December 11, 2008

[ Music ] ^M00:00:08 [ Background Music ] >> Coming up on CNET Live, pleather and bedroom computing. >> Yeah, this is when I get nervous. >> Plus how to turn your iPod Touch into an iPhone and your iPhone into a microscope. >> Confused yet? You will be. Your calls and video questions coming up as well, CNET Live starts now. ^M00:00:22 [ Music ] ^M00:00:28 [ Background Music ] >> Hello folks! Here we are back at CNET Live, feeling good about it. Brian Cooley, Dr. Tom Merritt and of course Mr. BT, Brian Tong. >> What's up fellas, how you doing? >> BT in the nook and we are here to do what we do every time, this time each week taking your calls and trying to help you out to fix what you got or get the right thing that you want. >> Give us a call at 888-900 CNET, 888-900-2638 is the number. When you call Christine and will answer the phone so don't be freaked out when you hear a lady's voice, because we're in here, she gets you all the information you need to know to get on the show. >> Okay, before we start all that madness, let's check out a couple of things we crave. ^M00:01:03 [ Music ] ^M00:01:10 [ Background Music ] >> These are some of our favorite things from the Crave blog at crave.cnet.com. There is a way to turn your iPod Touch into a phone. >> Whoooh! >> That is like the most popular way. There's lots of way to do this actually but Truphone VoIP App from the iPhone App store, you can get for the iPod Touch, the MP3 player not the phone. iPod Touch can surf the web via WiFi >> Right. >> So you take the Truphone app, you put it on the iPod Touch, you plug in some earbuds with the microphone that are compatible with the iPod Touch >> Okay, like the ones that comes with the iPhone. >> Yes, so if you could get them from a friend who has an iPhone and not using them that would work and boom, you're making VoIP calls over your iPod Touch. Turn your iPod Touch into a phone. >> Like you said, this is out of the app store, legit, Apple's okay with it. >> Yeah, absolutely. It's not a jailbreak solution. Yeah you can--you have to buy it. Truphone will charge for certain calls so you know keep that in mind. It's a VoIP service, it's not everything for free but if you're in and around WiFi a lot, hey why not you can make some calls. >> Yeah, if you're using your iPod Touch on the same place a lot like at work or something and you want it to be your personal phone at your desk aside from the office line or would have you, this is great. I've got something that's also i related, in this case, it's a case that has a lens on it for your iPhone because you know most cell phone cameras are crappy at close up. So if you want to take a picture of a meal-- >> Yeah 2-megapixel iPhone camera. >> And it's just not great for getting those close-up photos 'cause it doesn't focus to that depth but how many folks are trying to get a picture of something in their hand or they wanna put a photo up on Yelp or something. >> I was doing this Flickr group where I was taking picture of my lunch everyday for 30 days. >> And if you get too close-- >> Whatever you think of that as silly or not it was fun and, but I couldn't really get a good picture. >> Turns too much. So this is a close up lens, its adjustable as well, you can slide it on or off of the actual lens as you see on the photo there and it works really well. We did a bunch of test photos around here. So if you go up to Crave you can see the sample pictures of like a watch on someone's wrist made a huge difference in clarity. I mean the one on the right is clarified, the one on the left isn't and it's like wow, it really works just like a 40-dollar case plus lens, so why not? Great thing for the person who is on your list who's got an iPhone and likes to use the camera. Okay, let's go on to--we will have a video call for this? >> Yeah, let's start with the video questions. Don't forget folks, you can have your face on the show, record a video, upload it to your favorite service then send the link to us cnetlive@cnet.com. First to the gate today Brad from Wisconsin. [ Swoosh ] >> Hi guys, Brad from Wisconsin here. Say, I was looking to buy a new camcorder this year and I was looking at the Samsung SC-MX20 it has a normally 8 gigabyte hard drive in it and it's one of those flash memory camcorders. QVC is selling the same camcorder but it has a 16 gigabyte hard drive in it for a fairly good price and I'll put the link in my email or if you have any other suggestions because I'm looking for a camcorder that I could basically shoot everything with and have great video quality along with long battery life. [ Swoosh ] >> Huh, well the camera he's looking at is relatively limited. We don't have a formal review of it but looking at user reviews around the web, the 20 and the 10 which is the lower model, I think he's talking about, they're fine, they're get what you pay for type cameras. >> Yeah 165 to 250 bucks. >> These are very inexpensive >> Flash memory. >> Yeah. >> These are very basic so you can even find them a little