Scamming banner ads and bogus PC tools and antivirus: BUSTED

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 < >

<Remember there are 2 more shows this month : on the 24th & 31st>

Paul spent some time covering topics he didn't get to on the previous show.

He reminded listeners of the program to test flash drives called H2testw.

He noted flash drives keep getting cheaper — 32gigs for under $12 — making them a good option for backing up most of the stuff you have on your hard drive.

With Vista or Windows 7, if you want to know what it would take to replicate your machine such that it could be restored elsewhere, go to the C: drive and find the folder called 'Users'. Right-click on it and left-click on Properties. "If your data under the folder Users on Windows 7 or Windows Vista says it's less than about 30gig, one of these $10 or $12 flash drives will, essentially, back that up". Backing up the Users folder "will allow you to recreate, on a different machine, everything that makes your machine what it is".

If you use XP, the folder you want to look at is "Documents and Settings". If you back that up, you'll back up more than you need. On his XP computer, Paul uses the software Cobian Backup. It will back up that folder for you, and it can be set to skip some of the unnecessary stuff.

These tips don't apply to the application programs, only the data. The programs themselves will have to be installed from scratch, on the new machine. If you have a program with a license for use on only one machine, you may have to check with the vendor — it may have to be decommissioned on one machine and recommissioned on the new one.

Paul said you can get a "hard drive equivalent flash drive", like a SATA drive. They allow for faster booting but are less reliable than the traditional hard drive (with the spinning platters). They have a limit on the number of times you can write to them, and when they fail, they fail catastrophically — making data recovery impossible.

He said Windows 7 requires only about 15gig, so you can use a 32gig flash drive to install Win7. However, the "flash drive it has to be arranged mechanically in such a way that it looks like a hard drive". "If you try booting from a flash drive in a USB socket, strange things happen". <He gave no further details>

Glenn went on the net and found an OCZ Agility 4 512gig SATA flash drive for $280 at buy.com.

Another topic left out of the last show was a long range, inexpensive wireless link. You need 2 at about $90 each. The one Mikail found is the Pico Station 2 by Streakwave. It transmits at 1 watt of power — a normal in-home wireless transmits at about 20 miliwatts, which is good for about 100 feet. The 1 watt of power is good for about 1000 feet, and that's without a directional antenna.

The last item in the previous show is Whats App for Android, iPhone & Blackberry. It's like an instant messenger that lets you send audio files, pictures, text and your location. It also has guarantied delivery — it lets you know when the item you're sending has reached the recipient. It requires a wi-fi connection, but then of course, you won't be charged on your data plan.

Marsdon <maybe Marston> called. He has an Apple computer and wanted to know how to find and delete the cookies on his machine. He use both the Safari & Firefox browsers.
– In Safari go to preferences -> privacy -> details. There you can remove cookies, cache and other things. Paul didn't think you can select the individual sites whose cookies to delete, which Marsdon seemed to want to do. Glenn said you can do that with Firefox. And, in Firefox, you can select the sites from which to accept cookies — turn on the "ask me about cookies" option.
– Cookies facilitate a website in remembering some of your preferences so when you revisit it, you don't have to reselect various options. When you delete cookies, a website will send you new ones the next time you go there.

Marsdon was concerned about Google knowing what he's searched for and feeding him related ads. Paul thought there's more involved than just cookies. If a site uses Google Adsense, Google can tell you've been there, even if you don't have a Google account.
<An article about Google's tracking is here.>

Marsdon said he's been using DuckDuckGo to do his searching, in order to avoid Google's tracking. <It was mentioned on the last show>

Some of the current browsers have a 'do not track' option, but it's a voluntary protocol. You can request that websites don't track you but they aren't required to comply. Paul said he's tried it and it didn't seem to make any difference. To enable it in Firefox go to tools -> options -> privacy.

Anonymizing services do provide a degree of anonymity but your provider (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) still knows who you are, because your connection is routed through their servers. And, because the traffic is encrypted, you draw some attention to yourself. There's something to be said for behaving like everyone else on the net, you blend into the background when you're not doing anything unusual.
<Examples of anonymizers are Anonymizer.com and GhostSurf (google GhostSurf for even more links). Disclaimer: I'm not recommending either of these.>
<Tips on becoming anonymous here.>

Paul mentioned there about 5 popular browsers:
– Internet Explorer, which he's not fond of.
– Firefox, which he likes because it's familiar to him.
– Safari, which is included in the iTunes download.
– Opera, which Glenn uses along with Chrome & Firefox.
<I think he was going to include Chrome in the list, too>

Paul said each browser keeps it's own set of cookies. If, for instance, you have 2 Gmail accounts, you can have both opened in separate browsers — something difficult to do using only one browser.

Paul went on to say that Yahoo (followed by Hotmail) email accounts have been broken into at an alarming rate. He suspects the service itself has been compromised rather than each account being cracked. He knows people with very strong passwords, and their accounts have been hijacked. He suspects it's an 'inside' job, i.e. disgruntled employees.

