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Tech News & Commentary
Jim in New Port Richey, Florida calling in via the App asked: “My friend recently jailbroke his iPad. I believe that’s the proper term. I’m thinking about doing the same. What am I in for? Should I? Is this a good idea?”
What you’re in for in terms of the process is really not that much, rooting Android can be tough on some phones and tablets, but jailbreaking iOS is a pretty simple process, the hardest part is restarting the tablet the right away to put it into something called “DFU mode” – (Device Firmware Upgrade) – but after that the process basically consist in following prompts and letting the computer do what it will.
Whether it’s a good or bad idea depends on your reasons to do it, jailbreaking an iPad will give you low level control over it, basically you go from being an iPad user to being an iPad administrator and, assuming you’re not going to go messing with system files without knowing if they’re needed, that’s fine, but the problem is that your apps can also achieve that level of control over your iPad.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, that’s what allows bluetooth switches on the notification bar of iOS devices, for example. But that can also allow apps with malicious intent access to much more, if not all, of your data.
Should you or shouldn’t you? The only answer that we can give you is: is there a reason for you to do it? is there anything you need from your tablet that you haven’t been able to achieved with your non-jailbroken version?
If there’s anything you want that jailbreaking your iPad will let you do, then sure, go for it, but otherwise we wouldn’t bother… you may introduce some bugs by jailbreaking, you may have trouble updating without having to restore all your data each time… for most people it’s just not worth the hassle.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
Lance from Fairbanks, Alaska and listening via News Radio 970AM KFBX – calling in via the App asked: “I have quite a pile of 8mm video cassettes that we would like to save to a disk. Is there a VCR available that one can play these on and transfer them to a disk? I know you can do that with a camcorder but they don’t sell that anymore.”
Most of the devices that will let you convert tape to DVD work with computers as a middleman, you plug in the camera or VCR, play the whole tape, and then burn the DVD from the video captured on the computer.
The problem is that if you don’t have a working camera, you need one to use that method, so you have to buy one, you also need to buy the adapter to connect to your computer. When you add those up, it may actually be cheaper to go with a company that will do the conversion for you.
Standalone devices that take a tape and convert them to DVD without computers or anything else being involved are rare and most of them are professional equipment and priced as such. Have a look around, even Walmart is converting 8mm tapes to DVD, you may find a better deal than buying a lot of equipment for a one time conversion.
Walmart’s YesVideo service will charge you $19.95 to convert up to two tapes, for a maximum of two hours of video. As part of the conversion they will make your movies available to you for watching online. Since you say you have “quite a pile,” the Walmart pricing might not be the best deal for you.
The website VideoConversionExperts.com provides a transfer service as well, priced by the hour. The regular price is $13.95 per hour but right now on their website they’re advertising a special rate of $8.95 per hour. Working by the hour might be better than working by the tape.
But either way, if you really do have a lot of 8mm tapes, converting them won’t be cheap. But using a professional service should give you a better transfer quality than using your own PC-based solution.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Major Bess of the SC National Guard listening via the Internet asked: “Are the solid state hard drives going to come down and the capacity go up anytime soon?”
Solid State Drives have been steadily getting cheaper and cheaper and HDDs have been staying at around the same price, so eventually you may see SSD becoming more price competitive, but at the current pace, it may still take a few years.
There’s another way for you to go, there are hybrid drives that incorporate some fast access SSD memory and some roomy HDD (or, Hard Disk Drive) memory on a single volume.
Those hybrid drives tend to have better performance than an HDD, more storage than an SSD at an overall decent price.
You can buy a hybrid 1TB drive today for something around $115, for comparison a 500GB SSD might cost you $350, in terms of performance, you can expect hybrid drive to get you speeds as much as 4 times faster than a traditional HDD, which is not as a fast as an SSD, but it’s very respectable for the price.
That being said, there truly is nothing comparable to an SSD hard drive in your computer. Near-instant boot up and wake up times, blazing performance opening apps, etc. The cost might be high (or, perhaps, “not cheap” is the better term), but the performance gains are hard to overstate. If you can afford it, this is a move we think you will enjoy.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Mike Kahn, Director of Alpha Camera Systems – Sony Electronics
Ronny in Palestine, Texas listening on 95.7 KNET – All Things East Texas asked: “I have a question about Kindle Fire. My Kindle froze so I tried a hard reset, but that didn’t work. Is there anything else I can do to fix this? if not is there anyone where I live that can fix this?”
We’ve found a lot of references to this problem, apparently, you’re not alone. Most people claim the hard reset does the trick, of those who don’t, some say that letting it sit until the battery dies and then plugging it and charging it from dead will make it work again.
Others have had success doing several hard restarts in a row. It’s hard to say if any of that will work for you, but they’re the only potential fixes we’ve been able to find for a Kindle Fire that hasn’t been flashed with 3rd party software.
If yours has, the other option available is to reflash. That seems to fix the problem for those with rooted devices.
We should note that it’s also possible your Kindle Fire has simply died. If it froze and you haven’t been able to get it running since, that’s not a very encouraging symptom. Amazon.com will repair or replace the unit, but they don’t offer any service locally. You have to ship it back to them.
Before we drag out the pitchforks and head for Amazon headquarters, though, we should note that ALL tablets and smartphones are usually sent to depot service for anything more puzzling than a cracked screen.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Akitio:Neutrino Thunder Duo – 2-bay Thunderbolt Hard Drive enclosure
V Moda Headphones: a variety of styles of the DJ Inspired, Hollywood Designed Headphones
Ventev: An assortment of tangle-free USB cables and battery cases for iPhones