PG&E SmartMeter! and the Kill-A-Watt Energy Auditor

Additonal notes

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Glenn went crazy at an Apple sale of older equipment. He bought a Macbook Air & a Mac Mini. These were for a friend but it didn't work out so he returned them both.

Glenn said if you bought a new Mac computer since 6-21, you will be eligible for a free upgrade to the latest operating system. Double check that this info is correct by going to the Apple site.

Being a sole proprietor of a business, Paul likes the applications he can get for the iPhone. He likes the banking app for the Chase bank that allows him to take photos of checks and deposit them. He took things one step further and ask a client to scan a check and send him the pic, thinking he'll then take a picture of the scan and send it to the bank. However, it didn't work and his account was shut down and the failure remains a mystery to him.

Glenn said there are other ways to expedite payments like billpay <a feature many banks offer> or ING Direct Online, which allows you to send a payment to another bank without creating a check: paperless check. Paul mentioned that in Europe they have Giro Bank where all you need to make a payment is the account number at the bank receiving the payment.

An iPhone app often doesn't process the data itself, like the free Dragon Dictate (search for Dragon in the app store) which allows you to talk into your iPhone and get back a transcript. The transcription isn't done on the phone but at a server, which then sends the transcript back to you. Similarly with the banking app, the character recognition is done at the bank.

Paul related a story where he deposited a check more than once and it took the bank 2 weeks to catch the mistake. He normally writes on the check that it's been deposited but he forgot. That led Glenn to suggest using a blue highlighter to write on a document to indicate whether it's the original (or in Paul's case, deposited) because copy machines don't generally reproduce blue.

Around the time of the Iraq War, Paul said, it was revealed that some HP color printers printed a pattern of yellow dots when the printer was used to make a copy. The dots indicated the serial number of the printer. Because color copies had gotten so good, this was done to defeat counterfeiters.

Similarly, Intel has produced CPUs with CPUID to uniquely identify the CPU. It was intended allow purchased software to be keyed to a particular machine. But this allowed the machine to be identified on the internet. On some machines, CPUID can be turned off in the BIOS.

Help support KVMR by becoming a member.

Glenn said he had to use dialup recently and that his computer slowed to a crawl because of all of the updates it was doing. Paul said that many sites now are difficult to use if you're on dialup because Flash requires so much bandwidth. And Mac machines that don't have an Intel CPU, like the G4 & G5, don't do Flash animation well either. Netflix, for instance, won't work on such Macs, and when software is available, like Flash for watching Youtube, the video is jumpy.

While Glenn had the 2 Macs mentioned above, he tried to download the Lion operating system for the Mac Mini using his iMac (he didn't want to plug in the Mac Mini to upgrade directly) but got the message that an Intel Core2 Duo was required and his iMac had only a Core Duo. He speculated that might be generally true for everyone.

Paul said Leopard was the last OS that would successfully installed on a non-Intel Mac. Such a Mac had to be 800 mega hertz or faster, too. There were hacks to get it to install on slower machines but Apple refuses to support such an installation. He also said there is a similar situation with old software — manufactures don't want to test old software on newer hardware and therefore refuse to support old programs. Office 2003, however, will install on a Win7 machine though it seemingly shouldn't, he said.

Glenn asked for alternative to using Office on a Mac.
– Office is available for the Mac.
– Open Office suite will run successfully on a Mac.

The latest Mac operating system will read drives formatted for Windows — the NTFS format. There is software NTFS-3G that allows Macs to write to such drives. It comes in free & commercial versions. But ideally, one would use Mac formatted drives on a Mac. And to use TimeMachine for backups you need to have a Mac formatted drive.
For more info google: ntfs-3g sourceforge

Glenn had trouble with his HR21 High Definition Direct TV DVR and though it started working again, a factory rep suggested he try plugging in an external hard drive for backup, as is possible with the newer HR24.

As a side note about hard drives, Paul told us what SMART means. Hard drives made in last few years have SMART for onboard monitoring of temperature and reliability. He thought the warning Glenn got might mean the drive is nearing its end.

Next Zentech show is on Aug 24 and there is 1 more show on the 5th Wed this month — 8/31/11

Marilyn called and she has friend with a Mac Plus who can no longer get to the documents on the hard drive.
– Open the computer case and find the hard drive (likely a PATA drive). Take the hard drive and put it in an external enclosure. Then connect it to another computer (ideally another Mac) and you should be able to access it.
– It's might be a SCSI drive and you can get a USB to SCSI adapter; plug it into the hard drive & the other end into the USB port on modern Mac.
– If you have the original floppy disk, you should be able to launch the operating system using its floppy drive. You can then copy the documents to that floppy, given enough room. If you don't have the original floppy, you might be able to get a copy by doing an internet search.
– Take the hard drive to a friend with a Mac and ask them to access the documents.
– Paul found an Adaptec USB Exchange Storage Controller fast SCSI 1.5 megabits/sec USB converter for $33 from the CWC Group. To find more, google the words USB SCSI.
– The old Macs may require a Torx driver to open the case.

