Washingtonpost.com: Live Online

Fast Forward columnist Rob Pegoraro will be online to discuss his recent column on steps you can take to block annoying Internet pop-up ads ("You Don't Have to Take Pop-Ups Lying Down." Excerpt: "If you're sick of pop-ups erupting over, under and next to the Web page you want to read, software to squash them is only a few clicks away. If you don't use Microsoft's Internet Explorer, you probably only need to adjust one setting: Pop-up blocking has become a standard feature in just about all non-IE browsers."

Also, be sure to check out "Add-Ons to Turn Pop-Ups Off," another feature that ran recently.

Rob will also discuss his March 30 review about a wireless digital-music receiver from Hewlett Packard.

Submit your questions and comments: Join Rob for a live online discussion on Monday, March 31 at 2 p.m ET.

Fast Forward E-letter:

Want to know what upcoming topics are being covered? Sign up for Fast Forward e-letter -- get updated information on personal technology news and product demos. Read past editions of Rob's e-letter online here.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Rob Pegoraro: Good afternoon - it's time to talk technology. I see questions about wireless networking, cell phones, pop-up ads and more... let's get started.

Chantilly, Va: Rob,

Love your chats. Always most informative.

Question. What's the latest wireless technology for linking home computers? There are so many parts and pieces out there it's hard to figure out which is better and then figure out which parts are needed.

Rob Pegoraro: "Latest" doesn't always equal "best." For sharing an Internet connection, 802.11b WiFi is the way to go. There are faster versions available, but they only really get useful when you start to get into a) massive computer-to-computer data transfers, or b) sharing video from computer to TV.

Buenos Aires, Argentina: Rob, sorry for the ignorance - what is WiFi?
Whatever it is, what bands does it require, how high in GHz?
I am very curious because I hold stock in a small co. that has been issued a license and frequencies for the entire country in the 28 and 38GHz and in the BsAs area (14 million pops) we have some choices down to 3.5GHz.
So as you can imagine any new services or potential are always of great interest.

Thanks in advance and I always (that I can) read your column. Saludos, Guillermo

Rob Pegoraro: Er, perhaps I should have taken this question first!

WiFi is a kind of radio system you can set up in your house or office to share data. It runs on the 2.4 GHz wavelength, which is free for personal use here in the States (have no idea what the case is in Argentina, however) and delivers a peak connection of 11 million bits per second, with real-world throughput maybe half that.

That help?

Washington, D.C.: How amazing that IE has dominance even though it hasn't provided for blocking pop-ups. I suspect that if we all blocked pop-ups, advertises would simply come up with another way of grabbing our eyeballs.

Speaking of which, was wondering-- is it just me or is there a new kind of ad that doesn't pop up in a separate window, but seems to be an incorporated part of the site itself-- they flash around for a second or two before you see a tiny "close" button in one corner that you have to click to read the page. I see this on news sites in particular, though I haven't noticed it on the Post's.

Rob Pegoraro: This comment is about my column from two weeks ago, in which I wondered why so many Web users seemed to put up with the pop-up ads that they repeatedly say they don't like, even though software to stop pop-ups is widely available and often free. (Here's the column.)

The ads you're talking about are usually done with Macromedia Flash animations; the intention behind them is to try to get your attention without being as annoying as pop-up advertising. In that light, I don't mind them nearly as much as pop-ups (look, somebody's gotta pay for this stuff), although a clearly-marked "close" button and a shorter duration makes them much more tolerable.

washingtonpost.com: The customer care unit at washingtonpost.com recommends the following step to minimize the number of pop-up ads you see on the Web site: Utilize the "home" link in the upper left hand corner of our site to navigate back to the homepage after reading articles, rather than using the "back" button on your browser. This should significantly cut down on the number of pop-up ads you're seeing.

Gary - Arlington, Va.: Rob,
A bit off-subject, but timely question nonetheless:

Not sure if you're a baseball/sports fan, but ESPN "debuted" its new HD channel last night for opening night for the Anaheim Angels. Unfortunately, only a select few people could even see the improved broadcast, as the satellite and major cable providers still haven't bought on to the service. However, ESPN was encouraging viewers to demand their carriers to start doing so.

