MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5, at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world and the Computer Guys & Gal. It's the first Tuesday of the month, and the soothing melody can mean only one thing. Our engineer is tormenting me again. Oh, no, not that. It's the Computer Guys & Gal here to examine what happens after an epic fail in the tech world. No, I'm not talking about one of John Gilroy's jokes. Those…

MR. BILL HARLOW(unintelligible) classic.

NNAMDII'm talking about the BlackBerry blackout that left millions of email-addicted CrackBerry users without service for up to three days. The company solution? Free apps for everyone. It didn't go over so well. The federal government is trying to mend fences with jobseekers after the new and improved USAJobs website turned out to be not so improved. And then there's NetFlix, which still seems unable to recover from its self-inflicted rules.

NNAMDIBut the news isn't all bad. The Computer Guys & Gal are here to help us accentuate the positive and explain how YouTube might finally be ready to take on the cable companies and why the new Windows phone might actually give Androids and iPhone a run for their money. Joining us in studio is Bill Harlow, computer guy and hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid-Atlantic Consulting Incorporated. Bill, good to see you again.

HARLOWGood to see you, too. Hope you had a good Halloween.

NNAMDII did have a good Halloween. However, I was almost scared to death on Saturday night at what I saw (unintelligible) WAMU...

HARLOWWorse than Halloween.

NNAMDI...50th anniversary gala because there, on the one hand, was Ben Bederson and...

NNAMDI...Allison Druin...

HARLOWVery lovely couple.

NNAMDI...looking gorgeous and dressed to the nines. Allison Druin, by the way, is associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and, get this, co-director of the Future of Information Alliance...

MS. ALLISON DRUINWhoa.

NNAMDI...at the University of Maryland.

HARLOWTwo-page business card.

DRUINA new title.

NNAMDIHow long did it take for you and Ben to get dressed on Saturday night? Must have taken a while.

DRUINOh, you know what? The problem was it was the 12-year-old that was trying to help us.

HARLOWThat was a problem.

NNAMDIYeah.

DRUINAnd it was also the first time Ben had ever gotten in a tux in his whole life.

HARLOWThat will be ever. The key word here is ever.

DRUINEver, ever.

NNAMDI(unintelligible)...

DRUINWe did not get married in a tux. But for WAMU, for its 50th anniversary gala, we did it.

HARLOWYeah.

DRUINYeah.

NNAMDIAnd you looked very good doing it.

DRUINOh, thank you.

NNAMDIAnd as live living proof that if you dress well enough, you can get into just about any place...

NNAMDI...there was also John Gilroy, WAMU's resident computer guy and director of business development at Armature Corporation. I can say nothing sarcastic. You looked good. I never could have guessed.

MR. JOHN GILROYI snuck in with the servers. I got -- I was serving the table you were at, Kojo. So you must have noticed me. Do you want some dessert?

NNAMDIBill, you would not have recognized him at all. He looked...

DRUINNo, no. He even knew how to put those little cuff things on your buttons...

GILROYThey're called studs.

DRUINOh...

NNAMDIHe looked like a gentleman.

DRUIN...I wouldn't say that.

NNAMDIIf you have questions or comments for our Computer Guys & Gal, call us at 800-433-8850, send email to kojo@wamu.org, a tweet, #TechTuesday, or go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there. How do tech companies say we're sorry? The last few months have been humbling for some big players in the tech world. John, in October, BlackBerries around the world went dark for three days. Professionals across this fair city found themselves in the throes of email withdrawal, a service outage that apparently meets the textbook definition of an epic fail.

GILROYEpic fail. I think there were policy wonks on Capitol Hill jumping off of...

GILROY...of the Library of Congress over there.

NNAMDI(unintelligible)...

HARLOW(unintelligible) BlackBerry, the service came back on. Oops, shouldn't have jumped yet.

GILROYSuicidal. Can you imagine those people? I know those people, like, for 20-, 24-hour days, they just don't sleep, and they live and breathe by their BlackBerries. You know, I think this is just another black eye for the company they don't like very much. It's the folks in Canada...

HARLOWWhat did they ever do to you?

NNAMDIResearch in Motion.

GILROYWell, there's a lot of things I can say about that company, but I'm not really thrilled with the company. And good for them. They made a mistake, and they didn't make good. They, you know -- if your dinner comes late, you get a free dessert or something. Dinner came late, and they just had the waiter wave at them or something. Here's a free app. That was really no compensation for down service.

NNAMDIThat was their peace offering. Here are free apps. But there are now questions about whether those free apps will actually end up costing you money to use them.

GILROYA Trojan horse.

GILROYSo you insult one of your customers. You give them a Trojan horse. Here - here's this little app. It's going to open up, and it's going to cost you five bucks a month for the rest of your life.

DRUINWell, you know, the problem with BlackBerry is it's not a problem per se, but most of our government is being run with BlackBerries because they're supposedly safe and we're not going to be sorry with them. But the biggest problem is that, all of a sudden, we practically had a government shutdown between government workers because of the BlackBerries going down. So that's a -- it's a very big deal.

NNAMDIMeanwhile, Research in Motion, the -- no, we mentioned the free apps that could cost money already. Meanwhile, it's been months since NetFlix began its case study in alienating its user base.

GILROYIt's been a while.

NNAMDIThis month, we found out that almost a million users cancelled their subscriptions. How does NetFlix say I'm sorry?

GILROYWell, I think Qwikster's Gonester.

HARLOWYeah.

GILROYWe know that. And I think this is the guy who should jump off...

GILROY...of Library of Congress. I mean, talk about dumb. It was a calculated business move.

HARLOWYeah.

GILROYI think if you're in that environment and you're having oodles of success, I mean, oodles and oodles of success, well, let's keep going. I mean, if you're going to have a new release of a Mercedes-Benz, well, Allison spent $70,000 for a Mercedes-Benz, let's see if we can get $80,000 out of her this year. And that's what they did. They decide, hey, we can bump up prices by 50, 60 percent.

NNAMDIThey won't notice.

GILROYThey won't notice.

DRUINUh...

GILROYAnd we'll have two different sites with two different reviews of the same movie...

HARLOWYeah.

GILROY...and it got too confusing. And he -- it was a business decision. And he took a chance, and he lost.

