DIY Stencils, Cell Phone Boosters That Work, Pownce on the Desktop, 5 Things That Suck About the iPhone, Oppo's Low Cost HDMI Switch, Kevin Rose cohosts.... and did somebody say "Ass cancer?"

Kevin Rose o' Diggnation and Digg fame joins us as copilot for this episode of Tekzilla.

Aaron (and a few other folks) are miffed about us reviewing the DroboShare while DataRobotics was a running Drobo ads in the show.

Have we (or, more specifically, Patrick) no integrity? Trust us, Patrick might read ads in the show, but he'll quit before anybody dictates the content of a product review. You think the Drobo folks appreciated us pointing you towards a less expensive networked RAID device? (Like we said last week, If you don't mind dealing with managing a RAID, you can pick up Buffalo TeraStation Live with 1TB of hard drives onboard for the same price as the Drobo and DroboShare without any hard drives!)

Apple's Time Capsule definitely has potential (we haven't had a chance to review one yet, and we're curious about how well it works with XP and Vista) but, remember, if that single drive inside it goes down, you loose all your data... back it up to an online service or another USB hard drive!

Top Five Things Wrong With The iPhone: No Flash, No Exchange, that stupid headphone jack... Kevin and Patrick rant on a bit on the show.

Yes, Patrick did drill out that narrow iPhone jack with a drill press so he could plug in his beloved headphones without using a stupid iphone adapter. He'd use a Dremel rotary tool next time to make the cuts more manageable... the drill bit dug in pretty deep.

Your HDTV only has one HDMI HDMI input and you want to connect more than one HDMI device? That's the situation Tommy is facing, and he's hardly alone. And, like most of us, Tommy doesn't want to 'break the bank.'

Our fave HDTV reviewer, Robert Heron, is in the 'go to MonoPrice and buy whatever's cheap camp (they're a great source for cheap HDMI cables), but you might want to check out Oppo's new HM-31 3x1 HDMI switch. It's $99, and they've done a great job with their upscaling DVD players... we haven't had a problem with the HM-31 in our testing so far.

Joeseph downloaded the GOM Player, and noticed it's a bit sluggish with high quality Quicktime files... that's cause GOM uses DirectShow to play QT files... but some of the newer QT formats aren't optimized for DirectShow, and that makes for the slide show you're seeing. Best to stick with QT for those files... tho, just for kicks, download a fresh copy and try re-installing QuickTime to see if that fixes the problem.

Free software? Kevin shows off the Pownce Desktop software for his fave way to share files, pics and the news that he's off to lunch.

Daniel's dorm is a black hole where cell phone service dies. Is there a cheap cellular repeater he can pick up? We're not sure if $300 - $500 is cheap, but Wilson Electronics makes some monster 3 Watt amplifiers for cars and home/small office applications. We've used the mobile version to boost our signal from 1 or 2 bars to 4-5 bars. Talk to the folks at Wilson before you buy one; you'll want to make sure you've got the right cell phone frequencies (it's basically Sprint vs. Everybody Else), the best adapters for your phone, and that you can safely mount the antenna somewhere!

Is there a cell phone engineer in the audience? Kevin wants to know if he's like to get the 'ass cancer' if he leaves his cell phone in his back pocket...

While we're talking about protection, you should protect the screen on your new phone, smart phone, iPhone, Zune, media player, well, whatever it is with a shiny scratch free screen. Check out invisibleSHIELD, they've got some pretty good custom fitted covers that are pretty easy to apply and don't feel too bad under your fingers. They do absorb ink, tho!

Stencil's have been showing up on the sidewalks of San Francisco near Digg's offices, and Kevin's been documenting 'em on his Flickr account, so we take a look at how to generate your own stencils on the show. (Tho what Banksy and the folks on Stencil Revolution do with stencils and paint is way beyond us!)

Most of the tutorials on StencilRevolution are down during a redesign, but there's a good tutorial on making a single layer stencil from a color image in the forums there. Instructibles has more some good DIY help for stenciling, too. Search around: there are sources of eps stencil files on line, such as Guerilla Parenting.

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Tekzilla » Episode #18 - Kevin Rose is Here, Boost your Cellphone Signal, Custom Stencils, HDMI

Re: Episode #18 - Kevin Rose is Here, Boost your Cellphone Signal, Custom Stencils, HDMI

Posted by zomgorly on 02/07/2008 at 07:40:19 am in Tekzilla

^thanks for the links

Also, I enjoyed seeing those two guys talking tech back together. :D

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Re: Episode #18 - Kevin Rose is Here, Boost your Cellphone Signal, Custom Stencils, HDMI

Posted by technojunkie on 02/06/2008 at 07:25:38 pm in Tekzilla

Wouldn't an in-building wireless amplifier system be a better solution for that dorm cell phone reception problem? At least until femtocells are available like Sprint's Airave. Either of those could be shared by anyone within range. CellAntenna has some cheaper systems if Wilson Electronics is too expensive.

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Re: Episode #18 - Kevin Rose is Here, Boost your Cellphone Signal, Custom Stencils, HDMI

Posted by motionblur on 02/06/2008 at 03:01:30 pm in Tekzilla

It was good to see Kevin co-hosting with Patrick again.

