TechTalk on WRLR 98.3 FM

 

 lance ulanoff pcmag.com talks win 7 [61:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (42)

TOPIC:  Dave’s back in the saddle with us today as we have the priveledge of Lance Ulanoff, Editor-In-Chief for PCMag.com coming back on air with us!  This time out, Lance gives us the skinny on Windows 7, what’s hot and what’s not about it and answers the burning question “should I dump XP and jump over Vista?”

Another great week of awesomeness comes your way as Jay “Geek Trivia” Garmon gives us what for and answers last week’s question.

This time around we don’t skimp on the cool sites of the week either!  There’s still a bit of a MS theme, but some real gems you may not know about:

• Microsoft Technet: Server Quest II – Remember King’s Quest or Leisure Suit Larry?  Well, this may not be quite as fun as those, but it’s pretty close, feels the same, is free, and focuses on your hapless tech support technician and how he learns to save the IT Department (and get the girl).  By Microsoft, so naturally many of the answers to the puzzles start with ‘MS’…
• Microsoft’s Deploying Windows 7 Essential Guide – Pretty much exactly what it says, in PDF format you can load on your Kindle or simply view on-screen for some great tips!
• VistaSwitcher – No, it won’t help you switch from Vista to something else … but it does speed up the Vista Alt-Tab graphical wingding and make it much slicker!  Since it’s free, if you’re stuck with Vista for a while longer you might want to check it out!
• Lake County Passage – If you live in Lake County, IL, where WRLR broadcasts out of, this will help you see the traffic before you get there!  Even works on some of your smarter smart phones like the iPhone and Storm!

Got to tune it down with a little Iron and Wine and their single “Belated Promise Ring” – but I promise next week we’ll get a little more up-tempo!

 

 the return of sparky [58:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (63)

TOPIC:  Dave comes back!  Thanks to all the emails, calls, and letters (OK, OK make that “thanks to all the email – singular – and a call”) Dave hops back into the saddle for at least a week to hang with Mike and Jay as we swap stories, talk tech, get geeky about trivia, and just generally have a great time!

Plus, Mike shows off his shiny new TechTalk Google Voice number: 847-984-0847.  Call us, leave a message, get heard on air!  If we do use your voice on air and you’ve given us enough info to figure out who you are (say, an email address or something) you may get some TechTalk tchotchke’s too … or even a book!

With all the excitement going on, Dave being back on the show, and Jay Garmon’s awesome new geek trivia and personal website (http://jaygarmon.net natch), it would have been no shame to miss the cool sites of the week.  But instead, we bring you two fantastic coolsites this week – check ‘em out:

• TextHog – Looking for an easy, quick way to track your cash expenses?  TextHog may be the (free) answer for you!  You don’t have to load in a bunch of personal data, just an email address and then start texting every expense – tagged however you like – off to texthog and you’ll get all the charts, graphs, and trends you could want.   And you wont’ be taking money out of your pocket to do it!
• GroovyPost – No, this isn’t about where to score the most rad concert info on the Dead man.  It’s all about some groovy tech tips and tricks, how-to’s and makes for a ton of stuff!  Wondering how to get Google Voice on your iPhone?  Add some internet calendars to Outlook?  Click on over to GroovyPost!

And a jumping old-school podcast only song of the week “Is This New” by The Fall!

 

 paul mcfedries windows 7 unleashed [60:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (50)

TOPIC:  Wondering about all this Windows 7 hype you’re hearing?  Not sure how you’ll figure all the new stuff out, or if it’s worth it?  Well, Paul McFedries joins us and provides answers from his 800+ page tome Windows 7; Unleashed!  We have a great time and get around to at least a few of those burning questions!

Jay Garmon does his usual Jay thing again, but we’re once again without Dave “Sparky” Saganaki.  If you’re missing Dave, send him some love at techtalk@wrlr.fm and see if we can’t beg, con, guilt or otherwise convince him to come back in the studio sometime soon!

We don’t have a huge amount of time for cool sites, but I did pick a real good one – with multiple areas – anyways:

• Aviary - With a whole host of online, free, and very cool products to check out you’ll definitely want to fly up to the aviary sometime soon.  I’ve played with the audio creator (named Myna), but you’ll have fun looking at everything if you’re more graphically inclined than me!  They’ve got flash image editors, fun color and vector editors, and more … this may be just one site, but it’s got tons of great stuff on it!

