Event: ZineZone - Leo Laporte
Date: Thursday, July 15th

ZineZone: Good evening everyone! Welcome to ZineZone! While others struggle with video on the Internet, Leo Laporte is perfecting computers on TV. As managing editor of ZDTV, the first 24-hour computer and technology television network, Leo is finally proving his long-held conviction that there's a passionate audience for intelligent tech-talk. If you're watching ZDTV, you're either a hard-core power user or a rabid gamer. Either way, he's got you covered five days a week. As host of "Call for Help", Leo focuses his uniquely humorous expertise on callers' system problems. Later in the day, he and co-host Kate Botello torture-test the latest high-tech toys and games on "The Screen Savers."

SueDM: Welcome to ZineZone and Talk City, Leo! For those of our users who may be new to your work, could you talk a little bit about your two shows on ZDTV?

Leo Laporte: Yes! One is for beginners - that's "Call for Help" It's a show to help you use your personal "confuser" - that's a pretty good description of how that audience feels about computers. The other show is called "The Screen Savers" That's for someone who has a "love - hate" relationship with their computer. Someone who is an enthusiast. What we find, oddly enough, is many of our viewers watch both shows! What that tells me is there is an untapped, pent up need for computer information that we serve. I really love doing both and getting to be on the air two hours a day. It's so much fun for me to talk about this stuff and interact with people every day who have the same kind of feelings about this stuff that I do. :)

guest-coralsees: I heard that CNN news anchor, Lou Dobbs, left to set up his own web site on news and technology - is this a trend do you think? And what would be the advantages of doing so?

Leo Laporte: I think you're going to see things going the opposite direction, actually. For us, the web is an integral part of our network. It does things very well that we can't do on TV, like give specifications, detailed information about products, step by step directions. It's only complementary to what we do on TV because TV is a great medium for showing people things, and for communicating a lot of information in a concise way. So, truthfully, I couldn't imagine leaving TV for the web OR going in the other direction. I think they are a good partnership. Of course the web gives us something new to TV, which is total interactivity. Thanks to the Internet, we can chat with our viewers; see our viewers on netcams. And that is revolutionary in television -and something that makes it even more fun to do. :-)

guest-whaleofanick says: What do you make of Hugh Downs moving to the Internet? Will more TV/radio media personalities take this career route do you think?

Leo Laporte: I thought it was very interesting that he retired from TV and then went to the web. Michael Kinsley of Slate made the same move. But as I said before, I think the two media are complementary. In the future, I think there will be a blurring of the lines between the Internet and TV. In the long run, I think TV will come into your home via the Internet. So in that respect, perhaps they are making the right move.

darkfrost86 says: I downloaded a game from www.gamespot.com and I tried to unzip it with pkzip. For every, file it said "file not found".

Leo Laporte: Try installing WinZip. You can download it from winzip.com . I think you will find it is easier to use.

guest-zdme says: I am building a computer, and I am trying to install Win 98, but I can't do that without installing my CD-ROM, and I can't install the CD-ROM without Win98 installed. What should I do? Thanks.

Leo Laporte: Kind of a Catch-22 isn't it? :-) What you need is a boot floppy with DOS drivers for your CD-ROM. We have an article on how to create one on our web site - www.zdtv.com/callforhelp.

guest-RyanD23 says: Hey Leo!! I want to partition my hard drive and am looking at 2 programs to do so. The 1st is Partition Magic, the second is Partition Commander. Which do you like better? Thanks.

Leo Laporte: Partition Magic! Partition Magic! Partition Magic! :-)

guest-GinSlinger says: Mr. Laporte!! I have a brand new baby girl (8 weeks) and am interested in developing video to send to family/friends on my computer. Can you recommend a software program to interface between a video camera and my computer? And how about video cameras? Which ones function the best with computers?

Leo Laporte: Congratulations! I like MGI Video Wave. It's $99 and very easy to use.

guest-Deadeye600 says: How do I delete netbus 1.70x patch.exe?

Leo Laporte: Type patch /remove. That should remove it. For more information on Netbus removal, visit www.netbus.org :)

guest-badhairnetday says: Hi Leo! I love your show! I notice the web site has your MacWorld tips for this summer's con. Any scoops you can give to those of us who can't attend? Like what Jobs is likely to announce?

Leo Laporte: Thanks! MacWorld Expo should be very exciting next week! Apple has been very tight-lipped about their announcements, but we expect them to announce a consumer PowerBook priced somewhere between $1000 and $1800. We believe the $1000 version (and this is all rumor and speculation) will be a CD-ROM-less kind of low-end machine with sync capabilities to compete with Win CE machines. Apple may make a palm-oriented announcement as well. And, of course, they will show off Sonata - the next version of System 8. Apple's coming off a very good year and Steve should have some very good news for Mac fans. :) We will have live reports from MacWorld on "Call For Help" next week.

pluto12345 says: Hi Leo! Great to meet you! I watch ZDTV Daily and "Call for Help" in particular. I love the Mac Tip of the Day, I was wondering if you have ever thought of producing a half hour Mac oriented version. It would be great!

Leo Laporte: Thanks pluto! I would expect that one of the very next programs that ZDTV produces will be Mac oriented. Certainly the folks at MacWorld are very interested in doing that. I think we absolutely ought to! Stay tuned for details. :)

guest-foxyone: I know this probably isn't enough info to go on, but - I have a PowerMac 6500, 32mg ram, and every time I download RealPlayer and then try to play something it tells me I don't have enough memory even after cleaning out the cache. What gives?

Leo Laporte: Gee, that may be, especially if you are running System 8, but it seems more likely that there is something wrong with RealPlayer. I recommend a great Mac support site called, I think, macfixit.com.

guest-tssfan says: What courses would you recommend I take besides programming if I want to be a programmer?

Leo Laporte: It wouldn't be a bad idea to find a secondary specialty. That way, you'd be more marketable in that area. So let's say you also learn about TV production. Then you would be twice as valuable as a programmer for TV stations. I certainly would learn about networking, these days. And don't forget, it always helps to be a well-rounded person. I was a liberal arts major and never studied computers at all. :)

Slasher2k says: Do you prefer Celeron or Pentium III for price and performance?

Leo Laporte: Celeron! The Pentium III is only worthwhile if you have a program that uses its SSE multimedia extensions. Currently there are very few such programs. To give you an idea, I just purchased a dual Celeron system for myself. We'll be building it on "The Screen Savers" in August.