NNAMDI'Cause we noticed.

GILROYYeah. Everyone noticed, yeah.

HARLOWJust a few...

NNAMDI800-433-8850 is the number to call. While we're on the topic of adversity and failure, we should take note of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs will be remembered for his great successes, founding Apple and Pixar, masterminding the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, giving birth to Bill Harlow...

HARLOWNot quite sure how that works.

HARLOWWell, secrets here...

GILROYThat's a different show.

NNAMDIBut, Bill, one of the more interesting nuances of the Steve Jobs story has always been the way he and his company have been able to come back from adversity and bad bets, isn't it?

HARLOWYeah. It's -- I mean, you consider that -- and the biggest adversity for him was he got kicked out of the company he co-founded, you know?

NNAMDIYeah.

HARLOWAnd he started NeXT. And, you know, a lot of people probably don't know what NeXT computer did, but they made these really slick, pretty advanced workstations. And, in fact, the Internet was invented on a NeXT workstation by Tim Berners-Lee, and he learned a lot there.

GILROYSome Web technology.

HARLOWSome Web technology, yes. He didn't create the Internet in one night, but he...

GILROYThat was Al Gore.

HARLOWHe...

GILROYYou can't fool me.

HARLOWHe...

HARLOWHe planted the seed, and, you know, a lot of technology that was in NeXT, you know, like, you know, the core of the operating system, that kind of powered what became Mac OS X.

GILROYYep.

HARLOWI mean, when Steve Jobs came back, I mean, talk about a comeback. In a very short amount of time, he has changed the music business. He has, you know, changed the phone business. He's changing the portable computing business. And, you know, who knows what else they can do?

NNAMDIYou forgot to mention Ben Bederson's life...

HARLOWOh, yeah. And my life, too...

DRUINSuch...

HARLOW...and a lot of people's lives.

NNAMDIYes.

HARLOWWell, you know, in the last World Series, this guy named Pujols hit three home runs. But, if you look at the whole series, he made a little of mistakes. He struck out a lot and...

GILROYYeah.

HARLOW…didn't really do a whole -- not a lot of singles, but he had thrown -- and that's what Steve Jobs -- he was hitting home runs. And he struck out a lot, but he did hit the homers.

DRUINBut, you know, it's interesting. What's been powerful about his passing has been so -- the outpour of grief...

GILROYYeah.

DRUIN...of...

GILROYI was surprised how much...

DRUIN...the common...

GILROY...I was affected by that when I heard the news.

DRUIN...the common person and, you know, the truly great -- it's been amazing. So there are two sites that if you're really interested in learning more about how people are thinking about him -- they're both on Apple. Remembering Steve is a site where people -- just the average person can leave their thoughts. And this guy named Danny said, "Steve was a guy I never met from a country I never been to who built a company I never worked for, but I knew Steve. I knew him through the products, which I see here and touch every day."

DRUINI mean, and that's powerful. And then, meanwhile, there's another site that -- a celebration of Steve's life from -- that was actually the memorial service from Apple computer, and it was a really amazing service. And if you have the time to go to listen to it -- but Johnny Ive, who's the senior V.P. of design, he said something that was really -- that hit home. He said that while ideas ultimately can be so powerful, they can be so fragile and barely formed thoughts. They can be so easily missed and so easily compromised, and Steve Jobs really understood that.

NNAMDIBill, you flagged the comments made by Steve Jobs' sister that ran in The New York Times. And those comments were posted -- no, Allison flagged the comments posted on the Apple website. You flagged the comments delivered by his sister at the eulogy that ran on The New York Times. And you have undertaken to read Walter Isaacson's tome on Steve Jobs.

HARLOWYeah. I've just started it, and I got to say the -- first of all, do read that op-ed by Mona Simpson, his sister, because it's...

DRUINOh, it's very moving.

HARLOW...a great eulogy. And it's very moving, very personal. And the thing that surprised me, it's such a small thing, but just mentioning his last words, they were just, oh, wow, oh, wow, oh, wow. And then he passed away. I mean, that's kind of amazing, just thinking that those were his last thoughts, but...

NNAMDISo you've started the book. Have you finished it yet?

HARLOWNo, no. I mean, again, it's a tome. It's a tome.

GILROYPaper or electronic version?

NNAMDICheck with me next year.

HARLOWI got it in hardcover, so I can't take it with me, you know?

GILROYOh, old-fashioned.

DRUINYou didn't get it in a Kindle or on the iPad?

HARLOWThat deserves to be in paper.

GILROYDid you come over here in a horse and buggy, too?

HARLOWExactly. By the way, it's difficult to read in a horse and a buggy. So I didn't bring it with me.

HARLOWBut, you know, it's -- of course, you know, I can't go and pull it up on my iPhone and continue where we left off.

DRUINSteve would have been happier if you've done that.

GILROYYeah.

HARLOWI don't know about that. He appreciates objects, too.

DRUINYeah.

HARLOWBut, you know, I'm about 100 pages in, and I got to say, like, his early life -- I haven't even hit the Apple stuff yet. It's still such an incredible story. It's just the very beginning, his childhood, the way he behaved, how the adoption went on. I mean, I have a feeling it's going to be a great book for people who wanted to know Steve Jobs the person.

NNAMDILet the record show Bill Harlow does not download tomes.

DRUINShocking. Really shocking.

NNAMDIThe last time we talked, we thought there was going to be a new iPhone 5. It turned out that what we got was the iPhone 4S. Some people were disappointed because it didn't sound as new. But the new phone has some interesting new features, including a voice command system called Siri. Why would you want voice command?

DRUINWhy would you want voice command? Well, because perhaps maybe usually I command John to do things, and supposedly he does them. I mean, it's more...

HARLOWSo you can text your friends...

NNAMDIBill...

GILROY...in the car. Everyone knows that.

HARLOWIt's more -- well, you can do that. And that's one of the first things I tried. And the fact that it works kind of blew my mind.

GILROYBut it's a...

NNAMDIIt worked for you. It doesn't work for everybody.

HARLOWWell, I'm not Scottish.

NNAMDISome people are saying it's the beginning of a new kind of interface, but there is one glitch in the new Siri system. It doesn't understand English, at least not when it's spoken by someone with a Scottish accent.