Do you think the new channel could be the real momentum gatherer to bring masses to HDTV, or are the technical barriers, costs, and lack of broadcast choices still too limiting?

Rob Pegoraro: A lot of people have very high hopes for ESPN's HD feed. I think the basic assumption behind these hopes--people like watching sports on TV and will like it even more in high-def--is sound. Just look at what kind of money people have dumped into big analog TVs to watch their teams on.

But while lots of high-def sports coverage is a necessary condition for a mass upgrade to HDTV, I don't think it's a sufficient condition. Prices still need to drop, cable compatibility needs to be built into TV sets, over-the-air reception should be more reliable and buyers need to know that their new HDTV won't stop them from time-shifting and sharing TV programs as they always have.

Mclean, Va.: In regards to your HP Nails Digital Music in Theory, Not in Practice article.

Did you ever check out MediaPlayer from Prismiq? http://www.prismiq.com/. They seems to have a silimlar product with more features.

Thanks.
FL

Rob Pegoraro: I had a demo of the Prismiq MediaPlayer a couple of months ago. It does look very promising. However, it also, IIRC, requires you to buy a WiFi PC Card separately and install it into this set-top box. For Sunday's column, I wanted to look at a product that was a little simpler to put together, which is why I reviewed HP's Digital Media Receiver instead

Vienna, Va.: Describe the best device to bridge what the average user has for a pc (and its associated files) and a home a/v system -

Rob Pegoraro: It doesn't exist yet. It has to be some sort of wireless connection, but it also needs to run faster than WiFi if video sharing is going to be a reality. I'm waiting to see somebody make a box like the HP that uses the much faster 802.11g standard, which runs about 5 times as fast as WiFi but is still compatible with older WiFi receivers. Such a box shouldn't cost more than the going rate for a decent, not-great surround-sound receiver, and it should work as reliably as a wired connection.

The only catch is that this thing may not be possible to build just yet.

Fairfax, Va.: I have a brand-new baby, and I'm brimming with video footage of him that I'd like to put on DVD and send to the relatives. How do I import from an analog video onto the computer, and what's the best burner to put it on a DVD? (I can use internal or external) I'm not looking for any fancy software, just downloading and burning. Thanks!

Rob Pegoraro: We recently reviewed a couple of add-on kits to do just that. Here's that link.

Washington, D.C.: I accidently turned off the login/password memory feature in my Windows XP / Internet Explorer. Can I get the computer to start remembering my website passwords again? Also, can I edit the remembered list to get rid of some misspelled ones? Thanks

Rob Pegoraro: Open IE and select "Internet Options" from the Tools... menu. Click on tthe Content tab, then click on the "AutoComplete..." button. Then check off the boxes to enable auto-completing of usernames and passwords.

I don't know of any way to edit the AutoComplete list as you specify, though. If you've got incorrect info saved, IE should automatically ask you to enter the right name and password when it gets rejected at a Web site.

Baltimore: Rob: When are DVD-recorders going to fall under $500 per unit?

Rob Pegoraro: Some already have. Panasonic has been slashing prices on its DVD-RAM based recorders (I take it you're talking about video recorders to plug into a TV, not drives to plug into computers), and other manufacturers should be at that level within months.

DC: Hi Rob,

A big fan of your column. I want to get a Nokia Communicator (pda/phone,all in one). Do you think they will ever lower their price? THey haven't dropped a cent. Which pda/phone do you recommend?

Thanks!

Rob Pegoraro: Um, not the Communicator. That thing is a brick--I haven't seen a cell phone that big since the '80s. I would recommend the Handspring Treo, in either the T-Mobile or Sprint versions.

Bombay, India: Many browsers like Opera, Mozilla, Galeon have pop-up busters. Are e-advertisement companies, after being aware of this, aligning their strategies for capturing netizen's eye-share in different ways?

Rob Pegoraro: I thought I would hear of people doing that when I was reporting the column on pop-up ads, but I didn't hear of any such shift in advertising practice--at least not in response to people's use of pop-up blockers. What I did hear was that some advertisers, and in particular the big, name-brand, Fortune 500 kind, just didn't want to incur the kind of consumer alienation that happens when people get hit by pop-ups. They also didn't want to use a medium they saw as stained from overuse by online casinos and wireless-camera vendors.

