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Weekend of October 26th, 2012

This week Dave and his tech panel answer more of your questions in our Miami studios via the Ask Dave Hotline. Call us ... toll-free 1-800-899-INTO (4686) ... with any consumer electronics question, opinion, help another listener or tell us what your favorite app is and why. You can also participate via our FREE "Into Tomorrow" App (iOS/Android/Intel AppUp). Thank you for your participation!

 

ITTV Video Update

Etón Corporation makes some really fun and helpful products, including several that are solar powered. We've been playing with some of their most recent products that -- in addition to providing entertainment -- can help keep your devices charged and keep us safe during a major storm. Also, Chris Graveline takes us back to the inauguration of ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the U.S. on "This Week In Tech History.

Listeners & Guests on the show this week:

For ALL the details ... be sure to listen to the show by downloading the MP3 or clicking the RED & WHITE "Play" button on the media player, both on the right-hand side of this page.

HOUR 1:

Tech News & Commentary

 

 

 

Mike in Pembroke Pines, Florida listens via the iPhone App asked: "I have a MacBook Pro - late 2010 Edition. I wanted to put Windows 8. Wondering if it was compatible like the previous versions are and what the major differences would be."

 

Bootcamp 4 doesn’t support Windows 8, so you may run into driver issues if you try to force it to install anyway. Future versions of Bootcamp will almost certainly support Windows 8, but it may not happen until a little bit after it Windows 8 is released.
If you want to run it, for now you will have to install it in a virtual environment, something like Parallels, VMWare Fusion, or VirtualBox.

That should let you use it without too many issues, but you won’t get the performance you would on a native installation, and you won’t be able to do some things like play games.

About the differences, you will lose the start menu and gain a large screen full of active tiles, it introduces File History, since you have a Mac you may be familiar with Time Machine, File History is basically that but for Windows.

You will also be able to store your files on SkyDrive and you will use the menus on top of windows and get a full Ribbon style interface instead.

The Blue Screen of Death is gone, and the Task Manager is modernized and reworked, which could be either a great way of trouble shooting problems using a more informative tool, or another complex piece of software to hang when your computer decides to stop working.

The Windows Store will allow you to buy software including productivity applications and games. Some people talk about Xbox integration, it looks like it won’t be as cool as it sounds. Instead of integrating to the console, you will just get something called Xbox for Windows on the Windows Store, and that’s where the Windows games will be.

 

For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

The "Into Tomorrow" team discussed the latest apps that they have been playing with recently.

• Mark recommends: Carmaggedon, $1.99


 

"A number of years ago, I played a little game called Carmaggedon on my PC. The objective was simple. Either crush all your opponents cars, kill all the pedestrians in a zone, or both. The game was goofy and brutal at the same time. It's biggest claim to fame was that the game got banned in its home country of Germany, and eventually was allowed to be sold only after they changed the color of the blood in the game to green. Apparently we were killing Vulcans. Anyway, Carmaggedon has come to iOS, supporting iPhone (including the 5), iPad (including Retina display) and iPod. I found the game to be fun. Good sound, great graphics. But I wish they would've let me steer by tilting my device instead of using thumb buttons to steer right and steer left. That simply doesn't feel natural to me, since I know how to actually drive. Carmaggedon was free for its first 24 hours (I hope you noticed it and grabbed your copy then, like I did) but now it sells for $1.99. If you're feeling bloodthirsty, this blast from the past is for you. If you're feeling bloodthirsty and have Android, they'll have your version out next year." -- Mark

 

• Rob recommends: DJAY for iPhone, $0.99


 

"It transforms your iPhone or iPod touch into a full-fledged portable DJ system and integrates with your music library, giving you access to your favorite tracks and playlists. You can perform live, record mixes on-the-go, or enable Automix mode and let djay mix your favorite playlist from your music library automatically. I've used this to mix my Zumba® class playlist. I like to mix my songs instead of having too many breaks in between songs, gotta keep the heart rate up. The app is fairly easy to use. And it's fun. You can slow down the beat or speed it up and makes for some interesting remixes. Download from the App Store for 99 cents." -- Rob

 

 

Larry in Newbern, Tennessee listens to the Podcast and asked: "I was wondering if there was an app or anything for the iPhone where you're playing a game and it has a chat room in there and stopping your game and tying in gets frustrating on that little keyboard and you hit the wrong buttons a lot. I was wondering if there was an app where I could use my headset and voice to text, something like that."

 

It depends on what iPhone you have. For example the iPhone 4S comes with a built-in speech-to-text option. So, if you’re using that one, you should see a little microphone on the keyboard that should allow you to dictate text to your phone.

