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Tech News & Commentary
Major Bess of the SC National Guard listening via the Internet asked us: “My husband has a Mac that is running 10.7 i think. He bought it used because it had some software on it he wanted. Our son was messing with this, and when a message popped up asking to update the software. He clicked yes, but we don’t have the first owners password!! When the machine was turned on again, there was basically nothing. As the software was gone!!!!!! I heard my husband giving our son the “what were you thinking” along other things in Afghanistan! He has the little usb drive with the system in which we did on ebay. Is there any way to get this fixed? The software lost would cost 1500 to 2000. If you can help i will offer you all some huge hugs and eternal thanks.”
Major Bess, This is a tough one… there’s no reason for the software to go away, unless the software company that made it thought it was pirated and removed it or disabled it during the update. If you don’t have the password and it’s asking for it, there’s a decent chance that the old version of the software was removed to make room for the new version, and the installer is actually asking for the product key to go forward with the new installation.
Whatever the case, if it’s gone, getting it back won’t be easy, do you have a backup from before your son tried to update your computer? If you do, you may be able to roll things back to the way they were before then. Mac OS X allows you to reinstall the OS and restore from a Time Machine backup, so if you can do that your missing software may come back.
What’s on your USB drive that you got with the computer? If it’s just a recovery drive for the OS, then it may only be useful to you if you need to leave the computer in the state it was in when it shipped from the factory: brand new OS and nothing else on it, but it likely won’t bring back the expensive program that disappeared.
If it’s a backup from the time the old owner sold the computer, that’s a different story, it may bring back the program and leave everything in the state the computer was in when you bought it.
Unfortunately, bringing back the old software without a product key (if that’s the password that you’re being asked for) may not be possible in any legal way, you can always opt for the less than legal option, obviously, but on a $1500 – $2000 piece of software, risk may be high, especially if you use it for anything other than home use.
Adobe and Microsoft, for example, are both big on auditing businesses they suspect of using their software illegally.
It may be the Apple ID that’s being asked for here. It’s quite common for Apple’s software update service to require the Apple ID and password to which the software was originally licensed. There isn’t a way around this, at least not one that we’ve found.
It’s not always well understood that software purchased through the Mac App store is linked to the Apple ID used to purchase it, and any updates require the same Apple ID.
But there are no $1500 to $2000 programs in the App store that we’re aware of, so it’s probably some sort of registration system put in place by the application vendor and not Apple. This should serve as a cautionary tale about used software. If the owner continued to use the software on a new computer, chances are that he or she authorized the software on THAT computer. So when you connected for updates, the updater was aware that your copy wasn’t licensed any longer.
Unfortunately, when it comes to used software, it’s definitely “buyer beware!”
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Joe in Hazelton, Pennsylvania listens online asked: “I’m in the market for a new computer I want something that has good audio. Unfortunately all my past computers if you listened to the motherboard audio, the microphone recording level was never loud enough even at 100%. Do I have to get a separate sound card to get good audio? And if so, what would you recommend? Or can you just get a computer with good onboard audio? The last computer I bought was 4 years ago and it just doesn’t have good audio. Also is celeron slower than a pentium processor?”
Joe, If you want a laptop with good audio in general, there are some made with better sound cards, and you can go with those, but if all you want is a better microphone no built in mic is gonna be better than a standalone USB microphone, and those are not that expensive, think around $100 for a BlueMic Yeti Pro USB Microphone.
If you’re not looking for a laptop, since you just said “computer,” then you can shop for a good standalone soundcard for your desktop, there are many good ones out there, several of which are made for music recording in particular and can capture extremely good sound. Most of those cards also won’t cost you a great deal of money, for example, an M-Audio Audiophile 192 will likely cost you around $70.
As for Celeron being slower than Pentium… it depends on what you’re talking about. An original Celeron chip was slower than a comparable Pentium 2 chip, but a current generation Sandy Bridge-based Celeron will likely outperform any old Pentium chips.
The thing here is that, Pentium processor are old, if you’re looking into buying a new computer Pentium won’t really be one of the choices anymore, you’ll likely be faced with Celeron vs a Core-i-something processor, whether that processor is a Core-i3, Core-i5 or Core-i7 they will all outperform a current generation Celeron, but that current generation Celeron will still definitely outperform most of, if not the entire, Pentium line.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
John in Wisconsin, Listening via the Tunein app told us: “I would like to develop a simple journal app. What would be the best steps to take? Where could I get a good quote? Is it safe and satisfactory to use web sites like oDesk to find developers or is there a better to way?”
John, Be very clear on what you want, what you don’t want, what you can offer and what needs to be done by someone else. If you want to get a good quote, the person giving you a number is gonna have to know what work they need to do, and in some cases, what work they’d have to subcontract.