Washington D.C.: Hi Rob - Posting early as I'll be tied up with work during the chat. I'm pretty ignorant about computers; just know how to use one for Web surfing, e-mail, Word, downloads. Anyway, I just had to buy a new laptop; the screen burned out on the old one. Is there anywhere besides the dreaded CompUSA I can go to have all of the files from my old hard drive transferred to the new one? Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: Probably not--well, I can't think of any simple way to do this. If you could remove the drive itself, you could plug it into the new computer as a second drive. (This works all the time with desktops.) If you had a Mac, you could connect it to a second Mac via a FireWire cable, then use a startup-key combination to force the laptop to start up in what's called "FireWire target disk mode"--that turns the laptop into an external hard drive for the second Mac.

But I think in this case you're SOL. Anyone have a better suggestion?

Washington, D.C.: Do you trust those website companies on pricewatch.com? Some seem to be fly-by-night operations...

Rob Pegoraro: Some of them are, from what I've heard. I've had a round or two of squabbling with bad online vendors before, and it wasn't fun--I would rather pay a few bucks more to do business with a company that I know will be around.

That doesn't mean I'm stuck doing business with companies that were around in, say, 1997, but it does mean I will want to research a new vendor's background carefully, going beyond those ratings listed on price-finding sites. (I've heard of companies offering buyers a discount if they promise to give them a really high grade.)

Washington, DC: Are LCD screens better on your eyes than CRT's? I don't need to play video games. I want a new monitor for work. Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: I think so. The no-flickering thing is true (CRTs can flicker, LCDs do not). LCDs can also be easier to adjust to a desired position.

Arlington, Va.: Isn't there software available that lets a Mac run Windows applications?

Rob Pegoraro: Yes. It's called Virtual PC, developed by Connectix Corp. but just bought by Microsoft (which says it will continue to improve this product). I've used VPC on and off for years, and I can tell you that while it works well for using an occasional PC app, it's no substitute for a real PC if you need to spend a lot of time in Windows-only software. You'll do better finding Mac applications that do the same job.

Derwood, Md.: Suggestion about Washington, DC's question about transferring files from laptop with burned out screen: Just connect the laptop to a regular monitor, hit the appropriate screens to toggle the laptop into external monitor use, then use laplink (or any similar utility) to transfer files over to the new computer.

Rob Pegoraro: Duh!

Duh. Duh. Duh. Why didn't I think of that?

Sorry, I've got a cold today. It's clearly making me a little slower than usual :)

Herndon, Va: Hey Rob,

Can you provide a link to the pop-up ad blocking software you reviewed?

Thx

Rob Pegoraro: Yes

Potomac, Md.: What do you think of AOL's new strategy to get people to sign up for their broadband? One of the things they are doing is removing the free access to some of their magazines' content online and making it available only to AOL subscribers. This seems to me to be similar to what the supermarkets do to get people to sign up for their tracking card program - that is, they raise the prices on some products for the non-card holders and then say that if you join the program then you get "discounts" on those products.

Rob Pegoraro: I'm a skeptic myself. That part of AOL's strategy--I haven't tried this "AOL 8.0 Plus" software myself--seems unlikely to attract new users. It may keep existing subscribers happy, but otherwise, there are a lot of other magazines available online, and most of them continue to be free to use.

Washington, D.C.: Any word on when Verizon Wireless will start carrying the new Kyocera 7135? Also, I'm very interested in the Kyocera 6035 as well, but I can't find any Verizon stores that stock them anymore to test them. I can order the phone online, so that isn't an issue, but I'm very loathe to buy a phone sight unseen. Any suggestions on how I could test out a 6035?

Rob Pegoraro: I have gotten confirmation from Verizon that it will start selling this Palm-phone combo (only, like, a year after Kyocera started talking about it, which really makes me wonder what sort of debugging the phone had to go through). But I don't know when, exactly, it might be available. I'd guess soon, if you can't find a 6035 on sale.

BTW, I wouldn't buy a 6035 at this point. It's obsolete as a Palm.

Alexandria, Va.: Has Comcast started charging bandwidth hogs more for Internet connectivity than regular folks?

