Listen to The Personal Computer Radio Show on WBAI 99.5 in New York, NY

December 2, 2009 Show

Wed, Dec 2 Listen

Registered sex offenders on Facebook and Myspace. Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There's no profit in 10 inch netbooks, so expect more 12 inch models in the future. Prevx warned about a buggy patch to Windows - but they were wrong. Hank on ram specs. Listener phone calls.

November 25, 2009 Show

Wed, Nov 25 Listen

Black Friday computer deals. Listener phone calls.

November 18, 2009 Show

Wed, Nov 18 Listen

PDF Reader 2009 is a scam. New study of 30,000 laptop computers showed Asus was most reliable. Some Xboxes were banned by Microsoft from the online service. We had two guests from Microsoft to discuss Windows 7. Listener phone calls.

November 11, 2009 Show

Wed, Nov 11 Listen

About Oracle buying Sun. Apple and Microsoft issued bug fixes. Best Buy will be selling an Acer laptop for $250. A lawsuit against Sony. A lawsuit against the Amazon Kindle. Patenting business practices. GPS on cellphones. Hanks EVDO modem problem. Standby vs. Sleep vs. Hibernation. Listener phone calls.

November 4, 2009 Show

Wed, Nov 4 Listen

Fund raising. Our premiums can be ordered at any time on pcradioshow.org on the Premiums page. We offerd our Gold card tech support for $200 a year, a DVD toolkit with free software applications for a $75 donation and a Password Reset CD for a $55 donation. IE needs to be patched. A court ruling about metadata in word processing documents. Differences between Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise. Everyone likes a photo editing program called inPaint. No listener phone calls.

October 28, 2009 Show

Wed, Oct 28 Listen

Fund raising. Our premiums can be ordered at any time on pcradioshow.org on the Premiums page. We offerd our Gold card tech support for $200 a year, a DVD toolkit with free software applications for a $75 donation and a Password Reset CD for a $55 donation. Windows 7. Sony power adapter recall. Alfred reviewed the Easy-Link USB Data Sharing Hub. No listener phone calls.

October 21, 2009 Show

Wed, Oct 21 Listen

Fund raising. Our premiums can be ordered at any time on pcradioshow.org on the Premiums page. We offerd our Gold card tech support for $200 a year, a DVD toolkit with free software applications for a $75 donation and a Password Reset CD for a $55 donation. Time Warner SMC 8014WG units have a security problem. Works will be replaced by a starter edition of Office. Dells market share is slipping. BIOS SLIC and activating Windows. No listener phone calls.

October 14, 2009 Show

Wed, Oct 14 Listen

The director of the FBI can no longer do online banking. His wife won't let him after almost falling for a phishing scam. More people are recommending not using Windows at all for online banking. There were a ton of bug fixes for Windows. Adobe Acrobat also fixed a critical bug. Mac OS X has a bug that wipes out user files. Michael recommended inSSIDer for scanning for WiFi networks. Fund raising. Our guest was David Perry of Trend Micro. David generously offered free copies of Trend Micro...

October 7, 2009 Show

Wed, Oct 7 Listen

Our guest was Leo Notenboom of askleo.net. Assorted stats show Internet Explorer use is declining while Firefox use is on the rise. The iPhone was caught fibbing about its support for encryption. If you are buying Windows 7 consider the OEM version. The pros and cons of Microsoft's new free antivirus program, Security Essentials. Safe online banking: is it possible? We discussed new types of crimeware that empties your bank account. Listener phone calls.

September 30, 2009 Show

Wed, Sep 30 Listen

Crimeware software drains your bank account while you are online, logged into your banks website. There is a wave of spam that appears to be from the IRS that can install the Zeus Trojan. There is a new release of iTunes, 9.0.1, that fixes some minor bugs and a major security bug. Windows Vista has a serious networking bug for which there is not yet a fix from Microsoft. Alfred discussed watching TV on his Vista computer using the Hauppauge WinTV card. Michael will speak Oct 15th at the NYPC...

