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Tech News & Commentary
Warren in Scottsville, Kentucky listens on WTN 99.7 out of Nashville calling in from the app asks us: “I’m trying to find a program to create 4 bit images with a 16 color custom palette. This is for an old game I’m trying to create new icons for.”
Warren, Some picture editing programs can be used to create 4-bit images. Since creating 4-bit images is not that common and it is a very small file, I would suggest using Adobe Photoshop CS2 
or CS3 because of its more options.
If you want something other than Adobe Photoshop , you can try Microsoft Paint.
To save a 16-color, 4-bit Windows bitmap file in Microsoft Paint, choose “Other formats” when saving the file and then choose the 16-color bitmap option. This would be what you’d use when creating Windows XP icons, for example.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Consumer Reports Feature With James McQueen
Smart phones can take great casual and spur-of the moment shots, but should they be used for those important pictures? Probably not, but how can we get good quality without breaking the bank? Consumer Reports recently published a list of 6 kick-butt point-and-shoot cameras that are worth the price. Electronics spokesman James McQueen is here with a few of the best.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they have been playing with recently.
• Listener Phil in Deltona, FL recommends: Widgetsoid, FREE
- “Widgetsoid is for your Note 3 and should allow you to keep the screen on when plugged in. I don’t own a Note 3 so I can’t test it for you but I have read where others have had good results with it. You can create a custom widget (it includes a “keep device awake when plugged in toggle”) that you can add to your homescreen if you wish. Play around with it and let me know if it works for you. Good luck!”
• Chris recommends: Ironpants, FREE
- “Do you ever have good intentions to complete a daily walk or run and just don’t find the motivation? Well, my app this week will help with that. It is an audio storytelling app that you can use walking or running to add adventure to your workout. It will guide you through missions as you complete the desired time of your work out. With this before you know it, your work out is done! It is Zombies, Run for running and The Walk for walking. Both available for IOS and Android. It is 2.99 for the walk and 3.99 for the run. So the next time you see someone all into their workout, who knows… They might think a Zombie is chasing them!” — Chris
• Mark recommends: Speedtest, FREE
- “There are some apps that become so much a part of our landscape that we almost forget they are separate from the phone. Speedtest from Ookla is one of those. Now the nerds and geeks out there will be saying “Pfft! SPEEDTEST? Everyone knows about that app!” Congrats, you passed the nerd exam. But in fact, just this week, someone saw me using it and asked what it was. Speedtest is, simply, a speed test. It measures how fast your current wireless network, or more importantly Wi-Fi network, is operating. What I use it for, other than simply determining whether the network is working at all, is to determine when the Wi-Fi signal has dropped low enough that we need to install a range extender. You know 5 bars is fast, but how fast is 3 bars? How about 2 bars that flickers down to 1 sometimes? Don’t guess, get Speedtest and know. It’s free for both iOS and Android.” — Mark
• Dave recommends:Photofy, FREE
- “Photofy, is a new photography app that allows you to easily enhance your photos with thousands of professionally designed graphics, stickers, typography and frames, or create your own designs with their free-form text tools with 90 free fonts. In just a few seconds, you can transform your ordinary pix into instant works of art and expression, and then share them with the world. Photofy is a free photo app for iPhone and iPad (as well as Android) and you can choose how to share your unique photo creations. You can then share via Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and more.” — Dave
What are your favorite Apps? Let us know at 800-899-INTO and we’ll feature them in this segment!
- Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details
Guest Segment:
Erin J. Morgart, CEO – Erin J. Morgart Enterprises
Richard in Atlanta, listens via the TuneIn App and is calling via the Into Tomorrow App calling in from the app asks us: “I have an Acer Aspire 5560 that will not recognize the Wi-Fi card that came with the device. I have checked the device manager and it doesn’t show up there. I suspect that the wireless card might be bad. If you give me your input, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
Erin,Your card may indeed be bad, but it may just be that the driver for the wireless card hasn’t been installed or is having issues.
If you have any kind of recovery disk, odds are the drivers are there. If that’s not the case, you may have to use a hardwired connection (or another device) to download the drivers from Acer’s website.
If after installing those, your WiFi card is still missing from the device manager, then you may have a defective card and you may need to have it replaced, maybe with an external one, but try the drivers first, odds are that’s where your issue is coming from.
In the spirit of “have you plugged it in,” we should also mention that most laptop computers have some kind of hardware switch to shut off the Wi-Fi radio. Have you made certain you didn’t simply turn that switch off? On your specific make and model, the wireless is turned on and off by holding down the Fn (Function) key and pressing F3.
If it’s not the driver and it’s not simply switched off, then you should consider a USB Wi-Fi adapter until you’re ready to replace the machine. They are inexpensive, easy to setup, and work great with Windows Vista or Windows 7. Hopefully you have one of those two versions.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Bonnie in Denham Springs, Louisiana – listening via Talk 107.3FM Baton Rouge calling in asked us: “I have a iPhone 4s and ever since I got it I have not been able to get on our netgear wifi router. I have tried everything I can think of. I can connect with my kindle, laptop and my granddaughter can connect with her iPad. I hope you can give me some insight to it. Thank you for all your info on your show.”
Bonnie, If you just got it and everything else connects and the phone doesn’t, you may want to return it and get a new one… there may be something wrong with the phone and if it’s new they should still honor your warranty.
If you can’t or don’t want to do that, you can reset the phone’s network setting by going to settings, general and reset at the bottom of the list. Doing that will get rid of all of the passwords for every WiFi network you connect to, so while it may fix this problem, it may not be the best solution if you connect to a lot of different networks.
Before trying that, you may just want to go for the default answer for all electronics ever, and unplug everything and plug everything back in, turn the phone off and on, power cycle everything that can be power cycled… that fixes a ridiculous amount of problems.
The iPhone 4S doesn’t use any special method to get on WiFi, in fact it works pretty much the same way as the iPad, so if your granddaughter can get her iPad online, but she can’t get your phone online, you should probably consider having it replaced if you still can.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Dan calling in asked us: “Can I restore Windows 8.1 to 8?”
It is possible to switch back to Windows 8 from 8.1. If you have a laptop that you bought that comes with a recovery disc that includes Windows 8. Go to Advanced Startup Options and then to recovery.
You will lose your installed applications and would have to reinstall them. Remember to back-up your important files!
We are curious, though, about why you would want to make such a switch. Windows 8.1 fixes bugs from Windows 8, restores the Start Menu (sort of), and is generally a well-regarded update. Microsoft is about to release an update to the update, in fact.
Let us know why you want to make the switch back. We are genuinely curious.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Joanne Black: Autographed copies of her book “Pick up the damn phone”
Hydreon:Fake TV – Burglary Deterrent Device
iolo: Copies of System Mechanic – Tune-up your PC to increase performance and reliability.
Tylt: ALIN Screen Protectors for the iPad Air
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!