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Tech News & Commentary
Ronny in Palestine, Texas listening on 95.7 KNET – All Things East Texas asked: “I have a question about Kindle Fire. My Kindle froze so I tried a hard reset, but that didn’t work. Is there anything else I can do to fix this? if not is there anyone where I live that can fix this?”
We’ve found a lot of references to this problem, apparently, you’re not alone. Most people claim the hard reset does the trick, of those who don’t, some say that letting it sit until the battery dies and then plugging it and charging it from dead will make it work again.
Others have had success doing several hard restarts in a row. It’s hard to say if any of that will work for you, but they’re the only potential fixes we’ve been able to find for a Kindle Fire that hasn’t been flashed with 3rd party software.
If yours has, the other option available is to reflash. That seems to fix the problem for those with rooted devices.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Mike Zammuto, COO – Reputation Changer
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Bob in North Carolina asked: “My family has 3 Iphone 5’s and an Ipad 4, 2 of the charging cables have to be inserted just right in order for the phones or ipad to charge, have a lot of people been having issues with the new cable.”
We actually haven’t heard any complaints about this, but if it’s happening to you on several devices, it sounds like more of a cable or charger issue than anything else.
If even some of your phones are under warranty, or if your iPad is, take them in to an Apple Store and see what they say.
Judging by the huge amount of complaints about the new connector replacing the old one and by the lack of complaints about the connector not working well, it’s fair to suspect that this issue is probably more or less rare.
We would suggest having a close look at the devices and cables, there’s a decent chance that replacing them may solve your problem.
Mark recently purchased a six foot data and charging cable for my iPhone 5. It was expensive, $21.99 at Amazon.com, but that’s only slightly more than Apple charges for their one meter (3.2 feet) cable. And the RND cable is built like the proverbial brick outhouse. To call it solid is a huge understatement. The quality of the connectors and how securely they are attached to the cable far exceeds Apple’s own. He strongly recommends it!
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
John in Columbia, Missouri listens on News Talk 1400 KFRU – calling in via the App asked: “I’m looking to get a new desktop computer. My laptop is a little old. I do a lot of graphics programs. I’m looking at the new i5 Processors and the i7s. I’m wondering if it’s worth the money to go with the third generation or if it’s okay to stay with the second generation.”
One of the advantages of Ivy Bridge, the 3rd generation, over Sandy Bridge, the 2nd, is the way in which it handles graphics. So the newer processors may be better for you. Having said that, if you’re doing a lot of graphics editing, you probably have, or at least should have, a dedicated graphics card anyway.
If that’s the case, then you can skip Ivy Bridge and go for the previous generation, you probably won’t notice any difference, the change small enough that Intel chose to still market the chips by the same name to the general public after all.
Ivy Bridge, will help you if you don’t have a dedicated graphics card, if you want better power management, and for a few other tasks, but it’s not an earth shattering difference, so going with the previous generation is probably ok.
But since you’re on the fence, not to give you buying paralysis or anything, but we think it’s our tech duty to inform you that Intel has announced the fourth generation Core processors, and they will become available over the summer months. So if your need to buy isn’t burning urgent and you want to protect yourself a bit against obsolescence, waiting might be the best plan.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Everte Farnell, Political Blogger & Pundit & Voice of the Voiceless
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
The history of electronic exhibitions began on December 4th 1924 with the German Radio Show in Berlin in Germany, where the art of engineering was most advanced. The event attracted more than 200 exhibitors to display the new technical wonder machines on an area measuring 75,000 sq. feet. The public was excited; more than 180,000 people came to this event. They were fascinated by the detectors and the first valve radio receivers on show and to the fantastic new world of listening to something transmitted from distant locations to their home. The show still exists as IFA and is the biggest CE show in the world.
James in Greenville, Arkansas listens online says: “I have an Old PC, and want to put linux on it but not sure which version would work on my PC since its old and i don’t think it can hold a full version of linux. so wanted to know which smaller versions of linux would work on an older PC?”
We can offer some ideas, but there is such a huge number of versions of Linux that — without knowing more about your computer — it may be hard to really narrow it down.
Most Linux distributions don’t demand anywhere near the power other operating systems do, so there are many choose from. Just to give you an idea, the system requirements to install the latest version of Ubuntu are a 700Mhz Celeron processor, 512MB of RAM and 5GB of hard drive space… that may qualify your smartphone to run it…
If you think your computer may be able to run Ubuntu, it’s a nice choice, it’s very user friendly for Linux, and you shouldn’t have too much trouble using it. Now, if you need to go to extremes, DSL which stands for Damn Small Linux, will take up a whopping 50MB of memory, it can run off a flash drive and it only needs a 486DX processor and 128MB of RAM.
If you want something a little more like Ubuntu but able to run on a more basic system, Xubuntu might be for you. Puppy Linux is also a very popular low weight alternative that may work for you.
It’s hard to tell what would be best for you without know what you’re working with, but if you send us some rough specs, we might be able to give you a better idea.
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
Audiofly: AF33 in-ear headphones
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yo — Now with Dave’s face on them! — A clever solution to tangled earbuds.
iolo: Copies of: Drive Scrubber – Erase data so it can NEVER be recovered.
Touchfire: iPad Keyboards – The world’s thinnest, lightest iPad keyboard.