We still don’t make any money doing this, so… you know… this is the best graphic we could find in the public domain.

It’s the 100th episode of Deemable Tech. It only took us three years to get here! Jessica Palombo, co-host of the mystical, never aired “Deemable Tech Pilot Episode,” and current WJCT News Director, joined Ray, Tom and Sean for the big celebration. The foursome talked about Facebook’s new “dislike” button, a new service that promises to be “Yelp for humans,” Amazon cuts out the competition and some guy who managed to buy the domain “Google.com” from — get this — Google!

Don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there

If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on the website, make sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher. And, while you’re there, leave a review. The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

What do you think about comics on television? If you have a response or comment for the show, give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

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 asmallorange.com.

THE RUN DOWN

Facebook ?Likes’ rumors of a ?Dislike’ button

Pretty much ever since Facebook introduced its ubiquitous ?like’ button, users have been clamoring for a ?dislike’ button. Well last month, Business Insider reported that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had announced that the company was working on one. Only, it isn’t quite what you think.

Don’t worry, the world’s most dominant social media site isn’t about to turn into a den of passive-aggressive backstabbing – anymore than it already is. Zuck says he wants to give users a way to express sympathy or empathy when someone posts that they are having a bad day or going through a difficult time.

While Facebook’s CEO promised that the ?dislike’ button would appear in the not-too-distant future, as of this recording it is not available. And you should be wary of scams. Gizmodo reports that ads have started appearing promising that people that take a survey can get early access to the ?dislike’ button. You can’t and you won’t. Although you may ?dislike’ what happens to you if you try.

The internet gives ?Yelp for Humans’ a one star rating

Ever app developer hopes that their app will go viral and gain massive media attention. Last week, one soon-to-be-released app did, although probably not in the way its creators wanted. The Washington Post ran a story about an app called Peeple, which founder Julia Cordray billed as ?Yelp for Humans’. Supposedly the app would allow you to rate anyone you had a phone # on a 1-5 scale. The people you were rating did not have to be signed up for the app.

Although Cordray promised that there would be controls in place to prevent cyber-bullying and that those who received negative ratings would have 48 hours to respond to them before they were posted, the internet backlash was swift and massive. Within hours, #Peeple was a trending topic on Twitter, with the Tweets about it almost uniformly negative. Peeple’s Facebook page was flooded with angry comments. Ironically, Peeple began to delete negative feedback from their Facebook page before taking both it and their Twitter feed offline entirely.

Over the weekend, Snopes.com speculated that Peeple was actually just a hoax intended to rile everyone up. However, there has been no confirmation that it is in fact a hoax at this time.

As of this morning, Peeple founder Julia Cordray has posted a lengthy ?clarification’ on LinkedIn. In her article, she claims that the purpose of the app has been misunderstood, that it is a ?positivity’ app, and that it will NOT in fact allow negative reviews or allow reviews of people who have not signed up for the app. This seems directly contradictory to what has been stated about the app before, including in a handful of ?webisodes’ that the team had posted on YouTube.

A further wrinkle in this crazy only-on-the-internet story: Peeple is also the name of another startup, this one a company which has developed an electronic, wifi-enabled peephole for your front-door. Wired reports that the other Peeple is less-than-pleased about the unwanted publicity. Since the other Peeple owns the trademark to the name in the US, it is not clear how the app makers will proceed. Should they choose to, their stated release date is in November.

Random guy buys Google.com from Google for $12

Mashable reports that last week a random guy was able to buy Google.com from Google for the massive price of $12. Sanmay Ved, a student at Babson University, was playing around with Google Domains when he noticed that the site said that “Google.com” was unclaimed. He added it to his cart, checked out, and a few minutes later had an email informing him of his successful purchase of “Google.com.”

Just a few minutes after that, however, his purchase was mysteriously cancelled. Ved reports that he did notify Google of the glitch after the fact. No word on why Google had its own domain up for sale in the first place.

Mashable notes that Microsoft lost Hotmail.co.uk in a similar glitch in 2003, but had more trouble getting it back.

Amazon.com to stop carrying competing streaming devices Chromecast and Apple TV

Competition in the world of streaming TV and movies continues to heat up. Several different companies now offer low-cost solutions that allow users to stream high quality video from several different services on the cheap. The leaders are Google’s Chromecast, Apple’s Apple TV, and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick. Well Bloomberg reports that Amazon.com has decided that that is a few competitors too many. It has announced that starting on October 29th it will no longer carry either the Chromecast or the AppleTV in its online store. Just in time for the Christmas season!

