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Show of 05-27-2017

Tech Talk Radio
May 27, 2017

Best of Tech Talk Edition

  • Segments replayed from previous shows

Email and Forum Questions

  • Email from Jean: I am looking at buying a new TV and would like to know what you think of the OLED TVs. My vision is somewhat limited and am trying to find the best possible visibility. Seems as though the blacks which are so often used to show drama would be more visible. Have also read that smart TVs can be vulnerable to hackers and would like to know how to deal with that issue. Thanks. Appreciate your help in keeping up to date on the latest technologies. Jean
  • Tech Talk Responds: It used to be LCD versus Plasma. Now plasma is dead, and it is liquid crystal display (LCD) versus organic light emitting diode display (OLED). Most TVs sold are just LCD, but they are called: LED TVs, Super UHD TVs or Quantum Dot LED TVs.
  • Televisions based on Organic Light Emitting Diode display technology are fundamentally different from LCD TVs. The most basic difference is that each pixel provides its own illumination, while all of the pixels in an LCD TV are illuminated by an LED backlight. That difference leads to all kinds of picture quality effects, some of which favor LCD, but most of which benefit OLED.
  • OLED have the best picture quality and LCDs are the best bargain. Here a quick rundown of specs
    • Light output (brightness). Both TV types are very bright and can look good in even a sunny room.
    • Black level. OLED wins here because of its ability to turn off individual pixels completely. It can produce truly perfect black.
    • Contrast ratio (difference between the brightest and the darkest level). OLED is the winner here because it can get extremely bright, plus it can produce absolute black with no blooming. It has the best contrast ratio of any modern display.
    • Both OLED and LCD are widely available in Ultra HD 4K.
    • Viewing angle. OLED has the best viewing angle. LCDs are angle dependent
    • Screen size. LCDs go from 20 to 00 inches. OLEDs from 55 to 77 inches ($20K).
    • LCDs are the best buy. You can get 50-inch LCDs for around $500. It’s going to be a long time before OLEDs are that price.
    • Overall picture quality. OLED is the winner, but you pay for it.
  • As for hacking, keep your TV behind a firewall with a secure password. I would not worry about it too much, even though the CIA WikiLeaks’s release of information showed a few tools that could ease drop using the microphone built into the TV.
  • Email from Arnie in Colorado Springs: Hi Dr. Shurtz, I’m thinking of purchasing the new 2017 iPad as an upgrade to my current iPad. I’d like to keep my current iPad to keep only photos. How is the best way to do this? Do I have to have another Apple account since I will have two iPads? Do you have a list of things to consider to make this happen? Have to agree with another listener to Tech Talk. Lots of great tech info in easy to understand format. Super show! Thanks, Arnie in Colorado Springs, CO.
  • Tech Talk Responds: You only need on iCloud account. All of your pictures will be synced to that one account. You can set up the old iPad to store the full resolution of your iCloud account. If you take a picture with your iPhone or the new iPad, it will show up on the old iPad automatically (assuming it connected to Wi-Fi). You can adjust the photo and camera storage by going to Settings/Photos & Camera. Choose your storage options. You may choose to store no photos on your new iPad. If I were you, I would just get lots of storage and use the new iPad for both.
  • Email from Helen in Fairfax: Dear Tech Talk. I would like to remotely access by computer from my mobile phone. What is the easiest way to do this? Love the show. Helen in Fairfax
  • Tech Talk Responds: You’re best option is to use the Chrome Remote Desktop. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux to Android and iOS.
  • First, you will need to install the Chrome Browser on your desktop. Then you will need to install the Chrome Remote Desktop extension in your browser. It’s available from the Chrome Web Store.
  • Once installed, you’ll launch the app from Chrome’s app menu. The first time you launch it, you’ll have to enable remote connections to the computer by installing a small utility. When the utility has been downloaded and installed, Chrome Remote Desktop will prompt you to enter a PIN. Make it easy to remember, but hard to guess.
  • After you enter the PIN, it will take a few seconds to enable the remote connection. From there, you can easily access any of your connected computers from any other computer or mobile device you’re logged into.
  • Now you’ll need to download the Chrome Remote Desktop app for your phone (Android or iOS). As soon as you launch the app, it should show a list if your computers. Tap the one you need to connect to. It will request your PIN. With your PIN entered, tap “Connect.” When you’re finished, just tap the “Stop Sharing” button at the bottom. The connection will be terminated.
  • Email from Tina in Ohio: Dear Tech Talk. I would like to connect my Android phone to my TV. What is my best option for this? My friends all have iPhones and AppleTV and am feeling left out. Love the show. Tina in Ohio.
  • Tech Talk Responds: Fortunately, Google has created a low cost option: Google Cast (formerly called Chromecast). Google Cast is supported by essentially all Android devices, has all the necessary properties to stream DRM-protect content. Google Cast is supported by apps like Google Photos and Slides for photo sharing. Other supported apps included: Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, or other movie services.
  • Regardless of which app or wireless standard you’re using to cast, the actual casting process is easy: just tap the cast button in the top corner of a supported app. Google Cast as the simplest and most effective way of connecting your Android phone to your TV. You can purchase a Chromecast for as little as $35.
  • Email from Tuc in Virginia Beach: Dear Doc and Jim. I frequently use the website for news relating to my business. The site does not have a search function and finding things can be difficult. Is there a way to search that site using Google? Love the show. Tuc in Virginia Beach
  • Tech Talk Responds: There’s a simple way to search a website, using any search engine—Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or even Yahoo It works in every browser as well. Go to your search engine of choice, or the search bar in your browser, then type what you want to find, just like you normally would.
  • But here’s the trick: before or after your query, type site: followed by the domain of the site you want to search within. So, if you wanted to search for cybersecurity articles at stratford.edu, you should search for: cybersecurity site: stratford.edu.

