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Tech News & Commentary
Larry in Hayward, California listens on KLIV 1590 AM asked us: “I got an iPhone 4 and i use it more and more for my day to day communication for reaching my email and text messages, phone communications and I’m more and more concerned about is if there is a way of protecting it against viruses or clear the memory from the phone to protect myself from the virus.”
Larry, Unless your iPhone is jailbroken, you really don’t have much at all to worry about. Smartphones are not structured the way computers are where most resources are shared, and that makes viruses very unlikely to be able to affect them.
The way apps work on a smartphone is through a design pattern called “sandboxing” every app lives and plays inside it’s own sandbox, and that sandbox doesn’t touch any of the other sandboxes that are home to any of the other apps. If the app needs to interact with the operating system, it asks the operating system to do things, it doesn’t directly do anything. For example, editing a contact isn’t an option, asking the operating system to do it is.
What this means is that a malicious app can’t change any files that don’t belong to it, and it can’t change any of the behavior of the operating system, so at worst it can ask for permission to access a phone’s contacts, or location, or photos, and send them to a malicious server, but it can’t do anything it wasn’t explicitly given permission to do.
Jailbroken iPhones and rooted Android phones don’t work that way though, apps can get low level access to the operating system and even other apps directories, so those phones are at a higher (though still relatively low) risk of getting infected by a virus, but if your phone is not jailbroken, don’t worry about it, you should be safe from viruses just because of the more rigid and restrictive structure of the operating system.
As for protecting “yourself” from the virus, we presume you mean your other devices, such as your computer. Any malicious software that was written to run on an iPhone wouldn’t work on your computer. It’s like one of those animal diseases that humans can’t catch…at least, not yet.
What should be of more concern to you are apps that phish for your data. The app itself isn’t a virus, but it collects information about you, such as banking data, and sends it to identity thieves who can clean you out.
As long as you’re getting your apps from reliable sources such as iTunes, Google Play, or Amazon, you should be safe. They check for these kinds of things. Getting apps from third parties, however, can open you up to trouble. Of course, installing apps from other locations usually involves jailbreaking your iPhone or rooting your Android, and that brings us back full circle.
Don’t jailbreak, don’t root, get your apps directly from Apple (or Google for Android users), and you should be just fine!
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Eddie in West Pittson, Pennsylvania listens via the TuneIn Radio app asked: “I have a new Vizio 60 inch smart tv,and I bought the Vizio 5.1 wireless sound bar system. Now everything I have read is that you cannot get true surround sound through digital coax or digital optical, the only way to get true 5.1 sound is through an HDMI cable. I’ve been reading and going nuts on the webs. Is this true?”
Eddie, Digital coax, digital optical and HDMI should all be able to give you 5.1 surround sound.
5.1 “surround sound” refers to 5 discrete analog audio signals. Front and rear, each with a left and right channel, and a center channel which is sometimes used for a subwoofer as well. 7.1 adds two more side channels. But all of these are discrete analog audio signals. Now, because they are all USED differently, technologies such as crossover connections are used to send all the frequencies below a certain level to the subwoofer, for instance.
But it’s a wire for everything and everything has its wire. Now, enter digital signals, whether that’s coax or SPDIF, which uses fiber. The digital signal has all the information required to produce 5.1 or 7.1 sound, but it’s not giving you any “channels” or discrete signals of any kind.
That’s all handled by the equipment that receives and decodes the digital signal. It’s up to the processors there to convert it. The term you will hear is “unprocessed” audio. The digital output is unprocessed and must be converted.
Some people claim that the optical connections don’t sound as good as coax because of “jitter” on the line, but we’ve never been able to hear a difference.
Now about that HDMI. Sources such as Blu-ray will have the really advanced audio codecs (such as DTS-MA and Dolby Digital Plus). Those can be passed over HDMI, but NOT over optical or coaxial digital connections. So if you’re talking about the audio output from a Blu-ray player, as an example, then HDMI will get you better quality.
Remember, though, HDMI carries both audio AND video. If you’re talking about an audio only connection, then the other solutions might be simpler, and less expensive.
We hope we haven’t made things even more confusing! Let us know if it helps.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Dr. Eric Klopfer, Professor & Director of the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program & The Education Arcade – Vtech
supplier of corded and cordless phones and electronic learning toys.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
In 1968 the first car radio with integrated compact cassette player was introduced by Philips, but still only in mono. Only one year later at the Funkausstellung, known worldwide as IFA, stereo arrived in the car as Blaupunkt introduced the first car radio in stereo sound. Becker, another German manufacturer, integrated a compact cassette player into the model “Mexico” with stereo sound for the cassette, but still mono for the radio.
