This week on Deemable Tech, we’re really back in the studio, and we answer tech questions! We have questions about how to wipe an iPad, whether you should buy an AMD or an Intel laptop, the best way to host unique email addresses, and more. And Ray and Tom talk about their new toys! Ray has an iPhone 5S, and Tom finally got his hands on the semi-mythical Chromecast.
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RAY: From WJCT studios in Jacksonville, Florida, I’m Ray Hollister,
TOM: I’m Tom Braun,
RAY: and this is Deemable Tech, tech help worth listening to.
TOM: This week’s episode of the Deemable Tech podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at a small orange dot com.
RAY: And if you haven’t done so already, make sure to subscribe to the Deemable Tech podcast. Just go to iTunes and search for Deemable Tech, or go to deemable.com/itunes to take you directly to our iTunes page. You can also subscribe to our YouTube page at youtube.com/DeemableTech. And we’re on the Facebook and the Twitter, just search for Deemable Tech.
TOM: Got a question about your computer, smart phone, tablet or the Internet? Give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or send us an email at questions@deemable.com.
RAY:
We’ve started a new Amazon Gift Card contest. All you have to do is answer a few questions about the Deemable Tech podcast.
Don’t worry, it’s not a trivia contest. We just need your opinion on a few questions. If you could take a few minutes and answer our survey it will really help us out a lot. And, just for doing so, you’ll be entered to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card.
Just go to Deemable.com and click the link to take the survey. You can’t miss it, it will be the first or second article at the top of the page until the contest is over. Speaking of which, it ends September 30th, so don’t wait, go submit your survey answers right now,… unless you’re listening live, then wait until the show’s over and then answer the questions.
Speaking of questions, Tom, do we have any questions?
TOM: Do we have any questions? Do we have any questions?! Yeah, we have questions. We have questions about how to wipe an iPhone, whether you should buy an AMD or an Intel laptop, the best way to host unique email addresses, and more.
RAY: Ooh ooh an we talk about our new toys?
TOM: OH, that?s right, we both have fun new gadgets. Ray has an iPhone 5S, and I?ve finally got my hands on the semi-mythical Chromebook. But first we?re going to dive into a couple of questions, starting with this one from Martha.
TOM: Martha writes, I am a middle school art teacher. My classroom is long and narrow and set up for for projection on the center of one of the long walls. With large classes of 44 students plus, nearly half of them cannot see the examples and demonstrations that I am projecting. Having 16 -20 students move their seats every time I want to show them something eats up too much class time. I am looking for a way to project the same image on the side and end wall at the same time – and of course on a school teachers budget. I have a laptop and an LCD projector. I thought about trying to add a TV to the set up. How? Will it work? Is there a better (and/or cheaper) option?
Thanks guys!
RAY: It all depends on your setup Martha. I am assuming that you are connecting your laptop to your projector with a VGA cable. The end of a VGA cable looks like an upside-down trapezoid with 3 rows of 5 pins on it. That used to be the standard monitor/projector cable. If you’re using HDMI or DVI then these instructions would be a little different.
Many projectors have an extra VGA out port, so you can daisy chain them.
Let me explain what that means.
If it doesn’t, you’ll have to get a VGA splitter. You can find them for $10 to $20.
Now, if I was doing this, and I had an unlimited amount of money, I would hook up another projector on the other side of the room. But, since you mentioned that you’re on a school teacher’s budget, and, if I had to guess you’re probably paying for this out of your own pocket, I expect you don’t have a load of cash to throw it this problem.
You mentioned that you have a TV that you could add to the set up. That will most likely work, but you may have to buy adapters to connect the laptop to the television set. If you’re really lucky, it might have a VGA in port on it. If you’re not so lucky, you may have to buy an adapter, which can run anywhere from $50-$200 depending on which type of adapter you need.
Either way, you are going to need a cable to run from your laptop, or from the other projector, to the other side of the room where the TV or the other projector is going to be. 50 foot VGA cables run anywhere from $15-$60 online.
So, best case scenario this is going to cost you about $50. Worst case scenario it might cost you closer to $200.
I hope that helps. If that seems doable to you, but you need some more help, do us a favor and take a picture of the back of your laptop, and the back of the projector where you plug it in the laptop, and the back of the TV where the ports are. We will be able to tell you more specifically what exact cables and/or adapters you need. Email us those pictures at questions@Deemable.com and we’ll take another look at it okay? Thanks.
Maliery writes, Are AMD processors the generic processors in comparison to Intel Celeron processors?
I’m shopping for a laptop, and I’m finding that the price of the AMD is more alluring, but not more than the specs on a i5 intel processor. If I bought an AMD processor (laptop), will I be disappointed when I visit my grandma, and she’s playing Solitare on an i5?
Thanks for the question, Maliery.