Profiles in IT: Tim Berners-Lee (originally broadcast 7/21/2007)

  • Inventor of the World Wide Web and the Browser
  • Tim Berners-Lee was born in London, England, the son of Conway Berners-Lee and Mary Lee Woods.
  • His parents, both mathematicians, were employed together on the team that built the Manchester Mark I, one of the earliest computers.
  • During his time at university, he was caught hacking with a friend and was subsequently banned from using the university computer.
  • He graduated in 1976 with a degree in physics.
  • While an independent contractor at CERN from June to December 1980, Berners-Lee proposed a project based on the concept of hypertext, to facilitate sharing and updating information among researchers. He called this application Enquire.
  • In 1989, CERN was the largest Internet node in Europe, and Berners-Lee saw an opportunity to join hypertext with the Internet: ‘I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS ideas to create the World Wide Web.’
  • He used similar ideas to those underlying the Enquire system, a previous system he developed in the early 80s, to create the World Wide Web, for which he designed and built the first web browser and editor (called WorldWideWeb) and the first Web server called httpd (short for HyperText Transfer Protocol daemon).
    • The basic idea of WWW was to merge the technologies of personal computers, computer networking and hypertext into a powerful and easy to use global information system.
    • With electronic documents, these cross-references can be followed by a mouse-click, and with the World-Wide Web, they can be anywhere in the world.
    • There is no need to know where the information is stored, and no need to know any detail on how it is formatted or organized.
    • ‘Wandering from one document (webpage) to another’ is called browsing. Some people do this just for fun, following links just to see what’s there. This is usually called ‘surfing the Web’.
  • The first Web site built was at CERN and was first put online on 6 August 1991.
  • It provided an explanation about what the World Wide Web was, how one could own a browser and how to set up a Web server. It was also the world’s first Web directory, since Berners-Lee maintained a list of other Web sites apart from his own.
  • In 1994, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It comprised various companies that were willing to create standards and recommendations to improve the quality of the Web.
  • In December 2004 he accepted a chair in Computer Science at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK, to work on his new project – the Semantic Web.
  • Berners-Lee made his idea available freely, with no patent and no royalties due.
  • The World Wide Web Consortium decided that their standards must be based on royalty-free technology, so they can be easily adopted by anyone

