Yurbuds changes the equation for custom molded earbuds for iphones, ipods, music, cellphones and more with an innovative web application that helps you figure out exactly which “ear bud enhancer” will help you get better sound, better fit and more.

Yurbuds Homepage

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Jorge wants to move his VHS tapes to DVD. You asked, we review the Netflix Roku. Should you repair the iPhone yourself? HDMI video cards. AAC vs. MP3: which sounds better... and what are best sounding audio encoding tools?

Jorge wants to archive his video tapes... Veronica explains the advantages to doing this yourself vs. sending your tapes to a service, and different ways to do the job at home, such as capturing 'em over a camcorder, using a dedicated USB kit like Pinnacle's Dazzle, or our producer Roger's favorite, a set top box like Lite-On LVC-9006

Roku's Netflix Player promises an easy way to watch instant streaming movies from Netflix on your TV instead of your computer. You asked for a review. Patrick's got the hands on scoop.

Freebie Download Pick o' the Week: FreeSnap , "the app that lets you quickly move and resize windows." Quit snickering: this is a nifty way to manage your windows without a mouse!

Should you repair the cracked screen on an iPod yourself? Great question, James, and thanks for sending it on video. We show off the inside of an iPhone on the show, then take a look at the iFixit guide for the display assembly. It's a tough fix, and replacement screens cost at least $165. And, as Veronica points out, with a new iPod around the corner, you might want to wait for Apple fanboys to start selling their old -working- iPhones off cheap!

AAC vs. MP3: Nik has music, a Zune, an iPhone and would rather not render everything twice... so which sounds better, AAC or MP3?

Meanwhile, Kent wants to know which "program produces the truest sounding MP3 or AAC?" We'd go with Exact Audio copy or dBpoweramp on the PC, or Max on OS X. (And let us know if you hear a difference between their encoding and, say, the work done by Windows Media Player or iTunes!)

This week's Web Site We Can't Get Enough Of: Apple TV Junkie... it's more than a complete list of HD Movies on the AppleTV, but that's a great place to start!

Video cards with HDMI output? There are a few of 'em, Garry, but cards with DVI ports and an HDMI adapter in the box are a lot more common. (And they work just as well.) Shop carefully, especially if you want 5.1 audio passthru to your surround sound receiver or HDTV. And make sure the chipset supports HDCP if you want to watch Blu-ray movies!

Want to be part of a world record? Claudio emailed to remind us that Firefox is on a mission to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours... learn more at SpreadFirefox.com

While we're talking Firefox, Patrick is loving the next version of Firefox: Firefox 3 RC1 on Vista and OS X.

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A free alternative to Symantec's Ghost for drive imaging, the answer to Veronica's Time Machine problem, ideas for saving photos you take on vacation -- without bringing a notebook along, help with the Tekzilla RSS feeds in iTunes, & the winner of our Zune contest!

Veronica's Time Machine Problem

In response to Veronica's pleas for help regarding the rapidly diminishing amount space on the external drive she uses with OS X's Time Machine, many of you sent suggestions and solutions. And while all were greatly appreciated it was the one email from Sam that correctly diagnosed Veronica's problem.

Drive Imaging

We received a couple of emails about the backing up a Windows install so that during an emergency everything can be copied back without having to reinstall Windows from scratch.

The operation is typically known as imaging your drive or ghosting –after the name of a popular disk imaging appilcation. Unlike simple file copy process, disk imaging copies all the attributes of the drive including things like the boot sector, hidden files, and file system.

Pat and Veronica had several recommendations including Norton Ghost or if you're interested in something alittle more free check out Clonezilla.

Saving Flash Media Contents without a Computer

We got a question about how to save pics off a flash memory card without using a computer. Short answer is that you'll prolly need to look at getting something like the Epson P-3000 if want to transfer photos off flash media and still be able to look at it but a $400 it's a pretty expensive option. Now if don't want to spend that much check out what Pat and Veronica have to say about that, in the show.

Using an iPhone with iPod Docks

A particular interesting question we got from a viewer was about using an iPhone with an iPod dock. Although Veronica points out that Apple does not say that both the iPhone and iPod dock are compatible it is possible. However do to the case housing the dock connector maybe out of reach so you'll have to invest in an dock extender to bypass the limitations of the iPhone's case. For more details check out the show!

Get the Different Tekzilla Feeds with iTunes

This question was one of many we've received since we started offering separate Tekzilla Dailies, Tekzilla Show and Combined feeds. While we offer unique RSS links for each one there's only for the iTunes? What gives? Actually since iTunes can use any traditional RSS style link for audio and video blogs it's really simple matter of copying and pasting the RSS link into iTunes itself. You can watch the step by step in the show.

