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Tech News & Commentary
Susan in Charleston, South Carolina asked: “I wanted to know the name of the machinery that you use to plug into the back of your TV that would give you all the satellite stations without having to have the different Dish networks and stuff of that nature. Wanted to know the name of it and what’s the cost on it.”
We don’t know of any box that will give you all the satellite channels without paying for the service.
What you can try is a streaming video box, like a Roku or Boxee box, those will cost you less than $100 and will let you stream shows from Netflix and Hulu Plus, and from other sources.
The shows will not always be in high definition and you will certainly not have every show that’s available to satellite subscribers, but it will give you a decent variety without paying a monthly bill.
Short of getting an illegal setup from somewhere, there’s really no way to get full satellite or cable service for free, you can get content online, but it won’t be the same amount of content or the same experience.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline.
Barry in Henderson, Nevada listening on 970 AM asked: “So many people have a tablet or an iPad right now but don’t have a computer. What is a good way to determine if a person should purchase a computer or just have an iPad or tablet?”
If you need nothing but email, web browsing, music, movies and some very basic games, you might be able to get away with just a tablet. But, tablets are really no competition for computers — at least not yet.
If you want to work on any document comfortably, print easily, play more sophisticated games, edit images or movies, or do anything more than checking email, basic web browsing and consuming some media on a small screen, you’ll probably need a computer.
Tablets are great for portability and they’re great for simple tasks, but computers do pretty much all of what they do better. For example, tablet is great to casually browse a website on the couch, but a computer will probably display that website a little better.
Up to now one of the biggest appeals of a tablet over a laptop was portability and battery life, but with the new Ultrabooks coming out the weight and battery life of the tablets has been matched by laptops.
So, you should probably look at tablets as a complement to a laptop, but not really as a replacement.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Josh in Nashville, Tennessee asked: “We have about 3 old computers that have data on them that need to be disposed of. Does any of the retailers recycle these computers? If so whom? Staples, Office Max, etc?
Lastly, what is the best way to make sure your computer is free of any data? I heard that there is a software program that the government uses when they dispose their old computes. What would you say the best software is?”
plenty of retailers offer recycling programs, Best Buy, Office Depot and Staples all offer electronics recycling programs, as do many individual manufacturers like HP, Toshiba, Dell, Intel, Samsung, Sony and others.
You can check with your computer’s maker or the store where you’re buying the replacement, but if you’d like to see a more comprehensive list, come by our website and we’ll link you to a list on the EPA’s website.
If your computers have ATA drives made after 2001, they probably come with a built in tool called Secure Erase. Secure Erase is actually disabled at the BIOS level in most computers, but you can turn it on and use it with freeware tools.
It tends to be disabled for a reason, according to the National Institute for Standards and Testing and the NSA there’s pretty much no going back after using it. Your data is gone and not recoverable, so use it carefully.
If you’d like to download a free tool that will let you use Secure Erase come by our website and we’ll link you to it from this week’s show notes as well.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Jason in Wellington, Florida listening via our free android app asked: “How do I make my smart phone battery last longer? I have a Samsung Captivate and I can only use it for about two hours before the battery goes dead. I’ve started carrying 3 extra batteries just to get me through school! It really gets on my nerves. Any tips? I don’t watch videos or anything … just check my email often or random Google searches. And when I’m done, I end all processes.”
Plenty of retailers offer recycling programs, Best Buy, Office Depot and Staples all offer electronics recycling programs, as do many individual manufacturers like HP, Toshiba, Dell, Intel, Samsung, Sony and others.
You can check with your computer’s maker or the store where you’re buying the replacement, but if you’d like to see a more comprehensive list, you can visit the EPA’s website.
If your computers have ATA drives made after 2001, they probably come with a built in tool called Secure Erase. Secure Erase is actually disabled at the BIOS level in most computers, but you can turn it on and use it with freeware tools.
It tends to be disabled for a reason, according to the National Institute for Standards and Testing and the NSA there’s pretty much no going back after using it. Your data is gone and not recoverable, so use it carefully.
If you’d like to download a free tool that will let you use Secure Erase.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Barbara in Wasilla, Alaska listening on KBYR 700 AM asked: “I live up in Alaska and a lot of times we get cold temperatures, sometimes 20 below. If you have your laptop with you, and you leave it in the car while you run errands, sometimes the temperature in a car gets pretty cold. How bad is it for your laptops and tablets to be in those temperatures? Does it ruin them, or should you take them out of the car when you go run errands?”
You might want to consider taking them with you. Even — or especially here — in South Florida, for the opposite reason of heat … it’s best to not leave valuable electronics in your car. Possible theft is another reason to take it with you but Electronics tend not to fare too well especially in low temperatures, a lot of components can not function correctly in cold weather.
LCD screen for example are made up of tiny liquids that can solidify at temperatures below freezing, hard drives on laptops generally use liquids instead of ball bearings to help them spin, those can also freeze at low enough temperatures (and 20 below is definitely cold enough), batteries are also capable of working only at a set temperature range.
Those problems are usually reversed when the device is warmed back up, but that can bring with it it’s own problems… sometimes warming brings with it condensation and condensation is not good for electronics.
So, will they be ruined? They can be, in part by that potential condensation and in part because the stress of the cold temperatures may actually shorten the life of the individual components, and obviously without them, the device won’t work.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Guest in this hour:
Chris Ely, Manager, Industry Analysis – CEA
Consumer electronics are everywhere, but what’s actually selling? The Consumer Electronics Association recently did a study on what products we are and will be buying. Chris shares the results with us.
Marcus in Montgomery Alabama listens on 1440 AM – calling in via the “Into Tomorrow” Android App asked: “Is there any way to get a smartphone that uses the phone for the phone service, but that you don’t have to pay for the internet connection?”
Usually the only way you’re going to be able to do that is if you buy a phone that hasn’t been subsidized by a company, especially if it’s a GSM phone. With GSM phones, just sliding the SIM card in will be enough to get them running on whatever plan the SIM card is programed for. With CDMA phones there’s an activation process involved and it includes giving the phone company the phone’s serial number, which they can use to check the model. If they do that and see it’s a smartphone, they usually won’t activate it without a data plan.
That basically means that you’re stuck with AT&T or T-Mobile as your carriers and with the smartphones you can buy unsubsidized.
You could try asking the other phone companies if they would activate a smartphone that “a friend gave you” without requiring a data plan. They don’t do it when they sell you the phone, but you may be able to buy a used one and have it put on the network if you don’t buy from them.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Facebook Participation
We posted the story on our Facebook Page about Facebok purchasing Instagram for $1 Billion. We got some interesting comments.
Here are some of the ones we shared on the air:
Victor – Losing users? Buy the competition!
Alexandre – hopefully a really good fb+instagram intergration !
Jon – I think Facebook just created several new millionaires!
Geoffrey – Don’t see a need for Instagram,getting bored with Facebook!
David – Facebook will screw with it the way they do with everything and then no one will want it.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Creative: Live! Cam Connect HD — Webcam that records 720p video
ScanMyPhotos.com: Several $200.00 eGift Certificates that can be used towards your purchase of any of their online products, such as: Prepaid Photo Scanning Box, Prepaid Slide Box, or Prepaid VHS Transfer Box
Scott Steinberg: Copies of his new book “The Modern Parent’s Guide to Kids and Video Games”