HOUR 3:
Tech News & Commentary
Ted in South Bend, Indiana asked: “Interested in the Droid X coming out and wanted to know which carrier has the best deal with that. I’m not really into contracts, I just wanna do it as I need it.”
the Droid X2 and Droid 3 phones, when they are released, are likely to be on the Verizon network. Verizon clearly has an extremely close relationship with Motorola. It was stunning to see that the Motorola Atrix launched on AT&T. (Verizon will soon offer the very similar Droid Bionic.) But if it’s using the “Droid” moniker, you can almost bet it’ll be Verizon.
Now when it comes to smartphone contracts, you’re not likely to find any carriers (save for second-tier carriers like Metro PCS) who will activate the phone on their network without a data plan under contract.
Android tablets are a different matter, with the various carriers selling the tablets both with and without contracts. If you purchase a tablet without a contract, however, the price will be considerably higher because the carrier won’t be paying part of the cost for you.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Darren in Courtney, British Columbia, Canada asked: “Been having problems with an Internal SATA hard drive. Where and how will I ever get a report from the S.M.A.R.T. self-monitoring and reporting tool that’s built into so many computers. When will I know that this hard drive is in fact in trouble and the data may be corrupt?”
If you want to check the current status of your hard drive you can use a third party tool like Active@ Hard Disk Monitor or HDD Health to give you a diagnosis right now, but the most important thing you should do right now is back everything up!
If SMART tells you that the data may be corrupt, even if it’s a somewhat early warning and your hard drive is still spinning you may have already lost some valuable information.
Don’t wait for the monitoring systems to tell you there is definitely a problem, if you suspect your data might be at risk back up right away.
You should also make sure that SMART is actually running on your computer to begin with, as that is not the case with absolutely every new computer.
Any SMART monitor should help you find that out, but make sure it is and do not wait for your hard drive to die before safeguarding your data.
Remember, the key thing is, S.M.A.R.T. enables diagnostics to monitor hard drive health. Some motherboard manufacturers have built in services that will warn you about impending hard drive failure, but by that time it is often too late. Using a monitoring application like Ariolic’s ActiveSMART or ArgusMonitor can give you far more details and a much earlier warning.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
George in State College, Pennsylvania listening on WRSC 1390 asked: “Android and one of the Apps. Not able to get rid of or uninstall the Google Goggles App. Just wondering if that’s possible to do.”
You can indeed, but Android will make you work for it!
The first thing you have to do is go to the phone’s settings, you can do that by pushing “Menu” while on the home screen and going to “Settings”, or by opening the slider that contains all of your applications and looking for the “Settings” app.
Once you’re there, scroll down the list until you find a row labeled “Applications”.
In “Applications” go to “Manage Applications”.
Once you get to this screen you’re going to see a LONG list of everything installed on your phone, from the apps you’ve installed from the Android Market to such basic things as the on-screen keyboard.
What you’re looking for here is an item called “Goggles”, when you find it touch it to open it and you should see a button labeled “Uninstall”.
Touch that button, and confirm you want to uninstall, after you do that Google Goggles should be gone from your phone.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Electronic House eXpo Reports…
| HOUR 3 GUESTS | ||
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| Jill Kerr, Business Relationship Manager – Home Controls | CookStop Stovetop Fire Prevention | Scott Klodowski, Director of Sales & Marketing – Powerline Control Systems (PCS) |
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| Flipper TV Remote | ||
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Dave in Westphalia, Montana listening on KLIK 1240 AM asked: I want to transfer my old 8mm camcorder tapes to my computer and I want to know if I have to buy software at 50, 60 or 70 bucks or if I can just buy a 8 or 10 dollar cable from Amazon, if that’ll do the job for me.”
You can try the “Elgato System Video Capture”, a compact USB device to convert analog video to digital.
Very easy to use, just plug your playback device into the S-Video or RCA composite device and capture.
Video is digitalized into formats compatible with iTunes, Youtube, iMovie and you can find it online for $ 99.00
Compatible with Windows 7 and Mac.
