Please check back around the time of the broadcast (See Clock at left!!)

How to dreamup a PROPER password

How are these fast moving infections getting onto your PC with Scareware Antivirus?

SoundCloud. Share and SEE sounds

100+ year od Lightbulb!!

Everyone is Going Cloud as Discreet Data & Apps VAnish

Fancy selling your digital images on a Stock Agency? See HERE for Free Software to manage this complex process

Inexpensive Refurbished Intel MACs , around $450.00 Thanks Bruce!

LINKEDIN.COM , first of the trilogy with Facebook, Twitter for SMM, now has a free iPhone App…

Use Google Public Domain Name Service alternative, and Why.

http://sierracommons.org/

Sync Google Calendar with Outlook

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 < >

Today's show had a guest for the entire hour: Liam Ellerby

Paul mentioned DTMF, which is a method of generating the tones used by telephones when dialing a number. It stands for Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling.

Paul introduced Liam and implied his an association with Make Magazine. The magazine & the related Maker Fair (mentioned last week) are devoted to various do-it-yourself arts & crafts projects.

Liam talked about the recent Maker Fair and said that its producers are also involved with one of his favorite blogs: boingboing.net. He said the fair attendance was about 45,000.

Paul, who attended the fair, said there were many projects made out of precision-cut plywood, made possible by "almost affordable" laser cutters.
Liam said laser cutters are about $2100 and 3-D printers <mentioned in the last show> are $500 & up.

Paul said the Maker Fair also had 'funny bikes' made from reused materials.
Glenn jumped in to say he saw a bike at the fair with 6 or 7 wheels, none of which were of the same diameter.
Paul said one plywood bike had eccentric hubs and simulated a galloping horse, due to its uneven motion.

A local group devoted to the maker ethic is sierramakers.
Liam said they're working on a wiki to provide additional info.
An organization loosely associated with Makers is Sierra Commons, a local business incubator. See the above link.

The 2nd meeting of Sierra Makers is tonight at Liam's house; 7pm at 16064 Fay Road in Grass Valley, CA.
They'll be working on a mission statement, among other things. You can call for more info at 530-210-6040. There will be future meeting, if you can't make this one.

Paul went on to say that there was a popular exhibit at the Maker Fair involving used clothing & sewing. He also said there seemed to be cross pollination between the Maker Fair & Burning Man.

From the link above, a clip was played about creating a proper password.
Paul said Sony had account information of a huge number of clients stolen recently and that the passwords were in plain text <not encrypted>. So, even well chosen passwords were easily revealed.

Paul said that at one time, he tried to take audio of KVMR shows, record for their archives, and feed it to Dragon Naturally Speaking — a speech to text converter. He found it didn't work well at all.
Glenn then asked if there were similar programs for translating foreign speech, like Chinese, to other languages. Paul thought Chinese might be even easier than English because it's a tonal language and the syllables may be more easily recognized.
<Dragon Naturally Speaking was discussed in a previous show>

Paul said computers can be pretty good at recognizing tonal variations and compared that to music recognition software like Shazam for the iPhone.

Paul mentioned Sound Cloud where people can upload sounds such as music, and which shows the waveform of the sound on your screen. See the above link. Paul compared that to the voiceprints the police use to match suspects (obtained during interviews) to recordings such as phone calls for ransom demands.
<Another reason, I never thought of till now, for never talking to the police>

Liam was reminded of a Ruben's Tube. It's a tube of a few feet long with holes drilled in it at intervals and a flammable gas burning at the holes. When a sound is propagated thru the tube, the height of the flames indicates the wave in the tube.

Along a similar theme, Paul spoke highly of a German program called Melodyne, which decomposes music into its elements for editing.
Paul said it might only be for the Mac. <but you can get it for the PC too. Trial version here>

Liam said musical instruments were popular projects at the Maker Fair and mentioned one where a man in a Faraday suit, to protect himself, controlled the lightning bolts of a Tesla coil which he controlled by playing a guitar.

As mentioned on the last show, pictures from the Maker Fair were posted on the sierramakers facebook page.

Glenn said he got an email directing people the makezine.com. The second item on the page is for Make Live Episode 10 covering 5 Maker spaces around the country.

Paul mentione a Maker venue in Oakland called The Crucible.