September 16, 2009 Show

Wed, Sep 16 Listen

Dell will pay a $4 million dollar fine for defrauding New York State consumers. For more see www.nyagdell.com. There is a new scam that asks for your Yahoo username, password and other personal information. Sears used to install tracking software so they could monitor all your online actions. The upcoming census. Bug fixes from Apple. Microsoft's WGA is accused of being spyware. More about System Mechanic and testing a firewall at Shields Up! Our webmaster, Michael Horowitz, will speak Oct...

September 2, 2009 Show

Wed, Sep 2 Listen

eBay sold 65% of Skype to private investors. Gmail was offline. Twitter can be a great ally for burglars as people advertise when they won't be home. Apple just released Snow Leopard and there have been driver incompatibility problems. There was a new flaw discovered in WPA TKIP encryption, but it's not serious. Online backups. Hank reviewed System Mechanic version 9. Listener phone calls. .

August 26, 2009 Show

Wed, Aug 26 Listen

An interview with Steve Wilson of Fast Pencil on self plublishing.

August 19, 2009 Show

Wed, Aug 19 Listen

A survey about gamers. Some large corporations have staff that monitor outgoing mail. Microsoft may not be able to sell Word 2007 shortly. The rules changed about registering domains. The Twitter outage. About the virtualization feature in some CPUs that is required for a feature in some versions of Windows 7. A Lenovo bug in reporting the status of the battery on a Thinkpad. Fund raising. No listener phone calls. Our membership premiums are always available. See the Premiums page on our...

August 12, 2009 Show

Wed, Aug 12 Listen

Whether you are running Windows or OS X, there are many bug fixes you need to apply. The mileage on the new GM electric car may be bogus according to Alfred. Seagate is closing one of their factories in Singapore. The Acer Aspire One netbook runs Windows 7 just fine according to both Hank and Joe. Fund raising. Unlike other WBAI shows, our membership premiums are always available. See the Premiums page on our website for details on our premiums.

August 5, 2009 Show

Wed, Aug 5 Listen

An anniversary: the show has now been on the air for 25 years! Also, fund raising and stories in the news. No listener phone calls.

July 29, 2009 Show

Wed, Jul 29 Listen

Microsoft signed a 10 year agreement with Yahoo to provide the search results, using their new Bing service, on the Yahoo site. Yahoo is basically walking away from the search business. Twelve thousand laptops go missing every week in US airports. We discussed some defensive measures. Three retailers are offering Vista based laptop computers for just under $300. They are Walmart, Best Buy and MicroCenter. If you see a wireless network called "Free Public Wi-Fi" avoid it. If you have...

July 22, 2009 Show

Wed, Jul 22 Listen

Firefox has updated version 3.5 to version 3.5.1 to fix a bug. Hank said version 3.5 is much faster than other browsers. Intel cut prices on some CPUs because they will soon roll out better ones Netbooks are very popular but some people miss CDs and DVDs. With promo code EMP15 you can get 50% off on Wiley books. Our guest was Richard Stallman, the man behind GNU and the Free Software Foundation. He condems the Amazon Kindle (his term for it is the "swindle") because it takes away freedoms...

July 15, 2009 Show

Wed, Jul 15 Listen

There is a new critical bug in Firefox version 3.5, but there is a work-around. Rosetta Stone is suing Google over trademark violations regarding ads. Microsoft is planning on competing with Google Docs by offering a free web-based version of their Office applications. A couple surveys showed not much interest yet in converting to Windows 7. Alfred reviewed Photosave DVD, software on a DVD for backing up pictures to the DVD. Social Security numbers can now be guessed with too much acuracy....

July 8, 2009 Show

Wed, Jul 8 Listen

No more Compuserve. Gmail is out of beta. Google is planning on releasing an operating system late next year. Microsoft has a Fixit workaround for a critical bug in ActiveX video under Windows XP. A bug in McAfee's antivirus software caused Windows to crash. Windows 7 is being discounted until July 11th. Brian Johnson of Microsoft discussed Bizspark and ways that new startups can get free software from Microsoft. Windows 7 starter edition. Listener phone calls.

July 1, 2009 Show

Wed, Jul 1 Listen

If you are interested in the free antivirus program from Avira called AntiVir, be sure you get it from Avira. Microsoft is having a sale on Windows 7, if you pre-order it. China delayed the requirement for Internet filtering on new computers. Firefox version 3.5 was just released, we discussed the locator feature. Joe reviewed the beta of the new, free Microsoft Security Essentials, their upcoming antivirus program. Joe discussed TOR and Masksurf from Thanksoft Microsoft is shutting down...

