Starting this week, our regular recording schedule will be Thursday nights at 8 PM Pacific / 11 PM Eastern. There will likely be some weeks when we do not record an episode, and our schedule may change again; the best way to keep track of our recording schedule is to let us know that you're interested, and we'll e-mail you to let you know whenever there's an upcoming episode.
To listen live, go to talkshoe.com while we're recording and look for Tech Pulse. If you don't see us on the main page during our recording time, try the "SEE MORE" link next to "Live Now and Featured Podcasts."
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Tech Pulse 20070718: New "Mac Worm," Connect to Your PC or Mac for Free, Batch Image Resizers, TextWrangler, and more!
Josh and Big-O discuss the alleged new "Mac worm" and Mac security in general, how to remotely connect to your PC or Mac for free using VNC, batch photo resizing freeware apps for Windows and Mac, TextWrangler, and more!
Notes and links related to this episode:
Opening Thoughts
We have a regular recording schedule for the time being! You can listen LIVE on Wednesdays* at 8 PM Pacific / 11 PM Eastern (except July 25th). Just look for us on talkshoe.com during the hours when we're recording. *UPDATE, 1 August 2007: We've decided to change our regular podcast schedule to Thursday nights instead.
Tech News
- Alleged Mac worm by Information Security Sell Out
- allegedly there's an unreleased exploit that has been tested in private—this is the so-called worm
- so far, this is no more a real threat than "Inqtana," another proof-of-concept "worm" for Mac OS X that was never in the wild
- there's no real evidence that it even exists; the original source is just a Blogger page that claims there's a new Mac worm
- even if it exists, it's allegedly based on a previous hole in Bonjour that Apple already patched, so Apple would simply have to release another security patch to fix it
- even though this thing isn't even in the wild, people are already suggesting ways in which you could prevent this from spreading to your computer
- If you're really paranoid, turn off AirPort when in public
- If you're really paranoid but you need to use a shared or public network, go to Apple menu, System Preferences, Sharing (then if desired, take note of your settings under the Services and Firewall tabs so you can restore them later). Uncheck everything under the Services and Firewall tabs, and under the Firewall tab make sure it says "Firewall On"
- See the comments on Slashdot and Ars Technica for more technical ideas (but try them at your own risk—especially if they involve changing system file ownership or permissions)
- Sony releases YouTube wannabe called Crackle
Josh's
- Connect to your home computer from anywhere in the world for free using VNC
- Why pay for commercial software when you can do it for free?
- Software:
- UltraVNC (server and client apps for Windows)
- Vine Server (server app for Mac OS X, and a minimal version for Mac OS 9)
- Chicken of the VNC (client app for Mac OS X)
- PalmVNC (client app for Palm OS/Garnet), or .NET VNC Viewer (client app for Windows Mobile)
- Choose a custom port (for security through obscurity)
- Prevents casual would-be hackers from identifying that you have VNC running on your computer
- Any port listed as "Unassigned" by IANA should be okay; refer to http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers
- Choose a strong password
- Configure your software, set up port forwarding in your router, open the port in your software firewall
- Test and troubleshoot while you're at home to make sure it's working properly
- Getting magnets out of hard drives
Josh's
- Freeware batch image resizer apps - handy if you e-mail a lot of photos
- Resize! for Mac OS X and Mac OS Classic, by K Studio - very simple interface, works great for basic batch resizing needs
- works on Windows, too, but...
- BIMP Lite for Windows, by Cerebral Synergy - totally awesome, TONS of features
- batch convert between image formats (BMP, PNG, JPG, GIF, TIFF, etc.)
- batch resize, rotate, rename, output to FTP, and lots more
- Big-O's related pick: Paint .NET for Windows
- great replacement for Microsoft's Paint app
- free as in money and source code
- TextWrangler from Bare Bones Software
- freeware text editor for Mac OS X with lots of nice features
- advanced search and replace features
- great for HTML, XML, Perl, etc. coders because it automatically color-codes for many programming languages
- Don't forget to Digg us, blog about us, tell friends about us
- Add us on MySpace / follow Josh on Twitter / follow Big-O on Twitter
- You (our listeners) can submit story ideas by tagging pages with "techpulseideas" on del.icio.us
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Tech Pulse 20070711: iPhone Nano Rumors, E3, OpenOffice.org, Quicksilver and Launchy, GeekHosting.com, and more!
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
- Halo 3 looks cool, but of course it's only for Xbox 360
- Nintendo is bringing back the light gun: the Wii Zapper
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")
- 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
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
- 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
- GeekHosting.com
- Host your own Web site through this service, which has lots of great features at a reasonable price
- Don't forget to Digg us, blog about us, tell friends about us
- Add us on MySpace / follow Josh on Twitter / follow Big-O on Twitter
- You (our listeners) can submit story ideas by tagging pages with "techpulseideas" on del.icio.us
Friday, July 6, 2007
Tech Pulse 20070703: iPhone Hands-on Review!
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
- iPhone Supported Instant Messaging Services - courtesy of Tech-Recipes.com
- Meebo now works! AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo!, and MSN
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