Tech Talk on Future Radio 96.9FM

Shopping Online or Off?

futurefmtechtalk — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:15:31 +0000

Tim referees a debate between Dominik and Clare Packer of VisitNorwich.com on the respective merits of online and offline shopping before Christmas.

Last TechTalk of the year will happen on Friday, 28 December from 10am-12pm and will consist of a tech news round up of 2007 accompanied by music on tech topics.

Top 5 Tech Gifts and Free Software

futurefmtechtalk — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:07:37 +0000

Dominik shares tech gift ideas with Tim. Here’s the Top 5 list:

EEE PC: ultra portable and ultra cheap laptop from Asus
Digital photo frame
MP3 player filled with tracks or including a subscription to a music service like eMusic or Amiestreet
Domain and a website (GoDaddy or 1&1)
Printed photo gift - T-Shirt, Calendar, Mug, Key ring, Fridge magnet (Snapfish, Photobox, Tesco Photo, Jessops, and many others)

Don’t forget to check out some free software, too:

Kindle and using Firefox shortcuts

futurefmtechtalk — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:25:02 +0000

This week Dominik brings Tim and Ross the good news of the Amazon Kindle. Then he recommends installing Firefox to replace Internet Explorer and take advantage of tabs and the amazing keyboard shortcuts.

iPhone, OLPC, and Free Antivirus

futurefmtechtalk — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:10:29 +0000

This week Dominik explains Tim why he should not buy the iPhone and why he should donate to the OLPC initiative through LaptopGiving.org. Next up they talk about how to make sure your new computer is safe.

Step 1. Uninstall all ‘crapware’ - use PC Decrappifier. Step 2. Install a free antivirus such as AVG. Step 3. Go to your Security Center Control Panel and make sure your windows updates are set to automatic. Firewall and antispyware should be enabled on new computers by default. That and smart behavior should produce enough security while online.

Buying a new computer (and some social networking news)

futurefmtechtalk — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:05:02 +0000

Dominik tells Ross and Tim about buying a new computer. What to look for and what to ignore. The big announcement about Google’s Open Social platform also gets a mention. In the process, Ross and Tim find out more than they ever wanted to know about what an API is.

Facebook vs. MySpace (and some OS news)

futurefmtechtalk — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:00:30 +0000

This week, Ross debates Dominik and Tim on the merits of two social networking platforms My Space and Facebook. But first Dominik forces them to listen to some news about the new release of MacOS 10.5 (Leopard) and Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). MacOS costs money but Ubuntu is free for anyone to try out. They even ship free live CDs so that you can try Linux on your computer without installing it.

Hackers

futurefmtechtalk — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:09:15 +0000

This week substituting for Tim MacWilliam, Dominik tells Stash Kirkbride everything about hackers. Most importantly:

Hackers are not necessarily evil and often they make the e-world go round (see Wikipedia entry on hackers)
There is a difference between White hat and Black hat hackers
Hackers are not antisocial and they regularly gather at conferences; the one mentioned was What the Hack
You can hack more than just your computer: see Lifehacker.com and Parenthacks.com; there is even palate hacking…
As for hackers penetrating even the strongest security, quite a bit of it is done through what is called Social Engineering.
You can become a hacker by adopting the hacker mind set of being interested in how things work and how to make them do other things
One of the simplest and most important hacks that everybody can and should learn is URL hacking. A fun little URL hack on Google is adding the &imgtype=face at the end of the URL that comes back from an image search on Google. Compare the two results: http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=norwich&hl=en vs. http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=norwich&hl=en&imgtype=face. Another useful hack is to shorten the long URL that comes from Amazon searches when emailing it your friends: e.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cognitive-Linguistics-Critical-Discourse-Analysis/dp/1847182275 instead of http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cognitive-Linguistics-Critical-Discourse-Analysis/ dp/1847182275/ref=sr_1_1/202-1838462-5575848?ie=UTF8&s=books& qid=1193065714&sr=8-1.
And in the middle of it we played Code Monkey, a song by Jonathan Coulton, and talked a bit about distribution of music online. Thanks to its Creative Commons license we were even able include this particular song in the podcast.

Mac vs. PC (and some news)

futurefmtechtalk — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:57:00 +0000

This week, Ross, Tim and Dominik were joined in the studio by Future Radio’s production manager Dan Nyman to talk about the differences between Mac and PC.

