BlackBerry Messenger, BBM, which was previously thought to be BlackBerry’s life preserver may now be being chopped off and sold as a separate company. This isn’t surprising since BlackBerry has been in a slow death-spiral for the past couple of years. While bringing BlackBerry Messenger to other platforms like Android, Windows Phone and the iPhone might be great for consumers, it happening this late in the game is another sign of BlackBerry’s imminent demise. However, offering BBM for sale may only be to increase the perceived value of Blackberry as a whole before a sale of the entire company. For more on this story, here is Landon Robinson’s story from BestTechie.com.

Blackberry May Be Separating Messenger from Company Ahead of Potential Sale (via http://www.besttechie.com/)

Smartphone manufacturer BlackBerry may be working on a way to ?spinoff? its built-in messaging service, simply called BlackBerry Messenger, and turn it into its own ?valuable asset? before the company’s rumored potential sale occurs. This report comes out of The Wall Street Journal who is sourcing anonymous ?people familiar with the matter.?…

On this week’s episode Ray and Tom take their first live call in the studio, and it’s Ray’s mom! (Why does everyone try a Your Mom joke? What is this the 90s?) Also, Tom and Ray help Dean find a new laptop battery, Jennifer find her lost BlackBerry Bold 9900 and Playbook, and help Kevin figure out how to get to his email.

#43 How Tom Met Ray’s Mother

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.

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.

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: Today on Deemable Tech, we’re answering your questions about replacing a laptop battery

TOM: finding a lost BlackBerry,

RAY: And, Angel’s not here tonight!

TOM: But first, we have a call coming in, Ray.

RAY: From who, Tom?

TOM: It’s from YOUR MOM.

RAY: OK, seriously, Tom, that’s not funny. And we’ve already done that joke on the show before. Jeez!

TOM: No really! It is you’re mom! She’s waiting on hold.

RAY: Oh Hey Mom! You’re on Deemable Tech, what’s your question?

RAY’S MOM: “I’m starting a business making jewelry like necklaces and earrings. I want to sell them online. Will you make me a website?”

RAY: Nope. We don’t do website development, even for you Mom.

RAY’S MOM: OK, well if you won’t make a website for me, what should I do? How can I sell them online?

RAY: There’s a few options: eBay, Craigslist, Etsy, ArtFire and a bunch of other Etsy knock offs.

Craigslist- Free, but expectation is to only do business locally so you have to meet people in person.

Ebay, don’t pay until you buy, auction style often drives prices low because it’s a buyers market.

Etsy. Go where the shoppers are.

Remember you can get a URL and direct it to your Etsy page, so you could get SerenityNook.com and direct it to your Etsy Page.

Dean asked: Where’s a good place to get a replacement battery for my Dell laptop? It’s Model number PP31L.

RAY: OK, so that’s a Dell Studio 1735/1737.

Generally, I would start with the manufacturer to get a baseline price, and then I would check out a couple of other sites for comparison.

http://www.amazon.com/

http://www.newegg.com/

http://www.tigerdirect.com/

http://www.batteriesplus.com/

I looked on Dell’s website, and they had two different batteries for that model, one was about $110, the other was about $150. Obviously, the more expensive one was the better one that lasts longer.

Online I found them going for anywhere between $40 -120.

If you just want to find the cheapest replacement battery that you can fine, go to Google and just type in Dell studio 1735 battery and look at the shopping results. That will give you a breakdown of pretty much every battery that’s out there for the Dell studio 1735 or 1737. And then you can sort it by cheapest to most expensive or most relevant or any way you want to.

What you want to keep in mind though is quality and customer service. If you buy a battery from some website in some foreign country that has no customer service number, but you get a cheap deal on the battery, you can expect that you’re probably not going to get any service if the battery breaks down a month after you buy it. Sometimes it’s worth buying something that’s more expensive, but you know it’s going to last, or if it doesn’t you know the company that sold to you is going to replace it for you.

Jennifer wrote in: I listened to your segment 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!

RAY: Well first of all thanks for email Jennifer. Second of all, sorry it took so long to get back to you. Looks like it’s in this email back in April, and it looks like We must’ve missed placed your email. So, sorry about that!

I had to go back and find out which radio segment you were talking about, and I found out it was the one about finding a lost iPhone.

