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How to connect your Computer or Laptop with Home Television

whibb — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:19:05 +0000

Since not all of us are techie, you may find it difficult to connect your laptop to your TV to watch movies and videos on it. Nothing can beat watching movies on a high definition big screen of your HDTV.

Keeping in mind that you’ve absolutely no idea how to connect your computer or laptop with your Television let us go through the various methods that you can use. If you have all the accessories then you can be up and watching your videos in just 5 minutes.

Step 1: Check which port do you have on your laptop and TV

There are commonly 4-5 types of ports on a computer that you can use to connect it with your Television. Let’s first see what all options do you have and then we’ll discuss their priority for clarity. Please see the pictures below and see how many of these ports are on your laptop.

VGA Port – This is the most common port that generally is there on every laptop and computer. Most of the HDTVs have this port input, though bit old Televisions may not have this, for that you can buy a converter from amazon.
S-Video Port: Almost all Televisions have S-Video port. This is by far the cheapest mode of connecting your laptop with TV but just make sure that your laptop computer has S-Video port as new laptops coming these days are equipped with high end HDMI ports. Also verify that you have 7 pin S-Video port on both TV as well as laptop as 4-pin ports are just obsolete now.
DVI Port – You may have DVI port on your laptop or computer but it is usually found only on high end TVs like HDTV. Quality wise this is better choice than S-Video and VGA but can be very expensive as the DVI cord used to connect your computer and TV are bit expensive.
HDMI Port – This is the best known medium to connect computer or laptop with TV if clarity is your major concern. Most of the high end laptops comes with HDMI port and all HDTVs have this. Though if you have DVI port on your laptop then you can buy a converter to convert your DVI to HDMI.
USB Converter Devices – If you don’t have any of the above ports available on your machine then you don’t have to worry. There are number of USB devices available which will convert your USB to above mentioned ports or have some other alternative. Always keep these devices as your last option.

VGA vs S-Video vs DVI vs HDMI for clarity

By now you must have figured out what all ports you have on your Television and on your laptop/PC/Computer. Even if you have to shell out few bucks, we’d recommend going for the best clarity. Clarity order of VGA, S-Video, DVI and HDMI is in following order -

HDMI > DVI > VGA > S-Video

HDMI and DVI connecting cords are bit expensive and can cost you around 60-80$ but promise very good quality. VGA and S-Video cables are cheap and you can easily buy them for 5-10$ from Amazon.Before buying, do check your TV and Laptop Box if they’ve already supplied the cables with it.

How to get going after connecting computer and TV with cables

Once your machines are connected with cable you can either port the display of your PC monitor or laptop’s LCD screen directly on your TV or if your Graphics card support dual display then your Television will act as secondary display and you can either extend or duplicate the display on your Television.

By default, in most of the Operating systems like Microsoft Windows you don’t have to do anything, it’ll automatically duplicate the display of your monitor to your Television. If you want different settings then just go to Display Properties and set the Display as you desire.

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Sony VAIO E Series color laptops features and price

whibb — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:33:39 +0000

Sony has added the new E series in it’s VAIO range of laptops. The laptops comes in variety of colors and unlike the previous laptops they can be customized where you can mix colors too. For example you can have pink color keyboard and blue color body and black colored top.

Configuration & Features

E series Sony VAIO laptops comes with the latest Intel 2.13GHx Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 500GB Hard drive, DVD burner, Windows 7 installed. Though you may see variations in core i5 or i7 processors too.

Availability

Sony has announced that E series will be available from March this year. Though you have option to pre-order them on Amazon now.

Price

The base model of the laptop will start from price tag of 800$ and may go higher for customized components.

Looks pretty sleek and cool in pictures but now you’ll have to choose attractive colors to make your friends envy your choice!

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Canon Powershot SD1200IS vs Nikon CoolPix L20 vs Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3

whibb — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:55:48 +0000

With so many good cameras one happens to get confuse deciding which one to buy. If you just go with the cost, most of these cameras are equally priced and when it comes to features it sometimes become too technical to deal with.

Canon Powershot, Nikon Coolpix and Sony Cybershot are equally good cameras. If you look at the bestseller cameras of last year these models would surely be in top 10 places. Now the question is which you should buy ? Let’s first have a look at major features of these three cameras.

Canon PowerShot SD1200IS

Price: 150$
Resolution: 10 Mega Pixels
Zoom: 3X Optical
Features: DIGIC 4 Image Processor, upto ISO 3200

Nikon Coolpix L20

Price: 90$
Resolution: 10 Mega Pixels
Zoom: 3.6X Optical
Features: Easy Auto Mode, less manual features

Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3

Price: 260$
Resolution: 10.1 Mega Pixels
Zoom: 12X Optical
Features: HD Video recording, lot of exposure control types

Which one you should buy

We never would like to write diplomatic answers. Canon and Nikon are known for their camera lenses for long. If money is not your concern then don’t think further and buy Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3.