The way you framed it makes me think you?re comparing, say, Tylenol to the generic store-brand stuff. Processors don?t work quite the same way. There can be a lot of little differences under the hood.
AMD had kind of a hay-day in the 90?s, and several desktops I owned then had AMD processors and could go toe-to-toe with more expensive Intel machines. But things have really changed. While AMD computers are often quite cheap these days, they just aren?t up to par with Intel machines.
I?m not just talking about performance, either. You?re generally going to see better battery life on Intel laptops versus AMD laptops. Intel chips do a much better job with power management. I also suspect that you?re just going to have a smoother overall experience with an Intel machine.
Even price doesn?t have to hold you back from buying Intel. I recently helped a friend shop for an Intel laptop that was under $500. Sure, there are some real bargain basement AMD laptops, but once you get down to the $250 range I?d start thinking about getting a Chromebook for that email-and-web-browsing laptop.
It is possible to get higher end AMD processors that have clock speeds on par with lower end Intel processors. But Intel simply makes a better chip, so unless you are planning on buying a laptop based on price alone I would not get an AMD.
Name: Bill
Question: One of the icons on my iPad screen is called “Notes”. It’s a yellow legal pad app that I have used often to make notes in meetings. How do I print those notes off my iPad using my MG6220 Canon Printer? Thanks.
Fortunately your Printer is AirPrint ready. So you can automatically print from your iPad.
Just tap the Action button, which on iOS 6 is square with an arrow point sorta to the right. On iOS 7 it’s a square with an arrow pointing up.
Walk through from there
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer/printers_multifunction/pixma_mg_series/pixma_mg6220
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RAY: So, if you follow us on Twitter @Deemable, or if you follow me on Twitter @RayHollister, then you know that I spent Friday morning waiting in line at the Apple store for the iPhone 5S.
TOM: Now Ray, I know you are an Apple fan, but I thought you always said people that lined up overnight for the iPhone launches were idiots?
RAY: Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still think they’re idiots, I’ve just accepted that I am one of them. All kidding aside, it was a lot of fun although it was exhausting. I got there at about 3:00 AM and got my iPhone 5S at just after 8:00, so it wasn’t too bad, but I really didn’t prepare for it. I was busy all day Thursday, so I was about to pass out from exhaustion by the time I got home. If you want to read the highlights, check out my Twitter feed @rayhollister.
TOM: So, what’s your verdict? Was it worth the wait and the money?
RAY:
TouchID works fantastic
I never had a passcode on my iPhone before, like most people, but now I have a 35+ character passcode
It works almost every single time. The only time I have had a problem was when my fingers were wet, and I tried to unlock it.
The A7 processor is so snappy.
Significantly faster than my iPhone 4S, and quite a bit faster than my friend’s iPhone 5.
The larger screen size took a little bit to get used to. Especially with my Megan Fox thubs.
Camera
Burst mode
SloMo
True Tone flash
New sounds, no more marimba
RAY: So Tom, I know that you also recently got a new toy, and I wondered if you wanted to talk about it a little bit.
TOM: Does a geek want to talk about his new toy??? Does Tim Cook own an iPhone?
RAY: OK, so tell us what it is.
TOM: It?s a Chromecast.
RAY: Now explain to our listeners what a Chromecast is.
TOM: Basically a Chromecast is a little dongle that plugs into the HDMI port of your television. When connected to your home wifi network, any device that can run Google Chrome can send video and audio wirelessly directly to your TV.
It works pretty well, and the kicker is that it?s $30.
The Chromecast actually came out this summer, but at that low price they sold out within about 24 hours. I wasn?t one of the people in the first wave, but I went ahead and put it an order for one on Amazon.com.
Right when Google announced the Chromecast I had actually been looking for ways to do exactly what it does: stream wireless video from my laptop to my TV. I probably stream video from my laptop 70% of the time I?m using my TV. I was getting tired of lugging my laptop into the living room and tripping over the eight foot HDMI cable I use to connect it.
Google is not the first company to come up with a way to broadcast video from a computer to a TV.
RAY: There?s Apple TV.
TOM: Right, but you have to have a Mac, and I don?t. Some newer Intel-based laptops have a technology called WiDi which can do it, but my laptop unfortunately doesn?t have that either. There are a number of third party solutions out there, but they all have two big drawbacks: they all require line of sight to the TV, and they all start at $150 and go up from there.
RAY: You can get AirParrot for Windows. It lets you broadcast video from your Mac or Windows PC to an Apple TV. It’s only $9.99 for the program, but you still have to buy a $99 Apple TV.
TOM: Right. So when Google announced that it had a $30 solution to this problem I definitely paid attention.
RAY: Okay, so how does the Chromecast actually work? How do you set it up?
TOM: *explains*
RAY: Cool. Can you send any video to the TV with the Chromecast?