Unfortunately BlackBerry did not have a built-in feature like Find my iPhone until BlackBerry 10. BlackBerry does make an app though that you can download for the BlackBerry Bold 9900 called BlackBerry Protect. It’s free, and it lets you do basically everything that Find my iPhone does. It will let you locate it, lock it, make it ring loud, put a message on the screen, and wipe it if you need to. You can even back up your data remotely before you wipe it.

Now, for your BlackBerry playbook, Oh! You’re the one who bought a BlackBerry playbook. I was wondering who that was.

The BlackBerry Playbook is an odd duck because it is the only device that runs the operating system it runs. And when blackberry puts out new tablets (whenever that is) they probably are not going to run that version of the operating system either. They’re probably going to run BlackBerry 10.

And that is why BlackBerry Protect does not work on the BlackBerry Playbook, even though it is built into BlackBerry 10.

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, and to Jo El Snyder for helping us out with the phones. I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, and this is Deemable Tech. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.

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.

We’re not trying to make you feel guilty, but Deemable Tech’s Kickstarter Project does end on March 25th at 7:00 PM. Would you help support us? Any amount, $1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 50, 100, etc. helps. Click the link above and click the green Back This Pledge button. Thank you in advance!

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!

Download Episode 33 – If We Don’t Make It, It’s All Your Fault 

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 answer them on the show.

TRANSCRIPT

Support for Deemable Tech is provided by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at asmallorange.com.

RAY: From WJCT studios in Jacksonville, Florida, I’m Ray Hollister,

TOM: I’m Tom Braun,

RAY: and this is Deemable Tech, technology worth talking about, and 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.

TOM: Today on the show, we’ll be talking about jailbreaking iPhones, and whether it’s illegal to unlock your smartphone, and

RAY: Blackberry 10 and whether you can get apps for your Pantech Renue, and

TOM: sharing music with Dropbox.

RAY: But first…

There were Two big tech news items this week. First of all, Samsung revealed the next phone in its line of Galaxy S flagship phones, the S4. Features include a larger screen with a 1080×1920, a 13 megapixel camera, eye-based scrolling and the ability to use it with gloves.

Tom, you’ve got a GS3. Are you thinking of making the switch?

TOM: To be honest Ray, I think I feel like you do about switching to the iPhone 5 when you have a 4s.

I think if you don’t have a Galaxy S3 or you have an older Galaxy, by all means you should wait a month and pick up the S4 when it comes out. But it’s not a quantum leap forward over the S3, and personally my S3 is still working really well for me. In fact I would say it’s continuing to get better. So I’m not going to rush out and upgrade just yet.

So what was the other big news?

RAY: Well Google has announced that as part of their annual ?spring cleaning’ they will be shutting down Google Reader.

TOM: Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

– was my reaction upon hearing that news earlier this week.

RAY:

Since Google announced that it was closing Reader, its news aggregator service, we’ve received several questions ranging from ?How do I live without it?? to ?What the heck is it, and why is everyone freaking out??

For folks in the latter category, Google Reader is the equivalent of a friendly butler that finds all of the news that you are interested in reading from the news sources and blogs you trust. Instead of having to open 10 different websites every day, you could open just one page whenever you wanted. It automatically gathered all of the stories that have been published by the ten websites you follow since the last time you opened the page.

Now you are probably just as upset that it is closing as everyone else, let me tell you the good news. There is hope. Other companies are stepping up to fill in the gap that Google Reader is leaving behind. Some of them work exactly the same as Google Reader does; others take what Google Reader does and improves upon it.

Google Reader Alternatives:

• The Old Reader
• Feedly
• NewsBlur
• NetVibe
• Pulse

We’ll have a full break down of the available Google Reader Alternatives later this week. What are you using or planning on using to replace Google Reader?