Even if you speak the text, your game will still likely be paused while you talk, so it may not give you as good a solution as you might want.

Other than that though, you won’t find anything that will do what you need. There are text-to-speech apps for the 4S and the previous iPhones, but they require that you open the app first to dictate. They won’t integrate with games and other apps.

Unfortunately, you won’t find a good solution that does not involve using the phone’s keyboard.

 

For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

 

Mark from Harlan, Indiana listens via the Android App and asked: "My question is about my internet DSL connection. I would love to cut my cable line and use internet tv. But my problem is the very inconsistent speed I receive. I pay for 7 meg. But rarely hit 3 meg. They replaced my modem with no real difference. I also get times with no service. Is DSL a fancy name for dial up. Thank You."

 

No, DSL is actual broadband, but what kind of speeds you get depend on a lot of things that you don’t really have much control over.

The current fastest DSL demoed is something around 300mbps, but that’s being fairly close to a node, when you move a little farther away from the node your speeds start dropping, and even using the same connection, at double the distance the speeds dropped to 100mbps. Most residential DSL is considerably slower than that.

Now, the reason you’re getting 3 mbps instead of 7 mbps, may be that you’re far away from a node, but it may also just be that the phone wires around you or even in your home are very old, the quality of the wires affects your speed.

If your problem wasn’t the modem, and your ISP hasn’t offered up any other alternative, you may be out of options. You talk about wanting to cut the cable and use Internet TV, have you considered using the cable company to do that? they might be able to give you faster internet access, and you may be able to get rid of their TV service using the internet service. Remember, however, that getting rid of actual TV service and trying to use the Internet as your television does come with its own set of problems. You won’t have any live sports, or at least very little live sports, unless you pay for an ESPN subscription. And you won’t be able to watch some of the most popular network shows until a day or two after they’re aired. Some networks archive shows the same day, but if the show is hot they like to leverage that. When you break it all down, while you can easily replace premium service like movie channels and such, it is usually not worth it to replace basic TV service with streaming content only.

 

For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

 

 

 

HOUR 2:

Tech News & Commentary

 

 

Stephen in Melbourne, Australia listens to the Podcast - calling in via the App asked: "I want to do some voice recording. I was thinking of doing Live365 to do a radio show, or perhaps do a talk podcast. I have a mixer, but I was wondering if I should plug the mixer into a smaller laptop or maybe use a tablet, I know a tablet's more mobile. Just wondering what the best way to go is. Also, can you play my music on Live365, I just looked at the website and I'm a bit confused.."

 

A tablet may just not be an option for you... you may not have a way to connect that mixer to the tablet at all. Even if you do, your choice of software will be much more limited, both for recording and for editing whatever you record.

You mention portability, a tablet would be a little more portable, but laptops are still mobile and, how much portability do you really need in your recording studio?

For the sake of flexibility, you should probably go with the laptop, you’ll have more options for record, more options for editing, more options for streaming live (if that’s what you want), more space to store your episodes, and a much higher likelihood of it working with your mixer.

You asked about Live365 and if you can play music on it, you can, there’s nothing to it, you just play the music and that’s it, they pay for the licensing from your monthly membership fee. Just make sure you’re choosing a service tier that offers decent sound quality if you’re going to focus on music, Live365 offers up to 128kbps which should be around CD quality.

The issue with using a tablet to record is that, depending on the tablet, you might have to buy some additional adapters. The iPad, for example, will take a microphone in the headphone jack, but it’s a mic level input and records mono only. Your mixing board will usually give line level output. Your best bet for the iPad is to buy a recording adapter like the MIKEY from our friends at Blue Microphone. It connects to the iPad 30 pin connector (nothing for Lightning, yet) and offers stereo recording of line level input and offers a USB passthrough connector at the same time. MIKEY isn’t cheap though, it’ll cost you around $100.

 

For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.

 

 

 

 

 

Geoff in Jersey, British Channel Islands - calling in via the App called us last week and asked us how he could rescue some information from a hard drive after his laptop was damaged by lightning. He called back this week and let us know how it went.

 

Thank you, Geoff.

For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.

 

HOUR 3:

Tech News & Commentary

Janet in Bristol, Connecticut listens to the podcast and calling in via the App asked: "I would like to buy a WiFi radio and I was wondering which one you'd recommend."

 

We’ve heard good things about the Logitech Squeezebox Radio, it’s portable, has good sound and a lot of sources to choose from, but the optional battery and remote will cost you an incredible $50 on top of the $130 price.

You can check out the CC WiFi radio from C.Crane for $100, it comes with 3 quick-access preset buttons on the front of the radio, but using the remote, you can save up to 100 presets for quick access to stations but stations come pre-programmed.