Rick called from Marysville. His service provider is AT&T and they recently changed the way he can enter the website address he wants to navigate to. He wants to return to the familiar configuration. <It sounded like he no longer has an address bar. He wasn't at his machine to follow the suggestions interactively.>
– Glenn explained how to set up a home page. Enter the desired site as the address, then go to menu and click edit -> preference or possibly tools -> options and select an option that says something like "use current page as the home page".
– Try using Internet Explorer instead of the AT&T browser.
– Use a different browser like Firefox — it's free.
– Use the down arrow next to the address bar to show you the recent sites you've visited. It's a simple way of returning to them.
– Paul said people often take a picture of their screen while it's showing a error and send the picture to the guys. <the "prt scr" key might be useful in this case>. You may also turn your web camera around and point it at the screen.

Paul talked of refurbished iMacs of 2006 & 2007 vintage from geeks.com for about $400. See the above link. Be sure they're Intel Macs not G5 or G4 models. These older models don't cope with the latest version the Flash animator.
Other places to find used computers: buy.com, amazon.com & overstock.com (overstock has low or no shipping charges).

Paul mentioned that you can only legitimately get Windows XP on used or refurbished machines like the Dell Optiplex. Glenn said he just got a HP machine with 2gig RAM & DVD burner for $180 at geeks.com.
The guys concur that used/refurbished is usually the best way to go: the failure rates are not disproportionally high.

Liam suggested the best way to find solutions for computer errors is thru Google. Quote verbatim the error code into the Google search bar to quickly find solutions.

The guys gave some tips for searching on Google:
– To take advantage of Google's search suggestions, type the more common search words first & least common last.
– Try to limit yourself to 4 or 5 search words, and try to make them unusual words.
– Use search filters like allinurl: inurl: & site: <E.g. if you know the word is in a URL type inurl:theword and you'll find the URLs containing theword.> If there's more than one word in the URL, use the allinurl: filter.
– If you're trying to find something at a particular site, use site: <as in site:thesite.com [followed by the words to search for]>. You'll often get better results this way than by going to the website and using their own search facilities.

Mark called to take issue with the guys suggesting Mozilla's Firefox browser, he seems to like Chrome.

He also asked the guys if they've heard of Google's personalized search results. Google builds a profile of you and gives search results based on what it thinks you're after. Paul said Google already knows something about you based on the IP address you're using — it knows, in general, what part of the country you're in. If you're worried about it just delete your cookies.

In regard to that, Paul again mentioned persistent cookies, which were discussed a couple of shows back.

Then Mark asked about search engines other than Google, to avoid the biased results.
– You can use an anonymizer.
– Liam said, as you're search needs get more refined, you may find you're using Google less and you may start using directories, which are compiled by humans. Liam seems to like the directory dmoz.org
– Use Google to find other search engines. In the search bar type in your search subject followed by the words search engine.

Remember, there's a 5th Wednesday this month so there'll be an extra Zentech show.

Last updated: 9:12 PM 6-8-2011 

TAlking today about FB Groups

 in FB, simply "search" for the word "Groups" and use the "GRoups.App" to see what Grops you are in & to create one and Test It Out.

See 2 new FB Groups:

SierraMakers and ZenTech

 Arduino– Inexpensive micro controller

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 was in the studio & Glenn called in from Sacramento

Paul opened the show by noting that Chamba Lane, a KVMR broadcaster, had died. You can find out more on KVMR's front page or here.

About 30 years ago, Paul was into flying model airplanes. Initially they were of the powered variety but he then moved on to glider craft. He recently returned to that hobby and bought a model glider for about $120.
You can find similar products on Ebay

Pledge drive is still going on. To become a member visit the front page of KVMR.

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

A recent survey of internet users found the most used portal pages — pages where people go first. They are, in order, Google, Youtube closely followed by Facebook.

There is a small but growing section of Youtube devoted to 3-D video, the kind requiring the red/green glasses. You can make them from cellophane candy wrappers but you have to make sure to use the correct color for each eye. Paul said there are about 6000 stereo videos on Youtube now.
<I think he meant traditional red/blue anaglyphic glasses, But maybe they are using green now. I dunno>

Facebook searches are different from those of Google. They tend to be "peer reviewed" — they are based on what other people find useful and are facilitated by the formation of groups.

Anyone can form a Facebook group, usually addressing a special interest. There's a group for KVMR. It notifies its members of events regarding the station.
Paul said it's easy to create a group.
– To create a group you have to login to your account first.
– Search for the word groups.
– The first thing you'll find is the groups app (or application).
– Click the button called "Add Group".
– You have to add at least 1 person to make it a valid group.
– Pick a short but descriptive name for the group.
– You can then upload a profile picture. E.g. a group devoted to recycling might have a garbage can picture to identify itself.
– Then there's button to add members to the group. Be thoughtful in its use as not everyone is going to be interested in your project. It would be better to make a wall posting on your personal page to notify your "friends" of the group and inviting them to join.