Tony in Cookeville, Tennessee and listening via SuperTalk 99.7FM WTN asked: “I got a dell computer with a western digital HDD in it. Now according to WD its only 3% corrupted and its not enough to warrant it being replaced. Now the HDD won’t load. I’m wondering how in the world can I if it’s corrupted enough to have it replaced or just have it wiped and reinstall.”
Tony, If the hard drive came installed in your computer already, then you’re probably gonna have to deal with Dell to get it Replaced under warranty, which probably won’t be very easy unless the computer is brand new, and it may require shipping your entire machine to them.
Even if you bought the hard drive yourself, it probably won’t be super easy to have it replaced, hard drives tend to be covered for faults that they come with, but after it’s been working for a while, many companies will tell you that if it was working, then you may have dropped your computer, or ran it over a magnet, so it’s not their problem.
Still, the first step would be to talk to them, if they can salvage some of your data and give it back to you on a working hard drive, then that would be your best option.
Failing that, you could always try to use a data recovery service to try to get some of what you lost back, or if you have a backup and don’t really care about what was on that drive, just get a replacement and call it a day, but still… find out what the warranty situation is, it’s no longer “not corrupted enough to replace,” now it won’t run at all, and that should be corrupted enough to warrant a new one, if you’re entitled to that.
It really all comes down to how old the computer is. You didn’t share that with us. If this is a brand new Dell computer, then deal with Dell and not Western Digital. They should replace the drive without argument, if it’s under warranty.
We realize that drive warranties often extend longer than computer warranties, but hard drives are so inexpensive now that they’ve become commodity items. The manufacturers try hard not to provide warranty replacements because the margins are so thin that giving you a second hard drive for free pretty much wipes any profit they made selling the first one to Dell.
If this machine is a few years old, you might be better off buying a new hard drive. You’ll likely be able to get one with a larger capacity, since prices have dropped on the 1TB and 2TB drives.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Linda asked: “Love to listen to you on Saturday night even though i don’t understand alot of what you are talking about… but some of it i do. Here is my situation…i am 69 years old & visually impaired. i have used a computer for years but i do not understand all the technology of it. i have a compac computer (vista 7) that is about 5 years old. i have been told by an ‘expert’ that my hard drive is about worn out. it runs really slow. i would love to have a ‘new’ cpu with windows 7 on it. Is that possible? what do you think of refurbished computers? i would like one as inexpensive as possible (maybe $200 more or less). i already have a large screen monitor. give me some advice.”
Linda, To be totally honest with you, what you can get for $200, even refurbished, is a computer comparable to the one you have now.
We found some refurbs online that sell for about $200 without a monitor, but they are mainly Core 2 Duo computers, they have a few years on them and they’re mostly lease returns. You will probably start running into newer processors, say Core i5s when you reach the $450 mark.
We mention this because if you’re going to spend $200 on an old computer that is essentially like the one you have now, you might want to consider instead spending $70 on a 1TB hard drive to replace the one that’s going bad inside your current computer. If it has more problems than that, by all means, look into replacing it, but if the computer is otherwise running fine, you may be buying yourself more problems by buying another computer as old as that one, and if you can’t afford a newer one, replacing the faulty drive might make more sense.
The drive holds the operating system, along with all the junk that accumulates through the years, so replacing the drive and doing a fresh installation on the new one would likely make the computer run as fast as it did on day 1 anyway.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Susan in Porterville, California listening on KTIP 1450 AM asked: “The all-in-one computers – are they comparable or better than the tower computers?”
Not really Susan, they’re basically stationary laptops.
They’re mostly made up of the same parts as laptops, and are usually not any more powerful, but people looking for a larger, stationary computers, can take advantage of the, frankly, less ugly and bulky design compared to the towers.
Now, if you’re involved in any activity that requires the power of an old style computer, then an all-in-one won’t do, it won’t have the power, memory, graphics card, even cooling capacity and it will not meet your needs.
If you need power, it still lives in a tower.
This is really the choice of the user, and is completely dictated by taste and usage. An all-in-one is a great choice for low to medium-end computer user without budget constraints. For about $1000 you can get a great machine with an i5 processor and a TB hard drive as well as a 23” touchscreen. They work great in a small office, family room, or the kitchen. Just don’t use the touch screen while baking!
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Bits Limited: Mini Squids — Travel-Sized surge protected power strips
Datawind: UBISLATE 7Ci, 7″ Android tablet with Wi-Fi, internal microphone and camera, and expandable MicroSD memory.
Dane-Elec: Mobile Junkie Media Streamer – Stream content from a flash drive or SD card to your Smartphone or tablet. (And, it also acts as a mobile charger!)
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!
Magellan’s: RFID-blocking Ridged Aluminum Wallets – in RED for Valentine’s Day – prevents identity theft with expandable pockets that can hold up to 12 credits cards as well as cash and receipts