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HOUR 3:
Tech News & Commentary
Patricia in Durham, North Carolina listening on WPTF 680 asked: “I tried to download Google voicemail but it wouldn’t let me because it said my cricket communications was not compatible. That’s a bummer. Second, I like the timeline on Facebook because it allows me to go to a certain year if I was looking for a comment or a post that was made on a friend’s page. If I want my different years to not be available, I can post it to be either public or friends, or specific people. It has more control than it does the old way, so get with the program guys.”
About your visual voice mail, we found this forum post from a guy that seemed to have a similar problem on a flashed cell phone. We’re not entirely certain this will help you in your situation, but you can try it out.
There are similar problems setting up Google Voice’s voicemail on some Verizon phones. The Google support forums have some helpful suggestions including how to use call forwarding to make this work. Although Cricket Communications wasn’t one of the wireless providers mentioned, the situation sounds similar enough that you should at least give it a try.
Mark had to jump through those hoops when setting up Google Voice as his voicemail provider on his Verizon Droid 4. Once he’d punched in the proper codes, however, it worked fine and won’t require him to enter them again.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Craig in Moreno Valley, California calling in via the App asked: “Just wondering if you guys can tell me the difference between a crop camera and a full frame camera, DSLR. I’m interested in getting a Canon 60D which is a crop frame and the next step up is much more expensive, so I’m trying to decide what that difference is and is it worth it. Thanks guys.”
You’re right, full frame sensor cameras don’t come cheap. Full frame sensors will give you roughly the same picture an old 35mm film camera would give you when using the same lens. A crop sensor will give you, well … a cropped image. Instead of seeing the same image you’d see on a full frame camera, you’ll see the image as if it was zoomed in 30%, 50%, 60% or even 100% depending on the camera.
For most amateur photographers a crop frame sensor will work just fine, any pictures you take at 35mm might look as if you had taken them zoomed in at 55mm on a full sensor camera, but other than that, you won’t notice any major differences.
If you like wildlife photography or anything where you focus on a distant subject, it may even help you a little, since the image will look as if you had been zoomed in a little more. If you prefer landscapes, architecture or take pictures in small places on the other hand, you will have to look for very wide lenses to compensate for the crop.
One advantage of Canons with crop sensors is that they allow you to use EF and EFS series lenses. EF lenses will also work with full frame sensors, but EFS lenses won’t, and EFS lenses are cheaper, so you may save some more money there by sticking to a crop sensor camera for now. Overall, the Canon 60D is a great camera. Crop sensor or not you’re going to be pleased. It’s actually the cheapest model Canon makes outside of their entry level “Rebel” line, so you’ll find a lot of pro features and a nicer build quality. We really don’t think you’re gonna regret the buy, full frame or not.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Ron in San Jose, California listening on KLIV: “I am running XP 32 bit version. I want to upgrade to Windows 7 64 bit. My processor is an Intel Q9550 and motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-EP45C-UD3R. Both the processor and motherboard are 64 bit compatible. Can I anticipate any problems during the upgrade? I will do a clean install.”
From the hardware side, you probably won’t face too many obstacles, like you said, your hardware is 64-bit compatible, so that should be enough.
You will face problems on the software side of things though, a 32-bit version of Windows cannot be directly upgraded to a 64-bit version, you can install it on your machine, and it will run just fine, but the installation will not preserve your settings and files.
Ron, you’re going to have to do a “custom clean” installation, which means that by the end of it you’re going to have a computer that will feel as if you had just brought it home from the store, no files, no custom settings or custom wallpaper set, it will just be a computer with a clear copy of Windows and nothing else.