Here are some Mac vs. PC links:

An exhaustive feature comparison of OS X and Windows XP (MacOS comes out slightly ahead)
A performance comparison of OS X and Windows XP (XP is ahead)
Comparison of OS X Tiger to Windows Vista (a draw)
A collection of Mac whines by Mac enthusiasts
Listen to the MacBreak Weekly podcast to hear more about the joys of Apple and the Windows weekly podcast to hear about the world of Windows

Later on Dominik and Tim talked about some more news such as The Archers being available as a podcast now, Radiohead releasing their latest CD online and George Harrison’s catalog being available on the music download services.

HD TV, HD DVDs, digital radio

futurefmtechtalk — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 09:38:03 +0000

This week Ross is visiting Slovakia and Tim and Dominik discuss High Definition TVs and video players. First some news:

Amazon starts an MP3 download service
Woman in US loses court case with RIAA for sharing music

What we discussed about HD TV:

What is HD? Resolution of monitor 720 or 1080 vertical pixels
Why buy or not buy an HD TV? Not enough HD video sources! Sky HD and some cable.
Differences between plasma and LCD?
Why not buy Blueray or HD DVD yet? We shouldn’t encourage the format wars!
For regular DVDs on an HD TV you need an upscaling or upconverting DVD player.

Free and Open Source Software

futurefmtechtalk — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:20:41 +0000

On the 1st October Dominik was talking to Tim and Ross about his trip to Barcelona where he was at a conference of the Open Source project Drupal. The talk was about:

Difference between freeware and Open Source software
What kinds of free software people use
Why is Open Source important for companies and governments
Why programmers want to create free software

Dominik recorded a few interviews with important Drupal developers (including project founder Dries Buytaert) and played four clips to illustrate. The full interviews will be posted here eventually.

Digital photography (and some news)

futurefmtechtalk — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:31:04 +0000

This week Tim, Ross and Dominik talked some more about Apple News. Dominik reminded everyone that iPod Touch can connect to WiFi and that sparked a quick discussion of the free municipal WiFi in Norwich - Tim was right about its reach. The upcoming Apple announcement that is all but certain to include the iPhone in the UK was also mentioned. And it turns out that Tim and Dominik prefer Facebook while Ross is a MySpace fan.We also talked a little about a great deal students can get on Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate at TheUltimateSteal.co.uk and the free alternative OpenOffice.org. Next week, Dominik will be reporting from an Open Source conference in Barcelona and talking about free and open source software. And now for this week’s theme:

Digital photography:

Buying a digital camera

don’t just focus on pixels any more for consumer cameras good glass lens is more important
don’t look at digital zoom, only optical
low light performance may also be important
check out some review sites first: http://www.dpreview.com, http://www.digitalcamerasreview.info, http://www.steves-digicams.com
phone cameras are usually not very good quality (even with a high pixel count)

Using a digital camera

shutter lag makes taking digital pictures different
many people don’t know you need to push the shutter button half-way in first, wait for the zoom to lock in and then press it the rest of the way
TIP: you can use zoom locking to take pictures even into the sun> 1. Aim the camera at an object in about the same distance, 2. push the shutter button half-way in, lock the zoom BUT don’t push it all the way, 3. Aim the picture at the object in the sun and take the picture.

What to do with the photos

BACK UP! Buy a large external hard-drive (250GB for #50) and back up a copy of all your pictures; THEN buy another one for a second copy and store it in a safe place
Print a few of them: Jessops or supermarkets will print them out from a card or CD. Their quality is usually higher than home ink-jet printers (unless you have the right paper and the right printer) and the photos are cheaper.
Share them online! Flickr.com offers free storage and great tools for creating albums and sharing them with others. See Dominik’s pictures on http://www.flickr.com/photos/dominiklukes. Create an account, join the Future Radio group on http://www.flickr.com/groups/futurenorwich and share your favorite pics with other listeners.
Some Flickr alternatives are PhotoBucket, SmugMug, TinyPic and many others.

New iPods and Podcasting

futurefmtechtalk — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:31:54 +0000

Tim and Dominik are joined by Ross Patzelt to talk about the latest iPod releases from Apple and to announce this podcast on air for the first time.