Glenn said there was an article about a Google's Street View vehicle that crashed and it mentioned that Google has automated vehicles that have logged 160,000 hours. The headline read "Google Self-driving Car Crash Caused by Human Error". Glenn thought that it was navigating by itself but Paul was incredulous — too many things to go wrong.
If you go to maps.google.com and enter an address you'll see blue lines that indicate which streets have been photographed by their Street View cameras.

Paul talked about house concerts — concerts at a private venue and by invitation. With the advent of Facebook & social media, house concerts have really blossomed. Locally there's The Tin House and they have a Facebook page for further info. Being of limited size, many house concerts don't issue open invitations but use an email address that you RSVP for a firm invitation. Paul loves house concerts for their intimacy and access to the artists.
More about Tin House here.

Betsy called. She's been trying to get the list of music in her iTunes to appear in the order that she purchased it.
– In iTunes go to view -> options and put check marks where it says 'date added' & 'purchase date'. That gives you 2 more columns in the list. Click 'ok' to exit.
– Then go to view -> list and click at the top of the 'date added' column. That sorts the list by date added. Click again & it reverses the order (latest added is either at the top of the list or the bottom)

Betsy also asked about having 2 laptops with the same iTunes files on both.
– Apple may allow you to do that but check with Apple or do a search.
– If the machines are on the same network, you can share the list on one machine and play it on the other.
– To do that go to edit -> preferences -> sharing and use 'share my library on a local network'. On the other machine "do a search for local libraries" and that should find the shared music.
Doing that she got an error that said Bonjour is not properly installed and to uninstall & reinstall iTunes. Bonjour & Rendezvous allow Macs & PCs to share libraries of iTunes.
– She'll likely have to follow the instruction to reinstall but, as a disclaimer, you're on your own.

Paul thinks iTunes is the best music management software. It can be used on both the Mac & the PC and you don't need Apple hardware <like iPod> to use it.
However, he has a friend whose music collection completely disappeared after an aborted attempt to upgrade to iTunes 10.4. It turns out iTunes uses a folder in the music folder. In the 'music' folder is a folder called iTunes and in that folder is a hierarchy of folders. There's a setting in iTunes that indicates where those folders are. On his friend's computer, iTunes was pointing to the wrong location. But even when Paul pointed it to the right location, iTunes couldn't find the playlist because iTunes also needs to know where the library is. To get iTunes pointed to the library, start iTunes while holding down the option key or the ALT key on the PC; it will then say "where's the library?".
  Paul said if you're having a similar problem <and you can't figure out what I just wrote>, just send him an email — zen at kvmr dot org

Rick called with an iTunes question. He has an external hard drive with .mp3 files on it and he wants to get iTunes to just play the files from the drive and not to "suck them in".
– iTunes can work in 2 modes. It can take the files off the drive and stick them on your computer ("suck them in")…or not.
– Go to edit -> preferences -> advanced & find where it shows the path to music files. If you click the change button, it allows you to change the path to where the music comes from. And there are 2 important check boxes…
  1) "Keep iTunes media folder organized".
  2) "Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to playlists".
To do what he wants, he should keep both check boxes unchecked. That way the playlist (.itl files) on the computer's drive will stay updated but the acutal music files won't be copied from the external drive.

Rick then asked if iTunes will then be able to find the music files with the asterisk next to them.
– There's another setting under file -> library -> organize library. Experiment with those settings, but go easy and do a back up first, in case something goes wrong.

Last updated: 5:20 PM 1/13/2012

Apple NEws: Thanks Mikail!

Free Healing Music! : )

 PLUTO is even Weirder than you can imagine

More on The Curious Forge!

Delusions or Illusions: The McGurk Effect: (Thanks, Reinette) and what we do technically & otherwise to maintain a coherant view of the world

More on Tim DeChristopher.

Additional notes 

Notifications of new show notes and edits are tweeted at: twitter.com/ddhart
They're tagged with #Zentech

Editor's comments are delimited by < >

Paul briefly mentioned that the dwarf planet Pluto is a strange object. See the above link.

He then went on to talk about what an operating system is. It's software to get between the operator <usually the user> and the hardware. It handles things like storing files on the hard drive and the input from the keyboard or mouse. He said the human brain is much like an operating system that takes care of the minutia so you don't consciously have to. That led to his talking about the perceptual blindness test illustrating the McGurk Effect. He played some of the video from the above link. It showed that watching a person's lips move influences what we hear.