Paul formed a group for Zentech. He said Facebook postings are more spontaneous than those on KVMR's Zentech site. See the above link.

The other group he mentioned is SierraMakers. Its links is also near the top of this page and it has information about the Maker Fair.

There's The Maker Magazine produced by Tim O'Reilly. It's like a hobby magazine and it was shortly followed by expositions where people share their projects in the venue of a fair: a maker fair. Paul posted some photos, which he took at the Maker Fair last weekend in San Mateo, on the SierraMakers group.

At this point Paul received Glenn's phone call and they talked a bit more about the Maker Fair, which Glenn also attended.

Going back to Facebook groups, Paul said the groups have chat & email functions. These features have been implemented recently.

Continuing with the Maker Fair, Paul mentioned the giant exhibit of Tesla coils and the resulting sparks that moved in time to music. Other exhibits were tiny as the one with the world's simplest electric motor consisting of a bent copper wire, battery, a disk washer and 2 magnets.

Then Glenn talked about an exhibit that taught people how to solder. With some help, he made a microprocessor-controlled flashing lapel pin.

A microprocessor often found at the Maker Fair is the Arduino. It's powered by a USB connection and can be programmed. With it you can build projects to turn lights on & off, open & close curtains and doors, etc. Paul said it costs $20 to $30.   There's a link to Arduino up above.  

Glenn then talked about the 3-D printers at the Maker Fair. There was one kit for just over $1000 that you can put together in about 12 hours. If you bought a unit they would take a 3-D picture of you so you can make a sculpture of yourself when you eventually get the printer.

Jeff called about the radio controlled planes Paul talked about earlier. He too used to fly them long ago and he wondered if the old radio frequencies still work, considering that the government has been reallocating the radio spectrum.
– Yes, they still work. The least expensive model planes use 27 megaHertz, which is in the CB band.
– More modern and expensive models use the 2.4 gigaHertz band. This band has greater range and is less prone to interference.

Paul added that current electric motor technology is much more efficient than it was in the past and is more suitable for electric-powered model aircraft. He also mentioned frankin-planes where people salvage motors & control equipment from model planes and attach them to scrap pieces of wood or polystyrene and fly those — flying garbage. He said there are some Youtube videos of such contraptions.

Paul has seen some viruses get thru Microsoft Security Essentials, talked about during the last show. <In those notes I included links to some articles about Security Essentials>
– Paul reiterated that he's not recommending any particular anti-virus software. None of the programs are 100% effective, as noted in the earlier show.
– Again Glenn warned about malicious links in email. Be sure of the source of the email and that the links in the mail are relevant to the context of the email and not just some random or unexpected link. Just because you have anti-virus software doesn't mean you can click on links irresponsibly.
– You may get warnings saying, for instance, that you need to update Flash. If you do, close it and go to PluginCheck <Also mentioned in the previous show> to find out if you really need to update.
– Though in the past, the Mac has been relatively safe from malware, in the last 10 days there has been some malware showing up. Since the Mac won't install anything without your permission, you have to be careful not to be falsely convinced to grant that permission.
– Beware of social engineering where, for instance, you get an fake email from your bank saying your security has been breached & you must send them your username & password. Don't do it, call your bank instead.
– A survey found Mac users are more prone to trust phishing links.
An article on recent malware attack:
5 ways to stay safe from fake anti-virus malware attack on Macintosh

Daniel called. He got a new computer with Office 2010 but has trouble opening an Excel spreadsheet — it opens up blank.
– Get the latest Microsoft updates for Windows; look for "windows update" or "microsoft update". Win7 keeps changing where it is: try the Start menu or control panel or Internet Explorer -> tools. Keep requesting updates till there aren't anymore.
– If that doesn't solve the problem, call Microsoft for help.
– In Paul's opinion Office 2003 may be a better option; you can use it on a newer machine.
– Glenn recommended saving spreadsheets (and other documents) in 2003 format so others, who don't have the latest version of Office, will have an easier time opening them.
– Those who don't have any version of Office or a version that can't open the newer document formats, you can use Google Docs. Upload the document to Google Docs & view or edit it there.
– Paul doesn't recommend getting a compatibility pack that allows users of older versions of Office to load/edit the newer document formats. He said he's seen it crash Office.

