Benjamin talked with Ken Rockwell, no relation, and they went into detail on a number of camera issues, and fawning over the Nikon series of Digital cameras.  Benjamin has a Nikon D40, and Ken Rockwell is a fantastic photographer, who also runs a website that covers many details of photography, and getting the most out of your camera.  http://www.kenrockwell.com

Benjamin also talked with Steve from http://www.1buttontowifi.com which is a unique product that allows you to make a phone call via VOIP, using your cell phone.  Putting it a little differently... imagine a phone call from your cell phone where you start off with... DIAL TONE!!!

With the elections coming up, Benjamin again touched on political figures this week because Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin’s e-mail was hacked recently. Unfortunately, she mixed home and work e-mails, allowing people to get into sensitive work information once they got her personal e-mail information. You need to always be careful when giving out personal information online.  Many sites that are password protected will ask you for answers to a series of questions in case you forget your password. Unfortunately, these things are easily guess if people know you or you’re not particularly creative with your answers. So, it is safest to be indirect and answer questions with answers that are close enough for you to remember but off enough that they won’t be guessed. For instance, instead of giving your favorite color, give something that color, or the name of the school where you learned colors.

Continuing on the e-mail vein, Benjamin also talked about spam and e-mail hoaxes. There are literally millions of hoaxes out there waiting to get personal information from unsuspecting victims.  Because snail mail requires postage, paper, envelopes, etc, less than 1% of people respond to spam in postal mail. However, e-mails are free, so people are perfectly willing to respond, and spammers are perfectly willing to spam because there’s no cost for them. Most of these spams say that somebody wants to give you a lot of money and all you have to do is follow “this” link. You follow the link and before you know it your computer is infected with malware.

Being a former DJ, Benjamin also talked about changes in the music world. He grew up with 8-tracks, which progressed to cassette tapes, to CDs, and now mp3s and even mp4s. Micro SD cards are now being transformed into what’s called “slot music.” One of the problems facing the industry today though is DRM, or Digital Rights Management. DRM keeps legitimate downloads and copies down but allows illegal copies just fine. This especially comes into play with slot music. Other problems facing Slot music include a lack of people in the industry, because it is still new, worries about tangible music since we now have mp3s, and more faith in iTunes and online services.

Lastly, Benjamin also responded to E-mails from the listeners. Latanya asked about Windows XP Service Pack 3 and automatic installers; Lawrence asked about memory; Samuel asked about connecting two printers to the same computer.

Remember to tune in next week and to listen to this week’s show right now by using the links below!