Tech News & Commentary
Your office copier is spying on you.
Gary in Hallsville, Texas listening on 710 KEEL asked: “iPhone, I go to a lot of streaming stations, but you can’t download Adobe to an iPhone and I wondered if there was any time frame for that to be taken care of. Also, I have a hard drive in a tower unit that I want to get some stuff off of, but it smokes a little bit when I plug it in. Really, not interested in spending a lot of money on it. Wondering what my options would be.”
Apple’s CEO Steve Jobbs has recently escalated an ongoing war between Adobe and Apple and explicitly stated that it would never happen. iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad are going to ignore Flash and wait for HTML5 to replace it, which everyone but Adobe seems to agree it will, but not in the short term.
Interestingly though, you can get other Adobe products, such as Photoshop mobile on the App Store, but Flash will never be a part of iPhone, as long as Steve Jobbs is breathing.
As for your hard drive, we’ve never seen that, at least any drive that is supposed to be working, so we’re not too sure what to tell you about that.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
This is how we “Rock-It” in the studio!
The “Into Tomorrow” team had fun playing with the Rock-It Portable Vibration Speaker from OrigAudio in the studio this week. They say it revolutionizes the way you listen to music. Basically, Rock-It turns anything into a speaker.
Here’s how it works:
1) Plug It: Connect the Rock-It to an MP3 player, as an example. It also works with computers, portable media players, cell phones, the iPad and several others.
2) Stick It: It’s got an adhesive on the back that lets you stick it on any surface or object. Examples: cardboard boxes, hollow objects, doors. plastic cups, windows … or like us … on your cheekbone, chin, chest, etc.
) Rock It: Enjoy your music in a unique way.
Learn more about the technology from OrigAudio at their website – click here.
Buy one here.
Darren in Courtney, British Columbia, Canada listening on XM Radio Online 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 S.M.A.R.T. 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 S.M.A.R.T. is actually running on your computer to begin with, as that is not the case with absolutely every new computer. Any S.M.A.R.T. 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.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest in this hour:
Lance Ulanoff, Editor-in-Chief – PCMag.com
Rumors of Google TV are making their rounds. Lance is here to discuss the latest news from Google, including YouTube’s 5th birthday.
Sail445 listening on the iPhone App sent us the following email and asked: “Is there anyway that I can watch WMV on my iPhone?”
Unfortunately, no. iPhone is not compatible with WMV videos. That’s a Windows-codec file, and is not Apple-friendly. The most popular file would be the .MP4, but there are others that will play nice.
Here are the video files compatible with the iPhone:
- H.264 video, up to 1.5 MB/s, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, low-complexity version of the H.264 baseline profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 KB/s, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.
- H.264 video, up to 2.5 MB/s, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, baseline profile up to level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 KB/s, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.
- MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 MB/s, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, simple profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 KB/s, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.
Micah in Porterville, California listening on KTIP 1450 AM sent us the following email and asked: “I was trying to help my parents with high-speed Internet. They live where AT&T and Verizon are under $70 and both have a cap of 5GB a month, and not sure if that’s enough and if they were to be able to stream Netflix, Hulu, and other sites. Is there some program that I could install on my computer to see how much I use in a month to help tell how much I use for those sites?”
If your parents just check email and open the occasional website, 5GB would probably be enough for them, but video streaming uses up a lot of bandwidth, and depending on how much they use Hulu and Netflix, it may not be enough for them. To check exactly how much bandwidth you consume a month, you’re going to have to install a program and let it run constantly in the background counting every single byte your computer is using.
For Windows, some programs you can use are:
For Mac, some programs you can use are:
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Robert in Fort Lauderdale, Florida listening on our podcast sent us the following email and asked: “I am one of the Pastors at a church in Fort Lauderdale and I was wondering if there was a way to use a service, like Pandora, to stream the sermons on the Internet, so members who can’t make it on Sunday can listen. We currently offer the sermons as podcasts, but we love to find a way to stream online.”
Right now, Pandora will not be an option for you. At this time, Pandora is only allowing music content to upload, and according to a Pandora spokes women, all of that content is heavily screened prior to allowing it on their servers.
Here at “Into Tomorrow,” we use StreamGuys for all of our streaming needs and they are just one option. StreamGuys offers a variety of packages that allow you to chose from how many people you want to be listening to the show at the once, or they have a plan that is based on how many GB are streamed.
There is a product from NCH Software called BroadWave, that will serve up to 8 live audio streams for up to 500 listeners from a single PC, assuming that the PC is extremely powerful, and you have an extremely fast Internet connection. If you’re going to try this with standard DSL, you’re not going to be able to support very many simultaneous listeners. Mark has used products from NCH Software for years and recommends them highly.
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.
Into Tomorrow Product Spotlight with Rob Almanza
Sonos ZonePlayer S5 – Wireless Multi-Room Music System
We’ve talked about several music systems on the show before, but I don’t think I’ve been as excited as I am for the Sonos Wireless Multi-Room Music System. We haven’t been able to turn it off, as there is so much music I’ve been listening to around the studio and my office.
The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 is an all-in-one wireless music system part of their multi-room music system. It connects to your network at home via an Ethernet cable. After a simple setup, you can have it look for music on your network and computers connected to that network. The software works with both PC & Mac. Depending on how much music you have, it might take a while to index your music the first time. If you already have a Sonos system at home, setup should be a breeze.
In our setup, we used a ZoneBridge 100 (sold separately for $99) and connected that to our network in our studios. Then, the ZonePlayer connected to the ZoneBridge (wirelessly) to play my music. It may sound a bit complicated, but it isn’t. Think of the ZoneBridge as a wireless router for speakers. Once you have a ZonePlayer set-up, it’s fairly easy to add others (or connect others) wirelessly.
So, how do you play your music? The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 can be controlled in several ways:
1) Sonos Desktop Controller for PC or Mac (software comes with every ZonePlayer)
2) Sonos Controller 200 (sold separately for $349)
3) A free option (my personal favorite): Download the iPhone app from the App Store. This gives you full control of the ZonePlayer. You can also control it with an iPod Touch or iPad.
One of my favorite features of the app is that it lets you control the volume wirelessly. You don’t have to do it manually on the ZonePlayer.
To get music in more rooms, you will have to buy extra ZonePlayers that can be assigned to a zone (or “room”) at home. And while it does play nice with iPhones and iPods, it isn’t an iPod dock music station, as there is no place to dock it. But, you can plug one in – or any other MP3 player – via the line-in jack. You can also stream music from Internet services like Pandora, Rhapsody, Napster and even Sirius XM Satellite Radio. And, you can also listen to local radio stations. You certainly won’t run out of music to play.
If you’re interested in getting a Sonos ZonePlayer S5, click here. You can learn more about the technology and other products from Sonos on their website (click here).
What do you think about this system? Would you like one? We welcome you to participate on our radio program “Into Tomorrow” – anytime 24/7 — by calling-in (toll-free): 1-800-899-INTO (4686). Don’t forget you can also participate via our mobile app on your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad or on your Android device. We love hearing from you!
— By Rob Almanza, “Into Tomorrow” Correspondent
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This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Concord Keystone: Several Easy Shot Clip, Ultra Mini Digital Video Cameras
Cooper Lighting: Several Might D Light – Rechargeable LED worklight
iosafe: Several ioSafe Solo USB External Drive – Protects against Fire, Water and Theft SIZE? VALUE?
Klipsch: Image X10i In-Ear Headset w/ Mic & 3-Button Remote Headphones