The disclaimer:
The views and opinions that are expressed here on this show, and others probably, are those of these speakers only and don't necessarily represent those of the station itself, its board, management, staff or people who contribute.

Ellen called. She's a member of Catalog Choice, which lets you automatically opt out of receiving printed catalogs after you buy something online. She uses the Firefox browser and Catalog Choice installed a button, which only works when she goes to her brokerage site <apparently not when it's actually supposed to>.
– In Firefox, go to tools -> addons -> extensions & uninstall it from there.
– Glenn suggested going to the government website that lets you opt out of mail advertising, He couldn't remember the web address.
– There is also a government site to opt out of telemarketing calls. If you opt out and the calls keep coming, you can sue for a monetary penalty.
– There is a scam-baiting site called 419eater.com.
<The government Do Not Call Registry is here.>
<A do-not-mail registry here And its FAQ is here.>

Ralph called. He recently installed a plugin in Firefox that gives him a 'do not track' option and he likes it. It tells him who's tracking him at each website.
– Paul said Firefox also has a private browsing option. It lets you use a private browsing session where no cookies are accepted or sent back. It leaves no history, puts nothing in the cache and doesn't administer cookies. To initiate it, go to tools -> start private browsing.

Ralph also asked about getting Youtube videos to preload before being viewed, because his internet connection is a bit too slow to view them in real-time. The tool he was using before no longer works.
– Youtube videos are supposed to preload anyway. If you start the video and hit pause it should continue loading in the background.
– You can use Download Helper, an addon for Firefox. It will allow you to download the video. Then use Videolan (vlc) to play the .flv flash video file you just downloaded. Videolan plays many other video and audio formats.
– Download Helper and Videolan are available for the Mac, too.
<DownloadHelper is mentioned and a link provided in the 7/25/12 shownotes.>

Scott called. He wondered if the guys prefer Firefox over Safari.
– Yes, but not because there's anything wrong with Safari, they're just more familiar with Firefox and it's ubiquitous.
– If you're familiar with Safari continue using it.

Max called. He too recommends Firefox because it customizable.

<At this point the KVMR audio stream stopped and I missed the rest of the show. There were only a couple of minutes left>

Last updated 9:42 PM 10/15/2012
Changes:
added link – article about Google's tracking
added link – Examples of anonymizers
added link – Tips on becoming anonymous
added reference to – DownloadHelper
added link – Do Not Call Registry
added link – do-not-mail registry

Test FLASH memory under PC

Long-range inexpensive Wireless Link under $90 each end! Thanks, Mikail!
http://www.streakwave.com/Itemdesc.asp?ic=Pico2HP

Multi Platform Communiction Utility Whats App (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, etc…)

IOS 6 for iPhones. Got Older iPhone like 2G? Hope Not lost! Use WHITEDOOR
pre built unlocked firware with modificaions to provide iCloud, Etc.

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 < >

Both of the guys have now upgraded their iPhones to IOS6 and Glenn noticed he had trouble searching the email on his iPhone. Apparently it doesn't search in the body of the emails but only in the from:, to: and subject: fields. However, when he used his computer to go to his Google email, he was able to find the email he was looking for. Paul thought that was because Glenn is using the IMAP protocol on his iPhone, the body of the email is not on the phone itself. Glenn said he searched using the email app itself and chose the search 'All' option. Though there is an option to search 'All', Paul thought it meant 'ALL of the above fields' — from: to: subject: — rather than everything in email.

Glenn also had a problem with the Passbook feature on his iPhone. This is where you can keep your boarding pass, tickets, store cards, coupons, etc. Paul said there is a bug with it. The person who wrote the app thought the data should be "configured for next year. You had to muck around with the calendar to make it work".

Jim called. He has an iPhone 4 and he loves DuckDuckGo as a search engine. And they don't track you or sell information about you. It's a free cell phone app. <Looks like it works from a browser, too>

Paul talked about the first version of the iPhone — the 2G. It can't run an operating system later than version 3.13. Now you can jailbreak and unlock the phone. If you download free firmware called Whited00r you can get a new lease on life. It allows you to use iCloud and it has other features found on newer operating systems.

Brian called. He has a Nexus 7 <I think that's what he said> and he uses the voice recognition to talk to "Google", but he has trouble being understood because of his English accent.
– There have also been similar complaints about Siri on the iPhone.
– You can try the voice recognition software Dragon Naturally Speaking 11.5 — for the computer, not a cell phone. It learns and adapts to the way you speak.
– There is also a Dragon Naturally Speaking app, at least for the iPhone, and it's free. It doesn't use the phone to do the processing but sends your voice to servers on the net, which then return the text to the phone.