TOM: No, you can?t send just anything. You have to have the Google Chrome browser installed, and that?s what?s going to talk to your television. But the nice thing is that Chrome is available for the PC, the Mac, Android and iDevices. So any of those can talk to the Chromecast.
So far the only apps that have native support for Chromecast are YouTube, Netflix and Google Play. If you have any of those apps on your phone or tablet you should see a square Chromecast icon. Touching the icon will send whatever you?re playing to the Chromecast. This works very well. The Chromecast actually streams the video or audio, and your phone or tablet basically acts as the controller.
RAY: But what about things that don?t have native Chromecast support?
TOM: There is a Chromecast extension which you install on Chrome, and that puts a button on your browser that allows you to share any browser tab with Chromecast. So if your want to share something that doesn?t have Chromecast support yet you can still do that. For instance, Hulu doesn?t have native Chromecast support but you simply cast the tab you?re watching it in and it appears on your TV – with a second or so delay, granted.
RAY: What about local files. Can you play movies that are on your hard drive?
TOM: You can, at least on a Windows PC. You can actually play video files in Chrome, as long as they aren?t in a proprietary format. Windows Media Player?s WMV files and Apple?s MOV files won?t work, but file types like AVI and MP4 will open in a Chrome tab. And then you can share them to your Chromecast.
Overall it works pretty well. Sometimes the interface is a little clunky and there can be a delay of a few seconds when starting a video. And of course it doesn?t support every video format. But for $30 I personally am willing to forgive a lot of those quirks.
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TOM:
Subject: For Those w/o a Domain Name
Ray, Tom-
Howdy. Your listeners might be interested in https://www.sneakemail.com,
they provide a fair priced solution similar to what Amber and you do.
-Hoff
RAY: Last week Amber and I talked about how we use bestbuy@rayhollister.com, avenue@amberhollister.com etc.
For folks without their own domain address Sneakemail.com works the same way. $2.00 per month, which is about the same price as a domain name without all the hassle.
Geri writes in:
Okay, don’t laugh… I just found an old computer game CD-Rom designed for Windows 95/98. (I said don’t laugh!) It’s Scrabble, and it would be more convenient than online options sometimes, since I’m in Africa. Anyway, will this thing work on my Windows XP (also outdated now, I know)? Will it crash my computer?
Waiting anxiously for your response if I can get my Scrabble on!
RAY: It should work. Most likely you’ll only need to put the disc in. However, you might have to run it in “compatibility mode.” Try it and see.
Dave writes, Hi.
I have a Samsung Centura phone that accumulates frequently called
numbers. This is something different from the regular call log which I
can clear any time. The frequently called log is retaining _every_
number I dial and I cannot find a way to delete/clear this log. In fact
I would like to disable it altogether. Any help?
Thanks very much.
TOM: OK Dave, hopefully we can help you. We aren?t familiar with the Samsung Centura and we don?t have access to one, but we can tell you what the internet says about your problem. I searched for ?samsung centura frequently called numbers? and found someone complaining about the same issue. Another user said there is an app they can download that will do the trick.
Try searching for and downloading the ?HistoryEraser? app from DUMAPIC in the Google Play Market.
Once you have the app, select `Contacts`. Then, select target will say `All Frequently Called (in Favorites tab). Press `Ok` and they`re gone!
As far as I can tell, the HistoryEraser app looks legit. But we haven?t tried it ourselves, so this is a little bit of a use-at-your-own-risk case. That said, if this issue is really driving you crazy it might worth trying.
Michael wrote on our Facebook page:
All of a sudden an icon called “Homegroup” appeared on my desktop. I didn’t do anything I know of to get this, whatever it is. Have I been hacked or what? Is it safe and, if so, what for? And how did I get it? I’m running Windows 8, but not on a touch screen.
RAY: Most likely it is safe. I haven’t heard of any viruses or hacks involving Homegroup. You or someone on your network was most likely playing with file sharing settings. A homegroup is something that is setup on Windows 7 and 8 to allow you to share documents, photos, music, videos and printers with other people on your home network. You can set it up so that they make changes to your documents or set it up so all they can do is view them.
You don’t have to do anything about it, but if you want to get rid of it from your desktop, we’ll include a link in our show notes with directions on how to remove the Homegroup icon from Windows 8 and how to remove the Homegroup icon from Windows 7 if any other listeners that have Windows 7 want to remove it as well.
Thanks for all your questions, and keep them coming. Call us at our toll-free number, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email at questions@deemable.com. Also, subscribe to the show! Search for Deemable Tech on iTunes or point your favorite podcast app to dmbl.co/pod.
Our producer is Sean Birch. Thanks to Robert Snyder for Video Production Assistance. I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, and this is Deemable Tech. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.