Paul then went on to say that, since the Zentech show involves trouble shooting, one has to be aware of perceptual blindness. He said, "When trouble shooting you tend to see what you want to see and it overrules, sometimes, what's actually happening." And, the troubleshooter shouldn't ask the user what the user thinks is wrong. Instead, one should ask what exactly the user observes when the symptom occurs.

Glenn said there is perceptual effect where words can often be discerned by just noting the first & last letters even if the interior letters are wrong. Paul said authors need an independent proofreader because the author's brain will continue to interpret their poor writing as being correct.

Witnesses in our judicial system, Paul continued, are notoriously flawed when they're presented with something they didn't expect to see. He also said it's easy to plant ideas into people's heads. He thought it would be interesting, for instance, to ask people coming from Disney Land where it was they saw Bugs Bunny. If you ask leading questions, many will "remember" seeing Bugs. Of course, Bugs is not a Disney character but from Loony Tunes.
<Here's an NPR segment about how people can miss seeing the person in a gorilla suit. And a Sciam blog post>

Bottom line, be as objective as you can when troubleshooting.

Glenn related the time he was thinking one thing and his fingers typed something else. The spelling was correct but the words were unintended so his spell checker didn't flag them. One should proof read for context not just spelling.

Glenn's remark led Paul to remember that Jim Baird <I probably heard the name wrong> from Parc Xerox, who helped develop the mouse and keyboard, was on the show and claimed that using a keyboard is the worst way of getting data into the computer because perceptual blindness can lead us astray.

Paul said he saw a demo at the San Jose Tech Museum that illustrated how you can pack words and sentences into your mind at an incredible rate if your gaze is held at the center of a screen where words zoom out directly at you one at a time.

Bonnie called to say she had downloaded a printer driver and wanted to know how to install it.
– She said it's an executable file (.exe) — so just double click on it and it will install itself as needed. She said she did that, but after rebooting the MF Wizard <I think that's what she called it> can't find the driver.
– In that case pick the option "Not at this time" in the wizard.
– Paul added that when installing a network printer (a TCP/IP printer) "you have to tell it it's a local printer of type TCP/IP". This, Paul said, appears not to make sense because TCP/IP is a networking protocol.
– In relation to that, Paul mentioned cognitive dissonance — we are averse to doing the opposite of what makes sense.

Paul found some free healing music used by massage therapists and the like. See the above link. Glenn speculated that the therapists use the music to cue themselves to how much time has passed into their session.

Paul said that XM Radio (satellite service) and CDs may not be played in a business without paying a royalty. Be careful playing music in a public environment that you bought for private use. If the medium specifically says ok, then you're safe — like the software Logic Pro, which Paul just got, that comes with a huge number of royalty-free sound samples.

Glenn directed attention to the Apple news link near the top of this page, one to Curious Forge and also to the Tim DeChristopher link. DeChristopher is the guy who made illegal bids for oil leases to keep them out of the hands of the oil companies. Paul ended this segment with the quote "when good people do nothing, nothing good gets done".

Ellen called to say there's documentary about music remixing and mashups in relation to copyrights. She said it was on the documentary channel.

Ellen also asked about making backups of her movie data using online backup services like Carbonite. She wanted to know if hackers can get to the data.
– No form of backup is completely safe but some are safer than others.
– Movies are huge. It may cost more than the base subscription rate of the service and take a long time to transfer big files.
– Paul suggested using an external hard drive and to use Firewire for the connection, leaving your USB ports free. Paul has seen 3 terabyte drives for about $179.
– Use 2 external hard drives of the same size. Connect them together & to the computer using Firewire.
– With version 10.5 or higher on the Mac, use TimeMachine and tell it to back up the 1st drive to the second drive.
– Use the newer Firewire 800 if you have it, it's faster.
– It's appropriate to turn TimeMachine off while you're engaged in rendering a project. Then turn it on to do the back up afterward.
– The same drives are sold for both the Mac & PC. The one you buy may be formatted for the PC, just reformat for the Mac.
– Firewire is a cascading technology. You can plug in devices along a chain and then into just one port on the computer.
– Check that the Firewire drive has 2 ports unless it's going to be used at the end of the chain. Some drives come with both an '800' port and a '400' port.

Sally called. She got notice that her Google account was accessed from China and she knew it wasn't her.
– The notice may be a specially crafted bit of socially engineering trying to get you to click on it or give up information. But, she said, it was not an email but rather a notice that was part of the Google web page. This gives it more credibility.
– Go into the account settings & change your password. Change it often.
– Fill in additional information to use as secondary authentication (alternate email address or a cell phone number, for instance). These are known as password recovery options and will help if you forget your password or the account gets hijacked.
– Use a strong password — a mixture of upper & lower case, numbers and symbols, if permitted.
– It makes a difference to report gmail spam to Google. They aggregate the reports to determine what to block.

