Additional Notes

Editor's comments delimited by < >

<When I update a Zentech page, I post a tweet at twitter.com/ddhart
You don't have to join Twitter to read it
You can also search for the tag #Zentech at twitter>

When traveling across time zones, change the time zone setting in your computer, not the clock time.

Also, when changing the time zone, it's not enough to pick the correct GMT offset. You need to pick the country (with that particular offset) that also has the rules for changing to/from daylight savings time that you want to use.

Zentech radio show is about 10 years old. It started at the end of 1999

Analog phones started to disappear about 10 years ago and were replaced GSM, a digital system. That allowed for more channels and security. Now, GSM has been hacked by a German group. But it's not easily done, requiring a 2Tbyte download of a keyspace file. See the above link.

Paul mentioned someone building a homemade blimp. See the above link.

Facebook has changed its privacy policy. Paul set his permissions to a minimum and used a different machine (one where no one has logged into Facebook) to see what information is available to the public. It's now possible to change who sees each individual post. See the above link, followed by a link to Paul's Facebook page.

Paul has a netbook computer that weights about 3 pounds and runs for 6 hours per charge. It also has a webcam, WinXP, wireless, & 2gig of memory. He says he can do "everthing" on it, including creating a video and uploading it to YouTube.

Paul also added 2 pieces of copyrighted music and got a warning from Google (owners of YouTube) saying that the music was copyrighted. But the warning was not particularly threatening — no requirement to remove the music, though that may still happen.

There was mention of Windows 7 and the listeners were invited to call in and give their views of it. Paul put it on his sister's computer and it seems to be trouble-free. He said it requires fewer resources than Vista but more than XP; he got it running in three-quarters gig of memory where Vista required 1gig.

One thing to look out for is to use hardware that's new enough to have Win7 drivers are available.

Glenn wondered who's responsibility it is to create the drivers. Paul said that, typically, Microsoft charges the manufacturer for the development kit and certification. Some manufacturers don't bother to get the certification because it costs them every time a driver is updated.

Paul said he couldn't think why anyone with properly running XP should switch to Win7. He also said he couldn't find how to switch to the "classic" mode for the Start Menu. The classic mode is what Win98 had.

Glenn mentioned that he can synch his iPhone to only one computer at a time.
– If you're an Apple user, you can use the MobileMe service at $99/year.
– Listeners were invited to make suggestions.

Paul said 98% of the UK has mobile coverage. That's unlike the US where more area is not covered than is, due to the low density of the population. He also said that access in the UK costs about $25/month (with no contract) for a 3G SIM card that gives him unlimited internet access thru a cell phone plus Skype, 500 text messages and 300 phone minutes. He was also able to get a 3G phone for about $35 that would cost over $100 in the US. All this is due in part to the competitiveness in the cell phone market

Bernie called and said that one of his networked computers slowed to a crawl when saving a file or using the My Computer resource (the Explorer). Eventually 3 machines were displaying the same behavior.
– Read the Knowledge Base article KB320138 called "How To Disable Automatic Search For Network Printers And Folders In Windows XP". The bug is called "The Endless Network Search Timeout".
– Disabling the network itself does not cure the problem.

James called. He's using FireFox and tried to search for Huffington Post and got side tracked to Integrity Online, which said you can't go here.
– Use the search box (to the right of the address bar) rather than the address bar to do your search.
– Generally, beware of being redirected to a site you didn't ask for or you may end up with malware.
– Once you find the link, add it to your bookmarks list.
– AVG Anti-Virus adds plugins into FireFox, which can divert your searches.
– Go to Tools -> Addons in FireFox to see if you have any search filters installed.

Caller Dave said every time he right-clicks on a folder, his screen refreshes and he gets dumped back to the desktop. Right-clicking on the desktop itself or a file is no problem.
– Explorer is what shows you the files & folders. The symptom is caused by Explorer reloading and can be caused third party shell extensions like archivers (like Winzip) which add functions to the property tab of a folder.
– In fact, Dave said he just installed Winzip. He was advised to remove it to see what happens.
– Instead of Winzip you can use izarc at izarc.org.
– See the above link that explains reasons Explorer can crash.
– <XP doesn't really need a program to handle .zip files. You can double click on a .zip file and it will be opened as if it were a folder (sort of).>

George called to say the new Yahoo doesn't accept his old browser — Internet Explorer that came with his Mac (with OS 10.0).
– That Explorer is version 5.1, the last one made for the Mac.
– Easiest solution is to try FireFox 2.0, the latest that will work in this case.
– You should be able to upgrade the OS to 10.4 and use later versions of FireFox. Some current software won't run in 10.0 anyway, so this will address compatibility problems too.
– Use a different machine, go to Yahoo and switch to the older classic mode of operation.
– You can try m.yahoo.com if you have a slow connection, which is a stripped down version of Yahoo.

Mark called to ask about voice recognition software.
– You need a lot of horsepower to do it.
He was looking at Dregon Naturally Speaking.
– That's a good one and can be bought for $99. Mark said he saw it on sale for $49. More expensive versions can deal with specialized vocabularies <medical or legal, I suppose>.

Also, Mark wondered if he needed to get a higher quality microphone than the one that comes with it.
– Presumably what's included should be adequate. But you can look for a mic that can cancel surrounding noise or a directional one. Try the one that comes in the package first.

Mark goes on to ask about his MSN home page. The search default was changed to Bing and he wants to change it back to Google. <This is presumably in his browser which is assumed to be Internet Explorer (IE8)>
– Do a search using: change bing google ie8

The next show (11jan10) will have Mikail Graham back in the studio and will be focused on the Mac.

Last updated 8:39 PM 12/28/2009