What is S/PDIF?

Finally we had an email about what S/PDIF was and how it compares to other video connections. Well to start things off S/PDIF is not a video connection but rather a digital audio interface technology. Developed by Sony and Philips (hence the S/P) to create a digital connection standard for home audio it commonly used in surround sound receivers as a way to connect devices like video game consoles, video set top boxes and DVD players without the need for 6 or more discrete cables.

Zune Winners

Yes 3 lucky people won themselves either a 80GB Zune, Zune headphones, or a Zune card worth 10 songs. Although the giveaway itself has ended please continue to send in your video questions. It's great to be able to see our viewers and hear them ask their questions. So please keep it up!

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Dual Boot XP and Vista: We have step by step instructions. You asked, we review the Popcorn Hour A-100 media player. Google Earth. Inside the Internet Archive. Drying wet electronics. Zune Giveaway: Your Questions from YouTube!

About half the touchscreen on the phone is still dead: if you'e up for seeing an iPhone rebuild and refurbish on Systm or Tekzilla, let us know!

We're giving away a Zune, a set of Premium Zune headphones and a Zune card worth about 10 songs. This fabu giveaway ends next Monday the 19th, 12 midnight Pacific!

Want that Zune or one of the other prizes? Send us in a VIDEO question! Just upload your question to YouTube, make sure it's no more than 15 seconds in length, and send us an email with "Zune Contest" in the subject line! (Our apologies, but the giveaway is only open to US Residents, ages 18 and up.)

Edward's looking for the best point and shoot camera to use for YouTube. Veronica's hip to the new Casio Exilim line has a YouTube recording mode that streamlines the whole process

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Veronica wants to giveaway a Zune, details in the show! Patrick reviews Gateway's One all-in-one PC. ReadyNAS vs Drobo: Which is more futureproof? Does 1080p matter on a small HDTV?

Dear Microsoft: Veronica might buy a Zune if you had Mac software for it... her take on the Zune 2.5 featues are in the show.

Omar's looking for an all-in-one PC and he wants our take on the Gateway One. Patrick put it to the test for a week, check the show for his take on the Core2Duo machine... the expansion options are pretty slick!

Which is more future proof: Netgear's new ReadyNAS Pro, with it's 6 drive bays, or the Data Robotics Drobo which can easily use drives of different sizes. Good question, Rob!

Does 1080p matter on 32" or smaller HDTV? Adam's off to college next year and wants an HDTV between 22 and 30 inches he can rock with his Xbox 360 (and, later on, the PS3). He says, "the optimal HD experience would be ideal. Also being able to hook up my Macbook would also be super rad!"

Why the 70's really ended, hint: it's not because of high oil prices. See Plaid Stallions for the truth... it's this week's Website We Just Can't Get Enough Of!

The Maker Faire is an epic festival of DIY... we've got video of some of our favorites from the gathering of Makers... anybody up for a rideable Mechanical Giraffe?

Care to avoid death on the highway? The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration's "Click It or Ticket" campaign runs from May 19 thru June 1st this year, and they'd like you to buckle up: Fifty-nine percent of those killed in an auto accident were NOT wearing seat belts at the time of the crash.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 is out... our producer Roger installed it this morning. Late breaking update: some folks are having problems with Continuous Reboots after installing Windwos XP SP3.

Poll question of the week: Do you think SP3 release means that XP is finally make the voyage to scrapyard or is it just proof that XP's popularity is just as strong as it ever was?

JavaOne + Neil Young = Java/Blu-ray high res archive of his work, that's updatable... that he reccomends be experience via the PS3!

Speaking of Blu-ray, sales have hardly taken off since The Death of HD DVD.

The Tekzilla Gadget of the Week comes from Veronica: she loves Sound Isolating Headphones! She's not talking earbuds, she's talking in ear devices that do serious noise blocking along with audio playback.

Albin's wondering about Windows utilities that are starting to add anti-malware, adware, phishing, etc. to their former functions. Can you run too many of these things at once?" We think so... and we've got some advice so Albin can avoid conflicts between AVG 8, Comodo 3 and a few other bits of security software floasting around his PC.

Thanks to everybody that participated in our GoToMeeting meeting early this week. It was very helpful and eye opening experience! We hope to hold another very soon.

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Rip any DVD with AnyDVD, MP3 Player Reccos, Game Developers Conference, HD picture frame antenna, Spoof a MAC address, get kicked out of school. Wondercon!

... and he's got the scoop from the Game Developers Conference '08 (The PC Gaming Alliance was big news, sort of... and where is Sony's Home for the Playstation??? )

Antennas Direct's hid its newest HDTV antenna inside a picture frame... Jim Louderback put the PF7 Picture Frame Antenna thru the paces and found it does a great job sucking down analog HDTV. It's cheap, too!

