Dave and the team were traveling to Boston this week where they’ll be reporting from the Games For Health Conference and prepared this encore presentation with some of our favorite calls and guests.
HOUR 1:
Mary in Columbia, Missouri listening on KFRU 1400 AM asked: “Having a problem getting Quicken installed on a Ubuntu system. It says it has to go through Windows. Is there a way I can get Quicken in Ubuntu, or is there something in the Ubuntu system that I might be able to use?”
It turns out you have a lot of alternatives to Quicken that will run on Ubuntu.
From our research we found:
1) GnuCash
2) KMyMoney
) Skrooge
4) MoneyDance
5) HomeBank CPA
6) JGnash
7) ERP
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Robert in Indianapolis, Indiana listening on Sirius Ch.108 asked: “I have an Xbox 360. I’m a truck driver. I’m wondering if I can get Xbox Live in my truck.”
You should be able to plug in a USB 3G modem to your Xbox and make it work. However, you have no way to install the modem’s drivers onto your Xbox, as the Xbox doesn’t come with preinstalled drivers for 3G modems, and there are no 3G modem drivers specifically made for Xbox, so this becomes a little less straightforward than just plugging a modem in. You can still do it, but it takes an extra piece of equipment, a laptop.
If you have a laptop computer, you should be able to connect the USB 3G modem to one of your laptop’s USB ports, and then go through the set up and check that you can access the Internet using the USB modem. After you are sure that your laptop can access the Internet via the USB modem, you should be able to connect it to your Xbox via an Ethernet network cable and set your operating system to share the USB modem’s connection with the “Ethernet Wired Network” (or put, more simply, your Xbox).
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed if Apple will break up with AT&T.
Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.
Jake in Lake Head, California sent us the following email and asked: “I have bought 3 radios: Pioneer, Grundig & Cariole. I’m off the grid in a canyon in the Shasta Mountatins. Is there any radio that is really any better than another? I also have tried Sirius with little luck.”
If you managed to get your Internet working at an acceptable speed, Internet radio might be a good option.
It doesn’t require a very high-speed connection, there is a good amount of options in terms of content, and it doesn’t have to rely on waves that can be blocked by the mountains. Otherwise, we don’t think you’ll pick up anything short of maybe some AM station or shortwave, since satellite didn’t work.
That should be enough for internet radio, and as a plus he can try it for free on his laptop before deciding if he wants to invest on a C.Crane standalone Internet Radio.
Guest in this hour:
Ross Rubin, Executive Director, Industry Analysis – NPD Group
How much do you care about 3D TVs at home? A recent survey shows high consumer interest
Ray in Raleigh, North Carolina listening on WPTF 680 AM asked: “I got into the user permissions in Windows XP and didn’t quite know what I was doing. I was trying to setup a user for strictly having access to two programs and nothing more. Somehow, I managed to lockout not only the users, but also the administrator, and I’ll be doggonned if I can get back into it. I can take the drive out and bring it to another machine and try to work on it there, but everything I tried so far, looking at Internet suggestions, has been futile. Please help me get back into that thing.”
You have created folders on your hard drive in Windows XP that you can’t access, even when logged in with Administrator rights? If that’s the case, you might need to take ownership of the folders.
This will usually correct a permissions problem, if that’s indeed what the problem is. Microsoft has a Knowledge Base Article, explaining the procedure for this. It’s not hard, but if you’re running Windows XP Home Edition, you will need to start the computer up in “Safe Mode” to make this work.
Craig in Idaho Falls, Idaho listening on KBLY 690 AM asked: “I was wondering if you knew of any digital video recorder that will record straight off of an antenna, so I wouldn’t need a satellite box or anything like that.”
We’ve had the opportunity to talk about the DTVPal DVR several times before and we think it would be the best solution for you. DTVPal DVR is an over-the-air receiver and digital video recorder with no subscription fees required. You can record and play back your free local digital broadcasts in HD. The DTVPal DVR will also work with older analog televisions, replacing both your digital converter box and your VCR.
Using an on-screen program guide, you can select and record up to 150 of your favorite standard-definition shows, and up to 30 hours of high-definition programming. There’s also a “Program Search” feature. You can search by title, keyword, or themes. By the way, the program guide is free, so you won’t need to pay any subscription fees. You’ll know what’s on 7 days in advance. Remember, you’ll also be able to pause live TV, rewind, and playback recorded shows.
We featured the DTVPal DVR in our Product Spotlight back in May of this year. Click here to view the video
By the way, you can find one of these for about $300 at Sears online, and at their stores. Apparently, they have an exclusive deal with Dish. Before the DTV cut over, it costs $250 online.
Rich in Raleigh, North Carolina listening on WPTF 680 AM sent us the following email and asked: “Dave, I have a 6 year old HDTV tube that won’t accept VGA or HDMI cable inputs. I have tried some retail store’s scan converters, which show fuzzy graphics. Can you recommend a quality device that won’t break my bank for watching media from my computer, such as, Netflix, MP4, other web video streaming, etc.?”
It sounds to us like what you need is a device designed for converting DVI/HDMI signals to component video for your HDTV. One that we’ve read good things about is the HDFury 2. It requires a DVI or HDMI input, so if your computer doesn’t have one of those, you’d need to upgrade your computer’s video. This device handles both copy protected (hdcp), and standard connections. You can check out more at hdfury.com.
The product’s list price is $249, but it sells for $199 directly from their web site, and we saw it at several online sources for under $150. Hopefully, that won’t break your bank.
Melissa in Marion Springs, Michigan asked: “I have a laptop that’s about 6 years old. I had to wipe the hard drive and put everything back on. My problem is I can’t watch movies on Real Player. I can watch YouTube movies, but it’s really slow. I’ve downloaded a few movies from YouTube and I can’t watch them on Real Player for some reason. It shows that I have the file but it won’t let me watch them. Wondering if you had any answers.”
You might need to install the latest version of RealPlayer.
It’s also important that you’ve downloaded these YouTube Flash videos (or FLV files) to your computer using the RealPlayer downloader. From your web browser, right click the video and choose “Download using RealPlayer.” That will fetch the file into the RealPlayer library and prepare it for playing on your computer. There are other methods for downloading videos from YouTube, but we suspect RealPlayer likes it best when it gets to download the files.
It worked fine for Mark just a few minutes ago, when he downloaded the HD video of the new Gorillaz song “Stylo” from YouTube, and played it back at ear-shattering volume.