cheaper than the flip video mini HD. >> Which is surprising. >> But that is a lot easier to use. >> And it's an HD. >> And gonna go in that level of camcorder, you know if you're not gonna jump up to the next level of a real honest to goodness fully featured camcorder, you want something that's simple and easy, I go for the flip. >> Yeah, the flip for simple to easy and of course it's high def. You get the high def model which is as low as what, 200 bucks I think. Another thing though, I gotta tell you, I really still like it for a standard def camera sticking with tapes because you get the best quality within standard def, going with mini DV still the tapes are easy to just put away when you're done so you never have to wipe the drive and possibly lose everything or wipe the flash memory. I'd really consider that. My recommendation for you is a Canon ZR-930. It's currently my favorite budget tape based standard def camera and it also has a microphone input jack which is kinda rare in that class. Look at one of those, okay. Let's get to the phones and we're gonna check out our first caller right here, Brandon in South Carolina. He's got one of those problems that will drive you up a wall. Hello Brandon. Welcome to CNET Live. >> Hey, how you doing? >> We're doing good. >> Doing good, good. Yeah, I got a desktop that well, I noticed one day it started turning on and off by itself so I disconnected it from the internet, still doing it. Now, I've decided to replace the power supply, still doing it. The fans in the inside work, so I don't know what else to really try next without dropping some money on something. >> One question I wanna ask you about the--well, you've already replaced the power supply so it's kind of the horse is out of the barn on this one but when it reboots, do you hear any clicking sounds as it restarts? Or does it just kind of quietly reboot? >> As far as I can tell everything sounds normal. >> Alright, so it may not have ever been a power supply. >> Actually I got it to run one time to actually back up my files long enough-- >> Oh good. >> --and they ran for like 20 minutes but then again it starts shutting right back off. >> Now when it shuts off does the power go out or does it shut down? >> Ah, it's kinda like, I don't know, like the power ran away then it goes out and then I'll turn it right back on and then it wants to restart Windows, so like someone is shutting it off. >> So it restarts itself without you touching it. It does a cycle really as opposed to a shut down? >> Kind of, yes. >> Is that normal behavior though when it was working fine? If you plugged it in and started it, it would just start up on its own? >> Yeah, it would work like a normal PC would. >> So it's just losing power. When you replace the power supply, I'm assuming, you checked all the connections to make sure that the power supply was plugged in well to the mother board and to all the components inside? >> Uh-hmm >> See, a mother-- >> So I checked that with both, with the old one and with the new one. >> Yeah, bad mother board could do this also. >> That's where we're going. It's like you've eliminated the power supply, you've eliminated the connections so then you got to look at like what's going on, there might be a crack in the mother board, there might be some kind of loose connection. >> Or it could be sending erroneously a reboot signal through one of those other cables that goes through the mother board and senses various state, so without having the machine in front of us-- >> Did you make sure the CPU was still seated well when you were in there replacing the power supply? >> As far as I could tell everything, you know, looked to be intact, fans running, everything nice and tight, a little bit of dust but other than that it looks like nothing is wrong. >> Yeah, it looks normal. >> Yeah, that's my only other Hail Mary for you is get a can of compressed air and not just clean off the mother board but clean out all the slots so there's nothing shorting inside of you PCIs or any of those. It's a long shot but it's cheap and easy to try and I have had an issue before where static conductivity across the mother board was caused by dust. >> Okay. >> So sorry, we can't doubt it any better. It's one of those--we need a hands-on on that one but we'll see if anyone really-- >> Well, he's done a really good job at troubleshooting down the line to where it's sort of yeah, there's not much hope for that mother board but let's try a few last things. Let's take a look at a new laptop now. This one apparently has a bedroom use of some sort. Just watch [ Noise background ] >> Hi I'm Michelle Thatcher Senior Associate Editor for CNET.com and today we're looking at Gateway MC7801u. This laptop has a new design departure for Gateway. It has a glossy maroon lid with a black pleather stripe going down the center. Inside of the case you've got a lovely 16-inch display that gives you to 16 to 9 aspect ratio that's perfect for displaying HD movies. The display is also an edge-to-edge