Rob Pegoraro: Haven't heard of that yet. If anybody's gotten a bill with extra charges for their downloading activity, I'd love to hear about it.

Arlington, Va.: I just bought an iPod. There are some great radio shows (like Ira Glass' This American Life and CSPAN's LBJ tapes) that air at lousy hours. I wish I could MP3-record them to listen for a later date, just like I record TV shows on my VCR.

But as far as I can tell, there is no audio hardware out there to do that. Why not? Fair-use laws should allow it, I think. (Incredibly, I can't even find a FM-tuner/cassette-deck that can schedule on/off recording times. But I may just be nearsighted.)

Are there any technological workarounds that you can suggest? (I have an iMac too, connected to my Bose radio.)

Rob Pegoraro: Yes. The basic technique is to use a sound-recording utility to copy the streamed audio to your hard drive. I couldn't find any such app in a couple of searches on versiontracker.com, but that doesn't mean it isn't out there.

Bethesda, Md.: I've noticed that pop-ups from a couple of sites (like the NYT) seem to get around the pop-up blockers. I'd guess that doing this requires some cooperation between the site and the advertiser-- no?

Rob Pegoraro: I've seen that NYT pop-up as well (have I mentioned that the NYT is evil? :). From reading a bug report at the Mozilla Web browser's development site, it seems that the ad was using a different way to launch itself. That seems to have been fixed; I haven't seen any pop-ups at nytimes.com using Mozilla in months, and I think I remember that bug report having been marked as resolved.

NoVA: Just a quick question- TiVo or ReplayTV?

Rob Pegoraro: For me, neither. I just don't watch enough TV to want to pay $13 a month for an electronic program guide (the going rate on TiVo). I'm leery of Replay, OTOH, because SonicBlue is selling off the entire division to a company I've never heard of.

What I do want, and am fully prepared to buy, is a good, reliable DVD recorder that will let me play back recordings on other DVD players and sell for $500 or less.

Palookaville: I have a home network running on Siemens SpeedStrean Powerline equipment with one Win 98 box and one Win XP box. I'm looking for a way to carry on chats between one PC and the other -- or more precisely to send pop-up messages like "Could you reload the printer?" etc. Win 98 has Win Popup for the purpose but Win XP doesn't. Win XP has Winchat but Win 98 doesn't. Net send from the DOS command prompt isn't user friendly enough. I've downloaded a demo from Vypress of chat software that seems to work but it wasn't easy to find and I'm wondering if there's something obvious out there that I'm missing.

Rob Pegoraro: What about the Messenger service built into XP? The sort of admin messages you're talking about are exactly what that system service (note: *not* Windows Messenger or MSN Messenger) was designed for, at least before it started getting hijacked to send spam.

But the simplest option would probably be to set up some AIM/Yahoo/MSN/whatever instant-messaging accounts on each computer, then leave that IM app open full-time.

Cell Phone Phobia: Does this sound weird to you? I'm a techno-geek in every area but one: cell phones.

My wife gave me a cell phone four years ago, and I only use it if I need to let her know I'm delayed coming home from work. I have no idea what features the phone has (it's an analog Nokia). Sometimes I even forget what button to push to answer an incoming call.

Rob Pegoraro: That's not weird at all. Anybody want to guess how old my TV is? My stereo? My car?

Wash. D.C.: What do you think about Sony's new TG-50 Clie?

Rob Pegoraro: I wish I could have told you all by now. I asked for a review unit several weeks ago and got this terse response back: "Thank you for the opportunity, but we respectfully decline participating in
your review."

After a long conversation with a PR contact at Sony, I found out that the company, or at least one branch of its PR operation, thinks I have some sort of bias against it. They thought my review of the NR-series Clie a year ago was "a hatchet job," in the words of this fellow. I attempted to point out the, like, five other reviews of Clie models that I've done, but this guy would only say he'd think things over.

That was a week ago. I'm going to ask one last time but am not really optimistic; I expect I'll have more to say on this in my e-mail newsletter a week from today.

Washington, D.C.: What's the range of a Wi-Fi signal?