Theresa called. When using the Firefox browser to view Google, the print is too large.
– Hold the Control key & tap the – (minus) key to make it smaller.
She tried it but it didn't work
– Use the View menu at the top then -> Zoom -> reset
She said that worked.

Last Updated 4:28 PM 5/27/2011

Moon Phase, SunRise, Sunset, you name it! Personalise it.
http://www.sunrisesunset.com   Thanks Terry S.

NEW Pandora COMEDY CHANNEL

Privacy & Informed Consent Issues in Computer Rental – and in general…

Everlasting Cookies!

Hackintoch: Boot a native MAC Operating ssytem on non Apple hardware

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

Editor comments are delimited by < >

Paul said if you want to know what podcast are, open your iTunes program, go to the iTunes store and search for podcasts. They are time-shifted recordings that you can download or subscribe to and listen to at your convenience.

A humorous podcast from RadioLab about the afterlife was played. It was dedicated to Chamba Lane.
Chamba Lane, a KVMR broadcaster, has lung cancer; learn more at front page kvmr.org
More on Chamba's condition and on sending him your kind thoughts
…click here:

Some other podcast can be found at The Moth.

There's a way of using iTunes store without giving a credit card number.
<I did a brief search and found instructions here.>
Paul only ever bought 2 apps at iTunes: Angry Birds & Photoshopadelic. There's more about Photoshopadelic on his Facebook page.

Glenn said he has some photos on his Facebook page, including some of Chamba Lane.

Paul mentioned the LeafSnap iPhone App. identifies leaves by their shape
See the above link. He said it doesn't work on his iPhone 3G; you need a 3GS. And, he said, it favors leaves from the Eastern part of the US.

That reminded Glenn of the app Shazam that recognizes music played into your iPhone and tells you what it is. He said it should work even if you sing or hum the tune.

Pandora has a comedy channel where you can find content by Robin Williams or Steven Wright, etc. See the above link.

Google is launching a cloud-based music service. You'll be able to upload your music and then listen to it on other devices. It's in beta now and if you have a Gmail account you can request access. Further info at Music Beta by Google.

Paul talked about how Google does things by brute force, using the processing power and storage available to it. For example, its language translation service doesn't use semantic parsing but, instead, compares the input against all documents available to it that have a phrase similar to the input.

Glenn said he used to work for Xerox in the '80s & into the '90s, and their huge water-cooled computer didn't have the processing power he now has in his iPhone.

Paul went on to say that Amazon, Ebay and Google are among the larger companies moving toward cloud computing.
As a result, storage, processing and bandwidth have become commodities similar to the old days of mainframe computers. The mainframes used to be what the cloud is now and the terminals were what our home computers are now.

Paul mentioned a fact-checking site and gas prices in particular. See the above link. He also observed that the difference in pump prices seem to be smaller now than in the past.

Dave called to say he's found university courses on iTunes located at iTunes University. All sorts of topics are available and you can start exploring here.

Paul said MIT pioneered the idea of putting textbooks online rather than printing only a handful at a time.
<I've found MIT's Open Courseware very interesting and you can download the lectures directly — no iTunes needed>

Dave also said there's an app to view twit.tv, which has technology information and news podcasts. <I think you can get it live too — http://live.twit.tv>

Dave then asked for a good drawing app for the iPad. Not having an iPad himself, Paul asked listeners for suggestions. So far, Dave's tried Art Studio and Inkpad.

Finally, Dave highly recommended Garage Band for the iPad — even if you're not a musician.

Paul mentioned another of his favorite sites, rsanimate by the British Royal Society for Arts. The videos there deal with such things as "the making of stuff, where stuff goes, how we communicate and how the world is changing".
<googling rsanimate I get these results.>

Lisa called to say she likes AVG and would like to continue using it, but for the 2nd time in about a year she has a virus. It's one of those viruses that try to sell an anti-virus program, and it also keeps AVG from running.
– All anti-virus programs will fail. They're about 95% effective because virus are created faster than the anti-virus programs are updated, so some viruses sneak by.
– The guys "suggest" (not necessarily recommend) using Microsoft Security Essentials. It's a free download and a good alternative to AVG.
– As a defense against infection, Glenn said, it's ok to open an email but don't click on any links it may contain — even if the email is from a friend.
– Do a proactive check of the plugins used by your browser. Viruses can get in thru outdated browser plugins. Do a google search on the word — PuginCheck.
<I found something at Mozilla. I wonder if this is what Paul was talking about>
<see also:
Mozilla expands plug-in check to other browsers>