And finally, the podcast only song of the week is the totally rocking “Elvis” by These New Puritans!

 

 Mike and Jay stand alone [61:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (66)

TOPIC:  If it weren’t for Jay Garmon and his usual stand-up job with Geek Trivia, things might have been pretty quiet around the studio, as Mike is forced to do a stand-alone show! Fortunately, there’s a lot of ground to cover this week with the FCC getting involved in net neutrality, the Apple vs. Google voice debate, and things to watch out for security-wise on both Facebook and Twitter!

We finish up as usual with some awesome coolsites of the week:

• How to Use Prey – Heard stories about folks getting their iPhones and laptops back … and nailing the crooks in the process?  Now you can too (at least for your laptop or desktop), with this free and opensource product called ‘Prey!’  It’s a little confusing to set up for first-time users though, so I’m linking you to this awesome TechRepublic site how-to.
• SuperCook – The the name of this site is hyperbole?  Maybe not once you check it out!  Similar to RecipePuppy.com, SuperCook lets you list what’s in your pantry and come up with some great new recipes … that you know you’ve got the ingredients to make!

We finish it out with a song that’s a lot of fun to listen to, Fun for Me by Moloko!

 

 Esteban Kim from Plextor [61:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (54)

TOPIC:  We may have missed them a few weeks ago, but Esteban Kim from Plextor definitely makes up for it when he joins us today!  He shares a view on where Plextor has been, what challenges storage and media device manufacturers face today, and what exciting trends to be watching for – and how Plextor will be there! You’ll also want to look at our review of the Plextor B310U on our blog here.

The inimitable Jay Garmon doesn’t disappoint us with Geek Trivia either, so it’s a great show (as usual, right?)!

Our coolsites of the week this week are perfect for any font geeks like Mike out there, and I just know there’s more than a few:

• Typedia – Billing itself as a ’shared encyclopedia of typefaces’ this site crowdsources information like a wiki to break down a huge amount of information about the various fonts, font foundries, and font families out there – as well as what they can best be used for and in many cases where to download them!
• FontCapture – Not happy with the fonts out there?  Think your own (or your kids) writing is the bomb?  Look no further; a couple of quick print-outs and then fill in your own handwriting to upload and make a downloadable font you can use anywhere here!  And of course, it’s totally free!

Sending some Ting Ting love out with their very cool ‘We Walk’ from the We Started Nothing album!

 

 urlesque stephen lentz [59:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (58)

TOPIC:  This week we talk to Stephen Lentz, editor-in-chief for the most  excellent website URLesque.com and find out why they hate cats so much (they don’t, really!).  Find out why they’re doing their best to give ‘em a break this Wednesday 9/9/09 and coordinating a web-wide No Cats Day!  We throw our hat in the ring and pledge to post no blogs about cats this Wednesday ourselves.  We’ve got Jay Garmon’s Geek Trivia on and the usual junk, including a great coolsite of the week:

• Virtual Gumshoe – Looking to find out some information on a prospective employee, contractor, boyfriend or boss?  Look no further, Virtual Gumshoe will connect you with all the best free sites on the web that offer public records, civil and court case info, arrest data and more!  And of course, most of this is verified 100% free!

We don’t have a podcast only song this week, because we got a radio edit version of Shock Horror by The View so everyone can enjoy!  Check it out and tune in next week too!

 

 Mike and Dave [61:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (68)

TOPIC:  We make good on our hype this week by providing you a solid hour of straight up news and views (we’ll leave the reviews and interviews for another week)!  Jay also treats us to a new and intriguing Geek Trivia that gets everyone thinking, whether your name is Customer Jones or just sounds like it …   You’ll have to tune in to hear what it is!

And what would a show with Dave and Mike be without some truly awesome cool sites of the week? Wait, you don’t have to answer that, because we include some really good ones for you right here:

• TED: Ideas Worth Sharing – Suggested by our longtime listener and good friend Greg, this site is like a YouTube for awesome tech, businessm and entertainment industry talks and conferences!  If you’re like me you’ll easily blow an hour or two thumbing through some of the more interesting ones …
• Rainmeter – Want to customize your desktop way beyond what Vista or Google sidebars will let you do?  Not much of a programmer?  You’ve heard us talk about Rainmeter and Samurize in the past, but with Rainmeter 1.0 you no longer have to have a degree in programming and hours of time to flip through config files!  If you haven’t seen it before, check it out now and you’ll be amazed at how much information you can add to that boring desktop – and how cool it will look when you’re done!

