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!

 

 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!

 

 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!

 

 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.

 

 casio darin pepple exilim [59:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (80)

TOPIC:  Jay Garmon is back this week as we actually remember the right number to call him on, and give Customer Jones her chance to break bad on the undisputed master of Geek Trivia (all in fun naturally)!

Plus, we bring on Darin Pepple from Casio corporation to talk about the newest innovations and changes in digital picture taking technology, particularly the new Exilim FC-100 model that brings high speed options to new level.  Haven’t heard much about what Casio is doing with imaging tech?  Then you will surely want to tune in and find out about double-processors, CCM tech, slow-mo and high-speed photography options as Casio lays it out with cutting edge photography and video that fits in your pocket!

Check back here in the next week or so to get our full review of the newest Casio camera line – we got our hands on the FC100 for a few weeks and were very impressed!

The cool site of the week this week was sooo cool, we only needed one:

• Wubi – A free and easy way to set up your windows machine to dual-boot into Ubuntu.  Why you may ask?  Well, yours truly boots his laptop into Linux nearly every time I’m traveling; who wants to wait 8 minutes for an XP desktop to come up when all I really want to do is check my Gmail account and do a little surfing?  With Ubuntu I’m up in less than 3 minutes, and Wubi makes setting this up a breeze, even for our non-tech listeners!

The podcast only song of the week is “Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh” by Say Hi!  And don’t listen to Dave, this song is clean as a whistle and suitable for all ages!

 

 spycraft and coolsites [59:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (107)

TOPIC:  We missed Jay this week through issues that were solely the responsibility of the host (yours truly), so don’t believe the audio where we cuss Jay out (for those with sensitive ears this is of course not true, we would have redacted anything like that!)  Speaking of which, on the flip side our error with Jay got us a ton of time to spend with J. Keith Melton and discussion on his new book SPYCRAFT: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE CIA’S SPYTECHS, FROM COMMUNISM TO AL-QAEDA. His book and our interview are well worth your time as we cover the first mobile communication devices, evolution of spy gadgetry, and what does miniaturization mean for spies of today!

We decided to do a list of lists coolsite listing this week and came up with:

• Data Recovery Tools – Top 5 FREE data recovery tools, as collected by Lifehacker.
• Online PDF Apps – Top 10 awesome online PDF apps, as collected by CNET.
• Career Sites – Top 20 slideshow of IT professional’s career websites from Dice to The Ladders, as collected by Network World.
• Top 50 Websites – 50 websites you’ll wonder how you ever lived without, as selected by curiousread.com!

The podcast only song of the week is “The Golden Path” by Chemical Brothers feat. Flaming Lips!

 

 Real Geeks Ride [57:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (64)

TOPIC:  A surprise party of guests this week, as we talk to the pair behind ‘Real Geeks Ride‘ – a cross-country biking adventure to raise awareness of the fact that geeks do ride, and that riding a bike to work is possible for everyone!  We also get Jay “Geek Trivia” Garmon back and he wows us with a specially crafted space-oriented trivia question that will really make you think!

The coolsites of the week just keep getting better, and this week we’ve got:

• Bubbl.us – Like the ever-popular Mindmeister, this mindmapping software will let you get it all out of your head and someplace usable; Bubbl.us makes it about as easy as can be with cute bubbles and – of course – free mapping!
• MonkeyOn – Put a monkey on somebody else’s back for a change!  Schedule reminders and tasks for other people and keep bugging them until they get ‘er done!

The podcast only song of the week is “The Future is Where We Belong” by the Hotpipes.

 

 Doug Bradbury Software Craftmanship Manifesto [59:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (214)

TOPIC:  Anyone that’s ever been touched by bad code will NEED to tune in this week!  Doug Bradbury from 8thlight comes in to spend an hour with us and share the deep scoop on The Software Craftmanship Manifesto – a listing of do’s and don’ts for programmers world-wide and a method to nurture mastery in the programmer, develop creative collaboration in small developer teams, and enhance communications with the customer.

He incidentally also winds up subbing in quite adequately for a missing Jay Garmon!

Some extra links around this topic include:

• The software craftsmanship google group – http://groups.google.com/group/software_craftsmanship
• February conference held in London – http://parlezuml.com/blog/?postid=789
• The book by Pete McBreen – Software Craftmanship: The New Imperative
• Limelight programming framework for Ruby (by 8thlight) – http://limelight.8thlight.com

We make time for our coolsites of the week, and roll out some good ones!

• CSVEd - One very cool, useful and free utility to have in your bag … edit any csv file any way you need to, including easy export to XLS, XML, and others!
• BusinessCardStar – This one is for everyone looking for a job, freelancers, or anyone who needs an easy way to share all your contact information.  You can make free, professional and cool looking business cards here – choose to print them out yourself or get them printed profesionally for a small fee!

As always we close out with the podcast only song of the week is the rocking “Kid on My Shoulders” by White Rabbit.