All About Windows 8, Google’s Nexus Line, and Surviving Hurricane Sandy

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All About Windows 8, Google’s Nexus Line, and Surviving Hurricane Sandy

by Adam Dachis
This week on the podcast we’re talking about our special relationship with Hurricane Sandy, everything you need to know about Windows 8, and Google’s latest crew of Nexus phones and tablets.  We’re also answering your questions about shredding files on an SSD, judging app security, removing background noise from a video, and other great podcasts you can listen to.
[h=3]How to Listen to This Week’s Episode[/h] Here’s how you can listen to our episode:

• Download the MP3 directly.
• Subscribe on iTunes.
• Subscribe to the RSS feed.
• Just listen to it in the Souncloud player below (presuming it shows up—we’re having a little trouble).

[h=3]News and Discussion[/h]

• The Gawker data centers are down thanks to Hurricane Sandy, but we’ll be back up ASAP!  In the meantime, we’re posting on Tumblr at updates.lifehacker.com.  As a result of this unfortunate situation, some of those posts have been about what you can do, as readers, in situations like these.  For instance, check out staying in touch via SMS during the power outage, sort out the fake hurricane Sandy images from the real, how to access web sites when they’re down, and save web pages for offline access later.
• Windows 8 was released last Friday and we covered a lot about it!  Unfortunately our coverage is offline at the moment and the cached version is too.  We’ll update with actual links as soon as we can, but for now you can listen to the podcast to learn a little bit about what’s new, how you can fix annoyances, and Whitson’s impressions of the Microsoft Surface RT tablet.
• On Monday Google released the Nexus 4, Nexus 7 with HSPA+, and Nexus 10.  Most notably, nothing comes with LTE, the 4 and the 10 have very high-resolution displays, and they’re all going to run Android 4.2.  Android 4.2 brings lots of cool new features like multiple users on tablets, gesture-based typing (ala Swype), actionable notifications, and more.

[h=3]Questions and Answers[/h]

• Is it bad to secure-erase data on an SSD? SSDs have a limited number of reads and writes, but that number is so high that you’d have to write many gigabytes per day for your SSD to expire that way.  If you need to securely erase files, you’re not risking much by doing it on an SSD.  Sure, you’re technically making a sacrifice but it’s a small one you’ll probably never have to pay for.
• How do I remove background noise from a video’s audio track?  You generally can’t without sacrificing audio quality if the background noise is really bad.  If it’s really minor you have a couple of options.  If you can figure out the frequency of the sound, you can use an equalizer to remove it (much like we did with vuvuzelas during the World Cup a couple of years back).  If you can afford it, Soundtrack (part of Final Cut Studio) and Adobe Audition have noise removal tools.  If you want to remove noise from any audio editing application, you can also purchase plug-ins from Waves.  We are, unfortunately, not aware of any cheap solutions.
• What are some of your favorite podcasts? Whitson likes In Beta, featuring Lifehacker founder Gina Trapani and former Lifehacker contributing editor Kevin Purdy.  In fact, many of the 5by5 podcasts are worth a listen.  For non-tech options, I like Judge John Hodgman and a number of others you’ll find on Maximum Fun, and the Savage Lovecast.
• How do you judge the security of the apps you suggest on the show?  Some apps are reputable so we feel safe recommending them.  Some apps come from developers we know or have built relationships with so we know their safe.  If we question the safety of an app we mention it in the post.  As we haven’t done that in the show, we’ll try to make note of any security concerns going forward.

[h=3]Tips of the Week[/h]

• Whitson’s Pick: Don’t Use Knock-Off USB Chargers
• Dachis’ Pick: Light Up a Room with a Gallon of Water and a Flashlight

[h=3]Downloads of the Week[/h]

• Whitson’s Pick: Start8
• Dachis’ Picks: Notesdeck and Dropbox Icons (that I made)

[h=3]How Do I Submit a Question?[/h]

There are three ways to send in your question:

• Call (347) 687-8109 and record a question. Calls are awesome! We like them!
• Email your question to [email protected].

Please keep your questions as brief as possible. This means about 3-5 sentences for emails and 30-60 seconds for calls and videos. Your questions can be specific, but broader questions are generally better because they’ll apply to more people. For example, “how can I breathe new life into my old PDA?” is much better than “what can I do with an old HP iPAQ 210?” Either way, we look forward to hearing from you!