Rick called. His Dell laptop finally died and he can no longer run Outlook. He bought a used laptop with Windows 7 but the Microsoft package on it didn't include Outlook and he was quoted $200 for Outlook.
– Microsoft Office as old as 2003 can be installed in Win7. Various versions of Office show up on Ebay and you can transfer the ownership of the license.
– Get the education version <student version> at Staples for maybe $100. Make sure it has Outlook — some don't.
– Glenn asked if Open Office has something similar to Outlook but Paul said no. It has something similar but can't use Outlook's data file.
– Look for Microsoft Office on Ebay.
– In the past, Outlook was sold on a separate disk.

Rick asked if he can export the emails from his old Outlook.
– It depends on whether the data can be retrieved from the hard drive.
– Rick said he has the data backed up, so Paul said look for the file outlook.pst. You can then use Thunderbird to extract the emails. It can also extract some parts of the contacts list, but not schedules & appointments. However, Thunderbird expects to find the .pst file where Outlook normally keeps it, so it's a good idea to get Outlook running on the new machine first.

Rick wondered about Microsoft Live Mail but Glenn said don't bother, it only gives you an email address at Outlook.com <formerly Hotmail>. Paul added, the latest version of Microsoft Office lets you subscribe, on a monthly basis, to some of its features for online use. Glenn thinks that's going to be costly for the average home user.

Paul said there's an open-source program called Evolution that's supposed to extract data from an Outlook file. Google with the words: evolution outlook import

Paul never liked Outlook because it's buggy & clumsy. Cosmetically, it looked good at first. Nevertheless, there are reasons to use it.
– It's used in the corporate environment.
– It allows PC users with an iPhone or an iPad to synchronize their data. But these devices now synch over the net. And now, there's no reason for PC users to use Outlook because "you can get to it online" if you use an iCloud account you can get, essentially, the same features.

Paul said flash drives have become inexpensive. He's found a 16gig flash drive for $10 after rebate. But when they go bad it's catastrophic and unpredictable.

He's found a free utility that runs under Windows called H2testw and tests flash drives. In addition to testing it also checks the speed of data transfer, which is important if you play movies from a flash drive — smoothness of playback depends on transfer speed. See the above link.

He also said that he's seen some flash drives advertised as having 8gigs when they only had 2gigs and they lost all of their data if you tried to store more than the 2gigs.

A short Youtube excerpt from a South Korean music star was played. The name of the group is Psy. The video has had 285 million viewers.

Richard called. He's considering the new iPhone and is concerned the map application that comes with the new IOS6 operating system is inadequate.
– Google maps is no longer supported on the new iPhone, and Apple is trying to hire the map specialists from Google to develop its own product.
– Use the Safari browser and go to maps.google.com. Though not exactly the same experience, it's somewhat similar.
– Glenn doesn't think that the poor Apple maps is a good reason not to get the iPhone 5 because Apple will eventually develop a satisfactory substitute.
– Paul's heard rumors that a Google app will be avail in the applications store <iTunes, I guess>.

Richard asked if a traffic feature will come with the new <Apple> maps.
– Paul has Tom Tom USA for $39 + subscription. <mentioned on a previous show> He speculated that if traffic will be available from Apple, it will be a subscription service, too.
– Paul then tried to bring up Apple maps to see if traffic is included and found it is.
<Here are a couple of related articles…
Google Working on Maps for iPhone, iPad
iOS 6's Apple Maps: Yes, it's that bad>

Jordon called. He has a desktop PC that's about 3 years old and its hard drive went out. He asked for a recommendation to a service that will retrieve his data.
– The guys said they can give a suggestion but only off air.
– It's usually expensive to have data recovered — multiple thousands of dollars.
– You can try putting the drive into an external enclosure that can then be connected via a USB port to see if anything can be retrieved. If you just can't boot from the drive, the data may still be retrieved, provided the drive is not otherwise damaged.
– If the drive is damaged, avoid the temptation of repeatedly accessing the drive, because the heads may continue doing more damage to the platters and thus destroying more the data.
– Put the drive up to your ear and listen for whizzing or clicking sounds indicating a physical malfunction.
– Advanced Data Recovery in Folsom provides a data recovery service.

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

Barry called. He has a Mac Powerbook G417 and asked if he can upgrade the operating system to something newer than version 10.5.8
– No. That's the end of the line. It doesn't have a processor compatible with version 10.6 and beyond.
– You can at least get a more modern web broswer called tenfourfox. <mentioned on a previous show>. It can work with processors as old as the G3.

Barry had trouble getting the latest version of Flash.
– He may have to settle for the last one that will work.

John called. He has an HP laptop from circa 2006 and his USB ports died.
– What typically fails are the white plastic tabs in the socket may break or the gold contacts may get bent.
– Your laptop may have PCMCIA slot (PC card slot) and you can use a PC card to USB adapter, to give you USB ports. Check Ebay for an adapter — Paul found some in the $5 to $10 range. Google using the words: pcmcia usb
– Be gentle when inserting into USB sockets, they're fragile.