Another option would be Honestech’s VHS to DVD product. Your 8mm camcorder should have video outputs on it similar to a VCR. The Honestech product includes a USB 2 video capture device AND cables, so all you need to do is plug the camera in to that and plug that in to your computer. VHS to DVD sells for around $80 but you can often find it for less.
The $10 cables you are referring to don’t include the same level of software, nor do they have the same conversion quality in their hardware. The devices included with products like Honestech’s do a lot to minimize frame dropouts and audio sync issues.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Micah in Porterville, California listening on 1450 KTIP asked: “I was thinking about getting Rhapsody and I was trying to look through there service terms to find out how may devices can be under one account. My wife and I both have iPhones and each have a computer, so if anyone there might know, thanks a lot.”
The amount of devices Rhapsody will let you use with your account, frankly depends on how much you pay them a month.
Any of their subscriptions allow for unlimited computers and “Home audio listening devices” but they are more restrictive towards mobile devices:
For example, their $9.99/month subscription limits the number of mobile devices allowed per account to just one, so that plan’s no good for you and your wife.
For both you and her to be able to connect your respective iPhones you would have to be on their $14.99/month subscription, since that one allows up to 3 mobile devices.
However, there is a big catch… if you go to their website and look at subscription plans you will see a very nice “*” next to the text that says you can use your subscription on up to three devices…
That “asterisk” is there because they will only allow streaming from up to one device at a time (and that one device includes computers and “home devices” as well), the “up to three mobile devices” refers to “downloaded subscription music” only (or music you got from them and is already saved on your iPhone).
If that’s not good enough for you and you’re interested in looking at alternative services that work on iPhone, you’re sort of out of luck… Rhapsody’s competitors haven’t fullly moved on to the mobile sector yet, so you may be stuck using several different apps to emulate what Rhapsody offers.
You can look at alternatives for streaming audio when both you and your wife want to use the service at the same time, for example, Pandora or Last.fm, but they won’t let you hand pick the song you want to hear next and if you’re going to need to use those often it might not make sense to get Rhapsody at all.
Your other alternative is, of course, to get two separate subscriptions for $9.99 each, that way you would be both able to use the service as much as you please (as long as you don’t want to use an iPhone and a computer on the same account at the same time), but you’d be stuck paying $20 a month.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Ryan in Baltimore, Maryland asked: “Looking to buy a new flat panel TV. Heard that different stores like Walmart with the Vizio brand, could sell them at a lower cost because the components are of lesser quality. In fact I’ve heard that manufacturers would only sell certain models to those stores that offer them at such a discounted price. Wondering what thoughts, comments or concerns you would have about that.”
We don’t think that the TVs are really made of lesser-quality components. If that were the case, they would break a lot more often, people wouldn’t buy them, and the stores would then stop stocking them.
What happens a lot in this industry, especially with the smaller companies is this: An overseas company manufacturers a product. That product is then sold in different parts of the world, to various companies and offered under different brand names. Because the companies buying them don’t have to worry about the manufacturing costs, research and development, staff, etc… they are able to sell the product at a lower cost than, say, a Sony or Panasonic.
We’re not saying that’s the case with Vizio, however. A spokesperson for Vizio said the company was relying on high-volume sales achieved though retail giants like Costco and Sam’s Club to give it buying leverage with their suppliers, thus keeping prices of flat-panel TVs at previously unseen lows. The company manufactures the product in Thailand, which apparently saves on labor costs.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
| Islands of Adventure in Orlando | ||
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| Visiting Hogwarts | Rob, Carolina, Dave & Jensenjoying “snowy” Orlando, FL | Getting wet! |
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| Getting cold… | Getting dry! | Off to get some Butterbeer |
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: TurboTax Deluxe Online — Several Pre-Paid Codes
Improv Electronics: Several Boogie Board Paperless LCD Writing Tablets in a variety of colors and accessories including sleeves with stylus holders & magnet kits.
SmartShopper Electronics: Several SmartShoppers — Electronic Grocery List Organizer