July 2006  Show Summaries

July 26, 2006 Show

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Free registry cleaner from Eusing. www.eusing.com 

iFrogz rubber case for iPods.

An ergonomic keyboard.

Google Spreadsheet

A caller asked about starting Windows XP and going straight to the desktop without first stopping at the logon screen. Michael knew it could be done but couldn't remember the command. It is:
    Start->Run -> "control userpasswords2" -> click OK
In the new Window that appears select the account you wish to make the default logon. Uncheck the "Users must enter a username and password..." box. Click Apply and a dialog box will appear asking you to confirm the selected users password. Click OK when you are done. This even works if auto logged on user has no password.

 

July 19, 2006 Show

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Last bit of fund raising for WBAI. All funds contributed go to the station. 100%. No one the show is paid and we provide the premiums at no cost to the station. Our premiums 

• Gold Card Technical support. You get to ask everyone on the show questions by email for a year. If your computer is not working at all, we'll talk to you on the phone. There is no limit to the number questions you can ask. 
• A CD with our favorite free software. There are about 25 programs on the disk, among them Startup Control Panel, Firefox, Thunderbird, TrueCrypt (encryption), networking utilities, Audacity (an audio editor), Hanks favorite registry cleaner, Damn Small Linux and more.  
• An audio archive in MP3 format of all shows from 2006 and 2005. In addition, the web pages with text summaries of the shows (like this very page) is also included so you can find topics of interest. 

Joe gave his first impressions of Xandros Linux. It's specifically designed to look like Windows so that someone familiar with Windows can use it out of the box. A new version, 4, was recently released. There are two versions of Xandros Linux, one that sells for roughly $40, the other is about $80. They come with fairly large hardcopy manuals. 

Joe installed it on an old computer that was running Windows 98 and had only 128MB of ram. He found the installation was very easy, with Xandros creating a new partition for itself and living happily on the hard disk next to Windows 98. In fact, from Xandros you can see all the files in the Windows 98 partition. 

He had some initial networking problems but did get it work and he was able to see files on Windows PCs on his LAN and get out to the Internet. 

Hank gave his first impressions of Windows Vista. On machines with 512MB of ram, Microsoft Office was slower under Vista than under Windows XP. 

Hank did an upgrade install of Vista, that is, he upgraded a copy of Windows XP to Vista. Michael thought you could only do a clean install of Vista. Not true. However, whether you can do an upgrade install depends both on the original version of Windows and the version of Vista being installed. If, for example, you start with Windows 2000 (as Michael did), you must always do a clean install of Vista. If, however, you start with Windows XP Home edition, you can always do an upgrade install of Vista. Whether you can upgrade on top of XP Professional, depends on the version of Vista being installed. See Upgrade Planning for Windows Vista from Microsoft. Note however, if you install Vista on top of XP, there is no going back. 
   

 

July 12, 2006 Show

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It's a quickie bit of fund raising for the summer (until July 23rd). We did some fund raising during the show, but not very much. We offered our usual year of Gold Card tech support for a pledge of $150. This lets you ask everyone on the show and unlimited number of questions. Gold Card tech support is intended for individuals not entire organizations or businesses. 

We also offered a CD with free, recommended software for a pledge of $65. Hank referred to this as our toolkit. Everyone on the show contributed a few of their favorite free programs.  

Computer stories in the news.
Rebates.
Our Rules of Thumb.
Alfred predicts the best time to buy an LCD television.

We discussed canceling an AOL account and the hard time AOL gives people who try to quit the service. Recently an AOL customer (Vincent Ferrari) recorded his conversation with AOL and the hard time they gave him. 

• MP3_Recording:_Trying_to_cancel_AOL  June 13, 2006  Alternate Link
• AOL Said, 'If You Leave Me I'll Do Something Crazy' by Randall Stross in the New York Times July 2, 2006. Quoting: "The employees who handle cancellation requests belong not to a Cancellations Processing Department but rather to AOL's "Retention Queue." They are referred to as "retention consultants" and "save employees," and their bonuses depend upon the number of members who are induced to stay with offers of new enticements and deals, not on the speed with which they help members leave."
• The story was on the "Today" show too. Video at YouTube.com 

Microsoft Announces Free Virtual PC InfoWorld magazine July 12, 2006

Free Virtual PC from Microsoft by Jeremy Reimer at ARS Technica July 12, 2006 

  

July 5, 2006 Show

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In the News 

Liberté, égalité, interoperabilité June 30, 2006 Good Morning Silicon Valley. France wants Apple to open up its standards such that music purchased from iTunes can be played on devices other than an iPod. 

EFF prefers battling in courts, not Congress in SiliconValley.com July 5, 2006. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is re-opening an office in Washington, but not as a lobbying outpost like the last one, instead they will focus on litigation rather than legislation.

Topic 

Buying a new computer. Should you wait for Vista? 

On the show were Joe King, Hank Kee, Michael Horowitz, Danny Burstein.