John also asked about upgrading to Windows 7.
– Paul didn't recommend that. The guys prefer XP.
– HP computers have the facility to reload XP from backup disks or you may still be able to buy an HP OEM XP disk from HP. But HP is under no obligation to sell it to you.
– If you backup your data and then reinstall XP, you may see a speed improvement.

Glenn encouraged listeners to become KVMR members.

Last updated 8:57 PM 9/26/2012

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 < >

Glenn, Paul and Mikail Graham were in the studio talking about today's product announcements by Apple

Mikail said the new iPhone 5 is thinner, lighter and faster with longer battery life — 8 hours while using high speed LTE for web browsing. He speculated you might get about 10 hours when not using LTE.

There were new iPod units too. The Nano is thinner & "more beautiful and actually very close to an iPod Touch".

The new iPod Touch is "more like an iPhone 5 than an iPhone 4" — like a cross between them. It has Siri <the voice-activated assistant> and a 720p Facetime camera. "It's got a 5 mega pixel camera equal to the old iPhone 4 and it does HD — high definition". If you don't want to pay for a contract, you can use the Touch to communicate using VOIP — using Skype. Also it has new speakers & microphone.

"These aren't available until the end of the month". The Touch & Nano will come in October. They'll start taking orders for the iPhone 5 on Friday the 14th. IOS 6 will come a week later, about Sep 26. By the time iPhone 5 starts shipping, it will have IOS 6.

Paul noted that if you get a contract with AT&T right now, you'll pay $99 for the iPhone 4S and $199 for a 16gig iPhone 5.

For those looking to upgrade from an earlier iPhone, you can get AT&T to unlock the old phone before you sell it. This will improve its resale value. It's important that the original contract owner requests the unlocking — it's much easier to accomplish than if the buyer tries to do it. An unlocked phone will no longer be tied to AT&T and can then be used with other carriers by a simple change of the SIM card. T-Mobile is making a effort to signup users with unlocked phones <I think T-Mobile may still have an unlimited data plan, as mentioned in previous shows>

Mikail said you can get $350 to $380 for an iPhone 4S in good condition, using Amazon, if it's legitimately unlocked. Normally, you'd have to wait until the contract has expired, but Mikail said he's heard of some phones being unlocked before the end of the contract.

The iPod Touch comes in 5 colors now. And, Mikail said, you can get any of these devices in red "which benefits the African AIDS program" — a portion of the profits are donated.

The dimensions of these devices are different from the previous models and require different cases. E.g. the screen is 4" screen where it used to be 3.5" — you'll get a 16:9 proportion and a 1360 X 640 image.

They have a new dock connector called "Lightning". It's an 8-pin connector that's faster and it can be inserted in either orientation. There's a $10 adapter to accommodate the users of the older connector. <Here is an NPR news story about it.>

Glenn noted that the Apple connectors have had a good history and that his cords tend to break before the connector.

Mikail said that much synching is now done using the cloud or wirelessly so the cord is used less. He said both the iPhone & iPod have the 802.11n wi-fi capability for increased speed.

Mikail said Sprint still has an uncapped data plan. AT&T & Verizon have family plans, but he's read reviews showing people end up spending more <more than the individual plan, I guess>. If you've been using an old unlimited data plan, you may want to think twice before switching to these family plans.

Mikail said he'd been using wi-fi to get his data on his jailbroken phone, so he didn't need a substantial data plan from the phone company. Paul concurred and said that wi-fi is the way to go. LTE is nice & fast but businesses, especially, will be concerned about the cost, Mikail said.

Glenn said the family plans from Verizon & AT&T have unlimited voice minutes but they get you for the data. He said there might be an advantage to these plans if you have a several devices on the contract at once. <Do your homework>

Paul said LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and was originally called 3GPP and was intended to provide a way for increased data transmission without too much change in infrastructure.

A caller with an iPhone 4 asked it he needed to call AT&T to have it jailbroken.
– No, the word is 'unlock' — AT&T doesn't like to hear about jailbreaking.

He also said he just got back from a foreign country where he used the phone to get just a little bit of data. When he got back there was a message from AT&T saying "call us immediately to avoid substantial charges". He had incurred a bill of almost $600. Mikail said there are 2 things to avoid high charges abroad.
– Turn off the cellular data under settings -> general.
– <he didn't get to the second thing>

The caller said AT&T offered him a $30 data plan and to backdate it to include the data for which he was being charged $600.

He went on to say he put up a Yagi antenna pointed to Banner Mountain and added a Wilson cell phone amp to improve his cellular reception. He's now getting 3G & 4G speeds. He also noticed that his iPad 3 will not do 3G, it's 4G only. Mikail said that's changed with the iPhone 5 <meaning that it can do 3G, I guess> but there's no hope for the caller's iPad 3 — there's no software update, its hardware is built only for 4G.

He then asked about changing cell phone carriers when abroad.
– When you get to the foreign country, shop around. There are cellular companies as well as independents that can sell you a plan.
– Then, just take the current SIM card out of the phone and put in the one you just bought.
– Pick a reputable brand name.

