Technology Software How-to Videos

CLICK HERE to download the file and listen directly. MoTR 190 is 37:49 minutes long and is a 34.7 MB file in MP3 format. HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia) TOPICS: Matt s back from möbius with a handset rundown Maybe PocketPC isn t a bad name, after all Hands on with the HTC HD2 Kevin has a 3.5G wireless broadband secret he s been holding out on Google s ChromeOS explained CONTACT US: E-mail us or leave us a voicemail on our SkypeLine! SUBSCRIBE: Use this RSS feed with your favorite podcatcher or click this link to add us to iTunes

Learn how to use Disk Utility to erase and format an external drive. You can also create drives with multiple partitions.

Worried that your Thanksgiving grocery bill is getting fatter while the meal is getting leaner? Last year, the cost for the foods to prepare the typical Thanksgiving dinner went up nearly 6 percent, and prices are steadily rising. But even if you re watching every penny, you don t have to cut corners on the big holiday dinner with help from Walmart!

Tom and Brian name the tech they think was a turkey in 2009 and get a few turkeys from listners of the show as well. Listen now: Download today's podcast Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) Episode 188 Twitter Peek Garmin Nuvifone G60 Danger s Sidekick Servers Xbox 360 (Red Rings of Death) Apple Magic Mouse BlackBerry Storm PSP (no)Go Palm Pre? Brother MFC-5890CN The Brother MFC-5890CN all-in-one is hands down the worst printer to take up space in our lab. From the irritating initial set up to the horrendous output quality and slow print speed, this device is the easiest way to flush $200 down the drain. http://reviews.cnet.com/multifunction-devices/brother-mfc-5890cn/4505-3181_7-33303729.html?tag=mncol;lst EMAIL QUESTIONS ********************** I was looking at getting a tablet PC. I was looking for a speficic kind. I would like for it not to have a keyboard and only have sceen input. My ultmate goal is one simular to the one used on Stargate Atlantis by Dr. Mckae. I was wondering what your opion on options would be. Thanks Jason Johnston Beaver Falls, PA Answer: I think Tom s opinon is probably don t . But if you re set on it as you seem to be, I would say Lenovo X60 Tablet. It does have a keyboard buit you can swivel it out of the way and pretend it s not there. The thing is, it s two years old. Nobody s making a lot of good new tablets these days. The best recent one s are netbook sized like the Yukyung Viliv X70EX. http://reviews.cnet.com/1770-3126_7-0.html?tag=mncol%3Bsort s a creaky, rickety machine and the screen has sparklies on it. Or http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook ********** Tom: The Windows System Repair disk on the Oct 21, 2009 How To video doesn t seem to do much. When my Win7 crashed for some mysterious reason within the first 2 hours, Windows 7 seemed to boot but found an error, tried but failed to repair itself. When I put in the Repair Disk, it does the same thing as the self-repairing process as Win 7 on my HD, ending with the same result. In both cases it says Unknown Error and cannot be corrected. I even tried the Windows 7 original installation DVD and used the Repair option ending with the same process and result screen. I had to do a full reinstall. Given this experience, it seems like the Repair Disk and the Windows Installation DVD does the same thing so why would one need to create a repair disk. Thank you. Dickson Answer: Correct, the System Repair disk is included on the Windows 7 DVD. Making a system repair disk is god in a few scenarios though. 1. You didn t get a Windows 7 disk form the manufacturer when you bought the computer. You got a system recovery disk that in fact doesn t have a Windows System repair function on it. This is common. 2. You want a disk you can throw in your bag when you r eon the go, without worrying about scratching up your original Windows 7 install disk. As for it not working or doing the same thing as Windows did on it s own that s just the luck of the draw. If your system won t boo the system repair disk will, giving you an extra chance. It also works better if you have restore points created. But it s not guaranteed to work every time. Rafe: Create a Sytem Repair disk. It can access system restore files, and there are instances when you will need those. ********** Hey, I was just driving through Atlanta and saw a billboard advertising a 4G Mobile Network from Comcast. Now if memory serves me right comcast is an ISP, but not a mobile ISP, so I was wondering if you could explain what was up. (if it s any help the advertisement ad some sort of box that looked like it had something in the process of being plugged in to it, so it seems like some marketing shinangin to me) Answer: Comcast is an investor in the Clearwire WiMax service and sells a Comcast branded version of that service ins elect markets. Time Warner Cable Bright House Networks and Google are also investors. ***************** Dear Real Dealers, I was considering upgrading my 40GB PS3 hard drive with a 320GB one, as between game info files and a few movies and songs I m just about out of drive space. I know most laptop SATA hard drives will work, but I dont want to lose the data thats on the old drive. I was thinking of trying to clone the drive, but the only way I can figure to do this is to take out the hard drive out of my laptop, put in the old PS3 40GB drive, boot a live CD with some linux backup software, clone the disk to my external hard drive, then insert the new drive into the laptop, and transfer the cloned drive to it. One, I don t even know if the software will back up my PS3 data, and two, this seems needlessly complex, but I can t think of a better way. Any ideas gents? Thanks Rich in Lovely Cleveland Answer: Actually the standard method requires two drives, your new 320GB drive and a second external drive that should be close ot he old 40 GB drive in capacity, though it can be a bit less. Take the small external drive formatted to Fat32, hook it up in an enclosure (or just use a USB drive) to the PS3 and back up all your data. Then just put the new hard drive in the PS3 and format it. Then take your small external drive, plug it into the PS3 and restore the backup. That s the easy way, if you have an extra drive laying around. If you don t, you can make a bit-for-bit clone of your PS3 drive that will work in YOUR PS3 drive. Don t get all wide-eyed about being able to clone drives and sell them to friends with saved games on them. This bit involves mucking about with reiserdriver. The whole process is listed out here: http://www.ps3news.com/forums/ps3-hdd-news/help-transferring-old-data-new-playstation-3-a-108384.html **************** COMMENTS ********** Tom Merritt is a big fat liar! Dear Tom Merrit, Don t take this seriously. The tip on using the free version of Yahoo Mail as a POP3 Failed me. Google got rejected by Yahoo POP3. Perhaps Yahoo realized that you were working for CNET and could give them a bad review? Maybe? Just a theory, anyway love the show. This is the error. Server denied POP3 access for the given username and password. POP access is limited to Yahoo! Mail Plus subscribers. Please contact Yahoo! Mail s support team for more information. Server returned error: [AUTH] invalid user/password Ivan ************ NO EPISODE NEXT WEEK (THANKSGIVING) NEW TIME in December at 7 PM Eastern / 4 PM Pacific on http://live.cnet.com/ Call live! 888-900-2638 (CNET) Next time: Road Test realdeal@cnet.com forums.cnet.com

