The Real Deal 173: Road Test - Navigation
Rafe and Tom talk navigation issues, take calls on the Verizon MiFi and solve some pesky computer problems.
Rafe and Tom talk navigation issues, take calls on the Verizon MiFi, and solve some pesky computer problems.
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RAFE:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/31/tech/real_technology/main5199878.shtml
TOM: Phone navigation. GPS acquisition, route info. Refreshing.
TOM: Sprint MiFi
LINKS FOR CALLS
DisplayLink’s USB-to-DVI adapter
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14057
Two monitors from one DVI port?
http://www.pcuser.com.au/pcuser/hs2.nsf/lookup+1/1FE0D4F1550192D2CA2575EC0010174A
How to Save and Retrieve Passwords in Google Chrome
http://www.ehow.com/how_4503738_save-retrieve-passwords-google-chrome.html
EMAIL QUESTIONS
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Hi Tom and Rafe,
We are buying a netbook for our daughter (computer savvy 9 year old) and there seems to be such a selection – all around a similar price. What do we need to consider? Battery Life? We plan to load windows 7 on so the operating system doesn’t matter to us, nor the the size of the HDD. Any ideas? What should we be wary of?
Thanks
Craig and Rowena
New Zealand
PS…. .show the Love 
Answer: Durability, simplicity. Almost any laptop manufacturer should have a product for you.
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Hey Tom its K-SKI,
Thanks for answering my other questions by the way!! I came across an issue/idea when my aunt always had a firefox window open to keep all her tabs open (like facebook and her email) and after a while it just slowed down the computer by having the window open 24/7. Is there a way that when you open firefox you can have multiple pages open upon startup of the program? In otherwords having multiple homepages? I still want to keep the option of saving sessions though… Thanks for your help.
Kski (K then ski)
ANSWER: Well you can have it save the tab sessions but your last sentence implies you don’t want that either. IN main settings (or preferences) There’s a dropdown menu where you can choose to have firefox show windows and tabs from last time. If you want to do the same tabs every time though here’s what you do. Bookmark all the sites you want opened and put them in a folder in your bookmarks. Then in settings, choose to open a bookmark as your home page. And make sure you have homepage set to launch when firefox launches. That way it will open all the sites in that folder in tabs.
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I recently listened to your Real Deal episode about domain names, and it got me interested in grabbing http://www.kieran.me
So I hopped onto GoDaddy and found it was taken. When I went to find out who took it, I was brought to the page of http://www.e42.com
They have grabbed the domain name specifically for the purpose of selling it at a higher price: GoDaddy wants $10 per year, they want $100.
Is this even legal?
Keep up the good work,
-Kieran in Ireland
Answer: Yes. squatting/domainers. Also, the two-letter TLDs are country-specific, and countries can do whatever they want with them. .ME is montenegro. Speaking of which, if anyone wants to buy bluefood.com, I’m entertaining offers.
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Does using component video cables on a non-HDTV increase the video quality?
Currently my PS3 is connected to by non-HDTV through the red white and yellow composite cables but there are ports on the back of my TV for component video cables and I was wondering if using a component cable would increase the video quality even if it isn’t HD. Thanks a lot for any help.
Answer: Yes. Component splits into three channels, S-video 2 and composite one. http://www.lyberty.com/encyc/articles/svideo.html
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Dear Tom and Rafe,
First of all the show is great and you two seem like class acts. I’m
emailing you with a question about headphones. I am looking for a good
pair of headphones with a microphone built in to use with my phone. My
phone is stereo bluetooth capable and as a 3.5mm headphone jack. I have
looked through the cnet reviews and I am having trouble finding good
information about this topic. There are sections for headphones and
sections for bluetooth devices but there is no section for stereo
headsets for phones that I can find. Also if you would be so kind please
no in ear headphones or ear buds or whatever they are called, they make
my ears want to cry and most of the time they don’t fit/ fall out of my
ears. I don’t care whether they are bluetooth headphones or ones that go
in my 3.5mm headphone jack. Also I use them mostly to listen to podcasts
with the occasional bout of music listening so sound quality is less
important than cost as I am a student and money is tight. One more
request if you could be so amazing I would prefer a pair that is not too
bulky. If you can help me then I will be deeply in your debt.
First time emailer
Sam From Seattle
ANSWER: (via Donald) Sounds like earphones are a no-go, or earbuds, so we’re either looking
for full-size headphones with a mic or full-size Bluetooth headphones
with mic.
Here’s a pair of Sony Bluetooth headphones you can pick up for under
$30.
http://reviews.cnet.com/headsets/sony-dr-bt22-wireless/4505-13831_7-3278
0196.html
As far as full-size connected headphones go, we’re not seeing a lot of
models under $100 that include an in-line microphone. Adapters are
available for around $20 (the iPhone-branded ones should work with most
music phones).
I loathe to recommend Skullcandy headphones, but they actually do have
some affordable options out there that include microphones:
http://reviews.cnet.com/headphones/skullcandy-icon-soft-headphones/4505-
7877_7-33712610.html
-Donald
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COMMENTS
Hello Tom and Rafe, I’m Leandro from Argentina. This morning I was
listening to the Real Deal episode 172 and in the program a listener
call with a problem he’s having using two memory modules of the same
brand in his computer. Some manufacturers (like Corsair) use a
slightly higher voltage for their memory modules. This is not a big
problem but there are some motherboards that can’t handle this very
well, one module is fine, but two or more are too much for them so
they crash. I have this problem with my previous machine. A DDR2
memory module uses 1.73v but corsair uses 1.75v, this 0.02v difference
totally crash my old ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard when I install a 4Gb
kit (2×2Gb modules). If this happen to be the problem in some
motherboards you can force the operating voltage of your memory banks
and solve it, but because this is a risky matter maybe is easy to
change modules for another brand.
I’m really enjoying the show lately, keep up with the good job!
Leandro.
Another user pointed out that it’s possible that the mobo had a bad memory slot.
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Hobo way of holding onto screws when fixing a computer
Tom and Rafe:
Tom suggested using cups or buy a screw holder in Real Deal 172.
Problem with Cups: a) ceramic ones are too deep, so you need a magnetic
screw driver to get them out. And the screws bounce around inside. b)
Styrofoam or plastic: they tip over too easily.
My solution: used egg cartons. They are stable, shallow, and free (if
you eat eggs). And you can also label them in sequence so you know
which screws came from step 1, 2, 3, etc, and or size easily.
Dickson L
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Hello Tom and Rafe,
In episode 172, Eshaan was trying to find a way to clone his XP to run in Ubuntu . There is a way to boot from an existing Windows XP partition under Ubuntu. This way Eshaan won’t have to clone apps and documents.
Link:
How to boot from an existing Win XP partition under Ubuntu
(http://mesbalivernes.blogspot.com/2008/01/virtual-box-booting-from-existing.html)
Another helpful thread:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=769883
One thing to keep in mind are hardware profiles, if you change those, Windows might ask you to reactivate. There is an experimental solution to fix this here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=6259708&postcount=167
Hope this helps and thanks for the show!!!
Vladislav.
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