< articles about Microsoft Security Essentials:
Microsoft Security Essentials: Free, so what's the catch?
Warning: Microsoft Security Essentials installer zaps Automatic Updates setting
Microsoft's Security Essentials scores 'very good' with independent tester>

<Test results comparing various anti-virus programs>

Paul went on to talk about indestructible cookies. See the above link. <What is a cookie>
Though cookies set in the browser are easy to clear, there are other places where they can be stored and where it's hard to get rid of them.
<E.g. you can learn about Flash (or zombie) cookies here.>

Michael called to say his 9-year-old computer lost the CD drive. He gets the error: "Window successfully loaded the device driver, however it cannot find the device. Code 41"
– Do a Google search for "code 41".
– Check the connectors to the drive.
Michael said further symptoms are when he puts a CD in it, the light blinks but it doesn't spin.
– So then it could be an electrical outage.
– It may be a bad CD drive.
– The age of the computer indicates he has a PATA drive (not a SATA) so be sure to get the right kind.
-SATA drives are getting to be hard to find and you may have to go to Ebay to get one.
– The 2 things you don't want to get as used: CD drives & laptop batteries.
– Get an external (USB) DVD burner instead of an internal CD drive.

Michael also broke the screen of his mp3 player. Though he's bought a new one, he still wondered how to go about fixing the old one.
– Go on Ebay and use the model number and the word "screen" as search terms to find a replacement.

Tim called. His daughter's computer got a virus and lost the wireless & Ethernet connections for just one of the user profiles.
– Start it up in safe mode by holding down the F8 key while booting. You can then run AVG in safe mode. This also applies to the previous caller Lisa.
– After scanning with AVG, create another profile and bring the data over to it.
– Glenn suggested using MalwareBytes in addition to AVG.

Test results comparing various anti-virus programs

Paul went on to talk about running the Apple operating system on non-Apple hardware using Iboot (see the above link)
– It doesn't work with AMD processors, only Intel.
– It works only on certain machines and only with certain attached hardware (like video cards).
– Paul used it briefly with success.
– You first put it on a CD then boot from the CD. At that point it will ask for a disk of the genuine Apple OS. It doesn't crack the Apple OS but provides the interface between it and your hardware. It makes your hardware look like Apple's.
– Paul doesn't recommend using it in a business. You should start with an empty hard drive — if you use your Windows boot hard drive, you may lose everything. This is for experimenting only and "you didn't hear it from us"…

The disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed on this show are those of just Glenn and I and are not necessarily those of KVMR's board of directors staff or anyone else.

Marilyn wrote in to ask if Microsoft Security Essentials & AVG can coexist.
– No. Uninstall AVG. Then install Essentials and go online to let it do its updates.

Gary called to say Avast is another good anti-virus program.
He also offered to give Michael (a previous caller) a CD burner.

Last Updated:9:35 PM 8/14/2014
(corrected typo: Marylin to Marilyn)

Another SuperPad!

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 & Adam Brodel (of Smarter Broadband) did the broadcast from London; Glenn called in from Sacramento.

Red Laser for the iPad or iPhone is an app that lets you scan a product's barcode, using the camera, and find the best price. You can use it in stores that have a price match guaranty to get the best bargain. Note that the original iPad didn't have a camera, only the latest version does.

The bigger retailers have product models that differ slightly in their names. Costco might have an Office Jet 6300AE and Fry's might have an Office Jet 6300FE, for example. This makes it difficult to argue they're the same printer, for a price match guaranty, even though they are.

There are a lot of tablet computers, based on the Android operating system, coming on the market in competition with the iPad. Paul saw one called Superpad with a 10" display for $179. Among its features are HDMI output (for video), USB ports (you can hook up an external keyboard & mouse) and Wi-Fi. See the above link. Paul said he's heard that its gesture-based operating system is not as slick as the iPad's because the unit is a bit under powered — its processor runs at 1 gigaHertz.
However, Paul was impressed enough to order one.

Adam talked about his favorite apps. He likes Evernote for jotting down your thoughts. It runs on the PC, Android & iPhone. It also synchs back to a server. You can get it for free at evernote.com or pay to get more features.

Paul said the Apple iPad & iPhone run on proprietary hardware so the operating system can run only on those devices. But the Android operating system can be used in a range of hardware.
  Glenn jumped in to say, apps for Android can be specific to the type of device — e.g. apps with phone features won't work on a netbook, as he found out when he bought the Coby (mentioned here and here). Paul then said that Android version 3 will come in 2 flavors — one for cell phones and the other for devices that don't have a cell phone onboard.

