Showing posts with label iphone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iphone. Show all posts

Friday, October 26, 2007

Tech Pulse 20071018: Amazon.com DRM-free MP3s, eBay Hacked, Zune Adds Podcast Support, and more!

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Lots of news including the Amazon.com DRM-free MP3 store, eBay was recently hacked leading to stolen credit card information, iPhones were unlocked then bricked then unlocked again, Zune adds podcast support, Bungie might split from Microsoft, Mac OS X Leopard is coming, and more!

Notes and links related to this episode:

Tech News
    • Apple seems to have responded to market pressure by dropping the price of iTunes Plus tracks (which are also DRM-free but come in the less ubiquitous AAC format) to 99 cents, the same price as DRM-encumbered iTunes tracks, and down from $1.29
  • Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" is nearing release: Friday, October 26th (get $20 off for a limited time through this link!)
Tech Tips
Josh's
  • Task Manager tricks for Windows
    • What happened to my Task Manager?? If your task manager's tabs and buttons seem to have mysteriously vanished, don't worry—you probably just accidentally double-clicked somewhere in the window. This is a feature, not a bug. Double-click in a blank area of the window to restore the default view.
    • Can I go straight to the Task Manager in Vista? Yep; the keystroke Ctrl+Shift+Esc instantly brings up the Task Manager in Windows Vista, without going to a list of options first. The same command also works for Windows XP/2000 PCs, which bypasses the option list screen if the PC is on a domain (of course, if your Windows XP or 2000 PC is not on a domain, then the command does the same thing as Ctrl+Alt+Del).
Anthony's
  • On newer Macs, if you have the volume muted and then plug in headphones, the Mac will automatically unmute so you can hear through the headphones. Then if you unplug your headphones, the Mac will mute again instantly!
Big-O's
  • On Macs with volume keys on the keyboard: Hold Shift while pressing a volume key to temporarily disable the volume-change sound effect)
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Tech Pulse 20070906: Drobo Review, iPhone Price Cuts, iPod Touch, HandBrake, and more!

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A guest review of Drobo, plus tons of iPhone- and iPod-related news, details about recent Monster.com and Mobipocket server hacks, Josh offers security tips, Josh picks the multi-OS free DVD ripper HandBrake, Kyle discusses iWork and iLife 08, and more!

Notes and links related to this episode:

