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Tech News & Commentary
Valerie in Oakley, Illinois listens to the Podcast asked: ”
I’m a professional photographer and we have a large gun safe in our closet. When we bought this I was excited thinking that I can store all my cameras in there. But the documentation said to not store cameras in there. Could you tell me why? I’ve Googled it and can’t find anything. If it’s moisture, do you think it would be safe to just put some of those silica packets in there?”
Valerie, it is most likely the moisture issue, and silica packets probably won’t help enough. The problem is that you may have bought a decent safe, and a lot of decent safes have a moisture release agent on the walls, that’s what makes them “fire retardant.”
No matter how many silica packets you put inside those safes, your gear will likely get a little more moisture that it should.
You can buy electric heaters designed to keep gun safes dry, and that may help enough, but it’s hard to tell for sure.
You might be better off just insuring your cameras, but if you want to keep them in the safe instead, consider storing them inside air tight bags, and putting the silica packets inside those bags along with the cameras, that might let you keep them in the safe without risking moisture damage.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
James listening on 97.3 FM SuperTalk asked: ”
I would like to know how to get videos off my iPad to a CD with a Windows computer.”
Well James, you have two choices. The simplest and most direct choice is to install iTunes for Windows, which is a free download from Apple, on your computer. Connect your iPad to the computer via USB cable and iTunes should automatically launch and synchronize music and videos.
Once the video is in iTunes, you can burn it to a DVD from there.
You can also use the import feature built into Windows. When you connect the iPad, in addition to iTunes launching (if it is installed), you should see the regular Windows import dialog box pop up.
Choose the option that says “Import Pictures and Videos using Windows,” and Windows will copy the pictures and videos from your iPad. Be sure and select the option to delete them after copying, IF you no longer want them on the iPad.
The iPad itself will show up as an external device in Windows Explorer, but when you open it, you will only see the DCIM folder, which gives you access to your PICTURES on the iPad, but not videos. To get videos, you need to use either iTunes or the Windows import routine.
If you look this up online, you will probably find some mention about how you can just jailbreak your iPad and access all your files.
That’s true, but you won’t see “The Avengers.m4v,” instead you’ll see a long and random looking string of letters and numbers, so don’t think that jailbreaking will take care of this problem for you, the easiest way to do it is probably still to use iTunes.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Richard in Atlanta, Georgia sends us the following email: “I have a Sony NST-GT1 Google TV blue-ray Disc Player and have had it for over a year. Recently my daughter forced a DVD disc into the player and I was unable to eject it, I was able to open it up ( I am tech savvy) and take out the disc but now when I try to play a disc the player tries to read it for about 30 seconds and will eject it. I have tried multiple discs and still the same. All other apps on the player work fine. I can replace the Blu-ray disc player part itself because it is similar to that of a PC that can be replaced. I have been looking online for this part but haven’t had any luck getting one.
My question is: Do you know any website or place where I can find this part to buy.
Thanks.”
Well Richard there are some name brand websites out there that have online stores for parts. Best Buy for example has a very specific website where you just type in the brand then model number and voila, hundreds of parts to choose from.
Another thing you can look into is your warranty. If it’s been less than a year since you bought the Blu-Ray Player it may be covered in the warranty. Now, since this is a Sony Product, even if its been more than a year, sometimes Sony still fixes the product at NO COST, but you do have to call them to verify. You could always email or have a live chat with them from the website that we will list on the show page for this week — the weekend of 3/22:
That unit uses the same blu-ray DVD drive as Sony’s PlayStation 3 game console. One commonly reported problem with the PS3 drive was scratching the Laser Lens. It’s not an easy process, and you should begin by ordering a PS3 repair manual, which you can find online, but the Sony PS3 Laser Lens with Rack pick-up Unit KEM-400AAA costs about $80. We should note that there are different laser lenses depending on which particular drive Sony used, so you’ll want to do some online searching for the drive’s part number after you remove it and make certain the KEM-400AAA is the correct model. Replacing the laser lens will always be less expensive than replacing the entire drive.
If you decide to just swap out the drive, the next challenge you will have is that you can’t simply look for “replacement PS3 blu-ray drives,” because Sony used three different drives in the PS3. Our best suggestion here is going to be removing the drive and looking for a part number on the sticker. You can search eBay for replacement drives, if it’s an older model, they are still frequently available.
Jan, the easiest (and most cost-effective) way to get VHS on to DVD is to use a product like VHS to DVD from Honestech, or a similar product. Assuming you have a VHS player still around, you connect a little white box that comes with the VHS to DVD software — to your VHS player and the other end has a USB connector that obviously goes to your computer. The software is all included to capture, edit and burn the videos right to a DVD. Depending on where you look, you can get the VHS to DVD software starting around $65.