Amazon states that the reason for this move is that its competitor’s devices don’t “interact well” with Amazon Prime Video. Of course it would appear that it is up to Amazon to develop software for the devices, not the companies that make them.

Other streaming devices, including Roku’s set top device and Microsoft’s XBox One and Sony’s Playstation 4 are not affected

Tom is out of town, and there was an Apple Special Event Wednesday, so Ray and Sean get to talk about Apple without Tom’s skeptical cynicism.

Don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there

If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on the website, make sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher. And, while you’re there, leave a review. The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

What do you think about comics on television? If you have a response or comment for the show, give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

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 asmallorange.com.

THE RUN DOWN

Apple Watch

Tim Cook opened Wednesday’s announcement by touting the huge success of the Apple Watch, and then didn’t tell us any real numbers, and then touted the new Watch OS 2. There wasn’t much to talk about here, other than there are now 10,000 apps on the Apple Watch.

Apple also figured out that people who don’t have $10,000 to spare still like the color gold. Apple announced two new finishes: gold and rose gold in annonized aluminium. They also announced new leather watch straps from Hermes and a new Product Red model.

Apple TV

Apple also announced their first update to the Apple TV since 2012 at the event. The 4th generation Apple TV will feature major hardware and software updates, a new remote, new apps, and something called Siri (not sure what that is).

While the Apple TV box mostly looks the same as the old one from the outside (besides being a tad bit taller), the inside contains a lot of the same hardware as the iPhone 6 so it looks like it will be much faster than the previous generation.

It will need this extra speed for all of the new apps that are coming from the new Apple TV App Store. For the first time in the device?s history, Apple is letting developers create apps for the Apple TV and what they?re calling the new ?TV OS? operating system. They said these will include universal apps that will work and sync across devices. They made a particularly big deal about games on the Apple TV.

And it looks like those games will utilize a lot of the features of the new Apple TV remote. The new design includes a glass touch surface across the top that you?ll be able to swipe left and right, and up and down, to navigate menus and control game characters and the like. The remote also has a built-in gyroscope and accelerometer.

The biggest thing about the remote, though, is the Siri button.

Yes, in a greatly anticipated move, Apple has added Siri to Apple TV. Press that button, and you?ll be able to ask Siri to search for content across platforms like Netflix, Hulu and iTunes. You can even get really specific – the demo included a search for ?the episode of Modern Family with Edward Norton? that resulted in Siri pulling up the exact episode of that show in which the actor guest starred.

You?ll also be able to use Siri to search for information while watching content without pausing. A Siri special bar will pop up at the bottom of the screen with the results, which you can then swipe up for more details.

There was no release date for the new Apple TV, but Apple did reveal some prices. A 64 gigabyte version will be 199 dollars, a 32 gig one will be 149 dollars.

iPad Pro

The biggest news of the event (see what I did there?) was the iPad Pro. Coming in with a 12.9″ display, it is the biggest iOS device ever made. There were rumors forever that there would be a pro version of the iPad, and that it would have OS X, the operating system that runs Mac computers. Not surprising, that rumor turned out to be a dud.

Apple announced two accessories for the iPad Pro: the Smart Keyboard and ? the Apple Pencil.

I can tell you everything you need to know about the Smart Keyboard in five words: it’s not a Surface Keyboard. It looks pretty much exactly like a Surface Keyboard. It connects to the iPad very similarly to a Surface Keyboard. It’s a little more expensive than a Surface Keyboard at $169 instead of the Surface Pro Keyboard’s $129.99

Then there’s the Apple Pencil. It’s magical, it’s revolutionary? it’s a freakin’ stylus. Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave. Again, Apple Pencil, $99, Surface Pen, $49. #imjustsayin

In all seriousness though, Apple has a habit of “inventing” products that have been around forever, only to make them worlds better than the ones that are already out there on the market. The Apple Pencil does look really incredible, for a stylus.  It detects pressure and angle so it gives you a lot of variation. It’s supposed to last for 12 hours between charges, and it charges by plugging into the lighting connection on the iPad. Time will tell if it lives up to the hype.