Tech News
  • New Apple stuff:
    • iPod Touch, 160 GB iPod Classic, new iPod nano with video, new colors (no more white iPods of any kind, which along with the no-longer-white iMac makes Kyle wonder if Apple will drop the white MacBook design soon)
    • $200 iPhone price cut, which led to Steve Jobs' open letter to all iPhone customers and a $100 store credit for early purchasers
    • You can now purchase iPhone ringtones via the iTunes Music Store for 99 cents—but only after you purchase the full-length song for another 99 cents first
      • While it's annoying to have to pay for it twice, it's still cheaper than most ringtones for other phones, plus iTMS allows you to select the specific part of the song that you want to use as your ringtone
    • iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store for iPod Touch and iPhone
    • Apple and Starbucks are beginning to roll out a system to allow consumers to purchase the currently-playing song in Starbucks from their iPod Touch or iPhone
  • Follow-up on last episode's "Monster.com Hacked" story
    • From an e-mail sent to Monster users: "As you may be aware, the Monster resume database was recently the target of malicious activity that involved the illegal downloading of information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for some of our job seekers with resumes posted on Monster sites. Monster responded to this specific incident by conducting a comprehensive review of internal processes and procedures, notified those job seekers that their contact records had been downloaded illegally, and shut down a rogue server that was hosting these records. The Company has determined that this incident is not the first time Monster's database has been the target of criminal activity. Due to the significant amount of uncertainty in determining which individual job seekers may have been impacted, Monster felt that it was in your best interest to take the precautionary steps of reaching out to you and all Monster job seekers regarding this issue. Monster believes illegally downloaded contact information may be used to lure job seekers into opening a "phishing" email that attempts to acquire financial information or lure job seekers into fraudulent financial transactions. This has been the case in similar attacks on other websites"
      • Apparently, no passwords were stolen in this heist, although this is not specifically stated one way or another
    • More related problems have cropped up since, including Monster.com servers hosting malware
  • Mobipocket Account Passwords Possibly Stolen
    • Mobipocket is a very popular document reader application for Palm and Windows Mobile PDAs
    • From an e-mail send to Mobipocket.com customers: "We reset your password because we recently learned of an attempt to gain access to a Mobipocket server. Files containing name, account name, password, address and e-mail address for some Mobipocket customers were kept on this server. Although we have no evidence that these files were accessed, we changed your password and are notifying you out of abundance of caution."
    • This is a very good reason to use unique passwords for each of your Web site accounts! Ideally, use an encrypted password database unless you're skilled enough to memorize all your passwords
      • Palm OS: Strip (freeware, open-source) is an excellent encrypted password vault
      • Mac OS X: you can create an encrypted disk image using Disk Utility and store passwords in a file on that disk image, or use 1Passwd (shareware, U.S. $29.95)
      • Windows XP Professional: if you're using a secure password for your Windows account and you don't share the account with others, and if your file system is NTFS, you can encrypt a file containing passwords from the file's Properties screen (Windows Vista users must have the Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition to encrypt files)
  • Impressive new technology: content-aware image resizing using "seam carving" technology
    • stretch out or compact an image on-the-fly while preserving important parts of the photograph
    • it can be used to edit people out of photographs!
    • watch a video demonstration on YouTube
Special Segment
  • Review of Drobo by Ken Leslie
    • Drobo is a "data storage robot," basically a very intelligent, incredibly easy alternative to RAID
    • Overall Ken had very positive experience; Data Robotics provided great tech support, and the Drobo product works great as long as long as you make sure to test your hard drives before initially setting it up
    • (Listen to the podcast for the full review, including an explanation of what Drobo is, what it does, why it's useful, and more)
Tech Tips
Josh's
  • Show all file extensions, even for known file types
    • Glaring security hole in Mac OS and Windows: you can give anything a custom icon, and by default "known" file types do not show their filename extensions. Example of why this is a problem: a file that appears to be an innocuous plain-text file may actually be a Trojan horse application with a custom icon
    • You can know what type of file it really is by manually enabling a feature in Mac OS X or Windows
      • Mac OS X: Click on the desktop, click on the Finder menu, click on Preferences..., click on Advanced, put a check next to "Show all file extensions"
      • Windows: Click on Start, Control Panel (or in some cases Start, Settings, Control Panel), then open the Folder Options panel, remove the check next to "Hide file extensions for known file types" (or "Hide MS-DOS file extensions for file types that are registered"), then click OK
    • Mac OS 9.2.2 and earlier doesn't necessarily use filename extensions, and instead uses four-character "type" and "creator" codes to determine what kind of file it is and how to open it. Thus, leaving a file without a filename extension (or by adding a false extension), it's even easier for malicious users to spoof file types. I'm unaware of any workaround that prevents file type spoofing in Mac OS 9.2.2 or earlier
Software/Hardware/Site etc. Picks
Josh's
  • HandBrake - Simple yet powerful DVD ripping software for Mac, Windows, and Linux, with presets for iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, etc.
    • Oh, and did I mention it's free (as in both money and source code)?
    • It does NOT convert files from one video format to another. iTunes can do this for some file types, but not all. If you, dear reader, know of any good video converter apps for Mac or Windows, please e-mail us at josh at techpulsepodcast dot com, or bookmark the application's homepage on del.icio.us with the tag "techpulseideas"
Kyle's
  • iWork '08
    • Keynote is pretty much the same
    • Numbers rocks by being an attractive alternative to Excel
    • Pages got some much-needed upgrades
  • iLife '08
    • GarageBand - seems like the wave of coolness is over for it; the new features didn't impress me
    • iDVD - is it really needed anymore?
    • iMovie - bleh... I wasn't impressed by the overhauled design and loss of certain functionality, but certain new things like the cursor-rollover previews are cool
    • iPhoto - finally decent Web albums (requires .Mac, though - thumbs down)
    • iWeb - Google AdSense and maps, Web snippet widget thingys, usable with my own domain name! (FINALLY!)
      • Josh discusses the possibility of unethical people creating illegitimate Apple Web Widgets for use in phishing scams
  • New Apple keyboard
  • Zune!!! (just kidding)
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Saturday, August 11, 2007

Tech Pulse 20070802: Google Galore, Apple Profits and Patches, USB vs. FireWire, IPv6, and more!