screen kind of like we've seen on latest MacBooks which gives just a really smooth look to the interior of the laptop. The keyboard is backlit. It has orange backlighting which is really handy if you like to do a lot of computing in bed and along side the keyboard there are some light touch media controls that completely disappear when the computer is off. On the front of the case there are dual headphone jacks so that you can share your movies and music with a friend. It's a feature that I really like, it's quite handy. With all of these media features it's kind of a surprise that the MC7801u doesn't incorporate a Blu-ray drive. You're gonna have to get all of your HD video content online or from other sources but the advantage of course to leaving that drive out is that the price is quite low, it's less than a thousand dollars. Overall, this is a pretty good HD media laptop as long as you don't rely on Blu-ray Discs. I'm Michelle Thatcher and this is the Gateway MC7801u. >> How can you not love a laptop with black pleather stripes? >> I can tell you how. >> Really? >> I'll do that later. >> Okay. We got another video first. This is a video question to tackle coming from Theresa a.k.a. Rogue Tess [phonetic] in California. >> Hi Tom and Brians, this is Theresa Rogue Tess seeking advice on the best camcorder for my son. He used to have access to awesome equipment in high school and will have access in a year or so as a film major in college, but 'til then, what's a good camcorder in the 500 to about 1,000 dollar range for mostly action videos. The CNET reviews are helpful but first I need to know how to think about the best choice for him. Thanks. I love the show. >> Okay. Theresa, we have a complete list of all the things you should consider when buying a camcorder over at CNET's camcorder section. Just click on the camcorders on the left side and then there's a buyer's guide right there on the left-hand navigation. There are a lot of factors in there like 10 or 11 of them. Let me boil it down a little more for your son. If he's shooting a lot of action videos, something like sports or whatever he's doing, one thing he's gonna want is a good, low-light camera. Even if he's not shooting in low-light, the ability to gather light better allows the camera to function better when it's moving fast and to get things without smear and blur. So that is one thing to look for is low light ability, possibly a three-chip camera. They can be had in small form factors that aren't terribly expensive and so that will give it a better ability to both gather light and grab things accurately. I am not a big fan of all the HD cameras unless he wants to get into editing HD and has the right software because right now the consumer cameras have a couple of different formats and not every editing software handles them really readily. >> HD on tape would avoid that problem. >> Right. HDV is the way to go. But if you get one of these hard drive HD camcorders with the AVCHD format, a lot of the editing software either can't handle it or handle it with a kluge rendering process that I won't get into too much. But go to this, go to this site, this page on our camcorder's site. But you need to know a little about whether he wants HD or not and what size camera he's willing to deal with but 500 to 1,000 is a great range to be shopping. You'll do well in the low end of that. >> Right. Hope that helps you out, Rogue Tess. Let's take a call. >> Skip those phones, I wanna--go right in here to a fascinating question, our first of its category, Cold Weather Tech. >> Aha. >> Let us go to Lauren who is in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Hello Lauren welcome to CNET Live. >> Hey too, how are you guys doing? >> We are doing good. >> I'm looking for the best headphone/MP3 player setup for like minus 30 degrees Celsius because I've tried the iPod but like I have a 30 gig fifth gen video and it literally freezes on me if it gets too cold. >> That is a hard drive issue. >> Yeah, the hard drive-based MP3 players are rated usually down to about 0 degrees Celsius, 33 degrees Fahrenheit. They'll play under that but not, the farther you go under that the worse it is. So you need a flash-based layer, you need to keep it inside and-- >> Right. >> My Nano does the same thing though. >> Really? >> Do you keep it inside the coat? >> Yeah. >> You're down so far. You're down so far in the cold you need to bring a glove warmer and wrap it around the Nano. >> Or get on of those chemical hand warmers, they are like a buck, they last all day. Go stock up on those for the winter at the hardware store and just stick in the pocket with that seriously because you're outside of service temperature. >> Now headphone wise, I mean other than keeping a flash drive warm, I don't know for certain if there's any MP3 players that are better in cold weather than others. Look at the snow boarding sites, that's what Christine, our call screener suggests and see if you've got any recommendations for people that are