Just like the original iPad announcement though, there was not a lot of “Wow this is amazing!” moments in the iPad Pro announcement. It does have a four speaker stereo sound system. So, that should help with how awful sound always is on every tablet device. The huge screen boasts 2732-by-2048 pixels across its 12.9 inches on the diagonal, and it’s the fastest, most powerful Apple product that runs iOS. In fact, Apple claims it is faster than 90% of portable PCs. So, there’s that.

iPhone 6S and 6S Plus

No surprise, Apple announced the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. Since we are on the “S” cycle, there wasn’t much new in the outward facing hardware department.

Other than the addition of a new rose gold finish, one of the biggest change was the addition of 3D Touch. This is one of the hardest features to explain. Basically, instead of just tapping, dragging and double tapping, you can tap deeper. And, if you tap deeper, on some menu items you’ll find additional options.

3D Touch is going to be the least used feature of the iPhone 6S.

Another big change to the iPhone 6Ses was the camera. The iPhone 6S has a 12 megapixel camera and can shoot 4K video.

The front-facing camera, known as the FaceTime camera, also got an upgrade. The FaceTime Camera is now a 5 megapixel camera, and it can shoot video in 1080. Also, the FaceTime camera now has TrueTone Flash, by using the screen as a flash bulb. Instead of adding LEDs to the front of the phone, Apple engineered the screen to flash brighter.

And, now you can have moving pictures! with sound! Apple is calling them: Live Photos. when you are looking at a picture that was taken with the Live Photo option turned on, you’ll be able to pressed the photo and it will start moving. Basically, it captures seconds before the photo was taken and afterward so you can be more in the moment. These are not movies according to Apple.

iPhone Upgrade Program

But, I hope you can afford to pay for a new iPhone with cash, because AT&T is the only carrier left that sells iPhones on a two-year contract.

But, Apple did announce a new payment plan to buy an iPhone. Starting at $27 a month, you can buy an iPhone directly from Apple. This works out to 24 payments, so starting out at a total of $649, the same price as buying an iPhone outright.

This would be great, if you could theoretically get a lower priced service plan from the carriers, but we really haven’t seen much of a difference in prices since Sprint and Verizon announced that they were no longer selling iPhones at the two-year contract price.

One Republic Apologizes

And finally, Apple, as it often does, closed out the announcement with a performance from a big name band. Fortunately this time they did not also force feed a new album into our phones. One Republic played a few ditties. They also apologized for all the times you’ve had to listen to “Good Life” while you were shopping at Whole Foods.

If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on the website, make sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher. And, while you’re there, leave a review. The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

If you have a response or comment for the show, give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

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 asmallorange.com.

Make sure to share Deemable Tech on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

THE RUN DOWN

A is for Alphabet, G is for Google

In our top story this week, tech giant Google announced a major corporate restructuring which included, to everyone’s surprise, a name change. A new holding company has been created called Alphabet. Alphabet is made up of a collection of companies including Google. Google itself is being slimmed down so that just the products and services traditionally associated with it, such as Google Search, Gmail, and Chrome, are part of it. Unrelated projects such as Google’s famous “moonshot” projects, Google Fiber, and its research into self-driving cars will be spun off into their own companies, all under the Alphabet umbrella.

As part of the restructuring, Google’s Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai has been made CEO of the new, slimmer Google, while Larry Page and Sergei Brin are taking control of Alphabet.

For the moment, no branding is changing, so if you want to search something you don’t suddenly have to “Alphabet” it and you won’t be checking “Alphabet Mail” anytime soon on your “Alphabet Phone.” At least, we sure hope not.

You can check out the new company’s website and a letter from its founders at abc.xyz.

Why not Alphabet.com?

You might be asking yourself, why didn’t Google just go with Alphabet.com? Well, it turns out, even the mighty Google can’t just have any domain name they want. The New York Times is reporting that car manufacturer BMW already owns Alphabet.com and they are not interested in selling it.

Alphabet is a subsidiary of BMW that provides vehicle fleet services. Micaela Sandstede, a BMW spokeswoman in Munich. She described the website as a “very active” part of Alphabet?s business. Which is ironic, because the website has been inaccessible ever since the Google Alphabet (or is it Alphabet Google?) announcement, presumably because of the increase in traffic. It makes us feel better knowing that even mega-companies like BMW have issues keeping their website running when they get hit with a ton of traffic.

