Tech Tip Daily

Almost 1 year to the day of my last posting, we’re finally back up and running with a new design and on a new host! All of the major events of my life have finally passed and I’m rearing to get back in front of the keyboard. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we get up to full speed.

Almost everyone has heard about the digital TV switch of 2009.  If you haven’t heard of it yet, do a google search to learn all about it.  Ever since the word started to spread, there has been a big push for people to take steps to receive “Over the air” (OTA) HD channels.  While many of us know that you can pick up the local stations with the rabbit ears on top of the TV set (until 2009), most don’t know that you can get free high definition channels using a simple homemade antenna (works great, by the way).

TVFool.com provides a valuable resource of coverage maps of channel reception for most areas in the US.  Just enter your address and you’ll have access to a complete listing of the channels you should be capable of receiving along with likely signal strengths.

TVFool.com

• http://www.tvfool.com

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!

Skype is great.  I’ve been using it for over a year now and I love it.  With the SkypeOut package, I can conveniently place calls to land line phones for a flat (cheap) monthly charge.  One of the things I’ve used Skype for is podcasting.  A group of buddies and I have a weekly podcast (a link to follow – once we get the site up).  Skype is a stable, robust platform to host podcast sessions over.  Of course, we need a way to record our ramblings, so how does 1 go about doing this?

The science of PC audio is a complex one.  Aside from just “playing” sound, your audio card is capable of (sometimes) multiple outputs and inputs.  While most people are familiar with the traditional “speaker” output and “microphone” input, you might also have separate outputs for each channel of sound in a surround sound system and a line in input.  And that’s just on the hardware side.  Within the sound card, it has the capability to take all inputs and outputs and mix them together into one accessible channel.  This is referred to as the “Stereo Mix”.  While the only required input for Skype is your microphone, your recording software will need to hear more than just your voice.  What we’ll want to do is record the “stereo mix” channel from the sound card.

Now that we have that accomplished, all we need is a recording program.  While there are many available, the best I’ve found is audacity.  It’s free, lightweight, and easy to use.  Once you download and install audacity, we’ll want to tell it to record audio from your stereo mix.  All done, right?   Not quite.  Because of the nature of the “stereo mix” channel, Microsoft often times disables it by default within the audio properties (assuming your sound card supports it).  The reason for this is due to the fact that stereo mix greatly increases your chances of producing a feedback loop – where your audio input is sent back through your audio ouput, and in turn back through your input (and so on).  Before you tell audacity to record your stereo mix, we’ll need to be sure to enable it from within windows.

To enable stereo mix in Windows:

1. Go to Start -> Control Panel
2. In Vista, go to the recording tab and find “Stereo Mix”.  Right click and select enable.  Once enabled, right click it again and select “Set as Default Device”
3. In XP, go to “Sounds and Audio Devices” (If you don’t have classic view enabled, you’ll need to go to “Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices” first, then the former).  Click the “Advanced” button in the volume tab to bring up the “volume control” mixer (alternatively, if enabled, you can always get here by double-clicking the volume icon in the icon tray).  If you see a “Stereo Mix” section in the mixer, ensure that Mute is unchecked and the volume is turned up.  If it isn’t there, go to Options -> Properties, and ensure that there is a check next to Stereo Mix.
4. Dell, in their ever-increasing attempt to capitalize, decided they would charge users for the ability to stereo mix, so these instructions won’t work.  However, follow the instructions here to enable it.

Once you’ve enabled stereo mix, Audacity should record from it (since we set it as default).  Try placing a few test calls and recording them from Audacity.  If you’ve done things correctly, it should work.  As usual, comment with questions or problems.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!

I’ve been bidding on items on eBay for a long time.  Unfortunately, I’ve been subject to fraud more times than I care to admit.  However, through losing a few hundred dollars, I’ve learned a few tricks about how you can keep yourself protected.

Most of the payments on eBay are handled through Paypal.  Most people figure that since paypal is a large, reputable (snicker) company, they’ll have no problem taking care of the consumer when fradulent auctions occur.  Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.  Most people assume that if you lose $500 from a fraudulent seller, you’ll get that money back and paypal will pursue the scammer.  In the real world, things don’t work this way.  Something most people don’t notice is a little feature called “paypal buyer protection”.  Essentially, if you get conned through ebay and pay with paypal, assuming an agent agrees that you’ve been scammed (which usually isn’t too much of an issue), paypal will automatically reimburse you this amount.  Paypal will protect up to $2,000 for many of the auctions from well-established sellers, but for all others, this amount is limited to $200.

One of the many times I was frauded, I purchased a dell coupon for $300 off.  The auction closed at about $250.  The guy ran off and I filed a claim, only to find out paypal would only reimburse $200.  Fortunately, my bank managed to take care of the rest.  But I learned a valuable lesson none-the-less.

How does one find out what amount they are covered up to?  On the right hand side of the auction listing, below the seller’s information, there is a section that shows this amount.  As mentioned, most of the time (from reputable sellers), this amount is $2000, as shown above.  However, in other cases, the auction is only protected up to $200, as shown below.

What constitutes an auction being protected to $2,000?  For starters, the seller must accept paypal as a payment method.  In addition, the seller must have a feedback rating of at least 50 and they must have 98% positive feedback.  There are a few other requirements which can be found in section 13.8 in the document here.  In most instances, you will find that anyone with a feedback rating over 100 has $2,000 buyer protection.  And as good practice, you should only purchase from well-established sellers (lots of positive feedback).  However, every once in a while, that “steal” of a deal comes along from that guy with 0 feedback.  Before you decide to take that gamble, realize that if the item is more than $200, you won’t be reimbursed for all of your losses.

And as another tip, make sure the feedback in the seller’s profile is legitimate.  Lately, cons have collaborated and left each other positive feedback on phony auctions to get a better score.  Checking the other sellers/buyers as well as the auctions themselves will usually shed light for anyone with a bit of common sense.

Remember, when in doubt, do without.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!