As for sites like oDesk, sometimes they work out, sometimes they don’t. Talented people tend to stay away because most of the competition is on price only, so they tend to lose to random Bangladeshi people that can afford to do the job for pennies. The thing is, the job they do is rarely good.
If you want to give those sites a shot, go ahead, but keep your expectations very low, it doesn’t usually work out very well for any job that can be screwed up by a determined enough person.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Michael in Montgomery, Alabama listening on NewsRadio 1440 WLWI told us: “I’m considering the changes in technology. How much sense do you think it makes to get a tablet. Now I’m not really into the idea of tablets, I’m more of a laptop guy because of the power and capabilities. I use computers for music production, video editing and stuff like that. Would I still be able to do work on a tablet similar to what I can do with a laptop?”
Michael, Even with the wide variety of Tablets, from android to iOS, they don’t come close to the video and audio work that you can do on a computer.
Take the iPad for example, apple offers the iLife suite, consisting of Garageband for music, iPhoto for photo work, and iMovie for, you guessed it, movie editing. But even with this apps that are very powerful at their purpose, you are still very limited to the actual amount of work you can do. Adobe has an iPad version of photoshop but again, you don’t nearly have the same features and efficiency as a PC.
While manufacturers and developers are trying to make tablets more and more content creation devices, they still stay for the most part, except for word processing, content consumption devices. No one has really found the secret ingredient necessary to make tablet devices suitable for content creation.
For any media production, whether it be photo, video or audio, tablets are not great at it, and for now at least, your better choice is to stick to full-fledged computers that can handle and run power intensive programs.
Which does not mean tablets are bad, or that we don’t like tablets. They are superior in almost every way when it comes to the consumption of content, and they’re getting better at the creation of content as well — but that is mostly as the apps improve. The proper tool for the job, we say!
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Francesco Baschieri, CEO – Spreaker
Facebook Participation:
SOUND OFF!!! Have you heard of Phone Stacking? What do you think of the new “game” where diners stack their phones in the center of the table and whoever touches theirs first pays the bill?
Do you use your phone when eating out with others? Does it bug you when others do?
Here are some of the responses that we got:
Mark in Anchorage, Alaska — who’s Friends with fellow broadcasterJim Bohannon says: If my phone was in THAT stack I’d have nerves of steel. But what if nobody’s phone ra–ng…never mind. We wouldn’t get so lucky.
Robert in Los Angeles, California posted: It would be fun to set them all to “vibrate” and arrange for somebody to call all of them at the same time.
Carl from Naples, FL said: Doesn’t seem to be a problem in the drive thru.
Mark in Fort Lauderdale, FL posted: Phone stacking?? Is this really a thing? Wow… I have clearly been missing out on all the fun games. Or, have I?
Eric who Lives in Kitchener, Ontario said: I’ve done this with friends for some time. You’d be surprised how much it improves conversation!
Sherrie in Alabama added: Yup! The first one to pick up their phone pays the tab for the entire table!
Juan in Miami Beach, Florida says: I’ll just put my secondary phone there… no problem.
George in Saint-Gervais, Limousin, France posted: What happens when one vibrates and they all fall over during dinner?!
Kamal in Erie, Pennsylvania Listening on 1450 WPSE asked: “When I’m using my laptop, I get on YouTube and try to play a song. It plays for a bit then the screen goes blank and the internet connection is disconnected. What can I do to fix this? It started doing this about a month ago.”
Kamal, YouTube is likely not the cause — but perhaps the trigger. Videos move a lot of data, we’d be willing to bet that if you try to move a large file over WiFi the same will happen. Your network card is failing when it’s put under heavy use for some reason.
The reason could be hardware, which would be the worst case, that it would mean either replacing it, if that’s possible, or getting some kind of USB replacement. A USB WiFi adapter wouldn’t cost a lot though, so it may be an easy way out of the problem if it’s hardware based.
It could also be drivers, sometimes a faulty driver may, for lack of a better explanation, get overwhelmed under pressure and shut down or do something wrong. If you can reinstall the drivers and any software related to your WiFi adapter and see if that fixes the issue.
Some VAIO laptops in particular were having a problem like the one you’re describing that was due to drivers, but even if you’re not using a VAIO you may still be using the same faulty driver.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yos “A clever solution to tangled earbuds”.
Bits Limited: Mini Squids — Travel-Sized surge protected power strips
Dane-Elec: Mobile Junkie Media Streamer – Stream content from a flash drive or SD card to your Smartphone or tablet.
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!
Tylt: A plethora of USB charging cables for iPhone and Android phones and iPhone battery cases.