Daniel called. He has trouble with his AT&T cell phone reception where others don't.
– It is possible that of 2 people next to each other, one will get reception and the other not.
– AT&T has been giving out a device to put in your house if you've been getting a poor signal indoors. It uses your internet connection to carry the call. <This may be what's known as a femtocell>
– Try holding phone away from head/body — use BlueTooth or wired earpiece.

Sierra Makers is now The Curious Forge. They're a local Maker group of about 40 members and they're looking for a home. They have a meeting coming up a week from today. See the above link. You can still use their old Facebook page here.
<Zentech show about Makers Fair>
<Zentech show about Makers Fair & Sierra Makers with guest Liam Ellerby>

The Zentech show also has a Facebook page here.

Support KVMR, become a member.

Next show Aug 10, 2011

Last updated: 9:15 PM 7/27/2011 

Intro; WHITE AND NERDY Rap

Detecting Power Bill Anomilies using For Example the "Kill A Watt" device

Additional notes 

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They're tagged with #Zentech

Editor comments are delimited by < >

Paul was in the studio, Glenn called in from Sacramento after some great difficulties in the studio.

Scott called about power line network adapters <these use the wiring in the house to carry the data between devices>. He's house was built in the '40s and all of the plugs are 2-pronge — there's no separate ground connector. He wants to know if the adapter will work in his house.
– Pauls thought it will work better if there's grounding but will probably still work without it.
– Buy it and try it. <Presumably making sure you can return it if it doesn't work>
The distance Scott has to span is about 30' to his workshop and Paul thought Wi-Fi should work if:
1) You get the units as close as possible.
2) You keep them away from cordless phones.
He's already tried using a combination modem/router from AT&T that has an internal antenna and Paul suggested getting one with an external antenna or a range booster.

Scott asked if the power line adapters are faster than wireless and Paul thought that his lack of a ground, old wiring and possibly having to go thru more than one electrical panel can make it slower (theoretically they might go faster Wi-Fi, under ideal conditions). He said a range booster could make wireless go up to 100 megabits/sec.

Paul kept trying to receive phone calls but some problem prevented him.

Paul mentioned that another KVMR broadcaster noticed her electricity bill went up substantially for no apparent reason.
– Ideally, call in electrician, if you can afford it.
– You can do some research yourself but don't interfere with the wiring in the house, you shouldn't have to in your initial investigation.
– Go around the house and make an accounting of everything plugged into the electrical outlets. Just because an appliance is off don't assume it's not drawing current.
– Keep a daily record of your utility meter reading.
– Keep in mind that there can be a huge difference in electrical consumption of appliances — e.g. stovetop burner vs. fluorescent lights.
– Each day, turn off a suspect appliance, including outside devices like well pumps (check for safety issues first). Then compare your record of meter readings to see if there's a substantial change.
– Old refrigerators may have deteriorating insulation or the refrigerant may have leaked causing the compressor to work more than it should — using excess energy. Check for similar issues with other thermostatically controlled appliances <e.g. air conditioner>.
– Paul said he's found a probe thermometer on Ebay for a few dollars that you can use to monitor the temperature inside a refrigerator or freezer.

<Paul didn't actually get around to the Kill A Watt device, whose link is above. Two previous shows mentioned it, too: May 19 2008 and May 5 2008.>

A clip from WHITE AND NERDY by Weird Al was played. See the above link.

Paul next talked about key cameras or spy cameras, which can be bought for about $10.
– They function as well in low light as full-scale tape video recorders of 5 to 10 years ago.
– They're about the size of USB flash drive and come with a tie clip-like bracket that allows you to attach it to, for instance, a dog or a kite. <To get interesting footage>
– They generally run at 30 frames/sec so they're not very good for rapid motion, but there may be some that run at 60 frames/sec.

Paul rebooted the Comrex system used by KVMR to receive phone calls.
<I think this may describe it. The company is here.>
– Paul said that computers (which is what the Comrex is) that have been running continuously for a long time may need to be rebooted, even the iPhone may benefit from a reboot every week or two.
– To reboot an iPhone hold down the power button on top of the phone for several seconds and slide the slider to the far right — that will shut the power down for a cold reboot. This is useful if you want to conserve power for a few days without a recharge. This is unlike a typical shut down where you push the button briefly and where the phone still receives calls.

After rebooting the Comerx, the phone system came back online we were able to hear Glenn calling in.

