iTunes University

Crowdsourced Documentaries– a New Genre?
Full Length 90 min one here and more info HERE

Privacy Linking inside Google — March 01

On Screen Ruler & Implcations

Converting Super-8 cine movies to digital?

More On PC remote Control: JOIN.ME

Somethign on Radio Control: the Chinese FS-CT6B under $50.00

Please check back around the time of the broadcast.

---

Additional notes

Notifications of new show notes and edits are tweeted at: twitter.com/ddhart.
– They're tagged with #Zentech.
– When what's said is unclear to me (or I'm unfamiliar with a topic) I tend to quote (" ") verbatim.

Editor's comments are delimited by < >

 

Paul was in the studio & Glenn called in

Paul mentioned that podcasts of various KVMR talk shows are accessible from the front page of KVMR <or directly here.>

Paul thought the movie "Life In A Day" was outstanding. It's composed of many video clips sent in to Youtube by people from 190 countries, which show something from their daily lives on one particular day. See the 2 links above where it says Crowdsourced Documentaries.

Apple has introduced iTunes University. It's "everything you need to create & share complete courses all in one place". They're typically free though some may not be. Many are university courses. See the above link. <There's also Open Courseware from MIT, no iTunes required, just stream or download the .mp4 >

For measuring things on your screen there's an on-screen ruler available at iruler.net. It uses facilities like javascript to figure out the your screen resolution & dimensions. It then projects an accurate ruler on your monitor. Paul was not successful in trying to fool the application. <But see Jeff's comments below>

To convert Super-8 movies to digital takes more than just projecting the movie onto a screen and pointing your digital video camera at it. Because the projector & video camera run at a different frames per second rate, you'll get an annoying bar that moves up & down in the resulting digital video.
– The name for the device that converts cinema movies to digital is telecine and you can buy equipment to do this for $1600 to $2500.
– You can have a professional service to do the conversion at a typical rate of $19 for 5 minutes.
– You can do a search for the word telecine and find FAQs for useful tips.
– See Ken's comments below.

Glenn called in to say he's house sitting at a place that's having the Digital Path ISP service installed. They talked about testing the speed of the connection and the site speedtest.phonepower.com was suggested. Paul likes this site because latency and the rate at which the latency changes (jitter) is tested. <There's more about this in the 1-12-11 and 5-31-10 shows.>

Glenn reminded people to do frequent backups because there are a lot of viruses and phishing exploits out there. You may be asked to click on a link to fix a problem you don't really have and you end up with a real problem. Paul said to stop and think before clicking.

Scammers can be very tricky, For instance, if you bought airline tickets you may get what looks like a follow-up message that says something like…to print your tickets click here. Paul said it may not be enough to clear your web cookies to avoid being tracked on the net. Java Virtual Machine, the Flash player and Microsoft's Media Player have their own version of cookies

<There's a little more about this in the 5-11-11 show. You can learn about Flash (or zombie) cookies here.>

Combofix from Bleeping Computer and MalwareBytes were mentioned for getting rid of viruses that extort payment in return for 'fixing' your (unbroken) computer. <See notes for the 8-9-10 show for more about this and smitfraud> The anti-virus program Microsoft Security Essentials was also mentioned.
<See the 5-11-11 show notes for articles about Microsoft Security Essentials.>

More tips to protect yourself against scammers included:
– If you get a message from what seems like your bank that requires your response, call the bank directly but don't use the phone number in the bogus message, find a reliable number in the bank's printed material or phone book.
– When you bookmark a site use only the base address of the site — i.e. the home or main page. Don't bookmark a page you've come to after you've already clicked thru several pages.

Paul talked about remote control software called JOIN.ME. See the above link. The program is easy to initiate and allows a user in one location to control a computer at a remote location. There are versions for both the PC & Mac and even lets a PC control a Mac (& the reverse). Supposedly it allows conference calls, too.

Jeff called & said he tried iruler but had problems getting it to work right. the iruler program determined this monitor is 17" but had to be set to 20.5" to get it to work.
– Paul thought Jeff's LCD monitor was not set at the "optimum drive rate".

When it's not optimum "the pixels transmitted by the video chip are not the same as the number transistors in the screen" and you get a dithering effect. Jeff further complicated matters by sharing 1 monitor between 2 computers.

Paul quickly mentioned some of the things cookies reveal about your computer: the operating system being used, the browser type, size of your display & whether you've been to the site before.

Glenn got a note from Marilyn who is increasingly using hotspots for her internet connection and is worried about viruses, hackers & snoopers.
– Glenn thought it fairly safe to use hotspots though he wouldn't do his banking from there.
– In an environment where you share a network with others, like a hotspot, a firewall lets you connect out but prevents others from "connecting back" without permission.
– If you want to know if your machine is secure from others getting in on such an alien network, you need to do a port scan.
– Do a Google search for "port scanner" and you should find a company called Gibson Research. < think this is it:>
– When you give it permission, it will scan some 65,000 ports while trying to find an open share — that's where you share folders & their contents.
– Glenn's suggestion is to go to Network connections in the Control Panel and right-click on wireless connections, click properties and uncheck the box that says "File & Print sharing for Microsoft networks".
– Win7 & Vista will disable sharing on a public hotspot connection but XP has to be deliberately told not to share.
– Unless you really need to share, there's no reason to have it enabled.
– There is a way to keep your machine from the list of computers on a wireless network. Having your machine on the list "is a open invitation for problems"…"the less information given away the better". Paul didn't go into any details for delisting.

Ken called with more suggestions for super-8 to digital transfer.
– He was able to adjust the frame rate of the projector by trial and error to minimize the problem with the synchronization.
– Use a plain white screen instead of a projector screen, which can introduce some graininess.
– He thought his success was due in part to slowing the frame rate of the camera so it would capture more than one frame of the projected image.
– Paul also suggested turning off the autofocus on the camera.
– Reducing the light from the projector will make the camera increase the exposure time and may improve the results.
– Using a webcam with 640 x 480 resolution is more in line with the resolution of the Super-8. Using a hi-def camera will only produce huge files with little gain in clarity.
– For making the final DVD movies Paul likes Nero 7. And Windows Movie Maker is "not too bad", either. It's included in XP Pro <I see it listed in my XP Home edition too, but I've never used it>.

On Sunday The Curious Forge, a local Nevada County Maker group, will have an open house. These are the sort of people who would experiment with transferring movies to digital. If you're interested, look for The Curious Forge on Facebook for more info. Paul read from the Facebook page that it will be on the 29th at 520 East Main Street in Grass Valley from 3 to 6pm.
<I think this is their Facebook page>

Support KVMR and become a member. 530/265-9555 or 800/355-5867

Finally, Paul said that you can by from China a 6 channel radio controller (link above) for under $50, This is for remote controlled model planes, car, boats, etc.

He went on to say he's see video's of model helicopters doing amazing stunts which were impossible until the use of sensors similar to what you can find in smartphone — thing like magnetometers, accelerometers and inclinometers.
– On Youtube look up "aerobatic radio controlled helicopter".

Last updated: 11:50pm 1/25/12