We love the comic books, so our producers Roger and Serafina took a trip to Wondercon, and came back with quite the collection of video.

Can't rip that DVD? You need some stronger tools.... AnyDVD is the bomb at gettting around copy protection on Windows.

On OS X, the folks at Handbrake have a step by step guide for dealing with disks that won't rip: you'll need Fairmount, DVD2OneX and this page!

Yahya wants a recco on a portable music player... that delivers excellent sound quality, and maybe that isn't an iPod. First off, make sure you've got quality audio files to listen to... and a decent set of headphones. (Garnett's convinced the player is the least of your worries.)

Patrick's spent a bunch of time with the Zune and it's quite good. We've also heard good things about Creative's Zen V Plus, the oh so stylish iRiver Clix Gen 2 is a great (if pricey) follow up to the most excellent iriver Clix. If you're looking for video playback, too, the editors at Cnet are big on the Archos 605.

Several folks want to buy Patrick's old Xbox 360 HD DVD drive.... can anybody beat $7.37?

Why does an HDTV cost more than the same sized LCD monitor? Good question, Christopher.

Free file o' the week:

Quick Media Converter lets you drag and drop video into 13 different formats, including PSP, iPod and web friendly formats!

Turning a vertical PC case on its side and running it that way hurt it? We wouldn't worry, Benedict. Patrick's run most of his PCs in horizontal mode with no ill effects. Just don't cover the vents. (They do take up more desktop space, that way, tho!)

Dave, Michael and "B" wrote in with ideas to help Jesse get his Xbox 360 connected to the his dorm's ResNet... and Eric sent a warning that spoofing a MAC address can get you kicked out of school. (It got him tossed!)

What's a good program to format you computer Naevek? Whatever comes with the OS, Windows or OS X will work fine for partitioning a drive.

If you want to do a 'non destructive' partition, ie, you want to change a partition without wiping all the data from inside it, Paragon's Parition Manager is the gold standard, tho GParted, the Gnome Partition Editor is an excellent Open Source alternative. (FYI, here's a great guide to modifying partitions with GParted)

No matter what tool you use, we recco backing up your data before you resize a partition... just in case.

Now, Naevek, if you're looking to format and wipe a drive before you, say, sell the computer it's inside of, our favorite tool is Darik's Boot and Nuke... it should be more than enough to protect your identity... tho Wikipedia says that as of November 2007, "overwriting is no longer a DoD-acceptable sanitization method for magnetic media".

Converting FLAC files to MP3 files? No problem, John. We use dBpoweramp, tho you will have to pay for MP3 support... ya know, since you're using a Zune, you might want to go with WMA instead of MP3... you should be able to do that for free in dBpoweramp.

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OtterBox cases don't suck. Easy unlimited online backup: Carbonite. Persepolis. Lighting Help for Holiday Photos. Driftr. Novatel 727 EVDO Modem. iRobot Looj. Zune Correction.

Samsung SSD 64GB 2.5 inch hard drive. Solid state, no rotating media, built of NAND Flash memory, which means you can beat (well... jar, bounce and vibrate) hell out of it and it doesn't skip or crash. The downside is slow write speeds, and a hefty price tag: close to a grand if you're upgrade a notebook with one. Expect SSD prices to drop considerably by this time next year. Looking for some excellent benchmarks on Samsung's SSD? Check out Extremetech's Solid State Drives: Fast, Rugged, and Really Expensive.

There's nothing wrong with the chat built in Gmail, except that most of your friends are on AIM, right? Good news: Google's integrated AIM support into Gmail's chat client!

Despite what we said on air, the new AIM integration is only in the Gmail chat client -not- Google Talk!

Holiday Photo Help: Taking photos in low light can be tough. Neha Tiwari's got some top tips for dealing with indoor lighting, flash and the nefarious shiny lights that turn into streaks on your photos! It's time to stop having muddy, blown out and shaky holiday photos!

iRobot Looj - Jim Louderback tests out iRobot's new gutter cleaning robot... we love the Roomba... will this one hold up as well in real world use?

Producer Pick o' the Week: Heather's excited about Persepolis, the touching tale of a rebellious ten year old Iranian girl growing up during the revolution of 1979.

Thinking about buying a Drobo? Enter in the code TEKZILLA when you check out of the Drobo Store and you'll save $50!

Online backup takes a looong time for the initial upload, but is the easiest way to protect your data from a catastrophic disaster... the kind that takes out your whole house.

Jared, one of your fellow viewers wrote in about Carbonite ... one of the best reviewed services out there: easy to set up, easy to use, and at $50 a year, is reasonably priced, especially since you get -UNLIMITED- backup. Windows only... sorry Mac and Linux users.