Glenn talked about the new-to-him iMac he bought recently, it's actually a couple of years old. He said he just upgraded the operating system to 10.5 and will eventually move it up to the latest — Lion.
– Access to the App Store has been added to the Mac computers so you can now buy and download Lion for $29.
– Paul said he's heard that when upgrading to Snow Leopard on a blank machine, you can use the previous version's, Leopard, CD to satisfy the licensing agreement, and complete the installation.
– Paul said that when you think you've closed an application on a Mac, the menu bar is left at the top and you have to go to File -> Quit or Option + Q.
– In the dock (on the Mac) are aliases <a particular type of icon> and there's a small mark under the alias if an app is still running in memory. If you hold the mouse button down while on the alias, you're given options to deal with the app — quit, force it to stay in the dock, or start at login.

The 1st step in diagnostics is to define the problem. If you can do it in 4 words or less, and they're unusual words, Google will have the answer. Youtube also has short tutorials that may solve your problem; use the same strategy to search for them.

Glenn's ultimately unsuccessful effort to fix his iPhone <mentioned in the Apr 27, 2011 show> was inspired by a Youtube video.

Paul warned people not to leave their cell phones in their hot cars, as he had done. It still worked but there was damage to the LCD screen.

Glenn received a message from Mike. He's using a Novatel USB 760 3G CDMA wireless to connect his laptop to the internet. He wanted to know if there is a device that can create a personal 3G hotspot.
– Yes but you have to be sure the one you're buying supports the model of your USB modem. These are called Mi-Fi units.
– It may be smarter to contact your carrier and ask them about the cost to convert your existing contract to Mi-Fi.
– Be aware that most providers now have data caps and it's easy to go over with multiple users on the hotspot.
– For $149 virginmobileusa.com has the Mi-Fi 2200 that has pay-as-you-go pricing for 3G.

Jay called. He's using XP Pro and would like to combine 2 logical partitions without losing data in the other partitions. He doesn't want to use Partiton Magic because of the cost. <Info about partitioning here.>
– Back up your files first.
– There is a free utility but it doesn't run under windows. It has to be booted from a CD. It's called Gnome Partition Editor or Gparted. <Read more about it here. You can get it here.>
– It comes as an ISO image file & you have to burn it to a CD using Nero or FreeUtility before using it. <I think he said FreeUtility but I couldn't find such a thing.>

<A couple of other ISO burners:
Infra Recorder…download here
ISO Recorder>

Vern called. He has a Macbook Pro upgraded to 10.6 & he lost his address book except for 1 entry. However, his mail program can see all the addresses.
– Paul thought some of the data files got moved and the data path was lost.
– Do a Google search for the words: data path mac address book

 Last Updated: 8:48 PM 7/13/2011

Notifications of new show notes and edits are tweeted at: twitter.com/ddhart
They're tagged with #Zentech

Editor's comments are delimited by < >

Firefox 5 is available. Paul said it's functionally more streamlined and goes a little faster but many of the buttons have been rearranged. You can put them where you want if you right click (control click on a Mac) in the gray area "where the menu is" and go down to customize. You can then drag & drop the buttons where you want. You can also select different icons and install ones not there originally — like the print icon.
Glenn said he likes to have the tab bar directly above the webpage — that's not the default position in the latest Firefox. You can change that by clicking on the gray area again and uncheck the option that says 'Tabs on top'.
One of the things Paul likes about the new Firefox is that if you go to tools -> addons, they are all systematically organized on a single page.
Addons for Firefox are available in groups, one of which is appearance and, specifically, skins. These allow you to choose the general appearance of Firefox.

Talk turned to Internet Explorer 9. It's not available for XP, maybe Microsoft wants to encourage you to move to Windows 7. Like Firefox, it too has done away with many of the tool bars, like the menu bar. Again, you have to right click and choose the options to restore the ones you want.

Glenn recalled that this trend, to minimize what tool bars are displayed, started with Internet Explorer 7.

Paul brought up the issue of getting used to the look & feel of a program and desiring some continuity as new versions come out. He mentioned Winamp — an audio player and suggested listeners give it a try. When they went from version 4 to 5 the look of it became subdued and dark and he had trouble seeing the menus. He said many programs now have the option of changing the skin to make the appearance more to your liking.

Bruce called and wanted to know how to get rid of the search box in the Firefox tool bar.
– Drag it off and stick it on the tablet <after you right click gray area -> customize). You can drag to or drag from the tool bars when you customize.

Betsy called. She's having a problem getting indented paragraphs in Word.
– Setting a tab won't do, a long line will again return to the left margin.
– Use the ruler & set the '1st line indent' feature.
She didn't see a ruler and asked how to get it to display.
– Pick the 'View' on the menu and pick the item called ruler.
– On the ruler, toward the left end, there's an up & down pointing triangles. These set the indent 1st line and also the indent of subsequent lines.
– Resist using the carriage return or you'll subvert the indenting process.
– In the studio, Glenn used Words help feature to search for 'don't auto-align' and came up with more suggestions.

