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HOUR 2:
Tech News & Commentary
Kim in Charlotte, NC. Listens on WXNC and asked: “Hey Dave, I just bought a Nikon 1, and I LOVE IT. However, spending this much for a camera, I want to make sure it will last. What are some good ideas to keep my camera in good shape? Thanks!”
We would be delighted to help! The most common and easiest thing to do would be to get a case or camera bag. They make them with soft lining that won’t scratch your camera or your screen, padding helps as well. The case should have a small pocket for a spare memory card and a spare battery.
Keeping the camera clean is your #1 priority. Dirt and DSLR cameras simply do not mix. We found some really excellent web sites with tips and techniques for cleaning your camera, and we will link those for you in this week’s show notes. As we already said, get a quality case for your camera. And if your camera comes with a lens hood — use it! Those help keep your lens safe from bumps and scratches.
Never touch the lens with your fingers. The oils on your fingertips will muck up the lens. Before wiping off the lens, hold the camera upside down and gently blow off any grit and lose dust particles. Then, lightly wipe the lens and other camera parts with a soft, dry cloth or lens cleaning paper.
If needed, wipe the lens with a few drops of lens cleaning fluid. Place the fluid on the lens cleaning paper, not directly onto the lens. The best camera cleaning cloth is made of microfiber, which should be stored in a plastic baggie when not in use. Lens tissue, a swatch from a cotton t-shirt or a soft handkerchief can also be used. Paper towels, napkins and facial tissue should NOT be used to clean the lens.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
Charles in Shreveport, Louisiana listens on 710 KEEL asked: “I bought a house from my mother and she left owing a huge cable bill. We can’t get cable Internet because they think we’re trying to get around paying her bill. We live just outside of the range for DSL. I’m wondering if we have any options at all of getting high speed Internet outside of the regular AT&T network or through the cable, because those options are out for us. We really need our high-speed Internet.”
You can look into satellite internet. WildBlue has plans starting at $49.99 in Shreveport that could get you up to 5 mbps, it is capped to 7GB a month though.
If you get strong cellphone service at home you could also get a MiFi, it will also be capped and it will likely by slower than those 5 mbps that WildBlue claims you’ll get, but you may get faster service if you’re in an LTE area for either AT&T or Verizon.
Also, you could try talking to the cable company, you could see if they’ll agree to a payment plan or you could even tell them “I’m not the woman that owes you, can I please have some service?”
One downside to satellite Internet service is latency. Although it’s plenty fast once the transfer of data starts, the handshaking that leads up to that point will work more slowly over satellite. As long as you’re prepared for this, you won’t be surprised by it.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Tom in Albuquerque, New Mexico listens tot he podcast – calling in via the App asked: “What is Apple’s beef with widgets, the one thing I miss about my old Android phone is the ability to have the little power widget thing that lets you have the ability to to turn off your Bluetooth and wifi and so on. On iOS 5.0 I had the widgets and when 5.1 when came around they’re gone. Is there gonna be an Apple update that’ll let me have my widgets back I don’t have to plow through hundreds and hundreds of menus to get to to my Bluetooth and my WiFi. Maybe the iDork will have something on this one so I can have something like you and the rest of the Android have.”
if you had widgets on iOS 5.0 (other than the weather and stocks widget), your phone must have been jailbroken. Apple has only released pretty lightweight widgets so far for iOS, there are rumors that a music control widget might be coming, which would make sense, and the reason for that is probably battery life.
Android phones tend to have pretty lousy battery life, the iPhone … also has lousy battery life, but not as lousy. One of the reasons for that is probably that running services are kept to a minimum. If you ask someone complaining about their Android’s battery life to shut off every widget and use a static wallpaper, odds are, their battery life will noticeably improve. That’s probably the only reason Apple hasn’t supported widgets and live wallpapers until now.
We suspect that, in time, they will add more widgets to the notification bar and slowly let people get used to the idea that if they want to ruin their own battery life, it’s not Apple’s fault, but that may take a while.
If you don’t mind jailbreaking your iPhone, you can install widgets to the notification bar, including power control widgets but, as we suspect you found out already, if you update the phone the jailbreak will likely go away and you’ll have to start over with all the widget installations again.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Dan in Las Vegas, Nevada listening on KDWN 720 AM asked: “What is the best and most affordable online backup service? I’ve seen a lot of ads for Carbonite, but it seems kind of pricey and the ads look a little spammy. I have files backed up on an external hard drive but I could still lose everything in case of a fire or robbery. It seems much safer to have my data stored in an off- site location.”
You’re absolutely right. It is much safer to have your backup data stored off-site. Whether it’s on an external drive that you take from home and store at your office, or vice versa.