The caller said he got the Wilson cell phone amp from Banner Communications for $600. It's the model 65.

Glenn asked the caller what text (txt) options he has and was told there is no option — he pays 25 cents for each text message. Mikail revealed his strategy to avoid texting charges — he gives people his Google Voice number, if they want to send him a text message "because if you have an Apple device, any Apple device, on IOS 5 or later all your text messaging including pictures and files is all free, it cost you nothing…" "…so anybody else with an iPhone, iPad or a Mac address that you send to, it cost you nothing to send to them. It only costs the people, like say, on a Samsung or an HTC or an LG phone or Nokia or whatever. So what I do is I give them my Google Voice number for those folks and I keep my Apple number for the other folks. So that way I still don't pay anything for my texting at all and I can send text with emoticons or pictures or files or whatever and you get around this whole nonsense of them charging you for it." <I hope that made sense>

Glenn encouraged listeners to become KVMR members.

The disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers only and not necessarily those of KVMR, its board, management, staff or contributors. If things go wrong it's your fault.

Ron called. He has iMac running Snow Leopard. He wants to access its hard drive from an iPad.
– There's software for the iPad for about $20 to create a VPN.
– You can't just do conventional sharing, as far as Mikail knows.|
– Glenn said Teamviewer can do it too. It not only can transfer files but use the programs on the remote machine.
– With the new operating system called Mountain Lion you can just drag files from one desktop to another. <I think this is for the sharing facility and doesn't apply to the caller's question>

Paul asked about updating to Mountain Lion (version 10.8). Can you update to it from version 10.5?
– No, you have to have Snow Leopard version 10.68 but no earlier version.
– Mountain Lion cost $19.95.
– Most compatibility problem with Mountain Lion are due to the older Power PC processors, according to Mikail.
– The only problem Mikail has with Mountain Lion is due to the MacBook Air he's using. It sometimes doesn't wake up correctly — the screen comes up but he can't do anything with it. It's a problem with MacBook Air, he said.
– When you upgrade, any incompatible applications you have are quarantined to a special folder.
– Glenn asked about processor compatibility and Mikail said just search with the words compatibility core 2 duo for instance. Machines made in late 2007 or later should be compatible with Mountain Lion.

Ron has a Mac with OS version 10.5 and wanted to know if he can go directly to Mountain Lion.
– You have to go to 10.68, as mentioned above. Then upgrade to Mountain Lion.
– Or you can wipe the drive and start fresh.
– Apple recently ran a promotion where you could get Snow Leopard for next to nothing so you can then upgrade to Mountain Lion. They want customers to get the latest OS. Do a Google search to find Snow Leopard for cheap/free.

Paul noted that Mountain Lion does not support telephone modems. Mikail said there is a USB device that can work if you mess with it a bit.

Robert called. He bought a Windows XP machine a couple of years ago. When he inquired at a store about upgrading to Windows 7, he was told to hold off until October when Windows 8 will be released.
– Just stick with XP if everything is working ok.
– If you plan to go to Windows 8, wait a year or so for any problems to be worked out.

Scott called to say he bought Snow Leopard for $30 and then got a copy for free. So, he's willing to sell a copy to Ron (above) for $15.
– Glenn suggested Scott call in to the Flea Market tomorrow or call the office now & leave a phone number or even email zen at kvmr dot org with the number so he can be connected to Ron.

If you're stuck with Mac OS 10.4 because your processor speed is 800 megahertz or less, or you have a G4, you'll find the Firefox browser, greater than version 3.6 will not install. There's a project called Tenfourfox you can use.

Mark called to say Sprint supports iPhone and is an alternative to the pricey Verizon & AT&T plans and has an unlimited voice, data and text plan. However, Sprint tends not to work well in Nevada County and Mark said Sprint gave him an 'air cell' to plug into his router. His calls now go over his broadband connection. Of course, you may still have problems when you leave the house.

Barry called. He bought an older Mac G417 a few years ago and he's not receiving software updates as he expects.
– Mikail said he's lucky to get any updates. It's the end of the road for that machine — though you can continue using it as you have in the past, for word processing etc.
– Paul suggested converting to the Linux operating system. Of course, it's not going to be a Mac any more.

Barry felt he was being forced to buy a newer machine.
– It's not that the companies are forcing you to get a new machine, they just can't afford to support old equipment.

Paul said there are user communities for various old computers and operating systems like CP/M, which he and Mikail started on. He suggested Barry look try oldmac.com.

Betsie called. She uses an iMac and was recently copying a CD that was chipped and now the drive stopped working.
– Never put a physically defective CD into a player or computer. You may have damaged the drive mechanism or the laser.
– It can be costly to replace an internal CD drive.
– For about $40 you can get an external drive that works thru the USB port.

The podcast of this show MIGHT possibly become available here.