June 24, 2009 Show

Wed, Jun 24 Listen

The beta of a new free Microsoft antivirus product sold out. You can still buy Windows XP on new computers for another two years. Some people don't like netbooks. Joe and Alfred reported from a trade show. Alfred's favorite toy was a pair of night vision goggles called eyeclops. 4TB hard disks are coming. Olivia liked two books: Creating a website - the missing manual (2nd edition) and Sexy Web Design which she felt was good for web developers to give to their clients. Listener phone calls.

June 17, 2009 Show

Wed, Jun 17 Listen

More patches from Apple, this time for Java. Finally, after many months, Java users on Macs are as safe as Java users on Windows and Linux. Soon the Chinese government will require software on new personal computers that filters out offensive websites. At the moment, pornography is the only thing considered offensive. Symantec and McAfee paid a huge fine for automatically renewing their software without giving customers a simple way to not rent the software for another year. We discussed the...

June 10, 2009 Show

Wed, Jun 10 Listen

Yesterday was patch Tuesday with critical bugs fixed in both the Windows and Mac versions of Word and Excel. Friday the 12th is the end of analog TV broadcasts, many people are still not prepared. Alfred said there is not much difference between converter boxes and he explained about new LED TVs. Microsoft imposes limits on hardware used in netbooks and nettops that run Windows. Rants on computing devices that don't let the user replace the battery. Alfred told about a TV set that transmits...

June 3, 2009 Show

Wed, Jun 3 Listen

Our thanks to those who supported the show during the recent fund raising drive. The return policy at Circuit City is not the best. Adobe will release bug fixes only once every three months. Windows 7 will ship in October. Our guest was David Perry of Trend Micro and the topic was malware.

May 20, 2009 Show

Wed, May 20 Listen

HP is recalling 70,000 laptop computer batteries. The website avsim.com had both their servers hacked and they had no backup. Google suffered a number of recent outages. Microsoft recently fixed a bug in PowerPoint for Windows but not the Mac version. Java on Apple Macs is vulnerable to a security bug that was fixed on Windows and Linux long ago. Real Networks accused Hollywood of being a monopoly. Samsung is introducing LED backlights in their LCD televisions. Fund raising. We offered a...

May 13, 2009 Show

Wed, May 13 Listen

Many bug fixes were released yesterday by both Microsoft and Apple. More about the XP mode in the upcoming Windows 7. There will be a new graphics support chip from Nvidea. Disk imaging. A new name for Windows copy protection. Microfocus bought Borland. SCO is going out of business. Fund raising. Our gold card tech support is $200. Anyone who donates $25 or more gets a white paper that Hank wrote on how to repair Windows XP. A Windows password bypass CD is $55. There were no listener phone...

May 6, 2009 Show

Wed, May 6 Listen

Amazon will shortly deliver a new Kindle with a much larger screen. Presto is a quick-booting version of Linux that multi-boots with Windows XP. The next beta version of Windows 7 was just released. It includes an add-on, that many people can't use, that provides a virtual copy of Windows XP. What's the future of Vista after Windows 7 is released? Microsoft extended the life of Windows XP, yet again. The last half of the show, we discussed our assorted premiums for your donations to WBAI....

April 29, 2009 Show

Wed, Apr 29 Listen

Defining botnets. A Mac OS X botnet. Free Mac antivirus software. Apple was fined $19 million dollars for patent infringement. Windows 7 will run XP in a VM. Vista SP2 is coming soon. GE's breakthorugh in holographic storage. The Pirate Bay lawsuit. Spranq EcoFont. RollBack Rx offers rollback under Vista. The last half of the show was listener phone calls.

April 22, 2009 Show

Wed, Apr 22 Listen

Capping bandwidth by ISPs. Oracle purchased Sun. GiveAwayOfTheDay.com gives away commercial software. A new version of Ubuntu Linux was just released. Woot.com sells one product a day. The last half of the show, as usual, was listener phone calls. The last half of the show, as usual, was listener phone calls.

The Personal Computer Radio Show (Computers)