JAMESCreate a reminder.

SIRII don't know what you mean by create (word?).

JAMESCreate a reminder.

SIRIJames, I don't understand. Create (word?).

JAMESCreate a reminder.

NNAMDII can listen to that all day long.

HARLOWThat would be torture.

NNAMDINo. Because, as a human, you understand it after he says it the first or the second time.

HARLOWIt took me three times.

DRUINIt took me four times. I couldn't figure it out how to say, oh, a reminder, oh.

DRUINI swear to you. I was like, listen to that going, oh, I really -- I get it. But, you know what, it's 10 times...

NNAMDIAt least you got it on the fourth time.

DRUINWell...

NNAMDIThat phone never got it.

GILROYI was waiting for Captain Kirk to join.

DRUINBut you know what's even worse is if kids use this thing, so let me tell you. Kids' voices are even more variable than just accents in general from different countries. So do not try and get your 4-year-old to try and put a reminder on there, okay?

HARLOWA reminder.

NNAMDIYou do it.

GILROYIf you have Scottish children, you're done. Don't even try it.

NNAMDIYou do it very well, John. The new phone also allows you to post all sort of pictures and data on the iCloud system. You say the iPhone is for show. The iCloud is for dough.

GILROYYeah, golfers say this phrase. They say drives are for show, and putts are for dough. We all know this. And I think...

HARLOWBut (word?) are so fun.

GILROYYeah.

GILROYThere's a guy out here in Virginia named Dave Linthicum, and he is a thought leader in (word?) cloud computing. And he had this simple article on InfoWorld, and I read it. And I said this is -- what it's doing is that it's validating the cloud for enterprise. So people have personal computers. They're bringing them to work. And now people are -- you know, they may be comfortable with Mozi and doing online storage, but they really don't get the cloud.

GILROYBut what happens is when people start putting their music and they organize different things remotely, then they get -- then this may validate using the cloud at work. And so the whole -- this may kind of slide everyone into using a cloud model. And the federal government is certainly trying to adopt a lot of cloud techniques. Now, I just think this is a wonderful article 'cause it talks about the practicality of it and says, no, this is what the cloud is all about. And people will go, now I get it. It makes life easy.

NNAMDIWe got an email from Chris in College Park, "While much attention has been paid to the passing of Steve Jobs, it has sadly overshadowed the death of Dennis Ritchie...

GILROYYes.

DRUINYes.

NNAMDI...co-creator of the C language and the UNIX operating system. Nearly everything in modern computing, including the achievements of Steve Jobs, depend on what Ritchie and his collaborators built. Like so many of us in the IT industry, Dennis focused on making things work." I hear a lot of mm-hmm, ahas and amens over here.

HARLOWYes, indeed. Actually, I tweeted about that and not so much that I thought that, you know, it's too bad Steve Jobs overshadowed him, but just to remind people that, you know, his work is really important. He didn't necessarily seek out the limelight. He wasn't running these, you know, large corporations that got a lot of press, but it was very important work. It was the groundwork for a lot of what we take for granted.

DRUINOh, I tried to learn C, and I have to tell you, I railed against that man at various times 'cause that language was so difficult...

HARLOWKarma.

DRUIN...for my brain. It just didn't work that way. But, you know -- but it was so powerful because there were a lot of other brilliant brains that did, and -- but it was from that that Steve Jobs and many other innovators could actually make things simpler for the rest of us. So -- but Dennis was an amazing man and a really wonderful researcher.

NNAMDIIt's the Computer Guys & Gal. You can call us at 800-433-8850. Here is Tim in Baltimore, Md. Tim, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

TIMGood afternoon.

NNAMDIGood afternoon, Tim.

TIMI'm a -- my family and I have three cellphones with one of the major carrier, and my cellphone bill is like $160 a month on average. It fluctuates up and down a little bit. But my question is -- I wonder if your guests know anything about the pay-as-you-go phones. The advertising certainly sounds good, but I'm curious to know what the downside is.

NNAMDIAnybody can inform Tim about pay-as-you-go phones?

HARLOWWell, as far as the plans, I mean, that's the thing I'm not as well versed on as far as, like, what they offer you for data. So if anybody wants to try one of that, please, feel free. But what I would say with a lot of these pay-as-you-go phones generally is you're not going to get the latest device. I mean, I'm not aware of any place you can go and just casually walk in and get a cheap iPhone and pay as you go.

HARLOWYou can buy an unlocked phone and maybe use it that way, but then you're paying a ton of money upfront for the phone. It may be cheaper in the long run, you know. Who knows?

DRUINIt does depend on your texting habits. If you are -- and especially if you have kids that are texters that will send something once a minute...

GILROYAnd, by the way, why is texting getting more expensive, not cheaper?

DRUINOh, yeah. Well, it's because they realized that more and more people are not calling up grandma, or they're texting grandma. You know, it's what they're doing.

NNAMDIDemand.

DRUINAnd so, actually, you got to be careful in terms of the texting. So I think, altogether, if it's something that makes sense for you, great. But you've got to be very, very careful and read all the fine print.

GILROYI don't want to brag. I was at a very swank party on Saturday night...

GILROYAnd Paula Poundstone had something to say about Twitter, remember?

NNAMDIShe sure did.

GILROYShe talked about that. That was her lead because all the kids are, you know --she's saying back and forth, and it would be nice...

NNAMDIAbout texting.

GILROYYeah, about texting. I thought that was interesting that she was even talking about -- so I guess Tim's probably -- his phone bill probably was $100 a month maybe three or four years ago. Now, it's $160 a month. And one solution might be the draconian solution is to say, hey, I'll give you an emergency phone for the car, Bill. But if you want texting, you got to do it on you own. And then you have to...

NNAMDIIs there any way to stop my iPhone from spelling the wrong words for me?

DRUINNo.

NNAMDINo way to do that. We're going to take a short break and try to figure that one out.

NNAMDIThe Computer Guys & Gal. We'll take your calls at 800-433-8850. You can send email to kojo@wamu.org or go to #Tuesday and send us a tweet there. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to the Computer Guys & Gal. Bill Harlow is a hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid Atlantic Consulting, Inc. John Gilroy is director of business development at Armature Corporation, and Allison Druin is associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of the Future of Information Alliance at the University of Maryland. And she just solved our typing and texting problem.