The article points out that it would only be trademark infringement if it creates confusion with customers… which wouldn’t be an issue if Google and BMW were in entirely different industries, which they were, right up until Google entered the automobile industry with self-driving cars and Android for automobiles.

Android flaw that got patched actually not patched

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago we talked about a major security flaw in Android that allowed a remote attacker to execute code using a vulnerability in Hangouts. Google rushed out a patch for the vulnerability, which has now been codenamed “Stagefright,” and it was just a matter of getting it out to the phones for all the different carriers. Except, according to the BBC, it turns out that the patch doesn’t work – or at least, that it is easy to bypass. Better keep Hangouts disabled for the time being.

How to lose an internship at Facebook

If you figure out a huge flaw in the company you are going to start an internship at, perhaps it’s a good idea to keep it to yourself. According to Boston.com, Aran Khanna created a web-app demonstrating a huge privacy flaw in Facebook Messenger shortly before he was to begin his highly coveted internship at Facebook. Facebook Messenger stored your location automatically and shared it with anyone you chatted with on the app. Khanna’s web-app took that information and placed it onto a map showing where everyone you had chatted with was when they sent the message.

He tweeted about his app and posted it on Reddit and Medium, and a few days later, Facebook asked him to disable it, and then let him know that his internship was also disabled.

According to Khanna, he wasn’t fired from his internship because of the app, but because of the way he described Facebook?s user data collection. Khanna says the Medium post wasn’t in line with the high ethical standards expected of interns.

Drones make bears nervous

Drones seem like an ideal method for wildlife biologists to study the habits of wild animals such as bears, but it appears that there is a catch. NPR reports that a new study shows that the presence of drones make bears nervous, elevating their heart rates by as much as 400%. Mark Ditmer, a biologist at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, flew a drone near bears that had been previously implanted with heart rate monitors to study their hibernation states. Although the bears appeared outwardly unphased, all of them showed elevated heart rates when buzzed by the drone.

Meet the world?s biggest hard drive

Samsung has unveiled a new device with the catchy name of PM1633a. According to The Verge, it’s a 2.5 inch solid state drive, and it packs a whopping 16 terabytes of storage space, making it essentially the biggest hard drive ever. Samsung has not announced a price tag, but they plan to sell servers with up to 48 of these drives installed, which they are calling JBOF. One JBOF should hold about 768 TB. JBOF stands for Just a Bunch Of Flash. Before you ask, the next step up after terabyte is petabyte.

Still No Apple TV

Apple TV, the long delayed, rumored, mystical device and service is further delayed. Bloomberg is reporting that negotiations between Apple and the big TV networks are holding up the works. According to Bloomberg, Apple was to announce a new live  streaming TV service at its Sept. 9 press event, but instead Buzzfeed News says Apple is only announcing a beefed up Apple TV set-top box.

eSports Drug Testing

Top-ranked Counter Strike: Global Offensive player Cory “Semphis” Friesen admitted in an interview last month that he and his competitive eSports team “were all on Adderall” during a recent tournament. According to NPR news, at least one eSports league has decided that it is not okay with that. The Electronic Sports League, which sponsored the $250,000 tournament Friesen and his team took part in, has announced a ban on drugs and alcohol during its tournaments and will be instituting random drug testing during its tournaments going forward. The League says the substances banned include those prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The first random drug testing at a League event will occur at ESL One in Cologne later this month.

LOL is OOS (Out of Style)

You may have seen an article from the New Yorker back in April about how we express laughter online – appropriately known as e-laughter – and the increase in the use of “hehe.”

This piqued the interest of the he research team at Facebook, who decided to look into how users showed amusement. They did so by analyzing posts and comments from last week of May. Don’t worry – they only looked at ones that had “at least one string of characters that matched laughter” and they left out private messages.

So what did their study find? Well, among other things, the form of e-laughter that is used more than any other is “haha” – which they found is used over 50% of the time. In second place are emoji, followed by “hehe” in third. And it last place… our dear friend “LOL.”

The first text speak that many of us learned is now used only about 2 percent of the time.

Mic.com has a great breakdown of all of Facebook’s findings, including which phrases are most popular among different age groups and states.

If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

And, don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

In this episode of the Deemable Tech podcast, Ray and Tom answer your questions about controlling your Apple TV with your Mac, keeping your emails up-to-date across multiple devices, managing your iTunes music library and more!