Finally, the podcast only song of the week is He’s Frank (Slight Return) by The BPA feat. Iggy Pop. Truly a podcast only bonus; remember if you’re not listening to us on the web, you are missing out!

Next week we’re looking forward to having URLEsque back on to celebrate a “Day Without (Web) Cats”!

 

 Mike and Dave [60:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (19)

TOPIC:  Although we promised you Plextor, you got something even better – a full hour of Dave and Mike!  OK, so maybe not so much.  How about if I told you we spent extra time with Jay Garmon discussing the missing three weeks of Geek Trivia?  And we got our tech on yakking about news like our upcoming trip to Oracle Open World 2009, Microsoft’s possible injunction against selling Word, and then we delve into the “grey” area of technology, hacking and video games!

Don’t worry though, we’re looking to get Plextor back in the near future.  Of course, no show would be complete without some of the coolest of the cool sites on the web:

• How to Crack a WEP key – Our good friends at Lifehacker.com give us the full breakdown on how to use the free software Backtrack to crack WEP keys for fun and profit!
• Password Checker – Not sure how secure that password is?  Microsoft provides a free and easy way to check it.

And the podcast only song of the week is the rather melancholy “Disney’s Ice Parade” by Ballboy.  Note that this has some adult themed lyrics.

 

 geek atlas john graham-cumming [57:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (75)

TOPIC:  We get all geek-a-licious on you this week! Not only do we have our usual ‘Geek Trivia’ with Jay Garmon, but we are also joined by John Graham-Cumming discussing our latest recommended read -”The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive.”  We had a great time with the book, and an even better time talking with the author! The Geek Atlas is a wonderful travel guide that not only details locations to go to but the detailed and fascinating science behind why they are some of the most interesting places on earth for the geek in us. Though we didn’t get time for a lot of news and updates, no show would be complete without a whole handful of coolsites of the week:

• GrooveShark – Looking for a tune you just have to hear?  This site will find dozens of copies and versions you can stream instantly and for free!  Jump on the grooveshark before the RIAA catches wind!
• TwitCam and CamTweet – Both excellent options for getting your face out there to all your tweeps … easy to set up, easy to use, and (of course) free!
• TheUserManualSite – Looking for a manual? Want to throw out those dozens of paper ones you have in the drawer? Check this free site out to combine all your manuals in one place, organized and downloadable!

The podcast only song of the week is “Dear God” by Black Landlord and is truly podcast only thanks to a few questionable words, so beware.   There’s a good chance you won’t be hearing from us for a few weeks … we’re on our summer vacation, but pick up a copy of the “The Geek Atlas” by John Graham-Cumming or hang out and wait for us to come back and talk to Plextor on August 22nd!

 

 Mike Miller Selling 2.0 [61:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (83)

TOPIC:  Another fantastic (if a bit rushed) interview with our good friend Mike Miller!  This time around he’s sharing with us the in-depth info on how to buy, sell, and market yourself online after the ‘demise’ of eBay (come on and admit it, eBay just isn’t that much FUN anymore!).  His new book, Selling Online 2.0 is available at Amazon, or you can check out all of Mike’s library (over 90 books!) at http://www.molehillgroup.com.

We get rushed this week because in addition to another great segment by Jay “Geek Trivia” Garmon wherein Customer Jones becomes an official nemesis, Michael goes on a GoDaddy rant, sharing info on how your important emails might be blocked if you use GoDaddy for webmail (see our related posts here and here).

We received some questions about the TechTalk Ubuntu setup and how that was done, so continued the useful dual-boot configuration tools discussion with this coolsite of the week:

• EASEUS Partition Manager – The safest way to have your system dual-booting is, as Offspring says, to “keep ‘em seperated.”  If you’ve got one giant C: drive, or maybe too many darn drive letters sharing the same physical unit, the EASEUS Partition manager will take care of that for you – free for home use!

The podcast only song of the week is “Freedom Highway” by Mavis Staples.  We’re off next week, but join us in 2 when we return with another book breakdown of the “The Geek Atlas” by John Graham-Cumming.