GILROYShe certainly did.

DRUINYou just want to poke fun of.

HARLOWYou just missed it. It was a great solution.

NNAMDIExactly. I'm sorry, but you just missed it.

DRUINActually, David Pogue had people tweeting to him at one point, saying, what are your worst typos from the iPhone? Oh, my goodness. People were telling me the funniest things.

NNAMDIYeah. It'll do that you. Whenever we talk about smartphones, John, we tend to talk about iPhones and Android devices. Microsoft has mostly been an afterthought, but the company's new Mango operating system is raising some eyebrows, including some growing reviews for its latest round of smartphones.

GILROYFrom the fellow we just talked about, the singing nerd, David Pogue, up in New York City. He looked at the new Windows phone and said he kind of liked it. He kind of was very impressed with it, and...

HARLOWEven the first time I went to play with it, thought they were really slick.

GILROYYeah. I've seen -- they're like tiles, is what they are. And he'd be likely -- he was singing its praises and talking about this and that, and he said, oh, by the way, you know, there's 16 times as many apps the Apple has for this. Maybe a little bit, you know, talk about too little, too late. This is all the horses have left, and then you saddle up the horse. And, you know, you're way behind.

HARLOWYou know what I like about Microsoft, though? If they want something, they go after it. Like, it's all like -- they don't throw in the towel like HP. Yeah, Web OS and take off, bye. You know, they'll stick with this. So it's got a chance to succeed just 'cause it's being backed by someone who actually cares.

GILROYAnd Microsoft is making money. And they're increasing some sort of share with Bing. And so maybe the -- you know, the deep pockets of Microsoft will push it through.

HARLOWI hope so (word?) products.

GILROYIt's always great to have competition 'cause it's going to make the Apple even better.

NNAMDIMost of the mobile devices we talk about cost a couple of a hundred dollars. But when you're talking about people who will scour far and wide for a bargain -- Allison Druin has flagged a news story about an Android device that was developed, it is my understanding, for school children in India that costs about $35.

DRUINYes. Yes. It's a 7-inch Android based device, okay? And it's being distributed, but it's also being subsidized by the government of India. But it's -- actually, it's not too bad. It -- they have contract with, actually, a Canadian development company, DataWind. And there's going to be putting out 10 to 12 million of these devices in the hands of kids. They're calling it the Aakash tablet. Now, the problem is the reaction time is pretty slow. So for those of you iPad or tablet fanatics, it's a swipe-and-wait affair, okay?

HARLOWWell, what do you want for 35 bucks? I mean, come on.

DRUINI know, but, you know, here's the thing. In fact, actually, there's a Indian word called jugaad -- I'm saying that wrong probably -- which means to make do. And so they feel like, you know, there's enough here if you get -- in fact, you can even Skype with this thing and get free phone calls with earphones and a cheap mic.

GILROYBut there's millions of people walking around with those small-feature phones anywhere right now.

NNAMDISo when you get the application in India from Allison Druin Singh...

NNAMDI...you will know exactly who's trying to get one of your $35 phones.

DRUINBut, you know, and this goes from the one laptop per child, the $100 computer whole thing, you know, a few years ago. So good for them all. Keep going. Let's get this stuff out in the kids' hands.

NNAMDIBill, today, iconic Apple products like the iPhone and iPad are some of the more popular gadgets in the world, but the Apple renaissance arguably began with a product that marks its 10-year anniversary, the iPod.

HARLOWYeah, on the 23rd, actually, of October. So, yeah, the original iPod, the 5 gig, Firewire, Mac-only iPod came out 10 years ago. And Ars Technica, actually, they had a retrospect of talking about the various designs. It's really cool 'cause one thing that's so amazing is they got -- they nailed that interface, like, right from the get-go. That click wheel, that carried on. You could -- I think, you know, as of (unintelligible) you still get an iPod with a click wheel on it, which, I think, is incredible.

HARLOWI mean, they, you know, they spend so much time iterating designs and trying things until it sticks. And then they release it, and that's the results. The other thing I thought was really cool, though, was that they re-reviewed the original iPod today, and they said that it actually kind of holds up. It's a bit big. And -- you know, but you also have to have the right Firewire cable, but you can hook it up to a modern Mac with the right Firewire cable, use the latest OS, the latest iTunes. It'll sync.

HARLOWAnd they played around with it and said, you know, the interface was still really easy to use. And the battery life was about as good as when they first got it, which I thought was pretty cool.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones. Joining us now is a familiar face and a familiar voice. That's Tom -- tell us your last name, please.

MR. TOM KIEREINKierein.

NNAMDIHey, Tom Kierein. How are you doing, Tom? Kind of...

KIEREINI love your show.

NNAMDI...NBC 4.

KIEREINOf course, I've been fortunate to be a guest with Kojo, and I love listening to Tech Tuesday. But when you're just talking about Steve Jobs, I had a wonderful -- a cartoon came to me, and I ended up tweeting it, showing Steve Jobs arriving in heaven. And he's standing there, and God has this huge book, his registry in front of him. He's flipping through all the pages, and Jobs says, I have an app for that.

NNAMDISo he's useful even in heaven. Tom Kierein, where did you run across that cartoon?

KIEREINYou know, it was one of those things that started getting tweeted and re-tweeted. I'm not sure what the -- you know, who the cartoonist was, but I just thought that was wonderful. He certainly was a visionary for our generation, and it will last for decades to come, his visions and the impact he's had on technology.

NNAMDIHey, Tom Kierein, thank you so much for your call. I suspect that that book up there is what Bill Harlow would call a tome. So he won't be getting the...

NNAMDIHe won't be getting that app at all.

HARLOWNot at all.

GILROYIt was a tome.

HARLOWGot to go old school for something like that.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call, Tom Kierein of NBC 4. Here is Camille in Springfield, Va. Camille, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CAMILLEHey, Kojo. The lady there in your team, she was talking about -- she didn't really seem enthusiastic or had what -- much information about these cheap phones. But I did about an hour's worth of investigating at the Wal-Mart last night, and they have a $45 plan. Unlimited text, talk and 411 for $45 a month and the phone -- you had a choice of phone that were either from, like, $69 to about $92 with tax. So there wasn't an outrageous price for the phone and higher phone was sort of like a semi-smartphone, which isn't bad at all.