Hey, I’ve been listening to your show, but I don’t often have a whole hour to pay attention to the computer at one point in the day. Also, sometimes I don’t have a huge interest in a particular topic (horrors!), but later decide I really want to know about something you spoke about in a past show. Anyway, would it be possible to put “sections” in the show notes? Sort of using the little music breaks as dividers, and saying, “In section 1, we cover these topics. Section 2, which starts at minute marker 20, discusses those; and Section 3, at minute 40, includes the others.” Then I could easily come back to the section where I had to quit listening, or quickly find a particular subject I’m listening to.
Perhaps there’s another way I could find that info, but my tech savvy mostly comes from pushing buttons and Googling answers to my questions, and I’ve not really done either of those with podcasts.
Anyway, thanks for the show!
–Breana in Jax

Thanks for your email, Breana. Well, we agree. Actually, that is something that we really want to improve about our website. A few of our older episodes do have that. We had the question and when the question started in the show. The problem is time. A lot of folks think we get paid to do this, which is a great compliment, thank you! But actually, we are all volunteers. Tom and I work elsewhere 40 hours a week. Sean does work here at the station, but he doesn’t get paid to do this. So, Deemable Tech takes about 30 hours a week combined to produce each episode of the show. Doing the show notes like that took about 2-3 extra hours each week, because you have to go through and listen to the entire episode again, write down when each question started, and then rephrase the question so that it’s a sentence instead of a paragraph. So, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but it actually ends up being a little bit of work, and I haven’t been able to do that since I started writing the blogs for Folio Weekly.

Now, we have found out that it helps radio stations when they are considering to air our show if we can provide a transcript of each show. That would be even more work, because some of what we say is scripted, but a lot of it isn’t, but I think that would be helpful to some of our listeners too. So again, we really want to produce better show notes, but we are limited in what we can do because of our budget constraints. You know, not having one.

Now, if we had a volunteer that wanted to help us, we might be able to bring that back! What we would need would be someone to come to the studio with us when we record or listen live online, and keep track of when we start new questions, and then take those notes and put them together with the show notes. Also, we’re looking for a volunteer to help us out with video. If you or someone you know would be willing to help us out, send me an email at rayhollister@deemable.com.

Q: My coworker has a jailbroken iPhone, and she keeps trying to convince me that I should let her jailbreak my iPhone too. My iPhone 4S is out of warranty now, but I’m still afraid of breaking it. I can’t afford to replace it right now. Not that I don’t trust her, but if I do it, I’d like to do it myself. Is it hard to do? Is it worth jailbreaking? Is there any chance I can get in trouble? What happens if something screws up, and my iPhone doesn’t work anymore?

A: I don’t blame you for being cautious. I had never tried jailbreaking an iPhone either until I received your email. I’ve always been a little scared to attempt to jailbreak my iPhone because I was worried it might break, too. But, I screwed up my courage and decided to give it a shot.

Is it hard to do? Not really. It used to be much harder. The first jailbreak required disassembling the iPhone! On iOS 6.0 through 6.1.2, as long as you have the most basic understanding of how to use your computer, you shouldn’t have a hard time jailbreaking your iPhone. In fact, I can assume that if you are considering doing it, you probably have the skills required to do it.

Is it worth it? Well, that all depends on what you want out of your phone. If you are content with how your phone works, and you don’t want to take any risks what-so-ever, then it’s probably not worth it to you. However, if you’d like to try use apps that aren’t allowed in the App Store, or you would like to customize your iPhone to work the way you want it to, or if you just like to tinker, you’ll probably enjoy jailbreaking your iPhone.
There are fantastic customizations like alternative keyboards and themes. There are tons of great apps that you can’t get in the app store, not because they have porn or have viruses, but because they work in a way that Apple won’t allow. An example is an app called iCaughtU that takes a picture whenever someone tries to enter your passcode into your phone and fails. Because the app uses the camera in a way that Apple didn’t design, they’ll never allow that app to be sold in the App Store.

Ironically, if you want to see what will likely be in the next version of iOS, check Cydia, the app store you get when you have a jailbroken iPhone. You know how you can take a picture by pressing the volume button? Jailbreakers had that first. You know how you can double tap the home button to open another app that you were just running? Jailbreakers had that first. You know how you can change your wallpaper? Jailbreakers, well you get the point. Many of the “new” features in each version of iOS are features that jailbreakers have already had for months or years.

Is there a chance you’ll get in trouble? Yes, of course, it could happen, but no, probably not, at least not with the law. The Library of Congress has said that it is legal to jailbreak a smart phone. Strangely, the same is not true about an iPad. It has to do with the vague definition of a tablet device. However, the lawyers for the movie, television and music industry are fighting to try to change that. When it comes to the law, especially copyright law, which is what impacts this the most, what is true today could be false tomorrow. Also, you could get in trouble with Apple. As of yet, Apple has never tried to take legal action against jailbreakers, but even though you aren’t breaking the law, you are breaking the terms of service that you agreed to when you set up your device. Obviously, if you do “brick” your iPhone (damage it beyond the point of repair) while jailbreaking your iPhone don’t even think about taking your iPhone to the folks at the Genius Bar.