As far as which camera is good for taking action shots… Most cameras – even the point and shoots – will do a pretty good job of that. The majority of point and shoot cameras have a “sports” mode or something similar that will automatically change the camera’s settings to capture fast moving subjects. Now, the downside of some point and shoot cameras is shutter lag, especially when the camera is trying to auto focus. If you went with a Digital SLR – they are more expensive – but they give you total control over your picture taking. Many of them will also take pictures in rapid succession so you’re sure to get the shot you want.
There are also “hybrid” cameras which are sort of a cross between SLRs and point and shoots. One that we have used and love is the Olympus PEN cameras. These have the body of a point and shoot camera, but still give you interchangable lenses and allow you to shoot in manual focus mode, which can make getting that shot quicker, since you can set your focus and shoot without waiting for the camera to focus each time you hit the shutter button. You can find the Olympus PEN cameras starting between $300 and $400.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Joe in Martinsville, West Virginia listens Online sends us the following email: “I’m a Blackberry fan. I’m not gonna change. I’m looking for a small projector that’s compatible with Blackberry that I can carry around for meetings. I’ve looked at several but I’m not sure what the compatibility is.”
Joe, there are some projectors that you can use with Blackberries. The Aiptek PocketCinema V100 is compatible with Blackberry. The Optoma PK320 will also work with Blackberry.
You won’t find a huge amount of projectors that work with Blackberry, but you might also benefit from the ones that work from MicroSD cards, just pop yours out of your phone and use it with the projector, or simply buy a small capacity one to keep in the projector.
The 3M MPro 150 fits that category and it also comes with 1GB of internal memory, the iGo up2020 pico will probably work for you too.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guests in this hour:
Nigel Bramwell, CEO – Voiamo
Is your cell phone service provider ripping you off when you travel abroad? There’s a new service that may help you save on those costs.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
Digital TV has replaced the old analogue transmission here in the U.S. Berlin, Germany was the first city in the world which became completely digital with DVB-T, or terrestrial: At IFA, the Internationale Funkausstellung in 2003, the analogue switch off was made. Within two years Germany was nearly 100 percent transferred to DVB-T, as were most of the European countries. DVB-T can bring up to 30 digital channels to the home over the air, free of charge. In some European countries it is also used for HD transmission and pay TV.
Tim in Jefferson City, Missouri listens to the podcast sends us the following email: “Do you think that the electronic payment will be instituted in the United States?”
Eventually, yes. There have been experiments and pilot programs run by Visa and MasterCard, as well as devices like the Mobil SpeedPass, used by ExxonMobil. But the idea of using your smartphone as a digital wallet is one that simply has too many backers to go away.
It will take years yet before you can tap the soda vending machine with your iPhone and buy a drink, but that’s as much because the United States is a much bigger place than all the other countries you read about implementing it now. It’s a lot easier to roll out things across the entire country, when your country is half the size of the state of Texas.
The United States is a very big place, and it’s also the home of capitalism and private enterprise. Companies have to have FINANCIAL incentives to go to electronic payment systems, because there won’t be any regulations forcing them to do so.
But we’re really confident that there are enough big technology companies wanting this to happen that it won’t lose momentum totally. The smartphone is the one device people never leave home without and always know where it is, so retailers WANT to find a way to let you use it like a credit card.
Also, keep in mind that you may only see widespread NFC payments on smartphones after they become super common on cards. If you give a person to opportunity to have NFC payments on a phone as an extra, that’s great, but only being able to pay from the phone can be a little stressful… you don’t want to see that 10% battery warning when your unpaid cab still has a good 10 miles to go… Still, it would be a cool way to be able to go for a walk and carry less bulk, if you make sure your phone is fully charged before you leave your home.
What we hope doesn’t happen though is that NFC payments become SO standardized that people begin to rely on it completely as a way to complete a transaction the way a lot of people rely upon credit or debit cards. Not only because of what we alluded to earlier about battery life and the general issue of malfunctioning technology, but because of the very distinct inverse relationship that exists between the ease of payment method and financial soundness.
Anyone that is familiar with financial self help books by people like Dave Ramsey and what not knows that one of the things that they stress is to make it more difficult for yourself to spend money, that way it forces you to stop and think about the expense a little longer. It seems fairly obvious to me that the fact that we have made money increasingly more photonic over the last few decades and the fact that the world’s financial stability has become increasingly unstable is no coincidence.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info, please email us here.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Intuit: Codes for TurboTax Deluxe & Premier — File your Federal & State Income tax online.
Iolo: System Mechanic – Fix and speed up your PC… Automatically.
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yo — A clever solution to tangled earbuds.
Brian David Johnson (Intel’s Futurist): Copies of his book – “Vintage Tomorrows” — A historian and a Futurist journey through Steampunk into the future of technology.