Eric called. He has Norton Anti-virus and keeps getting a pop-up window asking him to renew his subscription. He asked how to stop the pop-up. He also wanted to know that, if he didn't subscribe to Norton after the trial period, would it stop protecting his computer.
– It doesn't stop the protection but it won't keep up with the latest threats and will become ineffective.
– Uninstall Norton. And, if you have a legitimate version of the Microsoft operating system, get the free Microsoft Security Essentials or AVG programs.
– Glenn said Norton & Mcafee are "top-heavy", they use a lot of resources.
– In the past security suits came with anti-virus, firewall, anti-spam, etc. These days the browsers do much of the work <the firewall comes with the operating system>, so now you need an anti-virus and "that's about it".
– To uninstall Norton use Add & Remove Programs in the Control Panel. Uninstall anything that says 'norton' or 'symantec'
– You can also use Revo Uninstaller, which will uninstall Norton and clean up the registry too. Many programs don't uninstall completely, Revo helps with that.
– For example AVG leaves behind traces of itself when uninstalled. You can get an uninstaller special to AVG. Microsoft Essentials may have trouble installing if it finds traces of AVG.
<I think this is where you can find the AVG uninstaller. On the page http://www.avg.com/us-en/utilities you'll see… AVG Remover(32bit) 2011 or AVG Remover(64bit) 2011 >
– Adobe Creative Suite also has a special program for removing all traces of that application.

<For more on Microsoft Security Essentials, links to articles about it and to a chart comparing it to other anti-virus programs, see the 5-11-11 show notes>
<Here's a forum discussion about uninstalling AVG>

Charlie called. He has Gmail & wants to know how to sort his mail by sender.
The guys googled for information but couldn't find a solution.
– They found various tips to search for a particular user in the Gmail search bar, but that's not what he asked for.
– Paul found, by searching for 'gmail sort', some javascript that you can paste into the search bar. That may be beyond what most people are willing to do.
– Use Thunderbird (or other email client) for mail, it can sort.
– Google documentation is actually very good. It can help you set up Gmail so you'll be able to receive your gmail in a local email program (like Thunderbird), but you'll have to turn it on. Start by logging in to Gmail and clicking on the cog in the upper right.
Paul said he's had good result using IMAP instead of POP3. IMAP will continue to show mail that you previously received on another machine, something POP3 will not do.
Using IMAP, Paul said, Thunderbird can color code your email (important, work, personal, etc) if you use the numeric keypad while reading a particular email. If you later use Thunderbird on another machine, the coloring of the messages will persist.

Ron called, He has a year and a half old iMac and he gets the "spinning beach ball" a lot now. He wanted to know what virus protection he needs.
– None. Recently there was a worm that tried to make you think you need to download virus protection. Just don't click to accept the suggestion and nothing will be installed on the Mac.
– Ron's problem has nothing to do with a virus.
– The spinning beach ball means the Mac is busy doing something.
– Ron said said he gets it when switching tabs in Firefox.
– Try deleting the preference folder for the application causing the problem (e.g. Firefox). But this may cause the loss of the bookmarks.
– Get a fresh copy of Firefox & install it over the previous version. Previous updates may have only patched Firefox. A fresh install may take care of the problem.
Ron asked if Firebug (an addon) might be causing the slow down.
– In Firefox go to tools -> addons disable (don't uninstall) Firebug (and the other addons) and see if the problem goes away.
– Basic clean up in the Mac is simple. Go to the utilities folder -> applications -> disk utility, click once on the hard drive & choose repair.

James called. He has a Mac PowerBook and been running the Safari browser. He keeps getting some sort of message from Firefox.
– Uninstall Firefox. Go into the application folder and drag it to the trash. But don't empty the trash just yet, in case you'd like to bring it back.

Being legally blind, James has trouble reading the captchas when he tries to login to Facebook.
– Use the audio button next to the captcha to hear an audio alternative to the captcha. The audio may be different from the visual captcha.
– James said he's had no success with the audio. Glenn suggested he ask someone to help him log in.
– KVMR uses a similar system for their Community Calendar event submission form. They had to use captchas because they were getting spammed a lot.

Mark called asking about the virus that tries to make you think your computer is infected.
– There are a number of malware programs that work similarly. When you go to a specially crafted web page, there's a Flash animation that plays and makes it look like your computer is being scanned for a virus and then "finds" an infection. It then asks you to buy anti-virus protection or to update your anti-virus program. As in Ron's situation above, DON'T CLICK on it. DON'T give them your credit card number. Once they get your credit card number, they can charge what they want on it.
– This malware is known by different names: bogusware; freakwar, smitfraud and combo virus.
– Popular websites like the New York Times can hit by this scam thus leveraging your trust.
– Genuine anti-virus programs don't detect it because the signature files can't be updated quickly enough.
– Proactively use Plugin Check (google the words <or try this one>) to check the version of your Flash plugin. Outdated versions can facilitate the fraud.
– But if you already have the malware, search for "combo fix" on Google and follow the instructions.
– While you can, back up your machine, though Paul said he's never seen these viruses actually "kill the machine", they just try to get money from you.
– You may have to search for the information on a different machine because some of these viruses prevent you from getting to certain websites where help is available.