Last updated 12:06 AM 9/27/2012 (changed Berry to Barry)

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 < >

Glenn, Mikail Graham & Craig Burgess of Telestream were in the studio. Paul is hiking on some glacier in Alaska.

The guys rambled a lot on this show so the notes may be more fragmented than usual.

Adrianna from the KVMR membership department asked listeners for a donation of a Mac with a fast enough processor to run all of the new Adobe software. This is for an intern who will come in, starting Jan 2013, to do some design work. Mikail said it should be capable of running at least the Snow Leopard operating system and Abobe CS6 or later <I think that's the Creative Suit>, have 4 gig of RAM (1 gig would be appreciated) and have at minimum a Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
<Adrianna was on the 7-25-12 show, too. See those notes for other details>
Contact Adrianna here: membership at kvmr dot org or call (530) 265-9073 ext. 203

The folks at Telestream are big Adobe fans. They just upgraded to Adobe's creative cloud at $30 per month for the 1st year, $50 per month afterwards. In house, Telestream uses both PC & Mac machines.

Glenn encouraged listeners to become KVMR members.

Glenn thanked Craig for a donation of Telestream's software called Screen-Flow to KVMR.
– With Screen-Flow "You can record your screen, record comments and record your own video simultaneously" and then do post-editing
– Currently, it's for the Mac only. They're thinking of porting it to the PC.
– There's a demo you can download here. http://www.telestream.net/screen-flow/
– Mikail has tried it and likes it.

One of the first thing Mikail installs on his client's Macs (even old Macs) is Flip For Mac. It's another Telestream product, it's is free but with an upgrade you get more features. It facilitates the viewing of videos from the PC world, which a Mac would ordinarily have trouble with. It's available "all over the web" and at the Telestream site.

Telestream has just come out with a new product called Flip Player which is similar to VLC <Videolan>. <Craig gave no further details>Glenn asked if it's for the iPad or iPhone. Craig said it's only for the desktop Mac. Mikail noted that playing Flash video on these devices is problematic. To get around the problem, he's used a browser that supports that Flash: Skyfire or Skyfox "or whatever it called". He also said Flash for mobile devices is falling out of favor and HTML5 will take its place.

Glenn said he got a text <txt> message from Paul this morning from his remote location. Mikail marveled at the advances in communications, noting he once participated in a Zentech show using Skype while he was in Crete and had no problems with the connection

Mikail said that in a few weeks there'll be a Zentech show about new Apple products. Rumors have the iPhone 5 coming out on Sep 12, the 7" iPad Mini in Oct. for $299, the iPod Touch and Nano are being updated and the 30-pin dock connector is going to become an 8 or 9-pin connector.

Craig brought 2 Android devices with him: a Motorola Droid Bionic phone and a Motorola Xoom tablet. He said the Xoom is fairly heavy and is hard to hold with one hand.

Mikail mentioned the recent Apple v. Samsung trial regarding patent claims. He said the products may look similar but they are quite different internally and their use. He also noted that Sumsung makes a lot of components for Apple hardware.
<Here are a couple of articles of interest…
A jury has awarded Apple over $1 billion after finding that Samsung infringed upon its patents for mobile devices
A Verdict That Alters an Industry>

Glenn suggested a future show with Craig talking about some Android products, as a counterbalance to talk about Apple products that often occurs on this show.

Glenn read the disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers only and not necessarily those of KVMR, its board, management, staff or contributors.

Bernda Horton of Hware called in to say she has been using Screen-Flow as an editor for a series of interviews. "It is phenomenal". She records Skype interviews and uses Screen-Flow to capture and edit the sessions, eventually uploading the results to Youtube.

Nikail said he MIGHT put the podcast of this show on the KVMR site.
<Check for it here. You can find some previous shows there as well.>

Craig said WireCast, another product of Telestream, does live streaming similar to what you see at twit.tv.
– It's for both the PC & Mac.
– Using it, you can take a MacBook Air and hook a HD camera to it stream out live video. It's basically like a "live switcher"
– You can WireCast to Ustream & JustinTV, for instance. There's a list of others that Telestream partners with.

Mikail railed against HP computers saying they are made to last only 2 years. He said the Apple computers are a better quality and you can get extended warranty with AppleCare. <See the disclaimer above>

Craig was disappointed with Steve Jobs <Apple> in the 1990's because it was hard to find the software he wanted to use on the Mac. He lamented that the Mac was so tightly controlled by Apple that it discouraged software development. Mikail added, "Apple, now more than ever, is a closed ecosystem".

Mikail said Window 7 is great compared to Vista. But having tried Windows 8, he doesn't understand it. The same goes for Chrome OS.

Last November Glenn bought a Magic Jack <as a home phone service> and was happy with it until a few weeks ago when it stopped working. He found out you can't talk with the company by phone, but only use online chat with customer service. He was passed from one service rep to another and, in the end, decided to go to another service: NetTalk, which Paul uses. He got the duo wi-fi model for $65 including shipping and there was no charge for porting his phone number. Craig uses Ooma for his VOIP service. US & Canada calls are free and you get 1000 minutes per month for international calls.