NNAMDICamille of the marketing department of Wal-Mart.

NNAMDINow, Camille...

CAMILLENo, no, no, no, no, no...

GILROYSo semi-smart means occasionally gets the number wrong dial.

NNAMDICamille, tell us a little bit more about where and how you were looking.

CAMILLEWell, because I -- I forgot where I heard the commercial, and I really wanted to see because I have a Cricket phone. And I don't like my phone very much. And half-smartphones are sort of like, you know, half-time workers anyway. But I went to a big Kmart up in Centerville, and it was right there. I'm really clear for everybody to see. One woman was coming up. She liked the old plan...

NNAMDII thought you went to Wal-Mart?

CAMILLE... (unintelligible) plan. What was it?

NNAMDII thought you went to Wal-Mart. It was Kmart.

CAMILLENo, no, Wal-Mart. Did I say Kmart? No...

NNAMDIYou sure did.

CAMILLE...not Kmart, Wal-Mart.

NNAMDIOkay. Well, we got that straight.

GILROYAttention, Kmart shoppers, phone on line six.

DRUINIs that an -- do you have an unlimited tech...

CAMILLEAnd I will -- wait, a minute. I want to make a statement. I have no stock or (unintelligible) Wal-Mart.

NNAMDIOh, we understand that. We were just...

HARLOWWe thought you owned the company.

NNAMDIWe were just kidding with you. But Allison Druin does have a question for you.

DRUINI have a question, Camille. Is -- for that $45 plan, is that unlimited texting you have there?

CAMILLEThe $36 plan has a 1,000 minutes, and that's not really good because it eats up your minutes, incoming and outgoing calls. The $45 plan is unlimited, incoming, outgoing text and 411.

DRUINOutgoing text and calls, or just calls?

CAMILLENo, no, text and calls. I know there are other plans that are just, you know, to see the young kids that are just texting, and they have very few minutes to call.

NNAMDIBut that...

GILROYBut 45 times three users is the same price our guy was charged who called in.

NNAMDIReally?

GILROYNot too far off, right? It's 150 bucks versus 170.

DRUINYeah, that's true, actually. Yeah.

NNAMDIOkay, Camille. Thank you very much. We'll continue to do the math on this with the Computer Guys & Gal.

NNAMDIYou can call us at 800-433-8850. Allison, it was probably inevitable with so many people talking about cutting the cord, doing away with cable bills and getting their entertainment over the Web. YouTube announced in October that it would begin posting original programming on 50 new channels. How is that going to work?

DRUINYeah, YouTube's developing shows for the site now, and it's covering everything from sports to comedy. And so it's going to start by coming online next month and rolling out throughout the next -- you know, throughout the next year. And so, you know, you're talking music and education and so on. Some of the more interesting ones, to me, was from the TED conferences. There's going to be TED education channel. There's going to be...

GILROYTEDucation.

HARLOWEducation exactly.

DRUIN…TEDeducation. There is Slate news channel. There's going to be a Hearst Magazine channel on fashion and beauty channel. And I think you boys will like this one, the nerdist channel.

HARLOWNow, why would I go there?

HARLOWI'd go to the jock channel thing, like a sports...

GILROYPower weightlifting channel for Bill.

HARLOWExactly.

DRUINWell, there's going to be a lot of channels, and I think, you know, cable, you better watch out 'cause YouTube's coming.

GILROYWell, we got to watch out.

HARLOWYou know, YouTube is amazing. If you look at the marketing results -- there was a press release came out just yesterday, and it showed that for people under 25, I think, more people are going to YouTube than for Facebook. I mean, it's just amazing how popular YouTube's gotten just in the last eight, 10, 12 months. It's just ramped way up there. People are -- business people are doing searches for business items on YouTube. It's incredible.

NNAMDII don't know if you all heard about this, but last month, the federal government unveiled its new and updated USAJobs website, a portal that's supposed to list among -- list almost all federal job openings and allow you to post resumes. I say supposed to because the rollout did not go exactly as planned. The website crashed repeatedly in the first few weeks. The Office of Management and Budget had to hustle to buy more bandwidth and servers.

NNAMDIYou know what some people are saying? This is proof that this kind of service should not be delivered by the government. It can better be delivered by the private sector.

GILROYI say go take a plane to Chicago and go in some big companies and find out what happens when they do releases like this. I mean, it's not unusual to have something like this have burps and hiccups, and no one could have predicted -- I mean, they -- it's hard to test a situation when you have that volume.

HARLOWRight.

GILROYAnd the whole idea here is Obama's twisting people arms saying, save money, save money, save money. So OMB is saying, okay, we'll try to not spend $6 million a year with Monster and try to do it ourselves. So you can't blame them for trying, and humans screw up. It happens.

DRUINYeah. But you know what? The most important thing -- you know, you can test till the cows come home on the software itself, but you've got to test deployment.

HARLOWThat's the...

DRUINAnd they did not test the deployment. And there are so many cases that show, if you don't test this, you're going to be doing exactly what they did, adding servers and bandwidth at the last minute.

NNAMDIIt's the Office of Personnel Management that rolled this out. On to the telephones again, here is Pete in Ashburn, Va. Pete, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

PETEHi. My question is regarding reports today that I saw about the battery life of the iPhone 4GS. I travel quite a lot, and I've taken to using my iPhone 4 as a camera replacement for, you know, just a purpose-built camera when I travel. But I'm concerned about that being a problem if I decide to upgrade since that's the main use while I travel.

HARLOWWell, what I would say is Chris Breen of Macworld actually had a really good article at macworld.com talking about the battery life issues. It's not normal for it to drain rapidly. I have an iPhone 4S, and I haven't had that issue. It's been about the same as my previous phone, the 3GS, a little better than that, not the same as my wife's iPhone 4. But he noticed that there are some things and seem to be a tie to, like in his case, he's playing iCloud and syncing, and there was a bug where he kept trying to re-sync over and over in the background.

