trying to watch, but the problem may simply be that… well, they’re not available in your region. Boxee accepts apps from both US and foreign sources, and though that doesn’t usually cause trouble for users as most people stick to their local content, sometimes some people in America may want to play content from, for example, BBC iPlayer, or 4oD, both available on Boxee, but both british and locked to play their content within the UK only, or, for example, Sky Australia, not surprisingly an Australian content provider.
If it makes you feel any better, 99.99% of the time it’s foreigners that complain about not being able to access content from Hulu, Netflix and the US Networks online.
If the content you’re trying to access is domestic though, the problem is almost certainly your IP Address, since it’s the main filter content providers use to filter out foreigners.
Is there any reason why you would have a foreign IP address? For example, Are you using a proxy? or a VPN (which you probably wouldn’t be unless you were using a business connection)?
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Laurel in Clairton, Pennsylvania, listens asked: “What is a good starter computer for an adult? Not very expensive.”
These days you have several options. Our research team has a compiled a list of suggestions for you and other listeners asking the same question.
1) A 17-inch Dell Inspiron 17R, comes with a Core i5 processor, 6GB of memory. It’s also highly configurable and supports many of the latest technologies like USB 3.0 and Intel Wireless Display (WiDi). It also has a single USB 2.0 port as well as combination of USB 2.0/eSATA port. Both HDMI and VGA output are on-board and the WiDi support allows you to send a video signal wirelessly to a TV or other external display with an appropriate adapter. The Dell Inspiron is available for $950.
2) You can also try the Sony VAIO EA series, which comes with a Core i3 processor, 2.26 Ghz, 4 GB of RAM, intel WiDi wireless display support and you can choose between various colors. The battery runs for about 3-5 hours. Now, if you want more power you can upgrade to Core i5-580M, and enhance the RAM up to 8GB. The Sony VAIO EA series starts at about $700.
If you want a less expensive option, you can look at an Acer Aspire 5253. It comes with a nice 15.6-inch display, 320GB of hard drive space, a multi touch mouse pad, Windows 7 Home Premium, Office Starter 2010, a built-in webcam and it will only cost you $399.
If you’d like a bit more oomph for your dollar, and you’d really rather have a desktop PC (you didn’t say notebook, you just said computer), speaking as our resident game geek, I’d like to recommend a value gamer. The iBUYPOWER Gamer Power 502D3 comes with an AMD Athlon II X2 processor, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB HD, and an ATI Radeon HD5450 video card. Newegg.com sells this configuration for $399. Now that doesn’t include a screen, but you can buy an excellent LCD monitor for under $100.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
| Detroit & “Forward With Ford” Candids | ||
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| Downtown Detroit |
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info, please email us here.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
iLuv: Several iSP110 Mini Portable Stereo Speakers (in a variety of colors)
Microsoft: Copies of Street & Trips Software with GPS receiver
VSO Software: Copies of Convert-X-to-DVD 4 – Lets you convert videos to DVD and watch on any DVD player.
wEASEL: Several wEASEL Easel Smartphone Stand with Hanging Loop in Black or White