Paul said he uses Cnet to read product reviews. Google the words: cnet superpad, to get reviews for it.
Also regarding SuperPad, Paul said it can be hacked to death by putting the Linux operating system on it.

Paul related the story of how the developers of the Blackberry, at the launch of the iPhone, wondered how it could run longer than half an hour. They got one & opened it up to find that it was mostly battery.

Glenn gave us an update on his project to take apart his iPhone 2G, mentioned in the last show. He had put it together wrong — cables he thought worked just by contact had to actually be plugged in. Doing so got his screen working.
The screen he bought for it has some bad pixels and Paul said that there's a little-know rating system for screens based on how many pixels are bad.
Glenn went on to say the capacitive touch screen still doesn't work and he'll be taking another look at that.
He said the got a 3GS iPhone and appreciates the faster speed. He intends to use the 2G during his international travels.

Paul told a story of when he lived in Japan and he had a colleague who's job was to order various chips from the U.S. and slice them very thinly in a device similar to a biologist's microtome. He would then take photos of the layers to document how the chip was made.

Continuing with his favorite apps, Adam mentioned Dropbox. On the PC you can have folders containing files you want to share. You can share them with other computers (and other users) or the iPad, etc. The folders automatically synch between the devices. The free version gives you 2 gigs of storage and you get extra storage when others share with you. Mobile platforms supported include iPhone, Android, Blackberry and iPad; that's in addition to the PC & Mac computers.
Adam said he doesn't like the idea that others can delete files from a shared folder, but thankfully there is a way to recover a file on the Dropbox website.

Paul said that Google Docs allows you to store files. You can do that with an app you run on your computer — you don't have to use the web interface. The app called Cyber Duck <I think this is for the iPhone> <This page has some info, I can't vouch for this site> can save & retrieve files in Google Docs. For the PC & Mac try the version of Cyber Duck here <again, I can't vouch for this site>. Those with unlocked iPhones can check Cydia for other apps.

Size limits for Google Docs

Paul mentioned his favorite apps for the iPhone & iPad. One is for Ebay and the other for Craig's List that works better than the website itself.

Adam did a search for Google mobile apps and it said to type m.google.com into your phone's browser and you'll be told what's available.

Paul said if people are struggling with the Yahoo site, especially those using dialup and mobile devices. try using the address m.yahoo.com instead of yahoo.com. That bypasses the code-ladened Javascript and gives you a faster browsing experience.

Glenn mentioned that Adam is with smarterbroadband.com and that he was on the phone a few weeks ago talking about the options for an internet provider in the Nevada City area. A previous show discussed the limits providers are starting to place on the total amount of data you can get for your subscription. Adam said this is mostly due to all of the streaming video people are watching. He said there's only so much data that can travel on the infrastructure and people watching a lot of video, especially high definition, hog too much of the bandwidth and make the connection slow for others with whom they share the connection.

Paul used to "be part of" a service provider when dialup was popular and, he said, between 2% & 5% of the users used 90% of the resources. He said it's called the "tragedy of the commons" — "what appears to be free and commonly available doesn't, necessarily, imply limitless".

Glenn asked Adam if there are new technologies on the horizon that will give us more bandwidth. Adam said there may be marginal improvement with wireless or copper but the only significant improvement will come from fiber optics.

Paul said AT&T Uverse is a service that's trying to compete with Netflix
Glenn said Uverse is more than that — it also competes with cable TV.
Adam said Uverse uses ADSL2 which Paul thinks is about 10 megaBits per second. To get the faster speeds the consumer has to be closer to the distribution point so rural users may get left out.
Paul said satellite is still an option and its offerings are getting better, but it's still iffy. <A previous show mentioned satellite service>

Carrie called about DVD labeling. She's heard that the adhesive can come off while in the player and wondered what other choices she may have.
– You can get an inkjet printer with a special holder that allows you to print directly onto the DVD. You have to use special DVDs that are made to absorb the ink — you can't print to just any DVD. There's one such printer made by Epson.
– Glenn said most DVD burners you buy today have what's called 'lightscribe' and, again using special disks that can burn the image into the disk.
– Paul's non-professional solution is to write on the DVD using a Sharpie pen.

Scott called with a suggestion for Carrie. If you have your design ready to go, you can take it to a shop & have it silk-screened on DVDs. He said much of the cost is in the design of the label. Using a service, the marginal cost goes down with a higher number of DVDs produced.

Melody called to say she's a happy customer of Smarter Broadband. The best way to reach Adam is to email him.

The disclaimer: "The views and opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers only and they don't represent anything remotely connected to KVMR its board, staff or contributors, so when we're wrong, it's us".