HARLOWAnd he noticed that the phone is feeling hot, and its battery life is plummeting. So it sounds like there's a background process and a bug. I'm assuming that Apple is going to address that, fix it, either patching the iCloud and/or the iOS software of both. So, you know, it's one of the things that you should notice right away, and, if so, you should start troubleshooting, figuring it out. But, by and large, people who have the iPhone 4S don't have this rapid drainage issue.

HARLOWI don't think it's going to be worse than your current iPhone. If you are concerned about battery life, there are cases like the Mophie juice pack, which you slide the iPhone into and it adds an external battery built into a case. So it still looks kind of attractive. It's a bit thicker. Or you can get what I have, which is -- I'm trying to remember the name of the -- the Just Mobile Gum Pro. It's an external battery pack, has a USB port.

HARLOWSo I just take my sync cable, plug it in, plug into my iPhone and turn it on, and it can fully recharge it a couple of times before I have to recharge that little external battery pack. So those are both lifesavers if you travel a lot and want some extra power.

NNAMDIPete, thank you very much for your call. After a great deal of research, it is my understanding, John Gilroy, that you have discovered that beer cans might be able to help me boost...

DRUINLeave it to John.

NNAMDI…my WiFi signal.

GILROYThis is the kind of information people listen to this station for, you know?

DRUINOh, goodness.

GILROYFifty years on the air, 20 years of Computer Guys & Gal here and this is the kind of stuff they listen for, you know? I saw this, and I said, now, there are some people I know -- I'm not going to name names, Kojo -- who have a lot of empty beer cans sitting around their house...

HARLOWFinally, you can justify your hobbies. That's excellent.

GILROYAnd let's say...

NNAMDIThanks for not naming names.

GILROYNot naming -- let's say you go to Kojo's house and pick up an empty beer can, theoretically. What you can do is, if you want to boost the signal for...

HARLOWDoes it work with longnecks, too?

GILROYWe have to test it out. It would be great testing it out. And so the guy gives very, very specific instructions. You can find it online. And one of the key instructions, he says, is, if you have to use a can of PBR, don't. Go to the store and buy a better beer (unintelligible) not going to work...

HARLOWYou have to empty it first, right, so it might as well be good beer...

GILROYYeah. It's good beer. So what he says is there's ways to boost the signal by taking up a can of beer, cutting it in half and placing it behind the antenna in your house. And, Kojo, this is the answer for you in case you're getting a weak signal in the house. Just take one of those empty beer cans, cut it open. It's great. This is great advice.

HARLOWNow what about tall boys? Will they get a better signal with one of those?

GILROYOnly in Canada.

DRUINOh, boys...

NNAMDIAnd, ladies and gentleman, that useful piece of advice (unintelligible)...

NNAMDI...to ban John Gilroy from the show forever. We're going to take...

GILROYIt's great advice. It's worth your membership, isn't it?

NNAMDIWe're going to take a short break while we evict him from the studio.

NNAMDIIn the meantime, you can call 800-433-8850. It's the Computer Guys & Gal. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to the Computer Guys & Gal. John Gilroy is director of business development at Armature Corp. Allison Druin is associate dean for research, University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of the Future of Information Alliance at the University of Maryland. And Bill Harlow is a hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid Atlantic Consulting Incorporating -- Incorporated. Another Halloween has passed us, but some of the scary stories from last month are still spooking the Computer Guys & Gal.

NNAMDIThe tech world sometimes has a tendency to talk about security in almost apocalyptic terms. And, as a result, it's sometimes difficult to know whether one should be worried about a new story or not and if there's anything one can do about it. You each flagged at least one story that I, for one, could easily get scared about. Should I be afraid? What story did you flag, Bill Harlow?

HARLOWOh, I'm afraid I don't have a scary one for you, Kojo. I'm sorry. I didn't do the homework.

NNAMDIOh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You did.

HARLOWDon't get my iPhone.

NNAMDIShould I be scared that my iPhone is giving away my passwords?

HARLOWOh. Oh, right, right, right.

DRUINYes. Soon you'll forget what you even wrote.

GILROYWe need a teleprompter for this guy, don't we? Yeah. Come on.

HARLOWSorry. It was a long weekend of building beer can antennas and fixing, you know...

GILROYYou were doing the whole neighborhood. I might as well go door to door.

HARLOW(unintelligible) big signal.

GILROYHi. I'm Bill. Can I help you out? Sure. You got a beer can? So it's pretty cool.

DRUINAll right. Let the poor man talk now. Come on. He's having a hard day. Let's go.

HARLOWSo researchers at the Georgia Tech actually found a really cool use for the accelerometer and the gyroscope in your iPhone 4. If you place it on a surface that's near a user using a keyboard, they found that, with about 80 percent accuracy, they can guess what that person is typing. So you can use this iPhone as a spy phone.

NNAMDIEighty percent accuracy.

HARLOWYeah.

DRUINThat scares me.

GILROYIt's like semi-smartphone (unintelligible) talking about.

NNAMDII am one of the...

HARLOWExactly.

GILROYSemi-smart.

HARLOWNow, if you're using a Scottish keyboard, it's a lot harder to translate.

GILROYIt's very hard.

NNAMDIJohn Gilroy, should I be afraid when I log on to a wireless connection at Starbucks?

GILROYWell, this is the surprise. You know, we've talked about this for years. If you're going to stroll over to Starbucks and, you know, text Allison or email Kojo, it's fine. But if you're going to check your bank balance, I would suggest use the technology called VPN. It's been around forever. And if you work for a company, you're going to have VPN technology. But the studies that came out from the Wi-Fi Alliance, they studied, I think, 3- or 4,000 people, so it's not a big sample.

GILROYBut they are looking at some strange figures. They're saying that only 18 percent of people who were at a public WiFi spot actually used the VPN. It's like, well, buckle your seatbelt, lock the doors, I mean, you know? There are people who are trying to trap that information, maybe not with an iPhone, with a semi-smart iPhone next to you. But if you're going to go to a public spot, be careful. And I would never do any kind of important things without using a VPN. And you can get VPNs for individuals, too, can't you, Bill?

HARLOWYeah. You get services, virtual private networks.