As far as the online services, Carbonite is good. We’ve used it on a few of our machines here, at our studios. Dave has had Carbonite on his main computer for years. Another service we currently use and love is MiMedia. They are pretty much a direct competitor to Carbonite and you will find a lot of the same features with both companies. What gives MiMedia an edge in our book is the fact that they they will give you up to 7gigabytes of backup storage for free. If you need more, that’s when you start getting into their paid plans. With Carbonite, all of their plans are unlimited, but they start at about $60 a year. (Which actually works out cheaper than the $9.95 a month for the unlimited MiMedia plan)
One of the helpful things that MiMedia does is for you with their paid plan, is offer an optional “Shuttle Drive.” They will send you an external drive. You do your first complete backup directly to it, then send it back to them. That will get all of your data backed up to their server without clogging up your network connection. After that, when a file is added or changed on your computer, it is uploaded automatically to their server, so there’s nothing to worry about.
Both services also offer free Smartphone apps so you can access any of your backed up data from anywhere.
Don’t overlook Dropbox, either. While it’s not technically a backup system, anything that you store in the Dropbox folder will be synchronized with the cloud, and then any other computers where you link up the same Dropbox will receive those files, and any updates, automatically. A 50GB Dropbox costs just $10 per month, or $100 per year, and it’s not JUST backup, it’s also file synchronization between Mac, PC, Android, and all things iDevice-ish. Phones, tablets, computers — Dropbox supports them all.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Guests in this hour:
Dr. Satwant Kaur, First Lady of Emerging Technologies – HP
A lot of our listeners ask us about the cloud and our next guest is here to answer several of your questions. Dr. Satwant Kaur is an author, a ten time IEEE keynoter (pronounced “Eye-triple-E”, stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and the holder of four technology patents.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT with Rob: “Dish Hopper Whole-Home DVR System”
“Into Tomorrow” has been a long-time supporter and fan of digital video recorders (DVRs). We were thrilled to try out the latest whole-home system from Dish. Rob shares some of the unique features we’re loving.
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 – Records 6 live HD channels at once during primetime (that’s 4 local HD networks and 2 channels of your choosing) … and streams four HD programs to different TVs … simultaneously. – 2 TERABYTES of storage — Dish says it can record and store up to 2,000 hours of video content. – It has a unique recording feature called “PrimeTime Anytime” – it gives you instant On Demand access to your favorite shows on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC in HD. Once you set this option, EVERY show airing on those networks from 8 to 11pm Eastern is recorded and stored for up to 8 days from the original air-date on your DVR. If you don’t have time to watch everything within 8 days, you can manually SAVE them until you delete it. PrimeTime Anytime is only available with local broadcasts in HD, which are not available in all markets. – The Hopper DVR is part of a whole-home system. It’s the central hub of your TV entertainment. It communicates with the smaller units called “Joey” which can be placed in any room around the house or office … and watch anything on the Hopper. The system supports up to 3 of these. Basically, you’re sharing your TV content from the Hopper across your entire home with the Joeys. The Hopper can support up to 4 HDTVs at the SAME time. – The user interface on Dish DVRs has always been very simple to use. Our only complaint is the organization of folders. We’ve tried to keep our favorite sitcoms in one folder, but haven’t been very successful with it. – Apps: Dish recently added Pandora streaming music service. So, if you love Pandora on your computer or smartphone, you can now enjoy it on your TV. Just enter your account login credentials and you’re set. Keep in mind that this service also requires an Internet connection. You can even login to Facebook with Hopper. There’s also the Weather Channel for local info … news feeds for Sports and Entertainment … and even time-wasting games … in case you’re bored. – Hopper offers Blockbuster @Home Service. This gives you access to thousands of movies when connected to broadband Internet. With the Hopper’s DISH Unplugged feature, you get hundreds of titles instantly, even without an Internet connection. Blockbuster @Home is available for an additional monthly charge. – Dish’s TV Everywhere is also offered on the Hopper. Just connect the Sling Adapter to your DVR. In case you’re not familiar with Sling, it allows you to watch your home TV, including DVR recordings and live TV, from anywhere … on your computer, smartphone or tablet. – The Hopper has a helpful feature called “Remote Control Locator” which at the press of the button … it “rings” & flashes your remote so that you can find it easily. Now you won’t have to flip your house to find that darn remote. – The Hopper whole-home system has been out since March of this year. The price depends on the programming package you buy. You can currently get it for free with their “America’s Top 200” package and above. |
Mark in Ocala, Florida asked: “Is there a cheap, inexpensive VGA to RCA cable (not a converter box, just a cable) that allows you to export the video from your laptop to your TV?”
You can find these online for like $2, they’re very common. Keep in mind that VGA doesn’t carry audio, so you’ll need a separate cable to go from your headphone jack into the TV’s audio input.
There are cables that come with both the VGA and the stereo jack in one package, so you may be able to buy an inexpensive cable that comes with what you need for both an audio and a video connection, but even if you don’t, you can just buy a cheap 3.5mm stereo to RCA cable online too.
You can probably get the whole setup for less than $10 online and you won’t need any converted box, as long as you have the VGA out on your laptop and an RCA input on your TV.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Corrosion Technologies: Several bottles of CorrosionX — A few squirts of CorrosionX clean contacts & connections & keep them protected for months (in salt spray environments) to years.
Ergotron: A Universal Tablet Cradle — This accessory converts a monitor mount to hold a tablet or eReader. Works with most popular tablets and eReaders, including Apple iPad, Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle.
Microsoft: Copies of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013 Software