Apple announces new iPods: (see UK Apple Store for details)

Shuffle gets new colors - £49 (1 GB) (Alternative: Creative Stone)
Nano now plays video - £99 - £129 (4-8GB) (Alternatives: Sandisk Sansa, iRiver, Samsung) (see Engadget’s review roundup)
Classic now up to 160Gb and no longer white - £199 - £269 (80-160GB) (Alternatives: Cowon iAudio, Creative Zen, Toshiba Gigabeat, and more) (See PC Advisor’s first look and a website review.)
iPod Touch - new, just one button, touch navigation, and WiFi - available Sept 28; £199 - £269 (8-16GB) (Alternatives: Archos, HTC Touch, Nokia N800, etc.) (see PC Advisor’s first look)
iPhone - didn’t have time to talk about that, UK ship date unclear

Podcasting:

How podcasts work

post on web with an RSS feed
get a podcatcher - iTunes (most common but sometimes buggy on Windows), Juice, Doppler Radio, Winamp
find podcasts in podcast directories - thepodcastnetwork.com, podshow.com, podnova.com, podcastalley.com

play back on a computer or on an MP3 player (not just iPod)

Interesting podcasts

BBC - bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts
NPR - www.npr.org/podcasts (Wait, wait, don’t tell me)
Technology - TechTalk, twit.tv, podcast.cnet.com, and more
Arts, Science, Education - Platform, Sciencefriday.com, onthemedia.org, Berkley lectures, etc.
Music - podshow.com
Audiobooks - podiobooks.com

Dominik’s favorite podcasts: BBC: Start the Week, In Our Time, NPR: Science Friday, On The Media, Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, Tech: This Week in Tech, Buzz Out Loud, Gadgettes, MacBreak Weekly, Education: Berkley lectures, Byzantine empire history, Music: TPN Jazz, No Idle Frets (import all 37 subscriptions from this file)

Back to school and searching - 3 Sept 2007

futurefmtechtalk — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:28:40 +0000

Tim and Dominik discuss the back to school gadgets and how to use Google to search more effectively. Oh, and the Eat Me Crunchy Bowl.

Here are some of the key Google tips:

Set Preferences to expand result display to 50 or 100
put “quotes around” whole phrases
+ for stop words or - for words you don’t want
~ for synonyms
uppercase OR for ‘either or’
Calculator and measure conversions, Definitions

Music on the internet (and a history lesson) - 20 Aug 2007

futurefmtechtalk — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:48:18 +0000

Tim and Dominik are joined by Ross Patzelt to talk about online music, Ross’s upcoming trip to Slovakia and the Prague invasion of 1968.

Here are some notes and links:

First, to avoid

because of DRM and/or low quality: iTunes, Napster, Tesco (with exceptions for some EMI, Universal tracks)
because of dubious legality: allofmp3.com, mp3sparks.com

To try cheaply:

http://Napster.com for all you can eat subscription to mainstream music (but not for buying)
http://Classical.com (with limitations)
http://eMusic.com
http://Amiestreet.com
http://Magnatune.com

To watch out for: Amazon’s new download service

To get for free:

Amiestreet on some new tracks
Podsafe music podcasts: http://Podshow.com, http://thepodcastnetwork.com
Music blogs (use Songbird)
MySpace and artists’ websites
Soundclick
http://Download.com

Good free streaming:

Broadband in the UK - 13 Aug 2007

futurefmtechtalk — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:32:55 +0000

The subject of this Tech Talk is Broadband in the UK. What to look out for and how to get a reasonable deal.

This is where you can find out more:

More on this Google UK search: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=broadband

Internet shopping and auction sites - 6 August 2007

futurefmtechtalk — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:17:07 +0000

In this first Tech Talk, Dominik and Tim talk about how to shop safely on the internet and why Norwich is the number one eBay city in the UK. Dominik then fails to convince Platform’s Stash Kirkbride that it’s worth shopping online.

Some useful links:

…and some more:

Pilot discussion during test transmissions

futurefmtechtalk — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:25:16 +0000

In this trial episode during the Future Radio’s test transmissions, Tim and Dominik talked about why computers take so long to start up, what can be bought online, and how to buy an MP3 player. Questions of Dominik’s heritage also came up. This Tech Talk was broadcast on Monday, 30 July 2007. All music was edited out due to copyright restrictions.