NNAMDIWe all have scary stories. Allison, Facebook told us this month that 600,000 accounts are attacked by hackers every day. Not all of those attacks are successful, but they still raise some eyebrows. The statistics about attempted breaches was actually buried at the end of an announcement from Facebook about a new community-based security feature. Should I be afraid?

DRUINYou should be afraid that this company buried that announcement, okay?

GILROYYeah. Yeah. They have ethics, don't they? I think there's...

DRUINOh, my goodness, 600,000 a day, folks. This is like -- this is -- you know, okay, yes. It's 0.1 percent. Forget it. It's 600,000. And we're talking about, you know, people trying to steal your username and password. And much of the cyber bullying and a lot of the other things that happen begin with compromised Facebook accounts. Now, it turns out that they're trying to actually work on this with what they call a trusted friends password restoration technique, which means, okay, now, maybe if I trusted Bill and John...

GILROYNever.

HARLOWI don't recommend it.

GILROYNever, never, never.

NNAMDIAll right. And you're locked out of your -- and I'm locked out of my account, they could give -- they could send the codes to these guys -- I'm not sure why, but anyway -- and, supposedly, then they could help me get back into my account, but anyway...

HARLOWSo these -- we're like your emergency contacts...

DRUINRight. It's...

HARLOW...for your hacked Facebook account.

DRUINThat's essentially what they're trying to work on. And so -- and, actually, it's a really good way of thinking about crowdsourcing for security. But you got to figure out, now, who are you really trusting? I mean, is it really Bill and John, you know?

GILROYWell, the problem is you got to find two friends.

GILROYI mean, that's the real challenge.

DRUINAll right. That's the point.

GILROYI mean, whoa.

NNAMDIFor most of us, that wouldn't be difficult.

GILROYOh, yeah. I guess you're right.

NNAMDIAll right. Cheer me up, Allison. It's getting cold outside, and you flagged some interesting technology-based adaptations that I can take to keep warm.

DRUINYes. Okay. So this is going to be a holiday gift. Anyone that you think is going to get a gift from me, don't listen to this next spot. I am to be getting you iTap Gloves, okay? All right. These are so cool. You know how you have a problem, it's cold out, and you have to take off your glove to tap on your iPhone or your iPod...

HARLOWNot anymore. I have Siri.

DRUINAll right. That's a point, but don't be Scottish. But -- so, for the rest of us, okay, that are having to tap, okay...

GILROYAnd you have to, you know, send a text message to Kojo about I had a donut for breakfast. That's important.

DRUINAnd you have to send a tweet, okay, about it or something. Basically, these are lamb wool gloves, and they're only 20 bucks. And the thumb, index finger and middle fingertips all work. And you don't have to take off the gloves, and they don't have any holes in them.

GILROYIs the wool from Scotland?

DRUINI don't know. I didn't check. But, you know, it could be. So anyway -- so I'm getting these. And they come in red, gray and brown. I'm there.

HARLOWGreat. It would go great with my jacket. Just saying.

NNAMDII've discovered now that with Allison, the danger words are so cool. As soon as she says...

DRUINIt's so cool.

GILROYIt's so cool.

NNAMDIAs soon as she says, it's so cool, watch out.

HARLOWThat's one word, actually, the way she says it.

DRUINDid I say that beer can thing was cool? I mean, really? Come on.

GILROYWell, it is so cool.

HARLOWSocool. One word. Socool. Come on.

DRUINSocool.

NNAMDIBill, it's been 10 years since the first iPod came out. We talked about that. It turns out that some of the developers have moved on to an entirely different technological challenge designing the perfect thermostat.

HARLOWExactly. It's such a logical extension, right? But...

DRUINSo cool.

NNAMDIOh, I was afraid she was going to say that.

GILROYNot even cool.

HARLOWIt's so cool, or boring, depending on how you want your house. But, no, it's pretty cool. It's called the Nest. And Tony Fadell, who was one of the key guys behind the original iPod, and what they were designing is something that is a Learning Thermostat so that, A, it's really easy to program 'cause a lot of these, they have -- they're -- they have awful menus. It's, you know, sort of like, you know, think about (unintelligible) phones before the iPhone.

HARLOWSo they wanted to kind of bring that mentality to the thermostat and also have it learn from you. So you notice that, like, you come home at, you know, 6 p.m. from work or whatever, and you're constantly jacking up the temperature. Well, it's going to notice that, and it's going to make adjustments. It can sense when people aren't present and know to bring itself down.

HARLOWYou can log in from your computer or your mobile phone and realize, wow, it's actually really cold today. I better go ahead and make sure that the house is pre-warmed before I get there. And -- now, that's all cool. That's all cool. But what's so cool...

DRUINIt's so cool.

HARLOW...is that, effectively, your heating and air-conditioning system is sort of like your life support, right? And this thing, with its little, round colored screen, a beautiful screen, it can turn red, right? So you got this HAL. You can have HAL in your house, and that's pretty cool. I'm sold.

GILROYTony Fadell sounds like a star of "The Sopranos."

NNAMDIWhy can't you just stand in front of your thermostat and say, create a reminder?

GILROYA reminder. Aye, computer.

NNAMDIHere is Jim in Fort Belvoir. Jim, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JIMMy question is concerning television over the Internet. I've been trying to find if there's any applications out there that are really worth having, that'll do anything, so one can watch real time television. The problem -- the reason I ask is because they say there's competition between cable companies. But that's not actually true because whatever geographical location you live in, there is eight cable companies.

NNAMDIJohn...

JIMWhere I live is one company, Comcast. That company has been in the Guinness Book of World -- not Guinness Book -- in the Consumer Reports. For the better part of 10 years, it's having the worst customer service rating, (unintelligible) far, far ahead of the next one. So many people that I know of that have just dumped them. The other -- the only other option right now is to go with FiOS. And, unfortunately, where I'm at, the only FiOS available is Verizon. And they do not want to sell you just Internet. They want you to buy a complete package.

NNAMDIWhole package. So you're trying to figure out how you can -- what you can do to just watch TV online without accessing any of those cable services?

JIMRight. There are applications out there. But one -- most of I've seen and the reviews that I've looked at, I've come away with the conclusion that they're really not worth having because there's just too much gobbledygook on it.

HARLOWWell, I'll tell you what...