Russ called from Sacramento. He has Mac Pro, his wife has a PC and they have Comcast for their internet. Comcast sent them a message saying one of their computers has an evil bot and that they sent him Norton Anti-virus. He couldn't get anymore info from Comcast.
– Glenn thought that it was a phishing email, but Russ said he called Comcast and they confirmed sending the email.
– In that case it's up to them to tell you what to do.

Next show is on July 13
Also check out the Zentech Facebook page.

Last updated: 9:16 PM 6/29/2011 

One More Show in a Week: June 29th! (5th. Wednseday!)

FireFox 4– version 5 Out Very Soon!

Price Shopping Pitfalls: An example using shopper.com & nextag.com for a
$2500 Canon 5D MK2 Camera Body; More Examples using Airfares.

 INTERESTING– the Google Ad Words we use linked up to these…!

What's Pretexting? a type of social engineering

Media Quality– High Defintion & 3D use of the Inrernet- Example using Pink Floyd & CD=DDD SPARS Code

Live Instructional Stuff Tonight at 6PM Pacific Time: Photography by MAKE (Thanks, TS!)

First Person Video (FPV)- This is Weird. CHECK THIS VIDEO out chasing a train and
flying through a shed… then THIS!!!!

Additional notes

Notifications of new show notes and edits are tweeted at: twitter.com/ddhart
They're tagged with #Zentech

Editor comments are delimited by < >

Paul noted that the Firefox browser is coming out in a new version: version 5. He said it looks like version 4, whose look & feel he doesn't care for. You can change some of it's appearance if you right-click on the tool bar (view -> customize on the Mac).

One thing Glenn doesn't like about version 4 of Firefox is that the tab bar is no longer directly above the webpage. Paul told him that there's a setting to put the tab bar back to its expected place. But Paul's peeve with version 4 is that it tries to open streaming audio within the browser rather than using an external application. He's continuing to look for a solution.

Talk turned to shopping on the internet. Paul went looking for a Canon 5D Mark 2 camera whose price seems to be around $2500. The 2 places he uses are shopper.com (owned by Cnet.com) & nextag.com. One retailer his search came up with had the camera for $1900 but he was suspicious.
– The link to Better Business Bureau didn't go anywhere.
– The transaction didn't use a secure connection.
– Looking up the domain name (the URL) showed the site was only 6 months old.
– He googled the domain name along with the word 'fraud'. That turned up sites with glowing ratings of 5 stars and subsequent comments claiming they used shady practices like bait and switch.

Commenting on consumer rights Glenn said, they can't charge you until the product is shipped, technically. Paul: they can't charge you without telling you they've substituted a similar product.

About that shady company, Paul said some of the complaints he saw said they sold some gray import products — products whose serial numbers are special and indicate they are not for the US market. You may have trouble getting warranty support.
In the end, Paul didn't order the camera.

More on consumer rights, Glenn said that if you receive the wrong product or it's not as advertised, you typically have 30 to 60 days to contest the purchase.
– Start by calling your credit card company.
– Then follow up in writing or use the card company's online forms.
– No matter how you've been treated, act reasonably — don't threaten.
– If you use a debit card, you don't have much protection at all. This applies to all transactions, not just when you order something.

Paul went on to talk about Google Adsense. The Zentech site has an affiliation with Google to show ads and earn a very modest amount when someone clicks on an ad. One of the ads Google provided was that for the shady company just talked about above. Paul said that under their agreement with Google, Zentech is not allowed to make any comments about the ads that are displayed. That company's ad didn't last long, anyway.

Paul talked about the quality of the media as it comes thru an internet connection. Youtube is increasingly carrying video in hi-def.
– You need a sustained bandwidth of about 3 or 4 megabits per sec (or faster) for hi-def.
– On a slower connection you can hit the pause button and let video load in the background. When it has downloaded, you can play the whole thing at once without it pausing.

Paul played Pink Floyd (link above) and noticed than when it was displayed in a 'windowed' mode (not full screen) the quality went down — the sound as well as the video. He played that Pink Floyd sample in different modes to illustrate.

Paul said that BluRay players are coming out with Ethernet ports and they can play Netflix video and render Youtube videos directly to TVs without the need of a computer.