Glenn thanked the loyal supporters and invited the listeners to become subscribing members. <See " 3 Ways you can Join KVMR" near the bottom of the page at kvmr.org>

At kvmr.org there's a link to past shows called 'podcasting' where you can find some of the previously broadcast show.
Or you can go to the KVMR schedule page and click on the show of interest.

Last updated: 11:55 PM 4-28-2011 

Tax Time! Filing Deadlines! http://www.irs.gov

Choral Collaborating and the End Result:

Subscription Models return to Software

Free Mailing List for up to 2000 members… http://mailchimp.com/

FAraway Places Prices Map!

Anniversaries, April 12: Russians In Space , 40 , and Civil War, 150.

Dunning-Kruger: Or, how confidence and competnce are musutally exclusive , as are Freedom & Democracy

Additional notes

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They're tagged with #Zentech

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<A quick note to those still interested:
A couple of shows back there was talk about being able to record the audio of a live stream (such as the Zentech show) whether it's a MP3 or other format. I wrote up some instructions for one way of doing that and stuck it at the end of the Favorite Programs & Utilities file here. I did this about 3 days after the show, so some would not have seen the link>

The guys briefly mentioned the following: (see the links above):
It's the 150th anniversary of the Civil War
And it's the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight — 1st man in space
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Paul mentioned an article by Howard Gardner — The 8 Types of Intelligence.

Glenn had trouble with his iPhone 2G — the dock cable would work with only 1 wall socket. And though 2 USB cable used to work in connecting to his laptop, now only 1 would work. Also, when he dropped it a few months ago, the LCD screen broke. So he decided to order the screen and connector. He said he went online to watch videos of people taking the iPhone apart before starting this project.

He said taking the case off was the most difficult part even though a special tool was included with his order. It took some time to take the bezel off, which was glued down. Then there were 10 screws to remove and 3 more for the motherboard and them 3 more. Paul said he uses duct tape to hold screws as he takes them out. He said, position them on the tape in the order you take them out in case the screws are different.

Paul mentioned he used to repair TVs in the 70s. He said all the TVs were different and schematic diagrams weren't easy to get. They weren't online since there was no internet and good luck getting them from the manufacturer.

Glenn said he spent $28 for the parts for his iPhone and having it fixed professionally would have cost $99, but in that case the repair facility would have been liable for any screw-ups. So, he said, the next time he has a similar situation, he'll send it in for repair.

Talk turned to a choral piece by Eric Whitacre. He created a Youtube video of himself conducting and people who watched it would record their own part at home and send the audio to Eric who then combined all of the audio contributions into the finished piece. Paul then played an excerpt. See the above link.

The listeners were reminded that taxes are due soon. This year the deadline is the 18th because of a holiday that's specific to Washington DC but the due date applies to everyone.
– There are a lot of scams out there. Though you can be fairly sure you're on a government site if the URL ends in .gov, it's not guaranteed.
– There are various tricks to subvert the domain naming service (DNS). It's possible to type in "irs.gov" and get something else, but it's not likely.
– Glenn said that up to about 3 or 4 years ago, if you wanted to file electronically, you had to go to a professional tax preparer. Now the IRS site provides links to tax sites that allow you to fill out your forms, file them electronically and print them out.
– For more IRS or tax info go to irs.gov

One of the largest & most expensive software suites is the Adobe Creative Suite. The latest, version 5.5, costs $2600 (the Design Premium Package is $1800). But there is a subscription version where you pay for 1 month at a time for about $30 or $40.
– If you buy it outright, you naturally get updates as they become available, but generally you get no new features. <With a subscription you use the latest version>
– The difference between updates & upgrades is that updates will patch your current version of the software, like for security reasons. Updates are a change in version, which usually adds new features. The new feature in this version 5.5 is support for HTML5. Glenn said you'll need a high end computer to run this package well.

The software differences between Mac & PCs are converging, said Paul, mainly due to the programming tools — the portability features have improved. It used to be that each platform had different design teams, now the software code is just run thru the portability tools. An example is how the Firefox browser is developed — it looks essentially the same on the Mac & PC.

Paul then said he doesn't like the new Firefox version 4. He thought the changes made weren't worth the effort of getting used to them.
Glenn said he doesn't like the way the buttons look, but that's just a matter of changing the theme.
Those who want the older version of Firefox won't find it at mozilla.com, instead they were advised to google 'old firefox'.

