HOUR 3:
Tech News & Commentary
Rita in Miami, Florida listening online asked: “Interested in getting a cell phone for my granddaughter. Which one would you suggest for adding extra minutes when she’s good, and taking minutes away when she’s not so great?”
Cell phone plans are almost all package deals now with you buying a bank of minutes, or in some cases, buying an unlimited flat rate plan. Not many people want the hassle of buying the phone on a variable, pay as you go contract. Those who don’t want or can’t afford a monthly charge will buy one of the “prepaid” cell phones, where you add minutes to the phone whenever they’re all used up. But those prepaid phones are just phones. You won’t get any kind of a smartphone, or probably even text messaging, using something like that.
Android based smartphones or the iPhone are clearly the most popular devices with the younger crowd, and that would really be the sort of product you’d want to look at for your granddaughter. Perhaps you could just take physical possession of the phone during those times when she’s being “not so good?” That’s what Mark does, and he says it’s a fantastic incentive to not misbehave. Kids love their phones and hate to lose access to them. Parents and grandparents should embrace this new tool in the parenting toolbox and use it wisely.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
The date has been announced for the latest expansion in the world’s most popular online game. World of Warcraft’s next expansion, “Cataclysm,” is just around the corner. We’ll break it down for you in this week’s Into Gaming. Tune in this week for details.
Micah in Porterville, California listening on KTIP 1450 AM asked: “With the advent of Netflix streaming over an iPhone, I was trying to see if there was a cable or dock that would allow me to use my iPhone to project it onto a bigger screen.”
You can indeed buy a cable that will add video-out functionality to your iPhone. Just ask for an iPhone AV cable.
Apple sells it for a whopping $49.99, but if you look online (for example, at Amazon.com), you can find third party versions for as little as a fifth of that price.
These cables will enable your iPhone to display video on your TV, but your TV won’t always display what the iPhone screen’s showing. What we mean by this is: when you plug in your iPhone, if the video isn’t already playing, your TV will stay blank and it may even display a warning letting you know that it can’t find a signal. This is normal, your TV will show videos, movie and TV show rentals, photos, etc, but it won’t mirror the iPhone’s screen at all times, so while the video is not playing you may be facing a blank TV screen.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
David from Ashville, North Carolina listening on WWNC 570 AM sent us the following email and asked: “About five years ago I bought a high-end HP digital camera. It has exceeded my expectations, but recently, the corners of the photos have turned into dark corners similar to something I associate with scrapbooking. Is this a setting issue or do I need to start shopping for a new camera? The camera still functions great aside from this.”
The “scrapbooking shading” at the corners of pictures that you refer to is what photographers call “vignetting” and it can be done on purpose by the camera, but it is usually an annoyance caused by shadows hitting the lens or, in some unfortunate cases, by a fault in the camera’s sensor.
The first step we think you should take is to read your camera’s manual or go through it’s menus and try to find vignetting settings. If you can’t find any and especially if they’re not mentioned in the manual, your sensor might be damaged.
If that’s the case, you could ask HP what the cost to replace it would be, but keep in mind that after five years your camera is probably discontinued, so there is a chance that they will either not be stocking it’s parts or that they will charge a lot of money for them.
Foster in Hendersonville, Tennessee sent us the following email and asked: “I remember when using Windows 95 or 98, there was a feature within that system that allowed you to use a “pop-up” feature to e-mail in house between computers on the network. This was really great with our office in that it saved me numerous steps of going between my office and my boss’ office to deliver messages, keeping up with paper messages and/or tell him that someone was on the phone, etc. It also kept the messages similar to email.
When the next versions of Windows came out, they did away with that feature. That has really hampered my efficiency. Is there a program out there that will do the same as the feature that I set out above? We are still using Windows XP.”
You’re talking about WinPopup, which originally appeared in Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and was in every version of Windows up through Windows XP.
There are a number of LAN Instant Messengers. None of them are free. If you want free, you need to use an Internet IM tool like Windows Live Messenger. Of course, then you’re connecting with an external server not under your control and you cannot secure your conversations. To keep it all within one LAN, you need software designed for that. Here are three good choices.