Earlier, Katie sent in an email question about connecting her XP computer to a router. And, without explaining the question, Glenn said she should continue using a wired <Ethernet> connection even though the router is capable of doing wireless. He said, disable the wireless connection <to prevent conflict> by going Start -> Control Panel -> Network connections <I think it's Network and Internet Connections>. There you'll see the options to change both types of connections. He noted that most desktop machines don't come with built-in wireless though Dell did sell some wireless units for a while. You can get a USB device to bring wireless capability to the desktop.

Mikail said he picked up a case for $2.99 <for his iPhone> that can act as a stand to keep the iPhone upright.

Craig mentioned a solution for tangled earbud cords called Zipper Buds, or something like that. They have a zipper that's integrated into the wires. You only unzip as much cord as you need.

Paul sent a text <txt> message from the glacier saying "hi" and that the cell phone service there is erratic.

Craig gave a bit of history about Telestream. Dan Castle, president of the Grass Valley Group, and some others broke away in 1998 to start Telestream. Their 1st product is ClipMail, which is still being used today. ClipMail lets you to take a video file and FTP it to another ClipMail account.

Melody called to compliment the guys on their voices. This was in response to Glenn having said Paul has an interesting British accent. She said she likes to listen to the voices even if she doesn't understand what's being said. Glenn said people sometimes tell him they enjoy the show without understanding the content.

Glenn expects Paul to be back on the show Sep 12 and most likely Mikail will join them to talk about the rumored Apple products which may debut on that date.

Craig mentioned the EU Cookie Directive, which became effective in June. It has to do with web privacy and tracking. All of the major browsers now have a do-not-track feature.

Ross call to ask the guys what sites they use to keep up on tech news. He currently uses Mac Nexus. Craig said he uses the news aggregators Flipboard & Pulse. Mikail uses Pulse,
<Here's an article to get you started…
Pulse vs. Flipboard: Which will win, subscriptions or ads? >

Last updated: 9:17 PM 8/29/2012

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 < >

Remember, there's another show next week: 8/29/12

Paul and Glenn had Catherine Scholz on the show today. She's a web developer using WordPress: a blogging, website and content management system.

WordPress is free open source software that can be installed on a web hosting service (a company that owns the actual computer where, for a fee, your website resides). You can have the host install WordPress, and then you can easily create and update your website from any internet connection.

Paul called WordPress a content management system <CMS> similar to Joomla & Drupal and asked Catherine to compare them to WordPress. She said…
– WordPress is becoming more popular. It powers about 17% of the top 1 million websites and 22% of all websites.
– It's easier to use that Drupal & Joomla.
– It was just an blogging platform and, over time, took on more capability.

Paul noted that at some point, web content & presentation became separated: what's on a website vs. what it looks like. In WordPress you can change the appearance of the website without changing its content. Catherine agreed, you can change the theme, the colors, fonts, etc., and leave the content alone.
– There are many free themes to choose from as well as some you pay for, if you want technical support.
– Some free themes intend to lure you into buying a more advanced one. It's helpful to check that its author updates it occasionally or that there's a forum where other users carry on a discussion about it.
– You can create your own themes, which involves customizing a preexisting one.
– Themes tend to focus on subjects like nature, health or medicine.
– At home you only need a browser to maintain the WordPress website.

There are 2 ways to implement WordPress: self-hosted (using a hosting site) and using wordpress.com itself. For people just getting started, using wordpress.com is a good, free option. You don't have to worry about using the latest version or adding any bells and whistles (plugins), the WordPress company takes care of that. But you're limited in your choice of themes. However, if you later want to do something more ambitious, you can easily export everything to a self-hosted site. With a self-hosted site you can take on more maintenance responsibility and choose from more themes and plugins.

When you signup at wordpress.com, you'll see that it calls itself a blogging site but Catherine said you can use it to create a full website there.

Catherine got started with WordPress a few years ago when she saw a friend's website. He's a musician and was able to offer video, audio and sell his music on the site. She already had her own website but looked into what he was using and eventually switched over to WordPress. After she learned to use it, others asked her to develop websites for them.

When you first install WordPress, it comes with a "Wordpress-friendly theme" and a developer can customize it for their own use or install a different one. Catherine uses a theme by Ithemes called Builder, which can be completely customized. Talking about the tools needed to customize a theme, Catherine said some themes come with a style manager for making changes. These tend to be themes you have to pay for, though some free themes allow you to make some changes, too.

WordPress is very SEO-friendly. Search engines love WordPress because of the URL permalink structure. If you set it up in the right way using 'pretty permalinks' the keywords end up in the URL and the URLs are the number one thing search engines look at for relevancy.

Glenn encouraged listeners to become KVMR members.

