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Tech News & Commentary
Leonard in Raleigh, North Carolina listening on WPTF 680 AM asked us: “I’m trying to upgrade my Macbook and it’s dying. What other programs can I use to make it faster? Do I need a faster processor? How do I make it better? It’s about 10 years old.”
Leonard, One simple way of helping speed up the processor for your MacBook is to use Mac disk clean up programs that will defrag your hard drive making it slightly faster by sorting files that are out of order, and lessening the bloating of the space on your hard drive.
You could also try uninstalling some unused programs on your MacBook freeing up space allowing the laptop to run faster and smoother.
Mac OS X and other Unix-based operating systems don’t suffer from the slowdown that Windows machines get simply because they’ve been running for a while, they work in a different way that allows the clutter they collect to be ignored unless it needs to be read, but there’s really no way your 10 year MacBook is going to be able to keep up with most modern software.
In fact, if your computer really is 10 years old, it even predates MacBooks, you probably either have an iBook or a PowerBook, since MacBooks didn’t even exist until May 2006. That means you have a PowerPC computer. Almost all new software for Macs is Intel-only these days… you should start thinking about retiring that laptop as a main machine if you need to run modern software.
To put things into perspective, the original MacBook that was released a couple of years after you got your computer was repeatedly updated over the course of 11 generations and has been retired for a few years now. The best selling phone worldwide 10 years ago was the Nokia 6230 with a color 128×128 pixel screen, a 0.3 megapixel camera capable of shooting video at a resolution of 128×96 pixels at 15 FPS (meaning that the blur you shot moves around… choppily), and 6MB of shared memory. Leonard, your laptop is just old.
In all honestly, the most you can expect to get from a computer before it becomes profoundly obsolete is 5 to 6 years. Now, you can use them beyond that point, but you have to accept them for what they are. They will be so slow that software designed for more modern computers might be painful to operate on them, and they will be hard drive failure waiting to happen.
If you truly do have a 10 year old Apple laptop, it’s given you a decade of good service, and there isn’t much in the aftermarket performance tune up department that can help you. You won’t be able to buy more RAM for it or an SSD “hard drive,” which are the things we usually tell people to do when they want to boost laptop performance.
We’re sorry we don’t have better news for you, but we salute your faithful computer for running as long as it has!
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
Facebook Participation: So now AT&T gobbled up Satellite TV provider DirecTV. What are your thoughts on AT&T buying DirectTV?
Michael shared: Whatever. Until I see costs. I’m DirecTv and ATT can’t reach me because Verizon is our daddy. I’m not hating, I love FIOS internet. But I want wireless receivers! And lastly, isn’t ATT and DirecTv’s color scheme similar, just like Verizon and Dish have a similar color scheme. I w o n d e r . . .
David from Miami, Florida stated: Stop the consolidation of media. We mostly get on the state-approved news now.
Holland in New Shoreham, Rhode Island shared: The under-reported aspect of this story is the instant footprint it gives AT&T in Latin America, where DirecTV is even bigger than it is here.
John from Bridgewater, New Jersey said: wow… that puts a ugly spin on it
Stuart stated: It really depends on what AT & T decides to do with DirecTV programming. Do they keep it as is and mirror it with U-Verse or flip it all over to U-Verse programming. I have DirecTV and love it. They have channels that the others don’t. I’m used to the dark cloud/rain syndrome. I have AT & T for U-Verse internet and land line only. Not TV. Oh, and i’m in Plantation. What caller am I and what did I win?
Scott lives somewhere in the U.S. said: Dave, Yesterday I did a number of media interviews about this and for me being “The SatelliteGuy” I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how this merger was good for AT&T, How it was good for DIRECTV and more importantly how it was good for the consumer.DJ’s and reporters I talked to said it would be great for the consumer because now AT&T could offer bundles with DIRECTV in areas where AT&T services. They were surprised when I pointed out that AT&T has been offering discount bundles with DIRECTV for almost 4 years now. I was surprised how many didn’t know that.
