The Light Pick

Santa Cruz inventor Michael Herring joins the Geeks for a discussion about [Light Picks|http://www.lightpicks.net/], a guitar pick with a built in metronome.

Learn about the process of invention, the starting of a business, and the sales and makreting behind it.

! Geek News

The IBM PC [turns 25|http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/biztech/08/11/ibmpcanniversary/index.html].
James Van Allen, accomplished atro-physicist, is [dead at the age of 91|http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/10/science/space/10vanallen.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin]
Millions of [minors illegally buying alcohol|http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3757] through the internet
Pumping [power onto the grid from your basement|http://news.com.com/Pumping+power+onto+the+grid+from+your+basement/2100-1008_3-6104005.html?tag=cd.top]
[Battlefield 2142 beta|http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3737] coming to [FilePlanet|http://www.fileplanet.com/] subscribers
Hard drive [price war|http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3731] coming
First Blu-ray disc drive [won’t play|http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/11/1815258] Blu-ray movies
With [exploits out|http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/11/1233207], Microsoft braces for worm attack
Nation of [Cameroon typo-squats|http://www.circleid.com/posts/nation_of_cameroon_typosquats_com_space/] the entire .com top-level domain

! Your Calls

!! What computer should I buy for voice recognition and video editing?

Check out [CompRec|http://comprec.com/] for recommendations.

!! Is the Light Pick like the Light Snake?

No, but it’s a [cool product for musicians|http://www.soundtech.com/lightsnake/index.asp] doing digital recording.

!! Computer Backups on a Mac?

The Geeks recommend an external [USB|Universal Serial Bus|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB] storage device or [[NAS|Network Attached Storage]|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Attached_Storage] device.

!! DVD-R or DVD+R?

[DVD+R|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD+R] is better for data and archival, but [DVD-R|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-R] is much more compatible with the DVD player you would hook up to a TV.

!! Get a laptop now with Vista on the horizon?

Go ahead and get one now, but make sure you are buying a laptop with a discrete graphics chipset, not an integrated graphics chipset.

!! More on FireWire vs [USB|Universal Serial Bus] 2.0

!!! Ed from King City wrote:

I just tested a dual USB2 / Firewire drive on a MacBook. Using transfering a 6GB file using firewire averaged 29.5GB per second. Using the USB2 interface averaged 18.07GB/second. I’ve tried this before on my dual core G5 and got the same results. You just said there was no difference. What gives?

!!! Lyle responds:

Ahh, interesting, I hadn’t seen testing numbers and was basing my answers on specs.
“USB 2.0 Hi-Speed mode is 480 megabits per second, while the signalling rate of FireWire 400 (IEEE 1394a) is 393.216 Mbit/s” – [source|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB]

So, by spec, USB2 seems potentially faster. But I would not be surprised to see FireWire performing faster depending on the implementation. I know, for example, that Apple has spend a lot of resources on FireWire.

*! Here are two more plusses for USB 2.0:

Compatible with most computers, because it is backwards compatible with USB 1 and Windows machines typically do not come with FireWire.
When importing video through FireWire, using a MiniDV camera, it is best to no also have a hard drive connected to the FireWire chain.

But a speed difference that you have seen is a significant difference. Perhaps it is the implementation of the drive that you have. I will have to give it a try with my Seagate USB2/FireWire.

On Aug 12, 2006, at 10:57 AM, Ed from King City wrote