What happens if you screw up your phone? Well, fortunately, that isn’t as great a risk as it used to be. If it does happen, you can usually just restore your iPhone back to its factory default settings. Don’t get too excited. You could still brick your phone. But it is much safer than it was a few years ago. Jailbreaking is dangerous. It’s risky. You are intentionally making something work in a way it was not intended to by the company that created it. So, in doing that, you take on all the possible risk and benefits on yourself. You’re on your own, but you’re not really alone because there is a whole community of jailbreakers out there that are willing to help you.
So, ultimately, I can’t tell you if it’s worth it. It’s up to you. If you want to do it, and you’re willing to take the risk, give it a shot. Check out guide on how to jailbreak your iPhone on Deemable.com.

Robert writes: I’ve heard that it is now illegal to unlock your cellphone. Is that really true?!?
TOM: That’s correct Robert. The Library of Congress decided that starting January 26th, unlocking your cell phone would no longer be legal.

RAY: Now, to be clear, that’s unlocking your cell phone. Not rooting or jail-breaking it, right?

TOM: Right Ray, or the Feds would be hauling you off to jail right now.
Unlocking your cell phone is when you buy a phone on one carrier, say, AT&T and then you want to switch to another carrier, say, Sprint, and take your phone with you. Ordinarily the phone is ?locked’ to the original carrier. Unlocking your phone allows you to use it on a different network.

RAY: There’s a few different ways to do this. Before locking became illegal (again) you could even pay some services to do an ?official’ unlock for you, at least for iPhones.

TOM: Right. They would just add your phone’s unique IMEI number to the database of unlocked phones and you were set. Now, obviously, that is no longer an option for US customers. So you would have to get a different sim card or download some software (yes Virginia, there is an app for that). But if you did so, according to the Library of Congress, you would now be breakin’ the law.

RAY: Wait, what does the Library of Congress have to do with this? Since when did they make rules about cell phones?

TOM: Since the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or the DMCA, gave them the power. The DMCA makes bypassing digital protections of copyrighted works illegal, but gives the Library of Congress the power to designate exceptions. Up until recently, the Library of Congress had said that unlocking your cell phone was one of those exceptions. Now, it seems, they’ve changed their mind. Now, not everybody is okay with this. In fact, President Obama has released a public statement saying that he would like the Library of Congress to change its mind and the FCC is investigating whether they have any say in the matter. At the moment though, it looks like the law is on the Library of Congress’s side. We don’t elect Library of Congress members, but we do elect lawmakers! If you want to make your voice heard, download Congress+ for the iPhone or Contact Congress in the Play Market for Android. These apps will tell you who your local senator or congressperson are and give you ways to contact them. Ask Congress to change the DMCA to give consumers the freedom to choose which carrier they use their phone on. Make your voice heard. Set our cell phones free!

RAY: That was really inspiring Tom.

TOM: I may just be a tech podcaster, Ray, but I’m a patriotic tech podcaster.

RAY: Sho’nuff!

RAY: Who’s this next question from?

TOM: Your mom.

RAY: Tom, let’s keep it professional.

TOM: No really, your mom sent us a question. She asks: Has version 10 been released yet? Is it a smart move to continue with Blackberry as our phone?

Mom, you don’t listen to the show regularly, do you? It’s OK, I understand. We just pick on Blackberry a lot. So, yes, BlackBerry 10 has been released. It came out on January 30.??? But, it doesn’t matter because you’re not getting it, unless you decide to buy a new phone. BlackBerry 10 only runs on the new device the Q10 and the Z10. The change from BlackBerry OS to BlackBerry 10 was so drastic that none of the previous devices support it. Also, none of the apps you have on your current phone are going to work on a new BlackBerry 10 device if you decide to get one. So, no matter what new phone you get, even if it’s a new BlackBerry, you’ll have to buy new apps.