Code Red: Jessica picks Driftr, a fab new social networking site for folks that like to travel. You can use it to keep track of the places you've been and share photos, reviews and blog posts... and research the postings of other Driftr's before you travel somewhere. The best part? Looking at the map you've created and seeing all the places you've been.

Driftr is currently in private beta, but the first 20 emails to hello (at) driftr.com with Tekzilla in the subject line will get in!

Novatel's latest USB EVDO (That's Evolution-Data Optimized, Patrick) modem, the Ovation MC727 is available as the Sprint Ovation 727 and Verizon Wireless USB727 Mode... it's the update to the Sprint Ovation U720 Patrick uses. (And pays for out of his own pocket.) The 727 is smaller, packs new GPS functionality, can carry a MicroSD to add thumb drive functionality, and a much better set of accessories... but has about the same performance as the previous model.

Zune and Podcasts: we goofed. You can add any podcast/videocast with an RSS feed into the Zune software. The Zune online help sucks, tho! And since some folks were confused, let's make it super clear: The Zune can play any unprotected MP3 or WMA file. It can only play protected/DRM'd/purchased songs from the Zune Marketplace. (So Plays For Sure doesn't work with the Zune!)

Strange one eyed thing on the wall? Jon, that's an Uglydoll. You can learn more about them at the offical Uglydoll Website.

Juice: Not quite as cross plateform as Thomas suggested... Chris noticed that it doesn't have a Linux version... the Juice folks suggest Podnova and Icepodder. Thanks for the heads up, we'll double check viewer tips before we post 'em.

"Would upscaling a regular DVD be a smarter, more cost effective decisions over taking the HD plunge?" Scott, one of the more, uh, financially well endowed Home Theater buffs we know came to that very same decision after spending over a thousand dollars on HD DVD and Blu-ray players.

Patrick still wants to see the battle scenes from Return of the King in HD on a massive 1080p display, tho! And it's those big screens and 1080 resolutions where you'll notice the downsides of DVD videos the most.

"Will playing video games on a rear-projection television damage it? I want to hook my PlayStation 2 up to my 42" Toshiba." Marc, we think the only way you're going to hurt your rear projection television with a PlayStation 2 is if you throw it at the screen, especially if you have a DLP or LCD projector... they don't burn in.

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80GB Zune: a Worthy iPod Competitor, Best Used Console Games, UPS = Safer Data, VodPod, Your Fave Podcast Tools: VodPod, Juice, TvTonic, MyPodder

Best bargains on used games for your new console? Jim Louderback brings Neha Tiwari his picks!

Folks are emailing us about the new Tekzilla Daily spots. We know that some of you would like them in a separate RSS feed from the main show (which isn't going away, btw.) Revision3 has a big website redesign coming, sometime after that we'll be working on customizable RSS feeds so you can get the exact feed you want.

Microsoft's 80GB Zune? It's a worthy competitor to the iPod Classic, and a big step up from the original Zune. We've just got some quibbles with the Zune Marketplace's limited selection of podcasts... but it turns out you can paste in the RSS feed for any podcast. (We'll show you next week.) We still wish it worked with Windows Media DRM protected audio purchased from the umpteen online stores that -aren't- the Zune Marketplace! (Plays For Sure... sure it does.) The Zune plays unprotected WMA and MP3s just fine.

Jessica's Code Red? This week it's VodPod, a place to collect and share your favorite online videos.

You've backed up your data... so it's safe. Now, how do you keep the hardware safe that protects that data? One -big- step is to put a UPS, that's Uninterruptible Power Supply, with surge protection and good power conditioning between that hardware (NAS, PC, Drobo, hard drive whatever) and the wall socket!

Thinking about buying a Data Robotics Drobo? You can save $50 if you enter the code "Tekzilla" when you buy one from the Drobostore! Thanks again to Data Robotics for sponsoring Tekzilla!

You want a Tekzilla ringtone, Tenzin, "the first part, that sounds like a flute, not the guitar part?" How about this: here's the whole Tekzilla theme and you can clip out any bit you like to make that ringtone!

"Is it true that Nintendo is developing iPhone games?" Ercole, the general consensus of our gaming buddies is that it's just another rumor... especially since Nintendo's DS is already the most popular portable gaming platform around.

That said, we've seen stranger Apple rumors come true... we wait for Steve Jobs's Macworld Expo 2008 keynote speech with baited breath.

Is it safe to buy open box products? Sure, Andy, if buying any missing accessories doesn't make it cost more than buying the regular version. Heck, Patrick buys refurbished stuff all the time... just make sure it works the minute you get home, and make sure there's still a good warranty on it if it's something expensive!

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