Rob Pegoraro: Depends on what's between the access point and the receiver, but it should be 150 feet in open terrain with a standard transmitter. If you use a directional antenna, you can reach much farther; if there are a lot of walls in between, the signal will drop out much quicker.

Re: TiVo vs Replay: I don't have either but from what I've been following in the news, Replay seems to be more "pro-consumer" than TiVo is. Replay was fighting the networks in court while TiVo actually has some networks as investors. I wouldn't be surprised if sometime in the next couple of years the fast forward button seems to not work during certain portions of your TiVo recordings...

Rob Pegoraro: I wouldn't call TiVo "anti-consumer," but I did think that Replay had been much more aggressive in defending its customers' rights against the control-freakery in Hollywood.

MP3s to the stereo: You missed an option in today's fast forward about playing MP3s over your home stero system. I bought a $33 FM tansmitter that plugs into my sound card...walla...instant access. Its not as convenient as the expensive toys as I do have to go to the computer to make any changes to the playlist, but for the price its a great interm solution until the personal media centers mature and come down in price.

Rob Pegoraro: Good point. The need to go into the other room to change channels, switch stations or whatever is annoying--but, you're right, until WiFi media receivers can be made to work a little more reliably, these FM transmitters aren't a bad idea. (Another option, if your house layout allows it, would just be to drill a hole through the wall to run some regular audio cables from one room to the next.)

MP3 recorders: The Archos Jukebox can record MP3s, and with the open-source RockBox firmware (which is so much better than Archos' own firmware that Archos will be shipping it on their own hardware from now on) it's a dream to use. The latest CVS builds of Rockbox have things like record timers (so you can tell the jukebox to start recording at 3am or whenever your preferred show is on), along with all sorts of cool features like an automatic "Karaoke" filter that removes the vocals from a track on the fly. (It's a little bit less sleek and light than the iPod, but that shouldn't be a deterrent, especially given its much lower price.)

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks for the Archos update. I hadn't heard about that open-source firmware project, or that Archos was going to adopt that instead of its own... that's fascinating. (One of the trends that interests me is the increasing amount of overlap between the open-source and commercial software worlds. Case in point: the Safari Web browser I'm typing this on, which is built on an open-source Web rendering library.)

Weather update: It is now snowing outside my window. Could this weather be any more bizarre?

DC: To make an MP3 out of a radio program:

Run an audio-out line to the audio-in jacks of your VCR. Leave the radio on and set the VCR timer. It'll tape the show. Then run the VCR audio-out line to your computer's audio-in. (You can get RCA-to-miniplug adapters; or buy a card that accepts RCA plugs.) Capture the audio onto the hard drive with one of several utilities - I know of at least two for the Mac (one comes with Toast; the other is Audio Hijack.)

Cumbersome and not quite automatic, but it works!

Rob Pegoraro: I see what you're saying... but there has *got* to be an easier way. I mean, using a VCR to make MP3s? That's beyond Rube Goldberg.

still a luddite...: Rob - I enjoy reading your reviews of all the gadgets and gizmos but I own none of them - no cell phone, no PDA, no MP3 - just dial up internet access for my 2 yr old PC. So here's a fun question for you (and other readers):

What piece of technology has transformed your life (for better or for worse) and that you can't get along with now?

Rob Pegoraro: Wow. Where do I start? The cell phone, the handheld organizer, always-on Internet access (I like the speed of DSL, but the fact that my computer is always online is much more useful), the Web itself, e-mail... it's easy to overlook how a lot of this stuff actually does work and has made things better.

Washington, DC: Any cool gadgets coming out in the next month that I should start saving up for?

Rob Pegoraro: Next month? There are a few Palm-plus-phone combo models (one that Kyocera 7135, a couple of Samsungs), and we might see a new Palm model or two (read the rumor reports at www.palminfocenter.com). Sharp's got a *really* tiny laptop that I'm looking forward to trying out. That's about all that comes to mind at the moment.

Arlington, Va.: Thanks for the suggestion on the iPod question!!

Rob Pegoraro: Y'all are so polite! :) You're welcome, BTW.

And that's it for today's chat. Thanks to all for showing up with some great questions; if I missed yours, e-mail me (rob @twp.com) and I'll get back to you soonest.

- R

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