If you’re looking to buy a new laptop, the guys also take a little time to discuss a few of the best laptops according to Laptop Magazine and PC Magazine.

We’re currently working on our second hour-long public radio special, and we want you to be a part of it! Leave us a voicemail with your tech question at 1-888-972-9868 to “audition” for the show!

#62 This Is How Deemable Tech Does It

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Laptop Magazine’s Best Laptop Guide
• PC Magazine’s Laptop Guide

Q: What is the best way to hook my laptop up to my TV?

Image Credit: Alan Levine / Flickr

A: Thinking of cutting the cord, Aaron? With Netflix and Hulu Plus you can get most of the shows you watch on TV without cable. Or maybe you want to use your TV to show the baby videos stored on your laptop? Either way there are a few options.

If you have an HDMI port on both your laptop and your TV, the simplest approach may be to connect them using an HDMI cable. Most, but not all, laptops now support HDMI and virtually every modern TV does. A word of caution: don’t go to your local big box store to buy HDMI cables – they are way overpriced! You can find them online for literally a quarter of the price (we’re talking $10 vs. $40).

Once you have a cable connecting both the laptop and the TV, you need to select the HDMI input on your television. Then, if you are using a PC, you may have to tell your laptop to send the signal to the TV. This is usually accomplished by pressing the “function” or “FN” key and one of the F keys at the top of the keyboard.

Now, if you don’t want to cover your living room with HDMI cables, there are also a lot of wireless solutions out there. However, your choices depend on what kind of laptop you have and what you want to do with it. For instance, Intel has a very nice bit of technology to mirror your PC or Mac called WiDi (which stands for “Wireless Display”). Unfortunately it is not very widely available, and typically you’ll only find it on high-end Intel laptops.

Several manufacturers also make small boxes which enable wireless streaming from your laptop to your television. Apple TV and Roku are two of the most widely known. Either one can stream from a Mac or PC, and from Netflix, Hulu Plus and a variety of other services. They each cost around $100 (depending on which version of the Roku you buy). If we were answering your question six months ago, we would tell you to get one of these.

You see, there’s now another solution that’s a lot cheaper. Google sells a small gadget called the Chromecast which plugs into the HDMI port on your TV. It then connects to your home WiFi network. Once it’s set up, you can stream video from your laptop through the Google Chrome browser (it supports YouTube, Netflix, Hulu Plus and Pandora), and it will mirror any page you have open in the browser. And here’s kicker: it’s only $30.

However, you should know that there are some limitations. Since the Chromecast only streams what you can view through the Chrome browser, it most likely won’t work with video you have stored locally on your hard drive. So, it may not be the best solution if you are looking to show off your baby videos.

But, again, for $30 it may be worth a shot. If it doesn’t work out, there’s always the HDMI cable.

This week on Deemable Tech, Ray and Tom have so many questions they decide to have the first ever “Deemable Tech: Lightning Round.” In the Lightning Round, Ray, Tom and guest host Elizabeth Pampalone try to answer as many questions as they can off the top of their head. Sean Birch is the judge, and whoever gets the most questions right gets the grand prize of absolutely nothing!

Episode 38 – The Lightning Round

DRAFT TRANSCRIPT

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: 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: 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.

And, by audible.com – Deemable Tech listeners can get a FREE audiobook download at audibletrial.com/Deemable Over 100,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player.

And, from All Florida Insurance Options, an authorized Progressive agency, helping people shop for insurance at 904-757-3288 or at their office in Highland Square on Dunn Avenue in North Jacksonville.

RAY: This week, back in the studio once again, we have a special guest, Elizabeth Pampalone, owner of JaxComputerChic.com, a small business computer consulting and computer training company. Welcome back to the show Elizabeth!

ELIZABETH: *vamp response*

RAY: Today we are going to do something a little different. We have a backlog of older questions to get through.

TOM: Why didn’t we answer those questions?

RAY: Laziness? Stupidity? A lack of organization?

TOM: Yeah, that sounds about right. So what are we going to do about them?

RAY: I thought we should just run through them, as fast as we can, answering them off the cuff, gameshow style. In fact, I thought we could call it.

*THE LIGHTNING ROUND*

TOM: Wow, what are we calling it again?

