Marc and Mario in the studio, joined by guest co-host Alan Wallace from Cyber Defender.
9 O'Clock Hour
Cyber Defender is giving away free tech support to KABC listeners from now until 9am on Sunday December 30, 2007. See below for details.
What's new in 2008? Alan and Marc will be going to CES - the Consumer Electronics Show, in January 2008, so there will be loads of exciting tech news in next year's show.
Caller: Gary
His PC is still logging him off after being on-line for about an hour.
He has tried Cyber Defender's offer of free advice, and despite their best efforts, the problem still exists. There is only one solution according to Marc, re-format the hard drive. Gary's PC is a Gateway, and Alan recommends plugging in an external drive and copying all the data files, then reformat the drive rather than restoring it.
Feature: Alan Wallace from Cyber Defender
Viruses are more about ID Theft these days, rather than just messing up your PC. You have to take adequate precautions to protect your identity and personal information while on line. Get free protection from www.cyberdefender.com or sign up for their Compete and Ultimate packages. It's the best defense available!
Caller: Scott in Fountain Valley
Has a 5 year old PC that will not boot up. Does not know how to get into safe mode - try hitting F8 immediately following start up. That should get your into safe mode.
if you wait until the PC starts booting, it's too late! Be sure to start hitting F8 and continue hitting it, until the PC starts in safe mode.
Scott was having loads of problems before his PC failed to boot up altogether, issues like the mouse freezing and so on. Scott tried restoring the system several times, but it just kept on getting worse. Getting the PC into Safe Mode should allow Scott to back up any important data, then it's a question of reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling the O/S.
What's Marc's Favorite Anti Virus Software?
Cyber Defender - their free & pay for packages are great
Panda Anti Virus
Webroot Software - Anti Spyware & Anti Virus
Cyber Defender's "pay-for" service offers outstanding value for only $99 there's a year of unlimited technical support., not only for your virus problems, but for anything that could go wrong with your PC.
Caller: Ira on a Cellphone
Has several "leagacy" programs that will only run under XP (not Vista) and wants to know if they will run on a Mac under XP. Ira's a Court Reporter and his software will only run on XP and he wants to run XP on an Intel Mac, are there any driver issues? Ira couldn't wait for the answer, but a Mac running Windows XP through Apple's Boot Camp should run Ira's software with no issues.
Marc's "Must Have" Things
Now that you've got your unwanted Xmas presents, here's what you really wanted!
If you are a game player,
Uncharted Drake's Fortune for the Sony PS 3
"Truly the most phenomenally graphic game I have ever seen," according to Marc (who should know!) and the game play is spectacular.
Buy it at Amazon.
And, Ratchet & Clank, also for the PS3
http://www.us.playstation.com/ratchetandclank/
Of course, Call of Duty 4 is now out for XBox 360 gamers
Click here for a little "Modern Warfare"
And don't forget Assassin's Creed
But Marc's Game of the Year is BioShock
Other, must have "stuff" is a Wireless Router
Netgear is Marc's favorite and it's worth commenting that as well as connecting your PCs,a PS3 will automatically connect to your wireless router, as does the Wii. The XBox360 does not, surprisingly.
Also, a PDA
For $99, Palm's Centro is a terrific device.
And a TiVo
Mario got a new TiVo, it's now sitting on top of his old TiVo, and that is on top of his VCR that has gone untouched for over a year! TiVo's with built in DVD Burners are expensive and hard to get too.
Caller: Bob in Los Angeles
Got an email asking him to update his billing information. Bob, rightly ignored it!
Marc says the Spammers/Phishers are getting cleverer and cleverer. When Marc got an email at work that looked like his own firm's email, he was nearly fooled by it. - it looked just like corporate email, until Marc remembered that they don't send email like that!
Mario's advice; if you get any email with a link in it, and you're not sure whether that link will take you where it is supposed to, hold your cursor over the link and look in the lower left hand corner of your browser and you can see where the link is going.
But Alan warns that even that is not foolproof because if the spammer has changed the host file on your PC, it can look like you're being directed to somewhere safe, but in fact you are being taken somewhere else.
Cyber Defender has a free tool bar that protects against Phishing and a new version is due out soon that also protects you with social networking.