However, all I ask is that we get Leo and Patrick together again - at least for one show. I can't think of another pair of hosts that worked so well off of each other. Patrick was always the voice of reason for Leo's wise insanity. ;)

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Great Episode

Posted by heinenth on 02/06/2008 at 01:15:59 am in Tekzilla

It was excellent to see kevin on the show with patrick. Definitely gives flashes of their screen saver days. One thing I couldn't believe was kevin's choice in wardrobe. I can't even imagine where one would purchase a zippered sweatshirt like that. Great show nonetheless.. haha.

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Re: Episode #18 - Kevin Rose is Here, Boost your Cellphone Signal, Custom Stencils, HDMI

Posted by MD2389 on 02/05/2008 at 11:05:03 pm in Tekzilla

"

Agreed! The only downside to this episode was the total lack of bloopers! :D (Maybe they were too "dark"? ;) *looks at Kevin* )

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Re: Episode #18 - Kevin Rose is Here, Boost your Cellphone Signal, Custom Stencils, HDMI

Posted by jamesk5 on 02/05/2008 at 01:56:11 pm in Tekzilla

Yea, I'll agree with nextgenxbox, I loved the length of this show. I'm not a fan of the < 25 minute shows. Something around the 35 - 45 minute length is what I'd like to see out of this show.
It seemed to me that this ep was sorta a mix between the screen savers and the earlier episodes of DL.TV - great content, great hosts, and pretty good production quality too.

It would be great to see Kevin come back and do some segments (but maybe not host a whole ep) - In a similar fashion to the way Tekzilla rolled out some of the packages with different, less regular, presenters in earlier episodes. He obviously hasn't lost his talent for hosting (even if he was a little rusty).

Who ever the host is (and like others, I'm not sure why it has to be a female), they *need* to have a good understanding of tech, because without that, it's just Pat boring. I love the guy, but I'm far more interested in seeing a bit of discussion (just like the two posters above seem).

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Re: Episode #18 - Kevin Rose is Here, Boost your Cellphone Signal, Custom Stencils, HDMI

Posted by darknessgp on 02/05/2008 at 07:35:30 am in Tekzilla

"Yeah, I still laugh how Kevin is worried about getting cancer from his phones. You get more radiation from the center of this planet than you would get from any cellphone to date. Thats not even taking into account all the radiation you get from say your local TV and radio stations. ;)

That being said, I have to say that this is the best Tekzilla to date, and I'm not saying this because Kevin was included. It was actually LONGER than 20 minutes, had plenty of coverage on the subjects, and none of the "Call for Help" newbieness. This is a remarkable improvement over past episodes and I sincerely hope this trend continues.


bman: There used to be a good prank on youtube where Leo & gang yanked this guy out of the audience and had him "co-host". Unforunately, some jackass had it removed due to "terms of use"."

Well, don't get me wrong I like Pat, but it was great to have someone there that could actually converse with him. It was way better than the Pat talks for 5 minutes while agrees/nods head stuff that had been happening.

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Re: Episode #18 - Kevin Rose is Here, Boost your Cellphone Signal, Custom Stencils, HDMI

Posted by notman on 02/05/2008 at 05:26:02 am in Tekzilla

Seeing those two hosting together again was very cool. I'd also like to throw my hand in at wishing Kevin was the cohost permanently. I've grown to dislike Kevin in diggnation, but loved watching him work with Patrick. I think it was because he wasn't playing such a dominate roll. He appeared to be 'learning' every time Patrick would show him something new.

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Re: Episode #18 - Kevin Rose is Here, Boost your Cellphone Signal, Custom Stencils, HDMI

Posted by nextgenxbox on 02/03/2008 at 03:20:27 pm in Tekzilla

Yeah I love the length. It's an actual full show like you would see on TV (minus the commercial).

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Re: Episode #18 - Kevin Rose is Here, Boost your Cellphone Signal, Custom Stencils, HDMI

Posted by MD2389 on 02/03/2008 at 11:35:46 am in Tekzilla

"Don't worry about 3 watts. I personally don't think twice before using my Yaesu VX-6 which can output 5 watts, and as a handheld device it's right next to my head in use. Even 10 Watts wouldn't worry me much, but at that level I would move marginally futher away. When you get to the likes of 20-50 watts, you probably want to be below the antenna's groud plane.

As a side note, it's reconed by some universities that it actually enhances intelligence in some people to use a mobile phone!

And as for reproduction hindering, laptop heat is much better...."

Yeah, I still laugh how Kevin is worried about getting cancer from his phones. You get more radiation from the center of this planet than you would get from any cellphone to date. Thats not even taking into account all the radiation you get from say your local TV and radio stations. ;)

That being said, I have to say that this is the best Tekzilla to date, and I'm not saying this because Kevin was included. It was actually LONGER than 20 minutes, had plenty of coverage on the subjects, and none of the "Call for Help" newbieness. This is a remarkable improvement over past episodes and I sincerely hope this trend continues.


bman: There used to be a good prank on youtube where Leo & gang yanked this guy out of the audience and had him "co-host". Unforunately, some jackass had it removed due to "terms of use".

Read More »