Mustang Mary who resides in North Miami, FL shared: as long as my investment goes up, I’m happy. (He’s a former AT&T employee with a lot of stock in the company)
Bill in Tampa, Florida said YouTwitch?
John from somewhere in the world shared Get ready for “Electronic Omniscience”!
Guest Segment:
Kurt Bauer, CEO – One Llama Labs
understand the meaning behind sound, audio and acoustics for all things.
CEA Update with Krista Silano
Summer may be right around the corner, but the Consumer Electronics Association is already making plans for January and the International CES! Krista Silano is here to share the latest – in this week’s CEA Update.
Khalid in Saudi Arabia listens Online asked us: “I’d like to buy a home theatre with a screen more than 70-inch. I’m confused whether to buy a HDTV with more than 70-inches that costs more, or a projection which can give me up to 100-inch screen. Please advise.”
Khalid, It mainly depends on how dark you can make the room.
If you can make the room very dark, a good projector can give you deeper contrast, better pixel density and an overall better picture quality than a large TV, and do it for less money.
However, if the room is not completely dark, you’re better off with a TV, it will cost you more, but it will give you a much better picture in a bright room. So, are you going for a room with a TV and some nice speakers, or for a proper home theater-only room that can be made dark every time you want to use it?
If you’re looking to be able to use the room while other people are using it for other things as well, you may want to go the TV route, but if it’s going to be a home theater ONLY room, the projector is probably a better option, just make sure it can be made completely dark.
If you decide to go the projector route, be sure to invest in a top quality screen or other projection surface. You will be amazed at how much picture quality and brightness from projectors can be enhanced, or harmed, by what you project the image on.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Don in Minnesota asked us: “My Google Mail sometimes goes out in seconds and most of the time takes five min. no matter if it is a long email or short. Could you help me and tell me why this happens? So far no one has the answer. Thank you.”
Don, How are you sending that email? If you’re mostly sending out emails via your phone, it could just be a quality of service issue, maybe you’re in a low coverage area and it goes out when you have internet access.
If you do have good service, though… we don’t have the answer either. Google mail should not be slowing down your emails on purpose. You could try to clear cookies, and generally restore your browser to it’s default settings and see if that helps at all, but it’s mostly a desperate effort rather than something that makes sense.
If you’re using the Gmail web client or a native Gmail app on your computer or mobile device, you should receive a status message indicating that your email is being sent. When it says “message sent,” it should have gone out. Do you see that message? Does it ever go away? What sort of Internet connection are you using?
If you are using the Google Labs “Undo Send” widget, you should know that part of the way it works is to delay message sending to give you a chance to reconsider. If you’re using that widget, perhaps you should consider giving it up.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Warren in Scottsville, Kentucky listens on WTN 99.7 out of Nashville asked us: “I’m trying to find a program to create 4 bit images with a 16 color custom palette. This is for an old game I’m trying to create new icons for.”
Warren, Some picture editing programs can be used to create 4-bit images. Since creating 4-bit images is not that common and it is a very small file, I would suggest using Adobe Photoshop CS2 or CS3 because of its extra options.
If you want something other than Adobe Photoshop , you can try Microsoft Paint.
To save a 16-color, 4-bit Windows bitmap file in Microsoft Paint, choose “Other formats” when saving the file and then choose the 16-color bitmap option. This would be what you’d use when creating Windows XP icons, for example.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Other World Computing (OWC): Nuguard KX phone cases for Samsung Galaxy S4, iPhone 4/4S and 5
Phone Halo: StickR TrackR — Find any object you attach it to with your smartphone
PURE: Jongo Wireless Adapters — Allows you to stream all your music wirelessly to your home audio system.
Tylt: A plethora of USB charging cables for iPhone and Android phones and iPhone battery cases.
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!