This episode of Izzy Video is part 2 in my series on shooting video with a Digital SLR. Digital SLR cameras are excellent for shooting video indoors and at night because you can increase the ISO until you have a nice exposure. One of the challenges though is that when you’re shooting video, you usually don’t want a shutter speed other than 1/60th of a second. This can become a problem in the sunny outdoors because when you want to blur out the backgrounds (shallow depth of field), then you need the aperture open all the way. This lets in too much light which leads to overexposure, and you’ll see in this video, how you can solve that problem. The variable ND filter you’ll see in this video is this one. The full version of this tutorial is available to Izzy Video Members only, but you can download the Quicktime version of the trailer here.

MONROE, Mich. (Nov. 17, 2009) - Eat the right foods. Exercise regularly. Wear sunscreen. Most of us know these basic components to a healthy lifestyle, but now, doctors have some welcome advice for those who are stressed out about being healthy: take a deep breath, head to your recliner and relax! More on La-Z-Boy and the Health Benefits of Reclining

With more Americans cooking at home, rather than dining out or ordering in, we are always looking for quick tips, new recipes and simple techniques to create healthful meals for the family on the go. Whatever the amount of time you have, there s a delicious recipe that will fit your schedule. In his latest cookbook, Emeril: 20-40-60: FRESH FOOD FAST, Lagasse divides his recipes into three sections based on the amount of time they will take you to prepare. More on Emeril: 20-40-60 Fresh Food Fast

D.Lee Beard explains how to add photos to an iMovie video project including applying the Ken Burns effect to your photos, cropping an image in iMovie, rotating an image in iMovie, adjusting how long the photo displays in the video, and how to adjust automatic settings when photos are imported (such as turning off the automatic Ken Burns effect or making all photos default to 6 seconds instead of just 4 seconds). D.Lee also shows how to grab a still image from a video. Click Here to Play Episode 105