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Josh, Anthony, and Kyle chat about Apple news, Google Phone rumors, Google apps, securing VNC, multi-service IM clients, USB vs. FireWire, Intel Core 2 Quad price drops, IPv6, the annoyance of required reboots, and more!

Notes and links related to this episode:

Tech News
Tech Tips
Josh's
  • Follow-up on the previous VNC tip: How to do it securely via SSL
    • VNC is not secure by default; entering passwords and transmitting data insecurely over an open wireless network, or any untrusted network for that matter, is unsafe and can potentially leave your passwords and data exposed to hackers, identity thieves, etc.
    • How-to for Mac OS X
      • easy instructions can be found here
      • no third-party software required; Mac OS X has SSH server and client functionality built in
    • How-to for Windows
      • SSH server software: OpenSSH via Cygwin (instructions can be found here)
    • Again, I recommend configuring your router to accept SSH connections through an IANA Unassigned port, since hackers may potentially look for open SSH ports (TCP port 22) to try to break into systems
Kyle's
  • (Waiting for iWork '08 before doing his tip.)
Anthony's
  • Things you didn't know Google could offer you
    • Google Docs & Spreadsheets
    • 1-800-GOOG-411
      • Josh mentioned another phone-based service (not from Google): TellMe (1-800-555-TELL) which has news (including tech news), sports, driving directions, movie descriptions and tickets, blackjack, and more—all for free
    • Google Notebook - make notes and Web clippings while browsing in Firefox
    • Google SketchUp - 3D modeling/CAD-type software
    • Kyle recommends avoiding Google Web Accelerator because it can cause problems with some sites (not to mention the privacy issues)
Software/Hardware/Site etc. Picks
Josh's
  • Adium - multi-service IM client for Mac
    • There is some disagreement even within the Adium development team on how Adium should be pronounced, although it's pronounced like the word "stadium" in the videos on the official site
    • Adium supports numerous services (AIM, Yahoo!, MSN/Live Chat, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ, Gadu Gadu, and many more), is highly customizable and very Mac-like, with an intelligent Dock icon, Growl integration, and much more
  • Trillian - multi-service IM client for Windows
    • doesn't support as many IM services as Adium and Pidgin, but has a nice interface and has video support
    • also: Pidgin (formerly known as Gaim) - for Windows and Linux, uses the same engine that powers Adium
Anthony's
  • USB 2.0 vs Firewire 400 hard drives enclosures: Which one should I get? Which is faster?
    • FireWire 400, according to tests—in spite of the fact that the USB 2.0 specification of 480 Mbps indicates that USB should be faster
Kyle's
  • Best deal for speedsters: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 2.4 GHz, 2x 4 MB cache, LGA775 socket, recently priced at $289 on zipzoomfly
  • Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 2.4 GHz, 4 MB shared cache, LGA775, recently $223 on zipzoomfly
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor, 3.0 GHz, 2x 1 MB cache, AM2 socket, recently $169 on mwave
  • Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160, 1.8 GHz, 1 MB cache, LGA775, recently $96 on newegg
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Windsor, 2.0 GHz, 2x 512 KB, AM2, recently $68 on zipzoomfly
Listener Questions
What is IPv6, and how does it differ from IPv4?
  • IPv6 is the next version of the Internet Protocol, and is already supported by major operating systems
  • One of the main advantages over IPv4 is the huge number of addresses IPv6 supports: an estimated 5,000 IP addresses per square micrometer of Earth's surface (far more than necessary for the foreseeable future, thus providing a lot of room for growth)
  • IPv4 addresses are much shorter and much easier to memorize, so it's much more practical to use it for LANs
  • See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6 for more information
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Is there any way to disable the annoying nag message in Windows XP that incessantly prompts the user to restart after installing critical updates?
  • Yes, although of course it's recommended to restart since the security provided by the updates may not take full effect until after rebooting
  • If you want to disable it anyway, you can try Auto Reboot Remover from IntelliAdmin or these manual instructions
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Saturday, July 21, 2007

Tech Pulse 20070711: iPhone Nano Rumors, E3, OpenOffice.org, Quicksilver and Launchy, GeekHosting.com, and more!