Peter called. He had taken instruction from Catherine and now runs The Center For The Arts website.
– WordPress gives the site the ability to have a schedule of upcoming events using an event calendar plugin.
– Various staff members can have their own passwords, which gives them access to only certain parts of the website for editing.
– There's a way for an author to create content and editor to approve it, within WordPress.
– He said it mostly runs on CSS so editing is different from writing HTML.
– He's found it easier to use then the previous tool he used: Dreamweaver.

Catherine said the standard width of a page is now 960 pixels because that's the average monitor screen size. You can design for the desktop computer or a mobile device. There are themes with "responsive design", which sense what device is displaying the page and reconfigure the way it looks. <Smaller screens might look better with a simplified theme, for instance>

Zak called. He's runs a web software company in Australia and WordPress has been a major part of the income. He warned that some free plugins and themes contain malware and that it may be worth buying these addons from a trusted source. At least be aware of the problem and do some research. Catherine said she teaches "best practices" to avoid these problems as well as techniques to allow a site to be restored in case it does get hacked.

Paul said he uses 2 tools for security on servers. nessus.org offers a paid version as well as a "community" version. The program helps you "understand the kind of scripting defects that are widespread in generic plugins". <Scripts are just programming code>
– He also subscribes to an advisory called CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). Using it, he said, you can subscribe for notification regarding WordPress's plugin vulnerabilities.
– Catherine added the sucuri.net is a service you can use to scan your website periodically for malware.
– Zac also said there is great community of WordPress users where you can get much free information. Paul looked up and found wordpress.org/support. And there is the codex site which deals with the actual programming of WordPress.

Jenny called. She's an artist who wants to put together a website with a lot of visuals. She's currently looking at something called Intuit, which offers templates to get the site started. She's curious about WordPress but wondered about the learning curve, the complexity and the cost.
– Most of the cost is the time you invest in learning how to use it.
– She can expect her cost to be one-time rather than a monthly fee. Catherine said her service is a one-time charge and includes building the site and instruction on maintaining it. There's also the charge for hosting the website <renting the space on the server>. If you buy a theme it's usually a one-time charge unless you pay for continued support.
– With regard to complexity in learning WordPress, Catherine said she thinks anybody can do it. The interface to WordPress is pretty intuitive.
– Remember, wordpress.com is free to use and practice with.
– If you're concerned that you'll end up with the typical WordPress-looking site, have someone design it for you, then you'll only need to update the content.

Mentioned in previous shows, Nevada County Online facilitates like-minded people to meet up and discuss many aspects of the internet

Paul again said he'll post podcast of last weeks podcast which featured Coryon Redd discussing internet marketing.

Glenn reminded listeners the show will be on next week, too: 8/29/12

Catherine's site:
becomeawebweaver.com
Phone: (530) 362-8586
She teaches classes at:
sierracommons.org

Paul thanked Molly Fisk who, like Catherine, strayed from the realm of the arts to promote web endeavors as well as social media.

Paul addressed my own question, sort of. I asked about program that originally came from the Unix world: GREP. Specifically, I'm looking for a version that runs in Windows and has a graphical interface (GUI).

<GREP is the most powerful tool I've seen for searching within local documents for words or characters. It can find lines that, for example, contain both of the words 'cost' and 'finance', in either order, and also contain the alternates to finance–'financial' and 'financing' but NOT 'financed'. I already have a version that runs from the command line that I got here. But I wanted a version that runs in a graphical window. I'll eventually be exploring Wingrep>

Paul said there's no real equivalent on Windows. <That is not with all the capabilities of the original GREP. Though there are some versions with many of the same features>. He suggested running a Unix-like environment called Cygwin and getting the Unix tools, which come with GREP.

He also mentioned the search function built into Windows. But Glenn said he's had trouble with it not finding what he knew to be there. <That tool, I've discovered, tends to ignore the fact you've changed folders. You have to keep an eye on the box labeled 'Look in:'>. Paul added that if you have the Windows indexer turned off, searches may takes a long time or fail.

Paul also found the tool called Google Desktop, which over time, indexes your hard drive content and then lets you quickly search your documents. The indexing is done over a long time at a low priority so as not to slow the normal use of your computer. It also has plugins for searching special files like Lotus spreadsheets. Google doesn't support it any longer but Glenn said go to download.cnet.com and type in Google Desktop in their search box to find it.

My other question was how to tell if the product you're shopping for has a battery you can replace yourself. Glenn said he's not aware of any tablets like that. The tablet & phone companies have moved away from that model because they want you to come back to them & buy a new unit or send the device in to have the battery replaced. Paul said the other option is to take the unit apart yourself, perhaps with special tools, to replace the battery. He added that most units today have an LED backlight instead of fluorescent lights and can run much longer between battery charges, thus extending the overall battery life. He said this is true of many netbooks and PDAs and you can run at least 8 hours between charges.

Last updated: 9:45 PM 8/22/2012