I don t know a lot about wine; only that connoisseurs get really mad because they can tell the difference and you can t, and they hate your ignorance. I guess that s why it s so hard to be exacting about stuff like grammar, because it drives you nuts if you know what s wrong – otherwise you prolly don t care. While it doesn t sound as apt as Murphy s Law and hence(forth) bound to be forgotten easier, there s a related term called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It makes me laugh so hard reading that Wikipedia page, because I see it everyday in others. I see it in myself! (And only later do I realize it.) While with many aspects of art, there s subjectivity, yet facts come into play: I believe how many minutes of music you ve listened to, along with the quality of that listening – were you immersed or was it just background noise? – make quite the difference on the established base of experiences you can draw from. Another sign is knowing what elements and styles are called, and beyond that, not being confined to that. It doesn t make someone superior to spew weird Italian words to describe track tempo, it s only useful if someone else knows them too, and those terms help you accomplish goals. Which is why, in recent times, births of fresh idioms and problem-solvers like notation for vinyl scratching are exciting. Some people hoard cats. I hoard sounds. To a point. When I was younger, I was less discriminating. So many sounds were my first time hearing them . Now, I m well-acquainted with what analogue drum machines can do, so I no longer feel a pressing need to grab all the 808s/909s in hearing range – rather, I go for established pedigree where I know that not only are the sounds trimmed and treated beautifully, but sorted. There s no more deplorable time-killer than being in the middle of a hot production and not finding the sound you need. I m particularly pleased with Wave Alchemy s Drum Machines 01 which I graciously received a promo copy of, and you ll hear a lot of it in some upcoming Dream Journal tracks. After I dreamed of classy hotels with the best video (not shopping) arcades the world has to offer. (I d also like to share why soundware testimonials should be accompanied by examples of them in action, as well as why we can be increasingly proud to expose what samples we use – rather than obscure them – but that s another topic for another post.) I m now more miserly , and that even isn t the right word, but I wish to get more out of what I already have. Build a fine collection which has extensive breadth, yet fits the proverbial all killer, no filler . So in my sound design palette, of course I want gorgeous pianos. I covered that (NI Akoustik and the Imperfect Samples Braunschweig, mainly), so I check that off my list. Unless something startling and marvelous comes along. Yesterday, I bought Camel Audio s Alchemy. It fulfills the multi-effect, super synth that can create thick sounds so powerful they can fill a mix unto themselves. Thus, it teaches me about how to EQ selectively and make them play nice with others. Like star employees. The presets are proving amazingly lush (I wasn t aware it could do trippy drumkits), and I see all sorts of pictures when I play each. More to come on that note! Some people relax to scents and candles and lights. I do too, but I also like to put my headphones on and trek through these sounds which I ve collected. I ve come to acknowledge it s better than therapy. (Elsewhere on my blog, the Tumblr experiment continues. Don t know yet if it ll be too distracting to have longer, thoughtful posts like this intermissioned by brief clips, nor is it the smooth crossfade of a DJ mix I idealize, but, being new to this, I too, must know by doing.)

http://macmost.com/ If you have more than one Mac on your home network, you can share files between them by simply turning on file sharing and browsing to another Mac in the Finder. You can also add additional users and set up shared folders.

http://go.tagjag.com/thinkgeek - This is a plush beating heart. Why would you want one? Uh, probably because it's cool! It has realistic beating sounds, which can soothe a baby... or yourself! This could just be the hottest new item for that impossible to buy for person on your holiday shopping list! What will our friends at ThinkGeek come up with next? http://twitter.com/chrispirillo - http://chris.pirillo.com

http://go.tagjag.com/artisteer - If you have a blog, you have a theme. Chances are, you downloaded a theme off the web somewhere. It's okay that you don't know how to code your own customized theme from scratch! Very few people are capable of doing this. You want your blog to say "YOU", but you don't want to pay a designer a ton of money to accomplish this. It's a good thing Artisteer now makes it simple for you to create and customize your own WordPress theme with just a few clicks of the mouse. http://twitter.com/chrispirillo - http://chris.pirillo.com

http://go.tagjag.com/screencast - We've uploaded several awesome screencasts lately. All of you are sending in informative and high-quality tutorials for us to share with the world. It's not too late for you to get your screencast on our channels, you know! Get busy and create something wonderful! Gabriel is a fan of our live stream, and has come up with a simple tutorial to show you how to add a gadget on your desktop to make tuning in to my stream even easier! http://twitter.com/chrispirillo - http://chris.pirillo.com - http://www.youtube.com/rapmaster243

This week Scott's at PDC but just before he left he chatted with Phil Haack about his exciting release of ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta. They chat about the changes, and Scott gets a surprise phone call from The Gu.

In this episode I discuss the realities of independent film financing. After my trip to AFM,  I was brought up to speed by some top industry players. Things aren't like the good old days! This was originally a video I created to plug my new film course but many felt there was good info here [...]