Now, to tell you the truth, Blackberry OS looks pretty decent. In fact, it looks a lot like webOS. Honestly, It reminds me a lot of webOS. BlackBerry seems to be repeating exactly what Palm did in 2009: They were hurting really bad, They were losing money like crazy, Their competitors were chewing up their market share, and their operating system looked old and decrepit. So, they rebuilt their operating system from the ground up, and relaunched it, they took a really long time to bring it to market, and they completely abandoned all of their old customers.

So, to answer your question, I would say no, it’s not a smart move to continue with BlackBerry. I expect that BlackBerry is going to take a path very similar to the one that Palm took. I expect that the Q10 and the Z10 are probably going to sell fairly poorly. BlackBerry will probably attempt to put out another version of the Q10 in the Z10, but that will also sell fairly poorly. BlackBerry will attempt to get other manufacturers to use their operating system, but they won’t be able to get anyone interested. Finally, they’ll end up selling out to another company, filing bankruptcy, and or releasing BlackBerry 10 as open source. No matter how you slice it, I don’t see good things in BlackBerry’s future.

The smartphone industry, as much as Microsoft and Blackberry fanboys would love it to be a different way, is a two dog race. It’s all between iPhone and Android. Android has even taken up such a huge market share because they have hundreds of different devices out there running Android, that even the iPhone is starting to drop back in terms of overall market share.

I really don’t think there is room in the market for another operating system to be a real competitor. Microsoft Phone has it’s flaws that we talked about on the show. Personally I felt that webOS is the perfect operating system, but neither of them have been able to get anywhere near a decent market share to the point where they would be really competitive.

So, Mom, what I would tell you do to is if you’re looking to get something new right now, get the iPhone 4 for free from Sprint, or if you’re still under contract, wait until the iPhone 5S or 6 comes out, and get the iPhone 4S for free.

Linda writes: My friend installed DropBox on my computer and setup a shared folder so we could share music (we both love European dance music). Confession: he’s sent me so much stuff and I haven’t had a chance to look at it. Now I want to, and I don’t know how!
My question is two part: 1) how do I download music from our shared folder in Dropbox (is it through the website?) and 2) can he tell that I haven’t listened to any of the music yet?
Oh and also, once before he helped me fix something on my computer by taking it over remotely. Can he still do that?
I have Windows 7. Thanks!

TOM: Good question, Linda.

Now you can download any file you have access to on the Dropbox website by right-clicking it and selecting ?download’. Make sure to put the file some place where you can find it!
However, if your friend installed Dropbox on your computer, you don’t need to download the files: they’re already on your computer. That’s the whole point of Dropbox!
So first we need to make sure that Dropbox really is installed on your computer. The simple way to do that is to click on the Start menu, then type ?dropbox’ (your typing should appear down in the search box at the bottom). After a few seconds the Dropbox program should come up. It’s got an icon that looks like an open blue box. If you see it, you have it.
Now, step two is to determine where the Dropbox folders are located on your computer. Dropbox installs a shortcut to its folders under your ?favorites’. That’s not your internet explorer favorites, that’s your windows explorer favorites. Go back to the Start menu and click on ?Computer’. That will open a Windows Explorer folder. The bar on the left side has a bunch of folders like ?Pictures’, ?Documents’, and ?Music’. Up at the very top (you may have to scroll up) there should be a section called ?Favorites’. It should contain your ?Desktop’ folder, as well as the ?Dropbox’ folder. If you see Dropbox there, click it.
Now you’re in the Dropbox folders. You’ll have to find the music files your friend has shared with you from here, since I don’t know where he put them! You can either click around through the folders here, or search for a song you know he’s sent you in the ?Search dropbox’ box at the top right of the window.
Now, every file in the Dropbox folder should have a green check mark on it. That means you’ve downloaded it from Dropbox’s cloud. If it has a blue icon, it’s still uploading or downloading, so you’ll have to wait before using it. The icons tell you that you are sharing that file with the Dropbox cloud. There’s a copy on your computer, and a copy out there on Dropbox’s servers.
What the icons, don’t tell you is whether or not you’ve ever used, opened, looked at or listened to these files. All you know is that you have them. And that’s all your friend knows either, Linda. So I don’t think he has any way to find out that you haven’t listened to his music unless you give it away yourself.

RAY: Ok, but Linda says her friend accessed her computer remotely once. How does she know he can’t do it again?

TOM: Well most likely the last time he accessed her computer he used Windows Remote Assistance. This is a program that allows you to send an invitation to someone else to share your desktop so that they can help you with a problem.