Marc's Moves this week
American Pie Presents: Beta House
Do not bring your children to see this film! According to Mario, the next in this series will be American Pie Presents: Beat the Horse to Death!
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Yet another Harry Potter movie, a little on the long side, according to Marc.
Free Technical Support for KABC Listeners
Brought to you from Alan, go to:
www.cyberdefender.com/KABC
Or call: 877 377 3765 and mention Promo Code "KABC"
Caller: Philip in Los Angeles
Philip and his wife both have computers, both were sharing Phil's internet connection. He's now moved the PC and wants to use a wireless router to allow his wife to access the internet but wants to be sure that the wireless connection is secure. Marc says it is safe as long as Philip uses the router's built in firewall. Go to www.GRC.com and use the "Probe Your Ports" link to check if the wireless network is secure.
Netgear and Linksys make good wireless routers, but as Alan points out, you also have to use encryption to make your wireless network secure. This is usually done during the set up routine. When the setup program asks you to set a password, be sure to select a password otherwise the network will be open, insecure, and anyone can use your bandwidth.
10 O'Clock Hour
Caller: Cal in West Hollywood
Has a new Vista PC, but cannot get any of the old card games that used to come with XP to work. Searching Google does not get him any card games. Cal should try searching on Google for "Best Vista Downloads," or as Mario suggests, go to www.GameSpot.com
Caller: John in Huntington Beach
His Windows XP computer does not run Windows MovieMaker properly. It used to work about six moths ago, but has stopped working recently. He's trying to get a screen shot from a video. John has not done any Windows updates recently, so the problem might be there. It's also possible that John's installed something in the last six months that is causing a conflict. John should do the updates first, and then selectively disable startups to see if they are causing the problem. If he still has the problem, email Marc at marc@kabc.com
What's Special about Cyber Defender?
It's the only suite that you can run alongside another anti virus suite, as well as offering a free suite, you can also get the complete and ultimate products. Complete at $59.99 gives you protection against any malware, and Ultimate goes a step further giving you free tech support for any PC issue for only $99 - this allows CyberDefender's technicians to remotely access your PC and fix the problem for you. This is one year of 24/7 support.
Caller: Vance in Los Angeles
Called last week for an external hard drive recommendation, and just got a Maxtor external hard drive and is happy!
Has a movie recommendation - Live Free or Die Hard, and loved it! Thinks it would make a great video game, and Marc agrees!
Buy Of The Week
From a new (to the show) website The Camera Professionals
The Kodak EasyShare C613 6.2MP Digital Camera for only $79.99
Click here for full specifications.
Caller: Doug in WLA
Take short movies with his Canon PowerShot S3 IS and tries to send them via Outlook Express and they won't go, yet he can receive them from friends. He says that the problem is not the file size, and his ISP (DSL Extreme) says the problem is with Outlook Express. Marc suggests that he uses Outlook rather than Outlook Express (and DSL Extreme said the same thing!)
Marc also suggests using our Yahoo! Group for an answer.
Doug wants a suggestion for a low priced motherboard. Marc likes ASUS and says don't use Frys!
Caller: Kelsa Kinsly - KABC's Traffic and Weather Reporter
Has Adobe Premiere Elements 3 and cannot get any video from DVDs to load. She's not using encrypted DVD's she just cannot edit video files she has created. Alan has the same problem, and has not found the answer. Kelsa can play the DVD but when she clicks "Get Media From..." and one of the options is "From DVD" yet the video will not load.
Marc will get someone from Adobe to answer the question.
Kelsa also wants to know if she needs to load the whole video file if she just wants two minutes out of a 2 hour clip? You do need to load the whole 2 hour video file to be able to edit out the portion that you want. She will need a lot of disk space to load and save the video file. One hour of video is about 3.5 GB according to Mario, so if she has a big enough hard drive, she should have no problems.
Caller: Augustine in San Pedro
Has a budget of $1,000 and wants a laptop which can run Linux. Marc loves Gateway, and they will build a laptop customized to suit. Dell does offer laptops bundled with Linux, but Marc has issues with Dell's support, and prefers Gateway.
Show Notes' Guy's Comment:
Of course, you could get a Mac, but then there would hardly be a reason to call the show! Get a PC, get Vista, and we'll look forward to hearing from you in 2008!
And that's the end of the last show of 2007!
Happy New Year to all KABC listeners and please don't drink and drive!