1) Softros LAN Messenger is probably the most widely known tool of this kind.
2) Outlook Messenger offers the advantage of optional Outlook integration, if your office lives in Outlook.
) MessagePal has the nicest looking screens and longest feature list, in our opinion.
Guest in this hour:
Joe Cerquone, Director of Public Relations – American Speech Language Hearing Association
ASHA is a professional association that represents more than 140,000 speech-language pathologists, audiologists, and speech and hearing scientists.
Larry in Nashville, Tennessee listening on WTN 99.7 FM asked: “Wondering about the new HTC Verizon phone, or should I go with an Apple iPhone? What would be the best phone between the two?”
If you’re considering an HTC on Verizon vs. the iPhone, the first question to ask yourself is which carrier you’re doing business with. The iPhone is on the AT&T network, so if that’s you’re carrier, then you’re looking at the iPhone. If you’re on Verizon, then you can count the iPhone out.
Verizon offers three Android phones currently that compete well with the iPhone. The Motorola Droid II, the Droid X, and the HTC Droid Incredible. Of these three, the Droid II is the only one to offer a physical slide out keyboard, so if that’s an important feature for you, then your decision is made. Comparing the Droid X and the Droid Incredible is interesting, because they are physically very similar phones. Of course, the Droid Incredible has the HTC custom interface, which some people prefer while others like the more “stock” Android feel.
In the end, “best” is a very subjective term in this case. It’s hard to compare apples to apples when you’re comparing the iPhone to an Android phone because the software is so different. You should really spend a little time looking at both phones; see how you like the interface, the browser, and the on screen keyboards of each. For now, the iPhone has the edge in apps, but that gap is narrowing all the time. Android is certainly the hot new platform right now, but with iPhone having such a large market share, neither of these phones is likely to have any problem finding cool apps for a very, very long time.
Neil from Virginia Beach, Virginia listening via the XM Mobile App on his iPad sent us the following email and asked: “My iPad won’t play music correctly. It goes to a black screen and plays other songs than what I tell it to. It still does this after the Apple Store reloaded it to factory settings? Any ideas as to why this might be occurring? I can’t even get any iTunes songs. I listen on the XM mobile app on my new 32 GB iPad I got for my birthday.”
Rob says you got a really nice gift on your birthday. In case this is your first iDevice, here are some possibilities:
1) The black screen — We’re going to assume the screen goes black immediately after you hit play. If that is the case, they’re may be a defect. If not, then the screen may be set to “lock” and go black about a minute after no finger contact.
2) Playing other songs than what you selected — Could it be that you have it on shuffle? Even within playlists, you can shuffle songs and sometimes it does without you realizing it. Tap the screen and on the top-right and see if a squiggly icon is lit blue. Basically, it’s two intertwined arrows.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Ty in Oregon, Illinois listening on XM Ch.139 & the podcast asked: “I’m a truck driver and I’m looking to put an LCD TV in the truck. Would the temperature swings inside the truck affect the TV?”
The temperature can definitely affect your LCD TV, like any kind of electronics that can be affected by extremes of heat or cold, like when you park at a truck stop for a nice meal in the dead of summer and everything inside your truck gets very hot.
It’s recommended to use most electronic products at normal room temperature and humidity in order to maintain their optimum performance.
When exposed to drastic fluctuations of temperature (hot to cold or cold to hot), things like your LCD TV may be affected; especially drastic temperature fluctuation from cold to hot because it will produce dew on the surface which may affect the operation of the polarizer.
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
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
chicBuds: chicboom keychain speakers
Keyware: “VeriKey” – A USB device that monitors all office computer activity. For managers to know what is happening on the company computers.
PG Key: “PG Key” – A device that plugs into your children’s computer’s USB port and immediately creates a safer and more “kid friendly” online environment.
Roxio: Copies of Creator 2011 – Software that allows you to edit videos and create DVDs, even in 3D.