Paul mentioned subscription services. This is where you rent a program rather than buying it. The company might be more attuned to your interests because they didn't get all of your money up front. See the 'Subscription Models return to Software' link above. Some services allow you to suspend use, when you don't need it, and turn it back on later until the subscription time allotment runs out.

Mailing lists allow you to send email to many people at once. Email services like Gmail generally don't allow more than about 50 or so recipients at a time, to prevent spamming.
MailChimp lets you can send 2000 people up to 12,000 messages per month for free. See the above link.

Paul said he thinks Yahoo is the least reliable mail service, at this time. It will block things it shouldn't and doesn't block things it should. <I guess he's talking about the spam filters>

Jeff called and said he downloaded the 30-day trial version of the AVG anti-virus program. He wanted to know how to get the truly free version.
– Uninstall the current version first.
– Then go to download.com or avg.com and get the fully free version
– Glenn said it's easier to find at download.com. It will still offer the 30-day trial version so click on the appropriate checkboxes — it should say 'basic' on the left side of the screen.
– Paul said Microsoft bought a security company and rebranded their product as Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free and a good alternative to AVG. You have to be sure not to have any pirated Microsoft products on your machine or it will not run.
<The Favorite Programs & Utilities file has a link to AVG Free that uses a download manager program, just as download.com does. It also has a link directly to the actual AVG file itself (some 151meg the last time I looked). This is handy for those people who are on dialup and use a friend's computer or who go to the library to get AVG.>

Jeff went on to ask if there is a way to print directly from the iPhone.
– It's not straightforward and there are only 2 or 3 apps that will let you do it.
– There's an app that sends the print job to the internet which you later retrieve with your home computer and print.
– iPad has an app called AirPrint, which prints to only certain wireless printers — typically HP printers. "If you want to print from the iPhone there is an app for that" called PrintCentral (it has a limited free mode to be sure it works before you pay).
– Check Cydia to see if there are any other apps.
– Use TeamViewer on the iPhone & connect to your home computer to print.

Ken called. He has Mac Book Pro & and a HP wireless printer & they constantly lose the connection. The only way for him to reconnect is from the printer's front panel.
– When you're printing wirelessly, the computer, router and printer have to be on the same network.
– The printer doesn't have to be wireless but has to be on the same network.
– A wired connection is more reliable than wireless.
Jeff said he tried the wired connection…
– When the printer is connected to the router thru the Ethernet you should disable its wireless function. Use one or the other, not both.
– There is also ad hoc networking where the connection would be directly to the printer without going thru a router, but Paul has found it to be quite unreliable.
– If you're in a remote part of the house with your Mac & you don't get the internet, then you won't be able connect to the printer either.
Jeff said he does get the internet…
– Glenn thought the internet is more forgiving than printer communications.
– Paul suggested getting the IP address of the printer:
Turn the wireless off and connect the Ethernet. Use the printer's front panel to get the IP address it — could be something like 102.168.1.01
Type that number (only that number) into the address bar of your web browser. You should get back the status of your printer.
If you don't get the status, you're not actually reaching the printer.
If you can get the status but it still won't print, there's something else wrong.
– Try updating the firmware of the printer. HP has issued updates because their printer networking was found to be sporadic.
– Firmware updates are much more reliable now than in the past. The vendors are much more vigilant and when an upgrade is offered for printers, Paul tends to accept it.
– For Mac users, the latest HP printers don't need any software on the computer — instead, they use something called Bonjour. You can add the HP software for more functions but Paul suggests keeping it simple and go without.
– The Snow Leopard operating system comes with all the drivers needed and you my want to uninstall anything HP gave you.
Jeff said he couldn't get the scanner to work with Bonjour…
– Go to support.hp.com and put in the model of your printer and also select the operating system you're using. HP should then come back with either the driver information or instructions on how to deal with it.

Glenn explained the difference between bcc: & cc: when sending emails to multiple people. Using cc: means all recipients will see the mail addresses of everyone else. That makes it easier for spammers to harvest addresses. Bcc: will keep the address hidden and is the prefered option.

Talk turned to carbonless carbon paper. Invented by NCR (National Cash Register) it's still used by some companies like Kaiser. In part, it's keeping the impact printer industry alive. Glenn said Kaiser is moving away from using the paper.

Kayak.com is a web scraper site. It checks Expedia, Orbits and others <for the best deals>.
The link to 'Faraway Places Prices Map!' (above) lets you enter your location and gives you the fares to other cities. For instance, Paul found it's cheaper to go to Finland and then to London rather than going to London directly.

Last Updated: 8:46 PM 4/13/2011