out in the cold constantly. For the headphone side of things, the Phonetopias from Sony, I know have been used by quite a few snow boarders, the Skullcandy headphones are used by quite a few snow boarders with good results. But again I would poke around at some of those review sites and try to find some recommendations that way. >> Yeah, the headphones and the earbuds all should work fine at those temperatures but the key to is just to get earbuds and slap ear muffs over them. I mean as opposed to looking for a true cold weather separate set of headphones that are like opening here. >> Yeah, there is something from Gero, it's like ear pads with the speakers built into them 'cause when you go for buying something like that but-- >> Yeah when you are buying special use headphones. I've get one good set at earbuds and I'd go get whatever kind of ear warmers you want to slap over them. Okay, thanks for the call on that and please try and stay warm. >> Okay, thanks. >> Yeah. >> I don't know where on earth you're going on those temperatures. >> Calgary man, it's just cold up there. >> That cold? >> I don't know. >> That's real cold. >> Not for the rough riders. >> Okay. There is an interesting one in here, Tucker is in Colorado and we get to work on some specialized hardware for him. Tucker, welcome to CNET Live. >> Oh thank you gentlemen, I appreciate it. How are you guys doing today? >> We're doing all right, how you've been? >> Great. Hey, I was wondering. I am disabled and I have been using Drag and Dictate for many years now and that works great for me and I'm looking for more environmental control systems, more ways to interface with my computer. Do you guys know any, what is out on the market? >> Have you tried out Windows Vista yet? >> Yeah, that's what I'm using now. >> Okay. But have you tried out the built-in speech recognition control in Windows Vista? >> No, I haven't. I've just been using Drag and Dictate for long. >> Turn, turn it on and play around with it. It's surprisingly good. It's one of the few things out of the gate from Windows Vista that I've found pretty impressive. It takes a little getting used to as I'm sure, you know, you probably remember when you first picked up Dragon back in the day. It took a little while to get it right but that is--the first thing off the top of my mind is to try the built-in Vista speech recognition because it's really good. And Brian? >> Yeah, I mean that's-- >> The Dragon is also a top product. >> Yeah! You're kinda doing the two main things, enable the assistance technologies in Vista, even in XP they're pretty good and then Dragon is the, Dragon is the king! I mean Dragon is the king of voice. >> Speech recognition and XP don't even come close to what they can do with Vista. I mean it's really natural language. >> Oh significantly better? >> Yeah! You don't have to train it. I mean you can train it to fine tune it. It really recognizes stuff out of the box. >> Yeah! You're doing the main stuff right. Specifically, are you having issues with keyboard and mouse? I mean what's the disability you're dealing with? >> Yeah, so actually I have limited use of my hands. >> Okay. >> So basically, it's a lot--sometimes it's a mouse issue when I don't, when I'm not using speech recognition, so a lot of [inaudible] do rise and leg falls but more specifically, I like to stay with mouses. >> Yeah! You know I know of a shop over, you know, it's not gonna do any good. It's here in the bay area but I'm gonna try and find you a link and we can put it in the show notes. Yeah, I think it's still around in Berkeley, California. That really has a good stock of those kinds of products, specialized keyboards and mice? People who have got some disability in their hands and arms, so I will try and dig up that store link and I'm sure they sell online and that might be useful for you as well. >> Well, great. I appreciate it gentlemen. >> Alright, thanks Tucker, appreciate the call. >> Time to take a quick break but we will be back with a Download of the Week that makes Brian Cooley's twittering life much easier. Stay with us. ^M00:16:58 [ Music ] ^M00:17:18 [ Background Music ] >> Hey everyone, I'm Molly Wood, host of CNET TV's Mailbag. Here at the Mailbag, we love to read your letters and emails, the lover mail even the hater mail, and apparently you like it too 'cause when we tried to make the show biweekly, boy, did you raise the seats. So we're back to every week and you can all just calm down. But don't stop writing in 'cause I need you, bad. Look for the new edition of Mailbag every Wednesday at CNETTV.com. [ Music ] >> Welcome back to CNET Live. Keep those calls coming. Phones are open 888-900-2638, 888-900-CNET. >> But first, it's time for our Download de la Week. ^M00:17:58 [ Music ] ^M00:18:04 [ Background Music ] >> Download of the Week is brought to you by our good friend of CNET'S Download.com purveyors of spyware-free free software and I'm looking at something new from the Adobe Air System. >> Okay. >> This isn't made by Adobe