Linda, Windows Remote Assistance is by invitation only. Unless you run the program and intentionally SEND your friend an invitation, he can’t login.
So your secret is safe with us!

Oh by the way, Linda, if you want to have fun with your friend, remember that shared folders in Dropbox go both ways. You can add files to them as well! Why don’t you drop a little text file in there that says ?Enjoying the music you sent!? See how long it takes for your friend to notice it’s there.

Jo el asks: Dear Deemable Tech. I have a question that I am pining for your expert opinion about. What is the BEST calendar app for a Pantech Renue? I tried Googling it, but nothing really comes up. I am app ignorant

RAY: Don’t worry. Finding any information on the web about the Pantech Renue is difficult. The Pantech Renue runs on Pantech’s proprietary operating system, which is based on an operating system called BREW. It should run most J2ME apps, which is Java Micro Edition. Java Micro Edition was designed so that developers could build programs for mobile phones. It was supposed to make it so that a developer could make one program that would work anywhere. Unfortunately, that is not how it actually worked, because usually you were be forced to only buy apps through your carrier. Before the iPhone came out, everything in mobile was made for either J2ME or Palm OS. Once the iPhone hit the market, and the Android became a legitimate option, most developers stopped building apps for J2ME. Unfortunately, there aren’t many apps available for J2ME anymore.

So, the best calendar app is going to be anything you can find. You can try GCal which is a J2ME Google Calendar client. If that doesn’t work, you might be able to use GCalSync which will sync the built-in calendar with your Google Calendar, assuming you use Google Calendar. Both of these apps use data, so if you do not have a data plan, you may want to stay away from them.

Whatever you do, I wouldn’t pay for anything in their store. You won’t likely be able to use it ever again. There are a few fun apps that you should be able to download for free though. Opera Web Browser most likely works much better than the default web browser. There is a Gmail app that still works, but Google does not support it anymore. Don’t be surprised if it suddenly stops working when Gmail gets an update. If all else fails, you should at least be able to play Tetris.

TOM: To be honest, if you want apps you probably need to invest in a beefier phone. One that runs iOS, Android or Windows Phone. Those all have app stores with lots of third party apps which will run across a number of different phones.

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The dog days of summer have arrived. June 21st marked the first official day of summer, when the Earth’s semi-axis in the Northern Hemisphere reached its maximum incline tilt of 23° 26′ towards the sun – the Summer Solstice. With the basketball season over now, the only thing to keep us sports fans occupied is baseball, beer, and barbecues – but hey, I’m not complaining about that. So take a break from counting down the minutes until your weekend starts and let’s reflect on what’s happened over the last month in the tech world.

The Downfall of Research in Motion

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! The former king of the smartphone industry, RIM, is dying at a rapid rate… and employees and stockholders alike are making it known to the world. Yesterday, a high-level RIM employee sent an anonymous open letter to the RIM Senior Management Team that ripped the company apart. RIM, on the defensive, responded by issuing its own statement to the public concerning the letter. In the end though, Research in Motion is freefalling and investors are clamoring for a top-down restructuring of the company, but really, can anyone save BlackBerry?

The Future of Apple

OS X Lion is nearing a public launch for July, after Apple “seeded the golden master version of OS X Lion to developers” earlier today. “OS X Lion brings many innovations from iOS including home screens (called Launchpad in Lion), autosaving, full screen application interfaces, and auto resume in apps. This is in addition to native support for the Mac App Store, Mission Control, an all new email client, built-in FaceTime, and interface and feature  improvements through out the operating system. Lion also includes AirDrop file sharing, multi-user remote computer access, and Find my Mac (through iCloud).” – Source: 9to5Mac

Apple has done significantly well this quarter, and it is estimated that users of the iOS platform alone generates roughly $150 of revenue a year per account (not including the cost of the actual iOS device). The iPhone, however, has a ton of competition these days and the biggest threat may be the Samsung Galaxy S II – the follow-up to one of the most popular Android phones, the Galaxy S.

“LulzSec” Hackers: Attacking the Internet

After hacking the CIA, PBS, and numerous other web sites, it looks like LulzSec’s run of terror has finally come to an end. The group announced on multiple web sites that it would be disbanding on Monday, but did not provide any particular reason for the decision. For 50 days LulzSec hacked and terrorized corporations and governments for the sake of humor, and hopefully this is the last we hear of their exploits.

