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– They're tagged with #Zentech.
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Paul was in the studio & Glenn called in from Sacramento.

Paul spent quite a long time talking about viruses and how they can get on your computer. Some of the highlights…
– No anti-virus program can protect completely.
– All recent versions of Windows are vulnerable, including XP, Vista and Win7, though Win7 is slightly less vulnerable.
– Pop-up windows telling you to update some of your software can be legitimate or a ploy to infect your machine.
– The pop-up windows can lead you to a bogus site that both infects your machine and offers to fix the problem, extorting your money in the process. Or they just steal your credit card number.
– Effectiveness of anti-virus software depends on updating its database of signatures (patterns of bits used to identify a virus). But new viruses seem to be outpacing the updating procedure.
– A virus can get on your machine even if you don't click inside a pop-up window that's suggesting you update. Browser plugins, which allow you to read .pdf files, view a Flash video, run a Java applet, etc,, can let in a virus, if you don't regularly update the plugins.
– Bogus websites can be made to look convincingly authentic. A recent survey showed that about 50% of users would trust a website that displays a Better Business Bureau logo.
– Legitimate and otherwise trusted websites can be compromised with malicious code.
– You can sometimes spot suspicious websites if you look at the URL before you click on it. For instance, it may look like — mcafeeantivirus.cz.tk. You may be fooled into thinking all is well because of the seemingly trustworthy part — mcafeeantivirus — and you may ignore the rest of the address — which looks suspicious.
– Unlike most of Eruope where it's mandated, very few credit cards in the US have embedded chips. The latter provide significantly improved protection.

The disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers only and don't necessarily represent those of KVMR, its board, management, staff or contributors.

Patrick called in. Though he doesn't yet have an iPod, he had some questions before buying one.

The 1st question was whether he can take music off of CDs.
– Yes. You do it in conjunction with your computer & you have to install software on it.
– Paul said the Mac comes with the software (iTunes) and suggested PC users get iTunes <the ripping itself can be done with Media Player, which comes with XP & maybe other Windows versions>.
– You don't have to have an Apple device to use iTunes. iTunes is not just for purchasing music.
– Get it at itunes.com or apple.com/itunes

Patrick's 2nd question is will he be able to download Youtube videos to the iPod and play them on his TV.
– Yes but it's not straightforward. A Firefox addon called Download Helper <looks like there's more than one. Try this or this> was suggested. There are other ways, which Paul didn't go into.
– Glenn chimed in to say that if he wants to have Youtube available, he has to get an iPod Touch, not one of the other iPod models.
– Glenn went on to say he won't be able to save Youtube video on the iPod Touch but with the appropriate cable he'll be able to access the video with the Touch and have it play on the TV.
– The adapter <I think Paul meant the cable> is available from Apple for $49 or you can get a Chinese knock-off (that doesn't always work) on Ebay. It has 3 RCA plugs — audio right & left and video.
– If you do get an Apple product (iPod), the guys suggested the Apple Care extended warranty.

Glenn noted that both he and Paul have an iPhone 3GS and recently were able to upgrade to iOS5. And it's possible now to have that version of iOS and have their phones jailbroken and unlocked. However, this has caused Glenn some problems. The phone now periodicly drops the connection — both cell network & wi-fi. He thought there might be some settings that will fix the problem; but right now, the only thing that works is to turn off the location services, which includes the GPS. Paul said the GPS & the network connection interfere with each other. Hopefully, there'll be a solution shortly.

Paul has heard that 1 out of 5 iPhones are not signed up with AT&T, and it was inferred that 1 out of 5 were unlocked and using other networks.

Paul noted that iOS5 on the iPhone still drains the battery faster than it's supposed to.
– Since the iPhone multitasks, running a task like Skype in the background will increase the battery drain.
– Also, Paul sometimes runs the Tom Tom GPS program in the background. That to causes excessive drain. <Some info on the Tom Tom software for the iPhone on a recent show here.>
– The other thing that causes extra battery drain is being in a low signal area. The phone boosts its signal to compensate and that also takes more energy.

Josh called asking the guys what they preferred for streaming video boxes that, for example, play Netflix content on your TV.
– Paul doesn't like the Roku anymore. Their latest model keeps nagging you to create a credit account, just in case you might want to buy something.
– Some gaming units like the Wii will stream Netflix.
– Some BlueRay players have internet capability and can do Netflix. Glenn said he saw a Sony unit that does Netflix, Voodoo, Blockbuster, Hulu Plus and Flixter. Glenn quoted some prices he's seen recently: at Target there's $59 RCA unit, at Costco there's a $69 Toshiba & a $79 Sony. They generally use an Ethernet cable; wi-fi capable players are about $50 to $75 more.

Paul explained why the content had been missing from the Zentech site for a couple of months. They upgraded the script interpreter called PHP from version 5.1 to 5.3. That caused problems with Joomla the content management software. Paul eventually discovered the 4 lines of code that needed to be changed to get things working again. <If you had been paying attention to my tweets, you'd know the notes for the last few shows had been available on an alternate site.>

Glenn said he got an email from Marilyn and she's having some problems with her Dell computer. There's a problem with Outlook and she's also getting a warning about the boot partition not being found.
– It sounds like the hard drive is going bad. Resolve this hardware issue first before tackling the Outlook problem.
– Try unplugging things like flash drives, CDs etc. Modern computers have the capability to boot from different devices and her machine may be trying to boot from something other than the internal hard drive. – Try this first because it's an easy thing to check. <If this is the problem, then, to me, it seem she needs to check her BIOS settings (at bootup)>

Scott called. He's downloaded some audio books from the North State Public Library system but it seems that a PC is required to get them to either play or transfer to his iPod. He wants to be able to do it with his Mac.
– Paul thinks the audio is somehow protected to discourage copying.
– Contact the library and ask them if it's possible.
– Other than that, Paul doesn't have enough info to help.
<I'm not sure if this is the library but try one of these 2 links:
www.northnetlibs.org
www.nscls.org
>

Paul quickly mentioned that the Podhawk podcasting system at KVMR just got upgraded and there are various radio shows available there.

Last updated: 10:51 PM 1/11/2012