Web Radio Royalties Compromise Sought (originally broadcast 7/21/2007)

  • On again off again
  • The original decision by the Copyright Royalty Board would have tripled royalties over the next three years: an increase which many webcasters said would straight-up put them out of business.
  • SoundExchange has offered to cap the $500 per channel minimum fee at $50,000 per year for webcaster who agree to use techniques to stop streamripping.
  • Stations balk as the use of these techniques.
  • Internet radio hasn’t gone silent yet. Neither has the debate over how much Internet stations should pay for the music they play.
  • Last weekend’s deadline for higher royalty rates for songs played on the Internet came and went with a flurry of negotiations and legislative proposals before Congress, but no imposition of the higher rates.
  • Those higher rates would apply to both over-the-air (terrestrial) broadcasters who operate Internet versions of their stations, as well as those stations that operate solely on the Web; both say dramatically higher royalty rates will force some off the air.
  • So far, most Internet stations say they haven’t altered their operations, while they wait for the negotiations to play out.

Stream Ripping Software (originally broadcast 7/21/2007)

  • As users continue to try fending off the ever more litigious music industry, some seem to have dropped P2P entirely, moving to Ripping instead.
  • While they loose some control over what they are downloading, it’s a untraceable way to download music (no way for the RIAA to track users or sue)
  • With some of the more powerful software that’s been coming out recently, stream ripping has become more main-stream.
  • Copying a song off the radio (which is this basically equivalent to) often involves a lower quality offering with songs cutting into each other. DJs talking over the music and other radio-related reasons why it’s not the same as getting a full track.
  • Station Ripper allows users to download several thousand songs daily.

Geek Pride On the Rise (originally broadcast 7/21/2007)

  • Nerdcore rappers invade New York City last weekend.
  • On a steaming Saturday, a horn-rimmed posse of software engineers, computer programmers and support technicians was grooving at a most unlikely spot — a fierce underground music venue here.
  • The act: MC Chris — king of the burgeoning world of ‘nerdcore rap’
    • ‘Sometimes I rhyme fast, sometimes I drink Quik.
    • If this was a gym class, I’d be the last picked’
  • Also dubbed ‘nerdcore’ this branch of hip-hop is for geeks, by geeks.
  • In recent months, the field has seen a growing number of releases from computer science labs, where egocentric grad students show off their Ph.D. credentials in tracks like ‘Have to Code’ and ‘End of File’
  • Rather than guns and ‘hos, they speak about DDOS attacks and camgirls’
  • The self-proclaimed & ‘1 greatest computer science gangsta rapper ever’ is MC Plus+, a geeksta leading light whose moniker comes from the C++ programming language.
  • The Purdue University, Indiana, Ph.D. candidate and ‘pimp’; whose album Algorhythms was recorded with pirated software, calls himself “the Tupac of the computer science world”
    • ‘I’m encrypting s*** like every single day
    • Sending it across a network in a safe way
    • Protecting messages to make my pay
    • If you hack me you’re guilty under DMCA’

War Driving Security Report (originally broadcast 6/30/2007)

  • Laptop with Netstumbler installed
  • 3db Dipole Antenna through moonroof
  • Wi-Fi PCMIA card (Orinnoco)
  • Took survey between my house and station this morning.
  • Results
    • Number of access points — 420
    • Encrypted access points – 272 (65%)
    • Unencrypted access points – 148 (35%)
    • 11b (11 Mbps) — 55 (13%)
    • 11g (54 Mbps) – 365 (87%)

Beach Gear for the Geek (originally broadcast 06/23/2007)

  • Solar Powered Laptop
    • Laptop of choice
    • Two 30-watt solar panels
    • Voltage regulator
    • Reserve battery (optional)
    • $600-$800 for solar power
    • Suggested web site:http://www.ctsolar.com/
  • Wi-Fi Internet access
  • Solar Umbrella (alternative power)