Paul then talked about 3-letter code that used to be on CDs (the SPARS code, see above link)
– 1st letter indicates how the mastering was done — Analog or Digital.
– 2nd letter indicates how it was mixed — again, either A or D.
– 3rd letter indicates the medium. CDs will always have Digital.
– The lettering scheme has caused confusion as is being dropped.

Make Magazine (mentioned the past couple of shows here and here> produces live instructional videos (see the above link). There are many live video streams produced using a site called Ustream. It uses Flash, so no extra software is needed.

Next, Paul talked about FPV or 1st person video. An example is video from cameras attached to model aircraft which can be broadcast up to 10 miles. For an explanation & sample videos, see the above links.

Katherine called. She uses PowerPoint and had to upgrade from XP to Win7 when she bought a new computer. She's now having trouble using a newer version of PowerPoint.
– Glenn says he doesn't use the Office products a lot but always makes sure that the documents are saved in the Office 2003 format. That will allow people, who don't have the latest version of Office, to open the documents. Don't just rename the files but click the Windows logo in the upper left, then go down to options and change the default save mode to 2003. Repeat the procedure for each document type (Excel, Word, etc.).
– She asked specifically about having the "cool backgrounds" again. Glenn suggested she use the help facility and searching for the specific topic — 'background'.

Paul speculated that there's no compelling reason to use Win7 instead of WinXP. He invited listeners for comments.

Glenn had to reload XP on his computer from a source other than the original install disk and even though he used a legitimate product key number, he got the message that "we no longer sell XP you can't do this."

On a related topic, Paul said that the OEM copy of WinXP for the Dell computers is customized for the Dell line and would not ordinarily work on other brands. But, the installation process only checks for a Dell computer, not a particular model. So, it possible, for instance, to get rid of Vista on a recent Dell laptop by installing XP, using one of these OEM disks. But, you didn't hear that from anyone on the show — see the disclaimer below. Also, not all drivers are available for XP. In particular some video chips, Paul thinks, were especially made lacking drivers for XP so people would be forced to use Vista.

The disclaimer:
The views & opinions expressed on this show are not those of the staff, management, underwriters or board of directors.

Betsy called to say she's thinking about buying a HP laptop. The Word program on her current computer doesn't seem to be working right — drawing weird margins and prompting her to save templates.
– It's possible from long use that the templates and other files may have been compromised somehow.
– When you buy a new computer, any version of Word it comes with should not have the same problems.
– Try reinstalling from the original Office CD.
– Win7 will accept the installation of Office 2003, 2007 & 2011.
– Try OpenOffice <or Libre office> If you don't like it, OpenOffice does uninstall cleanly.
– Use Google Docs.
– If you're going to install an new word-processing or spreadsheet program, first uninstall the trial version of Office that comes with the new computer, after the trial period (or sooner if you like).
– Try creating a new document from scratch instead of recycling old .doc files.

Chris called to say he couldn't individually control the sounds coming from each application. This is one area where Win7 may have an advantage over WinXP.
– In Win7 the sound mixer will bring up the associated programs that have used it. <I assume it allows individual control for each app, too>
– Use a program called Cpuz <I guess this is it> to determine what kind of sound card you have and go their website to find out if they have a sound mixer that will give you the control you want.
– Listeners suggestions were invited.
– Searching the web, Glenn found that Mozilla Labs has a plugin that mutes tabs. It will only work in Firefox and not effect other applications.

Jeff called about the problem Betsy was having. He said the last paragraph marker in a Word file collects a lot of junk. He suggested she delete the last paragraph.

That reminded Paul that the Word document often has an undo list attached to it. The recipient of the document might be able to click the 'undo' button repeatedly to see what the sender had originally typed.

There are 2 Facebook groups of local interest, mentioned in the 5-25-11 show:
SierraMakers
Zentech

Larry called. He has an iMac that's a few years old and its keyboard keeps going dead. He has to unplug & plug it back in.
– Do your updates. There was a recent one for the keyboard controller.
– Try a different keyboard. It doesn't have to be an Apple, as long as it's USB.
– Blow out the keyboard with compressed air.
– There may be a keyboard test program for the Mac.
– Unplug the mouse from the keyboard & see if the problem goes away.

Glenn said he had purchased, but not yet received, a late 2008 or 2009 20" iMac.

Paul is moving 49gig of photos and said just because you have wireless doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. Use a cable instead, and don't forget to turn the wireless off or the machine will get confused.

Marilyn called with a problem in Google Docs. She said presentation is blurry until the download is complete.
– She's using a dialup connection so the behavior is normal.
– Try using Google Gears. It helps to cache the data and minimize the amount of data transfer. You'll even be able to work offline with what data you have and then Gears will synchronize when you go back online.

Remember, there'll be another Zentech show next Wednesday 6-29-11

Last Updated: 5:55 PM 6-24-2011