but Adobe Air allows web apps to run locally. >> Right. >> So they can run in the clout or they can run without the clout. >> Java light! >> This is Tweak Deck. This allows you to take Twitter, the little microblogging service and take all the people you follow and break 'em up into groups and still access the twitts even when you're not online. >> And the best part about it is I see it has absolutely instantaneous updates just like Twitter because here is our earlier caller but we had to let go. Sorry about the hard question about the VP. I'll try to find something simpler next time. >> N1 [phonetic] is calling us out for not taking the VPN question. Nice. I love Twitter. >> Anyway, that said-- >> Send it to us CNET Live or go to the forum, forum.cnet.com. So anyway, the thing that you can do here is break it up into groups, so we got all twitts. We got the replies. All the most important post I wanna see which are my wife's-- >> Aha. >> I mean I've just have one, my wife's post, not my wives! >> You wanna put an apostrophe on that for us? >> And then you know, I've got people in the bay area. If I just wanna see what people are doing hanging out around me, people that play Warcrafts, find out when they're going online, podcasters. >> You were aboard before the show, weren't you? >> I'm always aboard. >> Yeah. >> So anyway, Tweak Deck, take a look at it. You can find it at--what is the URL? Tweakdeck.com. I know that! It's funny how that works. >> Okay, let's get on to line 4. Ethan's been waiting quite awhile here. Question about headphones with his iPod. Hello Ethan! Welcome to CNET Live. >> Oh yeah, I just have a question about the Apple in-ear headphones 'cause I'm thinking about getting an iPod Touch, and I wasn't sure whether to get the first gen or the second gen. The first gen is a lot cheaper but like the new headphones, they have a speaker control and the new inline mic and I was wondering will those work with the first gen Touch? >> BT? Hook us up on this one. >> Yeah, you'll definitely -- if you wanna use those features, you definitely wanna go with the 2nd gen iPods Touch. These new in your headphones work with all the current generation iPods, so the current Nano, the current iPod Touch of the 2nd gen and the classic, so that's where you wanna go. Don't get the 1st gen one 'cause the remote and the inline might won't work at all with the 1st gen, so -- >> Okay Ethan, thanks for the call on that one. Let's go to John in New York got a question about one of the legendary battles of today's hottest smart phones, welcome to CNET Live. >> Hi. >> Hi. >> I was wondering should I go with the iPhone 3G 16 gig or the HTC FUZE, I'm currently on AT&T. >> Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Tong. >> Brian Tong. [ Laughter ] What's up John? I just had a good question, how do you wanna use your phone like do you wanna do more business stuff or you really just wanna use it as a phone and maybe some multimedia here and there? >> A phone mainly and a lot of texting. >> Okay, a lot of texting. So it depends on what you like. The HTC FUZE does have a QWERTY keyboard, a physical QWERTY keyboard. Also the HTC kinda has their Touch Flow interface which in my opinion is probably the second coolest interface on a cellphone. Another thing is with storage capability, with the FUZE you can put up to a 32 gig mini -- microSD card in there where's the iPod or sorry the iPhone only goes up to 16. I don't know if you're a physical keyboard versus a touchscreen keyboard. A lot of people that have transitioned over the iPhone, they do get used to it, but I think that's really -- if you're gonna do a lot of texting, that's where it might tip the scale which side you wanna jump on. >> Okay, do you think that Apple ever make a landscape keyboard on the iPhone or -- >> Well, there are some actually utilities or applications that allow you to write e-mails in landscape view as well as text messages in landscape view. So I mean if that's really your concern, if you really wanted the iPhone but you're worried like, "Well, I can't do a landscape". There are utilities out there. One of them is free, the other one is 99 cents. And so you would be able to do that if that's what's on your back, alright. >> Okay, thanks for the call. Quick one here Sam's here in California. Sam questioned about streaming video from the net to your television, I believe, welcome Sam. >> Hey, how's it going guys? >> Good. Good, good. >> Alright, well I just purchased the Pioneer Elite Pro 151 FD. >> Nice. >> And I am looking -- I've been looking at some of this online streaming such as from NetFlix and whatnot and I'm wondering 'cause I mean the Blu-ray play is absolutely fantastic. Is there really any solution right now that can give obviously not quite Blu-ray quality but, you know, a decent picture, I guess. >> Well you want a High-Def. If you want to compete with Blu-Ray, you want High-Def. So, you're wanting to stream High-Def content to your television from the internet, what kind of