Photo by DrCrawford via DeviantArt

We may soon be saying R-I-P to R-I-M, the maker of the once beloved BlackBerry smartphone. After reducing their initial profit forecast roughly two months ago, Research in Motion announced its first quarter financial earnings results yesterday which were almost $1 billion lower than expected. Although RIM managed to ship 13.2 million BlackBerry devices and 500,000 BlackBerry Playbook tablets during the quarter, the discouraging news of the drop in profit and revenue caused shares in the company to fall 14 percent in after-hours trading last night. Now, Research in Motion is going to cut costs through “headcount reductions”… meaning layoffs are on the way.

RIM is quickly fading into oblivion behind the new giants in the business – Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd., Research in Motion’s sixth-largest investor, just revealed that it would be dumping all of its 10.2 million shares in the company, with the chairman of the investment group leaving this ominous quote,” We are on the way out. The stake has been reduced by more than 50% or even more… They are resting on their laurels … Steve Jobs is a much better marketer than RIM.”

So what is RIM’s main problem? Delays in production… and the fact that their technology is not keeping up with competitors’. No new products will be released by the company during the summer until August, the latest BlackBerry OS 7.0 update coming out won’t even work for most of the current models, and who honestly wants to buy a PlayBook over another tablet?

Co-CEO Jim Balsillie announced in a press release:

“Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start. The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing into Q2, and delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August is leading to a lower than expected outlook in the second quarter… RIM’s business is profitable and remains solid overall with growing market share in numerous markets around the world and a strong balance sheet with almost $3 billion in cash. We believe that with the new products scheduled for launch in the next few months and realigning our cost structure, RIM will see strong profit growth in the latter part of fiscal 2012.”

With investors’ confidence already shaken, this statement does not provide much reassurance, and the outlook is looking very grim for a company that was once considered the world leader in the smartphone market.

Photo by darkscher via deviantART

From tornadoes and thundering superstorms, to the dry, blistering heat of the approaching summer,  April had its fair share of interesting weather here in Georgia. Much like the annual return of the scorching heat and the pestering pollen, I figured that it would only make sense for me to begin my own tradition as April fades away and May begins to near. As my first month of writing for Deemable comes to a close, I will leave you with some important updates to this month’s articles, as I will continue to do so for each month hereafter.

Android Continues to Surge Past the Apple iPhone

Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, announced on Thursday that they were slashing their earnings forecast for the current sales quarter which ends on May 31. For a company whose devices once dominated its market, RIM is losing badly in the war against the Apple iPhone and Android smartphones. RIM’s new tablet, the PlayBook, did not fare well after debuting earlier this month. RIM definitely needs to make a transition in its product line, or it may not be “in motion” for much longer.

Copycat! Apple Sues Samsung

An eye for an eye. Samsung, after being sued by Apple over the Galaxy line, filed its own lawsuits against Apple in Asia, Europe, and the United States. In the lawsuit that was filed in the U.S., Samsung says that Apple violated patents that ?relate to fundamental innovations that increase mobile device reliability, efficiency, and quality, and improve user interface in mobile handsets and other products.? At this point, the arguments are becoming so broadly generalized that it is almost childish to see these two giants in the tech world sue and countersue over patent infringement.

iSpy: Apple is Secretly Recording Your Location History

After it was announced last week that Apple was secretly recording your location history, both Microsoft and Google-based Android smartphones were also found to be tracking your location history. Google is now facing a $50 million class action lawsuit over concerns relating to the location data. However, Android’s location tracking is entirely opt-in by the user and ties a unique ID number to the device’s data. Apple released a news statement that said, “The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly. We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.”  Overall though, it really seems like no one cares too much about this invasion of privacy and security.

PlayStation Network Goes Down

Update (4/1) – PlayStation announces that they will begin to restore several services starting this week.

The PlayStation Network is still down nearly 10 days after the initial outage. During this time, it was found that your personal information and potentially your credit card information was compromised by those who hacked into the network. The FBI is now working with Sony and users may be compensated for their subscription-based games and services.

You can read more about the ongoing PSN issues on their official blog:

Q&A #1

Q&A #2

Photo by GloomyCloud via deviantART