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Josh, Anthony, and Big-O discuss rumors about an iPhone Nano and share some E3 highlights, tech tips, and picks including OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice, Growl, Quicksilver and Launchy, and GeekHosting.com.

Notes and links related to this episode:

Tech News
Discuss some interesting recent news in the tech industry

  • iPhone Nano rumors are discussed - when might one be released? Around the end of the year, perhaps around the holiday season?
  • Highlights from the E3 electronic entertainment expo
    • Nintendo is bringing back the light gun: the Wii Zapper
Tech Tips
Anthony's
  • In Mac OS X, you can Force Quit an application from the Dock using the contextual menu
    • Right-click (or Control-click) on the application in the Dock and hold the Option key, and Quit will change into Force Quit
    • Josh and Big-O discuss ways to force an application to quit via the Terminal
      • Use the command top to find out the process ID number of the crashing application, then use kill -9 processid
      • Alternatively, killall applicationname (case sensitive, e.g. "Finder", not "finder")
Orien's
  • iPod setup and maintenance
    • Enabling disk mode for PC and Mac
      • Format it on a Windows PC, then you can use it on both
    • Improving performance
      • You can defrag the iPod hard drive (not recommended by Apple)
      • Alternatively, you can reformat and reload all songs
Software/Hardware/Site etc. Picks
Josh's
  • OpenOffice.org (Windows/Linux) / NeoOffice (Mac)
    • free and open source Microsoft Office replacements/supplements
    • support opening Microsoft Office, Microsoft Works, WordPerfect, and several other document formats
    • NeoOffice can open and save documents in the new Microsoft Office 2007 file formats (e.g. ".docx")
    • The OpenOffice.org team is working on their own official port for Mac OS X
    • Big-O warns that NeoOffice is slow on all but the newest hardware
Anthony's
  • Growl system alerts utility for Mac OS X
    • adds visual effects to system alerts, application notifications, etc. on your Mac

  • Quicksilver application launcher for Mac OS X
    • quick application launcher - faster than Spotlight on Tiger
  • Launchy for Windows mentioned by Josh
    • alt+spacebar brings it up, very much like Command+spacebar to bring up Spotlight on the Mac
Orien's
  • GeekHosting.com
    • Host your own Web site through this service, which has lots of great features at a reasonable price
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Friday, July 6, 2007

Tech Pulse 20070703: iPhone Hands-on Review!

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Anthony King (MacMod.com) and special guests Quinn McHenry (Tech-Recipes.com) and Jeff Phillips (MacTechEdu.com) share their personal experiences with the iPhone, tips about instant messaging and secret button combos, and more! Also discussed are the iPhone's unique headphone jack, the final word on Opera Mini 4 Beta vs. Safari on the iPhone... and why Josh is ticked at MySpace.

Notes and links related to this episode:

Tech News

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Tech Pulse 20070627: Opera Mini 4 Beta vs. iPhone, Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware Tips

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Opera Mini 4 Beta launches a preemptive strike against the iPhone, but can it possibly hold a candle to the iPhone's Safari browser? Josh and Kyle also discuss anti-virus and anti-spyware solutions for Windows.

Notes and links related to this episode:

Tech News
  • Opera Mini 4 beta tries to take on the iPhone—and fails, based on Josh's testing compared with the iPhone demo videos
    • it's fairly glitchy on Josh's Treo 680, but it is still a beta
Tech Tips
Kyle's
  • Scan with Trend Micro HouseCall before installing anything
    • You can also scan with Panda ActiveScan (removes viruses, but only tells you where spyware is so you can manually remove it) and/or X-Cleaner Micro Edition (the latter is very fast and only removes spyware)
  • Kyle suggests that NOD32 is the best anti-virus available ($30, but he feels like he's donating rather than buying)
    • NOD32 is the best at detecting unknown threats with the least false positives, according to http://www.av-comparatives.org/ (as an aside, the worst overall according to the site is Microsoft OneCare)
    • AVG Free (free for personal home use) is Josh's recommendation
    • ClamWin (free and open-source)
      • Lacks on-access scanning
      • Low footprint, good for people who only need an occasional scan
  • Products to Avoid
    • McAfee products
      • except VirusScan Enterprise, which is actually pretty decent in Josh's experience, but definitely stay away from the consumer/home version as it's notorious for slowing down PCs
    • Norton anti-virus products
      • same thing for Norton as McAfee: enterprise version may be good, but avoid the home edition
  • Kyle mentioned that he reformats and reinstalls Windows ever couple months, and that slipstreaming comes in handy. You can learn more about slipstreaming at these sites:
  • Kyle also mentioned the Apple commercial "Security," in which the PC is bothered incessantly by Vista's built-in security notifications. You can watch it online here.
Josh's
  • How to avoid spyware infections on your Windows PC
    • Immunize your PC with SpywareBlaster and Spybot-Search & Destroy (both are freeware)
    • Josh explains how to set up Spybot to automatically download updates and re-immunize whenever you manually open Spybot
    • Josh recommends using a browser other than Internet Explorer (e.g. Firefox) and setting it as the default
    • Kyle suggests that on-demand scanners may not be enough for everyone, and he recommends using real-time scanners such as AVG Anti-Spyware Pro or Microsoft's free Windows Defender
    • Kyle also suggests trying Arovax AntiSpyware
  • Josh also mentions that new releases of Safari 3 Beta apparently need to be downloaded manually—don't expect the beta version to auto-update!

Friday, June 29, 2007

iPhone Review Coming Soon!

Stay tuned! One of the Tech Pulse podcasters is getting an iPhone today, and we're planning to do a special iPhone review show next week. Subscribe to the feed to get the episode as soon as it's posted!

If you want to listen to the show live while it's being recorded, we plan on recording the review 'cast on Tuesday night around 8 PM Pacific (11 PM Eastern). Just go to www.talkshoe.com around that time and look for Tech Pulse on the homepage. If there are any changes to our live show schedule, I'll post them here.

UPDATE 29 June 2007 @ 9:30 AM - Please note that the start time has changed to 8 PM Pacific. This is still a tentative date and time and is subject to change.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Tech Pulse 20070616: iPhone, Safari 3, YouTube on Apple TV, and Parallels 3

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Tech Pulse podcasters Josh, Kyle, and Anthony introduce themselves and discuss the iPhone, Safari 3 Public Beta, YouTube content on the Apple TV, and Parallels Desktop 3.

Notes and links related to this episode:

Predictions about the Apple iPhone
  • Will it affect how other mobile phone makers design their most basic models?
  • How many units will Apple sell in 2007?
    • via Macenstein.com, Apple allegedly placed an order for 500 million Samsung NAND flash chips last monthThese were apparently only ~512 MB chips
  • How soon until they really open it up to third-party developers? Like actual apps downloaded onto the phone, usable even when you can't get a phone signal?
    • Steve Jobs recently said in the Walt Mossberg interview that it would be opened up eventually: "We're working through a way—we'll find a way to let third parties write apps and still preserve security on the iPhone."
    • At WWDC this week, Steve said developers can make Safari-compatible Web apps using AJAX and other "Web 2.0" technologies
      • The release of Safari 3 for Windows was mentioned alongside this announcement
    • Why should anyone care about third-party iPhone apps?
      • Skype/VoIP, for one thing
Safari 3 Public Beta
  • Now available for Mac... and Windows!
  • Neither Mac nor Windows version has the rumored anti-phishing features
      • This makes Safari a poor choice for anyone who might potentially fall for such scams—which is a huge portion of Internet users
  • Only the Windows version has the choice of Yahoo! search from the toolbar
  • Reasons for opening up Safari to Windows users:
    • Get Windows users more accustomed to the "Apple experience"
    • Make moolah off the search revenue
    • Make it easier for Windows developers to develop iPhone apps without having their hands on one yet
Apple TV gains YouTube support
  • So... how exactly does it work? Are all videos reencoded as H.264? Has this been done for all videos, or only the most popular ones? Will this be done for all new uploads to YouTube instantly from now on?
  • What kind of interface does the Apple TV have for browsing YouTube videos?
Parallels Desktop 3.0 released
  • Now with support for 3D gaming!!!