If you backup your files before the installation, though, you should be able to easily restore everything back to your computer after Windows 7 is installed, just keep in mind you absolutely need to back up first or you will lose all you data.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest in this hour:
David Quin, Head of Consumer Applications, ALK Technologies – CoPilot Live
Looking for a reliable GPS Navigation app for your mobile devices? David might just have one for you.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
The first in-car media center was presented during the International Funkausstellung in 1993 in Berlin. Blaupunkt presented a model, named “Berlin” of course, which combined a mobile music- and information system with a three by two inch video screen. The “Berlin” already had interfaces for a CD changer, telephone, television and video players, plus a complete navigation system.
That’s this week’s IFA Update brought to you by Messe-Berlin. Be sure to visit IFA-Berlin.com.
Jon in Rocklin, California called in to help listener Alex, who was looking for a bluetooth product to connect to his home stereo.
Jon recommended the Samsung HM3700 Stream Liner.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
Mark in Miami Lakes, Florida listens via the podcast and asked: “I have an HP desktop running Windows 7 and recently when I hit the shut down button the computer “hangs” in the “shutting down” message with the little rotating circle. I have to hold down the power button for the PC to physically shut down. Any idea why this is happening?”
There’s a method you can try, but it’s fairly long and it consists mostly of trial and error.
First go to Microsoft’s Configuration Utility by opening the start menu and typing “msconfig”, and click where it says “Hide all Microsoft Services”.
What’s gonna be left on the list is software that Windows doesn’t need to run properly, but that may still have a negative impact if you disable it, for example, Windows may run just fine, but you won’t be able to print, or use certain programs you normally use, so be careful with the next step.
The next step is disabling everything you don’t recognize or don’t think you need running.
Then, here is where it gets a little repetitive and boring, restart your PC and start re-enabling the services one by one until you find the one that’s keeping the computer from shutting down.
When you do, you can either look for an update for that particular program or, if it’s something you don’t need, you can uninstall it, or just leave it disabled.
You can also take a look at CCleaner, one of our favorite free tech tools for Windows. This program will perform a registry check and cleaning service that often removes those bits and pieces of leftover code that we all seem to accumulate when running Windows.
CCleaner also has a Startup control tool that will show you everything that’s starting on your computer, even things that msconfig hides from you. Similar to the recommendation for msconfig, you’ll want to do some troubleshooting by turning things off one at a time until you find the culprit.
One piece of advice is to start by turning off anything that you don’t recognize. If you see something and think “Oh, that’s my video card control panel,” try not turning that off first. Just get the oddball names that you can’t figure out.
If it’s none of them, then start turning off the things you do recognize. Keep in mind that you probably want these things running in the long run, so you’ll have to eventually figure out what’s munged up with them and get it straightened out.
And remember to disable and not delete the entries, so you can turn them back on later.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
Clinton in Huntington, West Virginia listens online- calling in via the app asked: “About the TurboTax interview: Whenever I do my taxes, after I do mine I have to do my daughter’s or my mom’s or somebody’s and whenever I have the disk I can just do that and they just have to pay the filing fees. I can do multiple tax returns with the same software, is that possible with the online version?”
If you use the desktop version, like you’ve been doing, you can file up to 5 returns on one piece of software, the online version only lets you file one return per user ID and password, but you can keep setting up user IDs for free, you only pay when you want to e-file or print the return.
If you need to file multiple returns, the CD version will likely work out cheaper for you. For example, the basic online version covering just one return costs $19.99, whereas you could file 5 returns for $29.99 using the desktop version.
If you think you’re going to be filing for more than just yourself, you’re probably better off sticking to what you’re using.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info,
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This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
G-Technology: Several G-Drive Slim 500GB — Ultra-slim portable USB Drive
Honestech: Audio Recorder 3.0 Plus – Convert all of your music, including cassettes, LPs and 8-track tapes, into MP3s, WAV files, audio CDs and MP3 CDs, and listen to them on your portable music players.
Intuit: Copies of TurboTax Premier
ZAGG: ZAGGkeys FLEX Tablet Keyboard & Stand – A versatile standalone Bluetooth keyboard for smartphones and tablets. An $80 value.