NNAMDIWhat would you suggest, Bill Harlow?

HARLOWFrom what I've seen, that's a good question. A lot of people think that, you know, somehow Google, you know, with YouTube or maybe Netflix or Amazon Unbox or Apple TV can replace traditional streaming TV. And depending on what you watch, like let's say local news or sports, you really can't. That's the unfortunate thing. I mean, at the end of the day, if you really want to watch this stuff, your only option is to have some sort of TV service.

HARLOWAnd the best thing you're going to find is getting -- you're using something like Microsoft's Media Center, Windows Media Center, and getting a tuner card so you can at least integrate it with a computer. That's a lot of work. You know, if you're really into that, knock yourself out. But at the end of the day, there's nothing that quite replaces traditional streaming TV for live events, especially.

GILROYI'm sure Tom Caron would agree.

NNAMDIAnd, Jim, thank you very much for your call. We got a tweet from @anc7c04, which I happen to know is former "Kojo Nnamdi Show" guest Sylvia Brown. She's the anc7c04. "The problem or question with cheap phone is the coverage. Is it as extensive and as quality as others?" I do not know. Do you, Allison?

DRUINThat's a good question.

NNAMDIIt is.

DRUINYeah. I mean, it depends on the location you're in.

HARLOWDepends on the roaming, too. I mean, a lot of them have roaming contracts.

DRUINYeah. The roaming contracts and the roaming costs are amazing. But, boy, I tell you, up in the Berkshires, when I go up there in the summer, oh, you have to pray. You know, you go 30 miles before you can find a cellphone tower that's going to work for you. But, yeah, it's pretty spotty, so that's a good -- very good point.

NNAMDIWe got this email from Alex, who says, "I've been a Verizon wireless customer for 22 years, and this past spring I moved over to the -- I moved over to Virgin Mobile, and I'm using its $35 -- used to be $25 -- unlimited data and text plan. Doesn't take an accountant" -- and Alex says he's a CPA -- "doesn't take an accountant to figure out the difference between $80-plus a month and $35 a month. That is $45 saving per month." So Alex is with Virgin Mobile. On to Chris in Northern Virginia. Chris, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CHRISHi, Kojo. You guys are a tough crowd here about the beer cans in Kojo's house.

GILROYTheoretically.

NNAMDIThanks, Chris.

CHRISI just want to say, as for his character, I put carpet in his basement five years ago or so. There were no beer cans and...

GILROYWere there any bodies buried in the basement?

HARLOWWhen you filled out the schedule, you weren't -- you didn't show up unannounced (unintelligible) very different story.

GILROYYeah.

NNAMDIThank you, Chris.

CHRISThe only thing is his slippers look really comfortable, and I kind of envy them, but, anyway...

NNAMDIThank you, Chris, for your testimony. Go ahead, please.

CHRISOkay. I wanted to comment on the beer can thing because it's the only reason I listen to the show, to get news like that.

GILROYThank you. Justification. Thank you.

CHRISI have a few acres, and my office is offset from my house. And I had trouble getting a Wi-Fi using my internal adapter on my laptop, so I bought a USB adapter, and I tried the beer can. It didn't work as well as I just made a parabola out of aluminum foil. It works fantastic. I get an amazing signal. So I think both concepts work. Just play with them. And it works fantastic.

HARLOWJust -- the downside is the aluminum foil does not come with beer...

NNAMDIEven though I saw John nodding in agreement. Chris, thank you so much for your call. And, yes, I do remember, Chris, and the carpet is still standing. Thank you very much for your...

GILROYBeer-stained, but standing.

NNAMDIAllison, if the weather is really bad and the kids are getting on your nerves, you can always log them on to Club Penguin. For those who don't know, it's a wildly popular social site for kids run by Disney.

DRUINYeah, 150 million registered users, folks, and...

GILROYWow.

DRUINYeah. And it is a month -- they do charge monthly, okay? There is a sort of guest accounts. But my kid, boy, she's very not happy when it's a guest account, and she can't save all the things she made in her igloo or whatever it is. There are actually 200 workers trained to moderate the chats that are happening there on the site and -- to ensure safety. But what's really interesting is that they have one of the most advanced online communication tool for kids now.

DRUINThey're actually created -- they're in the process of creating this translator, where a kid who's speaking English can talk to a kid who's speaking French, and the two kids don't even realize they don't even speak the same language. That's in beta right now, but it is -- but they've already filed for nine patents on this 300,000-word keyword system. So it's really an amazing system. Go check it out.

NNAMDIAnd, Bill, it's happened to everyone. You shoot what you think is a great photo with your digital camera. But when you take a closer look at the photo you actually captured, it's all blurry. A company called Lytro says it has the solution: a camera that doesn't focus.

HARLOWYeah, it's pretty cool. It's called a light field camera. So the idea behind it is that the sensor in there isn't just picking up an image that's focused on a very specific focal plain in the camera. It's actually -- it can actually interpret where all of the light is coming from, how the lights all vector in hitting the sensor. So the end result is you can actually focus after the fact. You just point. You compose, steady it, take a shot, and, you know, later on, you upload it to your computer.

HARLOWYou can say, hey, let's focus on that piece here in the foreground. No, let's focus on that cool flower in the background, you know? And what's cool, too, is you can actually publish them like that. They've got a sharing tool built in where you can take these, put them on, let's say, Facebook, and people can view the photo, and they can decide where they want to focus and actually explore. They call that a living photo. It's a cool concept.

NNAMDIAh.

HARLOWI don't know if they're out yet or they're pre-ordering. They're about -- I think they start at 400 bucks. But they look cool, too. They're like these funky, like, high-tech kaleidoscopes, almost. You know, they're anodized aluminum and rubber, a touch screen on the back and almost no controls. It's all very simple, point and shoot.

NNAMDISound like a perfect camera for John Gilroy, who, last time I saw him Saturday night, was having trouble focusing himself.

GILROYIt's true.

NNAMDIJohn Gilroy is director of business development at Armature Corporation. Bill Harlow is a hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid Atlantic Consulting Inc. And Allison Druin is associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of the Future of Information Alliance at the University of Maryland, finally a title that John Gilroy cannot make fun of.

GILROYYeah. I can't even understand.

NNAMDIThank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.