HEARING TEST here

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Glenn was in the studio and Paul called in from England.

The guys played around on the site for the hearing test. If you go there, be sure to read the instructions as it's possible to damage your hearing taking the test. See the above link.

Jeff called. He has MacBook as is uses the outline feature in Word for Mac. He said sometimes the A) a) 1) etc don't come up automatically — he has to enter them manually.
– Word tries to follow how you started using the indents. Jeff said it does that sometimes but not always.
– First update the Office suite of programs. It's a separate procedure from updating the Mac. Open <run> the Word program and under the Help menu look for "Check for updates" or maybe "Update Office for Mac". This will update ALL the Office programs.
– "Sometimes the menu system doesn't work" in which case you can go to Applications -> open folder called Microsoft Office 2008 -> find the Microsoft Auto Update App. Paul said he may be wrong and the location of the app is elsewhere, so try the previous method 1st.
– While you're at the update menu, it's a good idea to set it for automatic updates.
– In Word under Insert there's an item called something like 'List". Look for 'bulleted list' and you may be able to set how it behaves.

 

Doug called and said he's having trouble finding the link to the hearing test.
– Go to zen.kvmr.org, click on Show Notes and then on the show notes for today.

John called. He has MacBook Pro and uses Picasa to manage his photos. When he puts captions on the photos and then tries to email them, the captions don't stay with the photos.
– Paul said that he doesn't use Picasa that way. He publishes them to his Gmail account. After they're published, you can caption them.
– So, in Picasa use the "Publish" menu item and "upload" them to the web album. Then, using the "Share Album" menu, you can enter additional comments and determine whom you want to share with.
– If you insist on using email you can provide the caption in the body of the email.

Paul had a suggestion for people who travel across timezones. Instead of changing the time on your cameras, phones, laptops, etc., change the timezone setting. That way, timestamps on emails and any alarms you've set will reflect the true value.

Marilyn called about a problem with her mouse. Sometimes the arrow <pointer on the screen> doesn't move with the mouse & sometimes the red light of the optical mouse goes out.
Paul said the USB plug isn't very robust — the insert in the connector that has the contacts on it can bend or break.
– Try a different USB port.
– If that doesn't work, try a different mouse. The cable may be damaged.
– For $8 to about $20 you can get a wireless mouse. And look for a nano receiver to go with it. With the smaller receiver there's less chance of damage to the USB port.
– In general, avoid applying unnecessary pressure to anything plugged into a computer.

Next Zentech show is on Nov 9. There will be NO Zentech show on Oct 26 due to a membership drive.

Glenn lent Paul a digital video camera, for use during his trip, which uses a flash drive for storing the video. It's a Sanyo Xacti with a X30 zoom. He said he was very impressed with this small & light camera. It does 720 dots resolution, but he said it's not 'full' HD which would be 1080 pixels left to right on the screen. He also said the battery lasts at least 1 hour.
He mentioned that Youtube now accepts HD video uploads and provides a conversion to lower resolution for those with slower connections.

Glenn read an email from Brian who asked if there's better alternative to Winamp, which he currently uses on his PC, for playing his MP3 files.
– Paul used Winamp before iTunes got as good as it has. But iTunes stores the audio files where IT wants — depending on how you have it configured.
– iTunes "can make what looks like irreversible changes to your music collection…It's important to understand how iTunes works before you start using it."

Brian also asked about a stand-alone hard drive MP3 player that connects to a hi-fi.
– Paul, "The answer has got to be, I'm afraid, an iPod".
– Glenn suggested the possibility of using a $100 music player made by Jawbone that receives via Bluetooth. <wireless receiver plugged into the hi-fi, I guess> If you plug this device into you sound system, then any device that has Bluetooth (Android, iPhone, etc) will be able to play music on your stereo.

Today, Google has an animated graphic of Gumby in acknowledgement of Art Clokey's 90th Birthday. <click on the balls for more animation>

Paul speculated that the recent increase of version numbers by Mozilla's Firefox is an effort to look like it's keeping up with its competitors.

Doug called again to say Art Clokey passed away a couple of years ago.

If you want to look at previous logos by Google, go to google.com/logos. There are different ones for different countries. Be aware that the ones for April 1 may be especially interesting.

Paul mentioned the Wayback Machine at archive.org that has web pages from the past.
Paul said a court of law had ruled that cookies.txt, <later he said robots.txt> a file that controls the access to search engines, should be retroactive. Things can be retroactively removed from the Wayback Machine. The historical web pages have been used in court, for instance, to show the subversive intent of an individual.

Michael Moore will be on KVMR on Oct 29.
<from the show notes of 9-28-11:
Michael Moore will be in Nevada City on Sat Oct 29 in a benefit talk and book signing for KVMR. You can buy tickets, online or here at the station,>

Paul talked about the delay between the FM radio broadcast and the webcast of the Zentech show. The delay can be up to 15 seconds because of the time it takes for the equipment to prepare it for the webcast.

That reminded Paul about the movie "The Kings Speech" and people with a stammering problem. Recent corrective techniques employ a delay between the speaking and the hearing of what's just been spoken by these people. Earplugs with special delaying circuitry change the feedback by about .1 seconds. Though they show a remarkable improvement, the effect is not permanent. Look up "stammer correction" on Youtube to see examples.

Paul mentioned that he had some trouble using Skype & Secure Shell when he was in Prague. He thought it was because he used a public network that locked out anything that could cause trouble and only allowed port 80 to work. He didn't think that it was an institutional policy but was done to avoid complications.

Otherwise, Paul said, Prague is an interesting place to visit.
– Has the world's largest collection of Art Nouveau in the buildings, railings, lighting, statuary, etc.
– It's a haven for artists who can live there cheaply.
– The public art dates back several hundred years.
– It has a wide array of the performance arts and outside cafes.
– The people are friendly but not especially engaging.
– It's relatively inexpensive to live there.

Ross called. He thought that with phone plans getting so expansive it might make sense to get an iPod <presumably the Touch> to do video calling <using wi-fi I'm guessing>.
Without answering such a hypothetical question, the guys related their own situation…
– Paul said he has a jailbroken & unlocked iPhone using a SIM card he's had for a long time. He pays $19 per month for voice only and uses wi-fi for data.
– Glenn has an unlocked iPhone 3GS and he's using T-Mobile with voice & data for $50 per month. <more about his plan in the 9-28-11 notes >

Remember, there's no show on Oct 26. Next show on Nov 9.

 Last Updated: 9:35 PM 10/12/2011