If you want something more high end, the Sonos Play:5 will stream radio, let you play media files from your computers or network storage devices, and can be controlled by a smartphone, but it will cost you about $400.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

 

 

Brett in Lexington, Kentucky listening on 1250 AM asked: "I've got a Samsung Epic on Sprint. It's a great phone. The only problem I'm having is everything downloads to the internal memory. I have a card, but only a few things I can transfer to the card. Is there a way to move some of the programs stored on the phone to the SD card?"

 

To be able to move apps into the memory card the apps have to be set up in such a way that they’ll allow it, not all of them are.

You have a couple of ways to move everything you can to the memory card. Android leaves you with the hardest way, which is by looking at the application information for every single app you have installed and see if you get an option that says “Move to SD Card”. If you get the option, tap it and it will move it.

An easier way of doing it is by using an app called Apps2SD. It will search through all your apps and give you a list of the ones that can be moved. It will even give you an option to move all the ones that can be moved. The problem is that it won’t actually move them.

Instead, it will open the Application Info page for the first app, and wait for you to tap “Move to SD”. After you do, it will wait for the application to be moved by Android and for you to hit the back key. When you do, it will open the application information page for the second app and will wait for you to tap move to SD on that one. It will keep doing that until it can find no more more apps that can be moved. If you run into an app that you do not want to move, then you can just hit the back button and it will move on to the next one.

Keep in mind that moving apps (even the ones that are designed to be moved) can have negative consequences. The main one and first one you’ll notice is widgets. If an app includes a widget, you must keep it on the phone’s internal memory to have access to the widget, otherwise you won’t even have the option to put it on your home screen.

It’s also good to remind everyone that there are three different types of memory we discuss, when we’re talking about a smartphone. There is RAM for running apps, there is internal storage on the smartphone, and then there is external storage on an SD card (if the smartphone supports it and you have one). The reason this is an important distinction is that when you run out of RAM, your smartphone starts to run very slowly because apps have to be swapped in and out of memory as you use the phone. And if the internal storage fills up, you’re headed for major problems as there are some processes running on your phone that simply will not work without internal storage.

The iPhone avoids some of this confusion by not supporting expandable memory. You’ve got RAM for running apps and internal storage--however much you’ve paid for when you bought the phone, and that’s it. So when you’re considering purchasing a new smartphone, make certain you understand how much capacity you’ll be getting in all three areas. Mark’s Droid 4, for example,  has 1GB of RAM, and that’s made a huge difference in simultaneous apps not slowing the phone down.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

Jason in Wellington, Florida listening via our free Android app asked: "How do I make my smart phone battery last longer? I have a Samsung Captivate and I can only use it for about two hours before the battery goes dead. I've started carrying 3 extra batteries just to get me through school! It really gets on my nerves. Any tips? I don't watch videos or anything ... just check my email often or random Google searches. And when I'm done, I end all processes."

 

Battery life is a major concern among smartphone users. But, there are some features you can turn off to help save some juice. We've talked a lot about it in the past, but it's always to refresh our memory.

Some helpful tips we can give you include:

- Turning off Bluetooth. If you leave it on, it will keep searching for Bluetooth devices, which drains your battery.

- You can also turn GPS and Wi-Fi when you aren't using them.

Other smartphone users also turn to 2G radio coverage vs 3G or 4G, but beware ... you won't have the best Internet access possible.

We're wondering what our listeners do to save some battery juice. If there are some tips you'd like to share with our audience, please call us now: 1-800-899-4686.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

 

 

 

Willy in Bristol, Virginia listening online asked: "I've got an iPhone 4S on Sprint. Is it possible for me to be able to call 5 or 6 of my friends and connect them all to a conference call? If it is, how would I do that?"

 

An iPhone will allow you to make conference call with up to 5 people. What you need to do is call the first person, then tap "add call" and dial the number for the second person, once they pick up -- tap on "merge call", then just keep doing it until you've added all 5 members of the conference call. ROB: Keep in mind that you will be charged for every single individual call, whether the 5 are talking to each other or not. Sprint will consider each call a separate call. CHRIS: Also, depending on your plan, Sprint may limit the number of calls you can place at one time to less than 5. Five is the iPhone's limit, not necessarily Sprint's limit.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

 

If you have any questions about any of this week's show info, please email us here.

This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners:

Dane-Elec: Several 8GB USB Flash Drives from Marvel’s The Avengers Collection

Magix: Copies of Music Maker 2013 – Create your own tunes! Even beginners can easily create music.

Microsoft: Copies of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013 Software

Steve Nicholls: Copies of his book "Social Media in Business – Succeeding in the New Internet Revolution” – A guide to the understanding of social media’s business value.

 

 

 

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