content do you want the most? Do you want television shows? Do you want movies? Do you want it all? >> Probably movies more, but I mean, you know, I guess but more movies. >> Okay, with movies, there are a couple of ways to go about it. You can just hang out there until the Roku NetFlix player actually has High-Def. They say they're going to enable it. It's got an HDMI connection so you could just wait for that. That's gonna be the cheapest, 99 bucks. If you already have a NetFlix account, you can stream High-Def movies eventually to your television. If you don't want to wait, there's the Xbox 360 which allows you to actually purchase High-Def movies as well as stream NetFlix movies. And then there's also TiVo which has High-Def NetFlix streaming already built in. Those are the ones I got a big T like jumping up and down over there 'cause he's excited about one, what do you think? >> Yeah, if you -- you would have to buy the box but actually the Voodoo has the best HD streaming quality. They have a Kodak called HDX and they have a ton of HD quality movies. I've checked at all the other services NetFlix and Amazon, but if you want HD streaming, you will have to invest in that box but that will give the best video quality over the internet to watch those movies. >> Probably the most immediate answer would be the TiVo, though, because then you get Amazon on box where you can buy stuff as well as the NetFlix. Voodoo is kind of the quality solution but a little more expensive and there's the patient solution of waiting for the NetFlix worker. >> One other way to go is try putting a scaler on your system so go to whatever box that you've got now or other standard def signals and put a scaler there which will fill in the blanks it will synthetically create near HD out of it. Now, I don't know how it's gonna work with a badly compressed really crunched online file but it might look alright, here's one from Geffen that I can suggest, I've not used it but it's their Composite to HDMI Video Scaler, very sexy name. 300 bucks list probably 220 or something retail, try it up just make sure you can return it. >> Alright, time for our Quick Tip. This is one for all the callers and e-mails out there who wanna know how to share a wired connection as a Wi-Fi connection from your Mac laptop. ^M00:24:44 [ Music ] ^M00:24:51 >> Has this ever happen to you? >> Hey, what's the Wi-Fi password here? >> There is none, it's just wired. >> Wait. You don't have wireless internet here? >> That's what I said, no. >> Why, you little -- >> I'm Wilson Tang and if you're on the Mac there's an easy way to share an internet connection over Wi-Fi. First, plug in your Ethernet connection. Second, go to System Preferences and select Sharing. Select Internet Sharing where it says "Share your connection from", select you're built in Ethernet. Then where it says "To computers using", select AirPort. You're done. Now you can always change the name of your Wi-Fi network or even enable basic WEP wireless security. But that does it for me today. I'm Wilson Tang and this has been the Quick Tip. [ Music ] >> Hi! Oh, okay, yeah. >> Awkward. >> Yup. >> Awkward moment, yaicks! Gee, yaicks. There's a thing that we had during our -- I don't know holiday set of interviews last week, a device that goes into your USB jack and auto repropagates your connection as a mini Wi-Fi network for sharing. >> So it's almost like an external WiFi card. [ Simultaneous Talking ] >> Just developed. >> With the firmware running a little--the sharing program. [ Simultaneous Talking ] >> Yeah. Stick it in and this does one thing. >> We don't need that though. >> No, you don't. >> You can turn any laptop into it. >> Right, but that's kinda-- >> But it's easy. >> I like the gadgets easy. >> Yeah, you easy. >> Yeah, I always do. >> Alright. We're sticking in one last video question. >> So I get to the bar quicker that way. >> This one is from Karl in Washington State. Take it away Karl. [ Music ] >> Hey guys. So I got a software update question for you. I ran the 10.5.5 Software Update for my MacBook Pro and my laptop shut off and so, now I can't get pass where I left off and I want an update. So help. Thanks. Bye. [ Background Music ] >> Yes. >> We see it man. >> That's the problem. >> Yeah. >> You gotta make sure that that power supply stays constants. Now, I don't know. Maybe there was power outage or something like that but they--they warned you about that right, right Bryan? >> Yeah they [stuttering] do tell you when you update it to actually plug in but, you know, with the help of some friends, there's a few solutions. Now the main thing, it sounds like your computer cannot at least turn on and partially load. So what you can do, you can try a couple things. One thing is to reset the PRAM on your computer for it to essentially turn over. You hold the Option Command P and R key when you start up. I know I'm saying a lot but if you wanna e-mail me, you can find out more about that. Another thing though is you have your system restore CD's