RAY: *THE LIGHTNING ROUND*

TOM: Awesome! But before we dive into The Lightning Round –

RAY: You mean, *THE LIGHTNING ROUND*

TOM: Yeah, that. Before we do that, we have a couple of ordinary questions to answer. And, Elizabeth, feel free to dive in on these at any point.

ELIZABETH: OK. Looks like the first question is from a guy named Ryan.

RAY: Cool, can you read it for us?

ELIZABETH: Ryan writes, For some reason, I can’t find 1channel or icefilms as add on options on my XBMCHub on my Windows 7 laptop. They are amazing on the unlocked Apple TV, and I want to put them on my laptop. Any thoughts?
TOM: *laughs*
Now I know how listeners to our show must feel when we start going on and on about things they’ve never heard about.
Before I yell at those pesky kids to get off my lawn, does anybody know what a 1channel or an icefilm is? And what is an XBM-whatever and what does it have to do with unlocking an Apple TV? I didn’t even know you could unlock an Apple TV.
RAY: Well, in the Apple world we call it jailbreaking. And yes, you definitely can jailbreak your Apple TV. Just like Jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad, you are simply taking off or breaking the code that keeps iOS shackled.
TOM: Why would you want to?
RAY: Well, normally your Apple TV can do two things: mirror the desktop of your Mac, iPhone or iPad, and stream media from iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube or one of the other authorized Apple TV channels, to your television. If you want to play any other kind of media through it, you’re out of luck. But an Apple TV is actually a powerful little LINUX-based computer in its own right, and by losing it from its shackles, you can use it to stream just about anything you want to your television.
TOM: OK, what is XB-whatever?
RAY: XBMC. It used to stand for Xbox Media Center because that’s what it started out as, but now it is a free, open source media player which can be run on a variety of devices.
TOM: Including, let me guess, a jailbroken Apple TV or a Windows 7 laptop.
RAY: You got it. The XBMC platform support third-party add-ons which allow you to do things like stream movies through it and watch ripped DVDs.
TOM: So if I jailbreak my Apple TV, I can install XBMC and watch my ripped DVDs on it?
RAY: Yep.
TOM: Cool. But Ryan didn’t just say XBMC, did he? He said XBMCHub.
RAY: OK, so despite the fact that it was originally designed to be installed on hacked XBoxes and jailbroken Apple TV’s, XBMC is supposed to only access legal content. But since it’s open source, someone has created a separate version called XBMC Hub which is a little more – open – about what content you access through it.
TOM: I’m guessing 1channel and icefilms are ways to get free content that you’d normally have to pay for.
RAY: Well basically they are free services that host links to all kinds of TV and movies… some of which you should technically be paying for. But they don’t actually host the content themselves, so they’re in a legal grey area. There’s no law that specifically says what they are doing is illegal, but that’s never stopped a copyright lawyer before.
TOM: Riiight. So, just to recap, Ryan has jailbroken his Apple TV and installed XBMC Hub on it so he can stream free TV shows and movies to his TV. And now he wants to do the same thing on his Windows laptop, but he’s running into problems.
RAY: I think that sums up it up.
TOM: And… we’re not going to help him, are we?
RAY: No.
TOM: Here’s the deal Ryan, and all our other podcast listeners. Here at Deemable Tech we have a policy of trying to stay neutral on the topic of copyright, piracy, DRM and that sort of thing.
On the one hand, it’s your laptop, it’s your Apple TV, you are welcome to try and do whatever you want with it. And we’re not going to pretend that there aren’t lots of ways to get, say, pretty much any movie or television program for free and stream it to your television.
RAY: But we’re also not going to tell you how to do it. At least in the US, distributing copyrighted content for free without the author’s permission is technically illegal. Do people do it all the time? Yes. Should the laws about this stuff be different? Maybe. Are movie and TV studios technological dinosaurs with their heads stuck in the sand? Probably. But right now the law is the law and we can’t be in the position of encouraging our listeners to break it.
TOM: If you decide to stick it to the man and circumvent the official channels for this kind of stuff, well, that’s your business. I mean, we’re geeks, we get it. It’s like rooting or jailbreaking your smartphone – it’s your device, we think you should be able to do what you want with it. Fortunately, rooting and jailbreaking smartphones is legal. We’re glad to answer questions about that on this podcast. But with other devices you’re getting into a gray area and we can’t help you. And as far as copyrighted content goes, well, we’re not even going to touch that issue with a ten foot pole.
Ryan, I’m sure with a little technical know-how, Google-fu and maybe asking some questions on the right messageboards you can get your questions answered. But it’s up to you to face the legal or technical consequences. So you’re on your own with this one!

