Weekend of February 18th, 2011 – Hour 3 – Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline

HOUR 3:

Tech News & Commentary

Nick in St. Josephs, Minnesota listening on WSJM asked: “I have an iPod that I’ve had for a little while. I let it run down so that the battery doesn’t have enough juice to boot up, thus it won’t charge itself. It just keeps giving me a message that says “very low battery – please wait.” It does that for a while, tries to boot itself up, but then turns off. Give me a hand.”

Depending on how long “a little while” is your iPod’s battery may just be shot, but we’ve heard of this problem before so we’ll give you a couple of possible fixes just in case they help. None of these potential fixes come from Apple, so far they haven’t offered an official solution to this problem other than “buy a new one”.

First of all, we need to mention that this can happen if there’s something wrong with your cable or if you’re not plugging your iPod directly to your computer’s USB ports, so if you can try a different port or a different cable, if one of those work they’d be the simplest solutions. Some people have reported that connecting the iPod to a wall charger seems to have given it enough charge to go back to normal and charge from a computer.

If you don’t have friends that can lend you a charger, a cheap way to check if this can help might be to go down to an Apple store or any electronics store that sells Apple products and plug in your iPod to one of their chargers (Apple Store employees will let you if you ask).

If that doesn’t help you can try what looks like a very desperate step: reset it non-stop until just it works! For some reason, resetting it 5 or 10 times in a row seems to have given some people’s iPods the jolt they needed to start charging. This doesn’t strike as the safest method in the world, since iPods probably aren’t built with constant resets in mind as a standard use case, but if you’re desperate enough to take the risk you can try it. To reset it, hold down the center “select” button and the “menu” button, and keep doing that until it decides to turn itself on.

The people that have had success with this method say it takes between 5 and 10 times, that seems like an awful lot of resetting, but if nothing else works and you’re at the verge of throwing your iPod away, you might as well risk it and give it a shot. If you still have a warranty talk to Apple and see what they can do, they may replace your iPod or service it and get rid of the problem in a safe way.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

“Into

Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager

Mike in Tullahoma, Tennessee listening on 99.7 WTN asked: “I have wanted to purchase a new desktop that will accomadate the newer games being designed. Would building my own or buying one be the best way to go? I am looking to spend about $500 + or – a few bucks. Can you give me advice on selecting one with the hardware I would need to play the newer games?”

Mark has purchased two iBUYPOWER computers now, a Gamer Extreme 930i from Newegg.com and a Gamer Power 912i from Amazon.com. He has been extremely happy with both computers, their build quality was flawless and their performance is top notch. Both Newegg and Amazon were a pleasure to deal with. Checking those two sites right now for an iBUYPOWER in your price range, we can see a decent price on the Gamer Power 918i at Newegg.com. As of today, it was being sold for $579. That gets you a Core i3 550 processor running 3.2 GHz, a 1TB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, and an ATI Radeon HD 5450 video card with 512MB of memory. Windows 7 64-bit is included.

We won’t pretend to tell you that’s the top end gaming rig. If it were, then no one would ever sell a gaming computer for more than $600. But it will play the newer games, although you might have to turn the video settings down on the more graphically intensive ones. What we will tell you is, that’s a decent amount of performance for a fair price.

Be sure you have a display, though, as that price does not include a monitor. We’ve had good luck with high performance systems from Gateway and Alienware, although we can’t find anything in their product lines that gets close to your $500 price tag. But compare the specs of the iBUYPOWER system we recommended for you with anything else you’re considering, and that should give you a benchmark for whether you’re getting a good price or not. Good luck, and let us know what you decide to do and how it turns out.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

Mobile World Congress Reports…

HOUR 3 GUESTS

Adam Boyden, CEO – Conduit	Greg England, VP & General Manager, EMEA – Novatel Wireless	Troels Palshof, CEO & Founder – ASP Technology

Home Screen on LG Optimus 3D Smartphone (aka G-Slate)	Airport Seating ChargingStation by Powermat	BlackBerry PlayBook

Fira de Barcelona Entrance	Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1	Rear View of Galaxy Tab 10.1

Danny in San Juan, Puerto Rico listening on WOSO 1030 asked: “Looking to buy the Toshiba Laptop – the one that comes with the 3D. How’s the product, speed, just overall function of the device?”

We’ve found one Toshiba series of 3D laptops you can buy today, and it does not include the one introduced at CES that allowed 3D without using glasses by tracking your eyes, that one is still just “concept technology” and they don’t expect to have any available until back to school time.

The laptops you can buy today are part of what is called the Satellite A665-3DV series and they come with fairly impressive specs for the price.

For example, The 3DV8 comes with a 64-bit copy of Windows 7, a Core I7 processor, a 3D capable graphics card with 1GB of discrete memory and up to an extra 1.7GB of shared memory, 6GB of RAM, WiMax built in, 3 USB ports and 1 e-sata port, a Blu-ray drive that can burn labels onto discs and a 640GB hard drive, and a battery life of around 4 hours and 25 minutes, for a price tag that is just below $1400.

You can go down to a Core I5 with 4GB of memory and then you’d have the 3DV5 that sells for under $1100.

The prices are not bad at all considering all of the laptops’ features.

About the overall function and speed of them, we haven’t tested them hands on, but a laptop running on a Core I7 with 6GB of RAM must be able to do a much more than adequate job and features like the e-sata port are great to help keep it current. That port can help you if, for example, you ever need a larger hard drive that can run externally as fast as if it was installed inside the computer.

They look like powerful laptops that happen to come with a 3D capable card, more than laptops that are little more than gimmicky gizmos with the 3D card as their one good feature.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

Barcelona Candids

Newly constructed “Arena de Barcelona” near Fira de Barcelona	Rob at Mobile World Congress	Praising the ice, which isscarcely found in Europe

Qualcomm’s Skifta App Demo -Turns phone into a “global remote”	ShowStoppers Press Event	Spanish Desserts

Close-up of Qualcomm’s SkiftaApp on Android Device	ShowStoppers Press Event	Rear View of Samsung Galaxy S II Smartphone (8 MP Camera)

Comodo Console (aka Car Cell Phone) by Iway Mobile & Cellcom	Dave & Rob with foursquare CEO	Some foursquare swag