Actor Dave Chappelle, War Driving, Mobile Tip

Episode #

Move over, Leo, today Megan gets to host...

Actor Dave Chappelle In today's Bit Chat, Martin Sargent talks tech with Chappelle, who appears in the movie "Undercover Brother." Martin also talks to Aunjanue Ellis, who also appears in the movie.

War Driving in Your Neighborhood Tech expert Pete Shipley talks about war driving, the act of finding unprotected wireless networks in various hot spots. For more information, click here. Mobile Tip: Find Wireless Networks for Your PDA If you're looking for a Wi-Fi network and you don't know the ESSID, use this tip to get on a network.

Editor's note: This episode originally aired on June 25, 2002.

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Site of the Nite
Our nightly segment uncovers the treasures of the Web. Tonight's site: Make your own movies.
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Cover your tracks on the Internet
We'll show you how to protect your privacy when surfing the Web.
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'CyberCrime'
Jennifer London, co-host of CyberCrime, will discuss the case of a man facing criminal penalties and fines for a distributed computing scheme.
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NPR's linking policy
Author and technologist Cory Doctorow visits the show to talk about NPR's web linking policy. For more information about Doctorow, visit his website.

For information about NPR's non-linking policy, visit NPR's website.

Windows must know
Four quick and helpful tips to help you navigate the wild and woolly world of Windows.
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War Driving
Pete Shipley is founder of Dis.org, a group of engineers and computer specialists who work together on eclectic projects. He is also one of the pioneers of "war driving," as he'll talk about on the show tonight. "War driving" is discovering (and often mapping) where unprotected wireless networks are in a given location by driving through that location with wireless detecting-gear. Shipley will talk about how war driving started, the gear that he uses to do it (both in car and on a bicycle), and the legal implications involved. To find out more about Shipley and war driving, be sure to take a look at these links:

• Shipley's war driving maps
• Other articles by Shipley
• WarDriving.com

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Boot Camp tip: Notepad
There's a very useful application that comes with Windows: Notepad. Notepad is a basic text editor. It doesn't have features that Microsoft Word has, but it's a very useful tool. It's especially useful for Web designers and anyone who writes HTML, because you can use Notepad to see the source code of a webpage.

To launch Notepad, just click on your Start menu and select Run. In the box, type "notepad" and click OK. The Notepad application should launch.

Here are a few tips for using Notepad:

• Type ".LOG" at the top of your document if you're keeping a journal. Notepad will automatically time stamp each entry.
• F5 inserts the date and time.
• In Notepad, open a document. In the File Name box, type in a URL, such as http://www.thescreensavers.com. Notepad will open the source code of that webpage. This works only in Windows 2000 and XP.

Boot Camp call: Editing audio
Gus from Stinkey Pond, Arkansas, wants to know how he can edit out the vocals from a song.

One solution Chris suggests is AnalogX's Vocal Remover. To use Vocal Remover, you need to have Winamp installed on your PC. Vocal Remover also requires a stereo sound stream and supports only 16-bit data types. Also, Vocal Remover doesn't actually edit the file. It simply masks the vocals as the song plays.

Don't fret, you can still use Vocal Remover. Get a sound-editing application such as Sound Forge. Then play the song you want to edit in Winamp with Vocal Remover. Record the song in the sound-editing application. When it's time for the vocal part you want to edit, mute it with Vocal Remover. When you're done, save the file in the sound editor and you'll have the song with the particular vocal edited out.

Here are three other sound-editing programs:

• Syntrillium Cool Edit
• GoldWave Digital Audio Editor
• Digidesign Pro Tools

CD emulation
Pete in Germantown, Tennessee, wants to know how he can transfer his game CDs to his hard drive to get better performance.

Megan, Martin, and Darci recommend using VirtualDrive from FarStone. VirtualDrive is a $40 application that can emulate up to 23 CD-ROM drives.

Another CD-ROM emulator you can try is Daemon Tools. It's free.

Did we miss anything? Email us. Please note that this page is updated throughout the live broadcast of the show at 7 p.m. Eastern. (Do not send your computer questions to this email address. The address for your questions is thescreensavers@techtv.com.)

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