TOM: Fabio writes – Hi Tom and Ray,

I’m Fabio and I’m writing you from Italy. I’m Italian so please forgive me if I make any mistakes. Here’s my problem: I have a desktop computer with windows 7 and sometimes while I surf the web, (I use the latest version of firefox) the screen freezes for a couple of seconds and then on the system tray this message appears: ?Display driver stopped responding and has recovered?. I tried to update the video card driver (I have an ATI Radeon 5700) but the problem continues. I hope you can help me with this because it is really annoying. I really love your show, it’s useful and entertaining and I’ve downloaded every podcast of the program on Itunes.

Thank you in advance

RAY: Awesome! Thanks for your question Fabio. That’s a hard one. *PAUSE* Did you ever watch Eureka, Tom?

TOM: Like, one time. For five minutes. And then I changed the channel.

RAY: *Explain what Eureka is.*

TOM: OK, did you just completely change the subject? Aren’t we going to answer Fabio’s question?

RAY: Of course we are…

TOM: So what does this have to do with Fabio’s question?

RAY: Explain how every episode of Eureka works.

Here’s the formula for a perfect Eureka episode:
They’re having a normal day, *example*
then something wacky happens, *example*
Then, they find out that that wacky thing has gotten worse, *example*
Then they find out that the wacky thing was caused by some experiment, except the experiment wasn’t suppose to work like that, *example*
Then, they find out that the wacky thing happened because the first experiment interacted with a second experiment *example* and the interference of the two experiments caused the wacky thing.
Then, they find out the wacky thing is going to (A) kill someone, (B) destroy the entire town, (C) kill everyone in the country, or (D) destroy the entire world, and they only have five minutes or less to fix it.
So, then they come up with some ridiculously complicated method of changing the wacky thing described with technobabble by the geeks, and the sheriff describes it with an simple analogy, and it will probably result in an amazing new achievement in science if it works.
And then, they do it. It almost always works, unless it’s a ?very special episode? in which case the worst case scenario does happen, but even then there is a twist that makes it a good thing that it happened. *example*

So that’s how it works. And Colin Ferguson, if you’re listening, when you guys decide to make the Eureka movie, I am totally ready to write the script.

TOM: OK, Ray, while that was *vamps*, what does that have to do with Fabio’s question?

RAY: I don’t know? What was Fabio’s question?

TOM: Remember, his display driver stopped responding? I knew it, you were just changing the subject!

RAY: *Explain how PCs are like Eureka. Everything should work together well, but they sometimes don’t and it’s really complicated to explain why.

TOM: Anyway, this one’s pretty easy, you just

Open Catalyst Control Center and switch to ATI Overdrive
Unlock and enable Overdrive
Go to Options/Profiles/Profile Manager and create a new profile called, let’s say, STABLE.
Save the new profile. But DO NOT ACTIVATE the profile.
Now go to C:\Users\{YourUserName}\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles folder ( I assume C: is your system drive )
Note: You should have ” show hidden files ” turned on to see the folder.
Open the .xml file named STABLE with notepad.
Change the values of the idle Core clock and Memory clock speeds below

Feature name=”CoreClockTarget_0″
Property name=”Want_0″ value=”40000″ note: previous value should be “15700”

Feature name=”MemoryClockTarget_0″
Property name=”Want_0″ value=”90000″ note: previous value should be “30000”
Save the file and close it.
Go back to CCC and activate the profile. This will make the card idle at 400 MHz core clock and 900 MHz memory clock.

Boom! You’re good. Hopefully.

RAY: So… Yeah there is a possible solution, but it is very complicated and no one else in the world will get any benefit out of it. So, Fabio we are going to send you an email with a link to the information. So you can try it out for yourself, and let us know how it works out.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/276896-33-radeon-5750-display-driver-stopped-responding

RAY: OKay guys, we’ve gotten through the regular questions, so do you know what time it is?

TOM: I think it’s time for *THE LIGHTNING ROUND*

RAY: Yes!

ELIZABETH: So how’s it going to work?

