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!

 

 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”!