with original CD's that came with your computer. You pop it in, restart your computer, hold down the C key. That will boot off the CD and there's a feature called Archive and Install. Essentially, it'll keep all of your files from your computer and then reinstall the OS from that version you have and then you can run the update. So as long as your computer's up and running, you'll be fine. You'll be able to get it back to the way it was. >> Option, Command, P,R. That's gonna hurt my hands. >> No it's actually pretty easy. You should do it [inaudible]. [ Simultaneous Talking ] >> It's the P and the R that are-they're far apart. >> Just take piano lessons. Line 2, Daniel in Ohio. We're doing the lightning round here. Daniel, what's your question? >> I wanna back up my documents to my iDisc from my MacBook mainly because the other day, I needed a file at school and I didn't have my laptop and hadn't seemingly had it backed up. >> Okay. Gentlemen, answers. >> Yeah. I use iDisc and I have an auto update on particular things everyday, although when I tried to have an auto update large amounts to the iDisc, it fails. So I kinda have to break it up into tasks. PTU have a lot of experience of iDisc as well, right? >> Yeah, I was just curious. Do you have the iDisc Sync feature turned on so essentially your iDisc is always on your desktop and is treated like a disc? So whenever in the background, it'll backup once in awhile. Do you have it set--that feature setup? Do you know what I'm referring to? >> No, I do not know that. I do know I have it setup on--in my--my places so I can always go to it. >> Okay. Okay. So this actually probably will help you the most. If you go into your system preferences, there's gonna be a MobileMe icon. Click on that. >> Okay. >> And then there'll be a few options. You wanna hit the iDisk tab and down the very bottom, there's a feature called iDisc Sync On and the first time, it'll actually make a file that copies everything from your iDisc. That's, you know, in the cloud and from then on, whenever you drag and drop files, it treats it like a real disc and then will always back it up in the background and that's--that actually is more efficient because you don't have to wait for a single backup if your iDisc is only connecting through the net. >> Okay. Thanks for that one. Here's our last call. Kumar, you get the honor here in Oklahoma to throw the last call of this week at us. What's on your mind? >> Yeah. I'm trying to buy a receiver that's the Onkyo 706 and Sony 920 and the Onkyo one has THX certification. I don't know which one -- is the THX very important or just an added feature. I'm looking for a price range of 350 to 375 dollars to strain on the AV receiver. >> Yeah. The THX is going to interpret the THX encoded audio sources that you might have. It's like Dolby. If something's Dolby encoded, if it's Dolby-capable audio, you'll be able to hear Dolby. THX is, you know, you've been to the theater, you've seen the little robot come out. If something has the THX support and you don't have THX in your audio receiver, you're not gonna be able take advantage of that. So it's up to you whether that's important, or you're enough of an audio file. For me it's not that big of a deal. >> Yeah. >> And if you don't have a proper surround sound system to go with the AV receiver is not gonna matter at all. >> I'm willing to check and I don't know, this thought on to my head is THX certified a 5.1 or 7.1 or even 8.1, in which case you'd really wanna have a system like Tom says that is not just surround but surround at that level and I don't know what THX specifies. Last thing is I'll tell you that on our current list of the best AV receivers that Onkyo you're looking at is on there, the Sony is not. But again, your specific needs for input, output, and decoding should also guide you. But the Onkyo is one of our absolute favorite and like you say it's as low as 335. Is it what we show on pricing so that'll fit right into your pricing slot. So use that as some of the way to guide yourself. >> Personally I have tenure, so I'll probably wouldn't worry about it. [ Laughter ] >> Alright we're gonna be back in a -- >> Oh, man, you look so good when you're screwing in. >> Next Thursday with our last Live Show before the holidays, but you, you're taking off already. >> I'm out. This is my last show for the year but then after next week. >> Brian Tong will be up here with me and Molly Wood will be in the house next week as well. >> That's right and then we've got a couple special additions of CNET Live coming at you from CES in Las Vegas. Look for us live on Thursday, January 8th and Friday January 9th, a rare doubleheader, we'll do a night game next. And the time will be for that 90 minutes. >> 90 minutes. >> Show. Who got us into this? >> I'm not gonna be on that show. >> 10 o'clock Pacific time. >> 4 p.m. Eastern time and then in Hawaii? >> 11 baby, 11. >> That's of course. >> It's always the case, alright we'll see you later. >> See you all folks! [ Music ]