RAY: *explains*

Question 1:

Anonymous – I LOVE my Windows Phone. I just don’t know why the business world doesn’t use them more often. The OS is better than the ?cutesy? Android system that seems more teenager/unprofessional like. It has Office (word, PowerPoint, Excel), and more over Outlook ?.everything we may use in the business world. I just don’t know why I can’t sync my Outlook calendar at the office with my Samsung Smartphone Windows OS? I have an “Microsoft Exchange server” – the Phone asks for this but it always asks for a “domain name”? What are these and what do I type into make this work?

Question 2:

Hey guys,

I have my laptop hooked up to my LCD tv via HDMI so that I can watch  Netflix. However, recently I have noticed that if I’m watching a show that’s longer than 30 minutes the audio and video will suddenly stop being sent to the tv via HDMI, and instead it starts playing directly from the laptop, almost as if the HDMI itself went into sleep mode. If I move the mouse, then the HDMI audio and video goes back to the tv.

What gives?

Also, after trying to hook my laptop up to my tv via the VGA connection, now it doesn’t recognize my tv as an LCD, but thinks its an analog CRT and won’t allow me to set the proper resolution!

Arrrrrrrgh!

-Joel

Question 3:

Melody – I recently heard a piece where you all recommended the Find My iPhone app and was wondering about something. I keep my Location Services off unless I need them, since they seem to be a huge battery suck. Will the Find My iPhone features still work if the Location Services are off?

Thank you.

Question 4:

Voicemail transcript: Dan this jacksonville beach florida… I’m calling to see if you do house calls … and if you do … please call me back and let me know otherwise I guess I maybe have to call … I’m making some call again but thank you very much I appreciate hearing from you and enjoy your programs on … on the radio thank you bye bye.

Question 5:

Scott – Dear Ray & Tom,
I have windows internet explorer version 8 and everytime I bring it up, it gives me the error message, ?A program on your computer has corrupted your browser preferences? and then I have click on ?OK? or change my preferences. I can’t seem to get rid of it. I have re-enabled Google as my default browser and I still get the error message. I tried picking another browser and I still get the error message.
Is there any way I can stop the error message?
Thank you.

Question 6:

Jennifer writes, I listened to your show this morning on WJCT about protecting the iPad & iPhone. I have the Blackberry Bold 9900 & Blackberry Playbook 64gb tablet. I would like a recommendation for apps to protect, lock down & secure the Blackberry Bold & Blackberry Playbook tablet.
Thanks for all your help!

Question 7:

Alan – Hi Ray/Tom,
My iphone sends my incoming mail to the trash. The messages appear briefly in the in box, then go to trash. ATT says it is a problem with my computer settings, Apple says it is a problem with Yahoo. I have cleared and reset the account information to no avail.

I went online and spoke with some guy in India who said he could fix it for $50.00. I was irritated and did not take him up on it. I would rather pay you or someone local.

Please advise.

Question 8:

Mel – Hi I am using an HP laptop with Vista. My account is with AT&T (bellsouth.net) for my email. Yahoo is only my choice as my search engine. I would like to use Google as a choice. How can I do that with out messing up my email?

Love your spot on NPR’s morning edition.

Question 9:

Michelle – I have an LG Thrill from AT&T that has been unlocked. I’m using it on T-Mobile, but I can’t get the data to work on it. What do I need to do to get the data working?

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. I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, I’m Elizabeth Pampalone, and this is Deemable Tech.
Thanks for listening. Have a great week.

On this week’s episode, we have a new toll-free phone number (1-888-972-9868) and a bunch of questions.

Questions

• How can I control what my kid can access on an Android tablet?
• What is the best option for kid safe email?
• What’s the easiest way to share a tablet like an iPad?
• What is the best antivirus software money can buy?
• Which Macs can do Airplay Mirroring on the Apple TV?
• Why isn’t my Rosetta Stone software working?
• What do I need to do to get my GS3 to stop talking to me?
• Why is every window I open only half-size?
• Where can I upload 20 GB of photos for free?

All that and more, on this episode of Deemable Tech!

Make sure to subscribe to the show in iTunes by clicking here, or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader by clicking here. Also, make sure to leave us a review in iTunes. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed in iTunes and the more listeners will see our show!

Need tech help? Got a problem or tech question about your computer, phone or tablet? Give us a call and leave us a voice mail at 1-888-972-9868, or send us an email to questions at deemable dot com. We’ll take the best questions and answer them on the show.

Episode 26 – Keeping Your Kids Safe Inside Small Windows!