If 100$ is enough for you then go ahead with Canon Powershot SD1200IS and of course you can buy Nikon Coolpix L20 camera as your kids’ first digital camera.

If you have questions, please do comment!

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How to run Adobe Flash swf animation on Apple iPhone or iPod Touch /iPad

whibb — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:01:16 +0000

Since the release of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, people are desperately waiting for Flash plugin for Safari so that they can run Flash animations and play games on their device. After some discussion between Apple and Adobe , Apple has refused to port Flash for iPhone.

As you know that developers all around the world are so smart, they can develop anything be it a jailbreaking solution or unlocking crack for iPhone. A programmer from Munich, Germany has developed a script (Gordon) for Safari in iPhone and iPod touch which can enable bit of support for Flash animations.

Though his script (which is known as Gordon) won’t work fully on your iPhone but if you have the code embedded in your Flash file then you can see those animations in your device.

Now if we have this much of solution working then it won’t be too late when we may have compatible system for iPhone which will enable full support for Adobe Flash animations, as it’s very hard for people to embed a code on every website to display swf on Safari.

What we wonder is whether iPad will come without any support of Flash animations ?

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Windows 7 Fix for USB Drive Copying Error : Download Update

whibb — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:36:22 +0000

If you are running on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 computer that has at least 4GB of RAM or has an NVIDIA USB Enhanced Host Controller Interface [EHCI Chipset] then you may encounter an error when you try to copy data from your USB Mass Storage Device to your computer or vice versa.

This USB error on Windows 7 occurs if there’s any I/O operation on your USB device and the operation fails. So copying of your files may stop before completing or your computer may restart or stop responding.

If after re-installing the drivers for your USB device the problem still persists then just download and install the update from Microsoft (KB976972) and your problem will be fixed.This will also fix the error such as “error copying file or folder. cannot copy filename : the directory or file cannot be created”

Also please note that this fix will work for all of the Windows 7 distribution such as Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Ultimate , Enterprise etc.

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10 new features of Firefox 3.6 (20 percent faster)

whibb — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:12:07 +0000

Mozilla today released the latest version of Firefox 3.6. Not just feature wise but also for developers, Firefox 3.6 provides lot of new things. Below are the 10 new features of Firefox 3.6 which were not present in Firefox 3.5 before.

Firefox 3.6 is more than 20 percent faster than Firefox 3.5
You can now customize the look and feel of Firefox without restarting. Firefox 3.6 adds a new feature called Personas which you can select just by single click and change the theme of your Firefox browser without restarting it.
Increased stability : Firefox 3.6 is very much stable than its previous version and will cause less crashes which are due to third party server.
Form Suggestions : Firefox 3.6 will suggest the fields in a web form based on your previous answers in similar field.
Automatic Plugin Updater : To keep you safe, Firefox will now detect the out of date plugin and warn you about potential security vulnerabilities.
Improved Performance : Yes, Firefox is so much improved now with better Javascript performance , decreased startup time and improved responsiveness.
Support for HTML 5 : This will be very useful for developers. It also includes File API for local file handling.
Open Audio Video: With HTML 5 support, now Firefox supports video in Full screen mode with poster frames.
CSS gradients : If you are a developer, you must be knowing about the new CSS gradients. Firefox 3.6 supports these linear and radial gradients.
Web Open Font Format support: WOFF is a new font format for the internet. Apart from OpenType and Truetype fonts , Firefox 3.6 will support the latest Web Open font format as well.

Download Firefox 3.6 now and experience 20 percent faster browsing experience.

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10 most popular and cool Facebook apps

whibb — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:51:00 +0000

Flixter Movies – It is one of the most popular Facebook app where not only you can rate and share your movie reviews with your friend but can also take millions of movie trivia and other miscellaneous quizzes. Has userbase of around 17 million.
Super Wall – This is an extension to the Facebook Wall feature where you can scribble on your friend’s profile. Apart from just writing, you can send cards, embed videos or attach music on user’s wall with Super Wall.
Top Friends – The usual Facebook friend listing is not so cool, isn’t it. To extend it and to add more customizations install Top Friends application. You can customize it with new skins, animations, music etc. It has userbase of around 12 million people.
iLike – It’s another popular app which is used to share music with your friends or to add music to your profile status on Facebook. You can also rate your favorite music with this which your friends can also see.
Where I have Been – If you travel alot then why not brag it to your friends which cities and places you have visited so far. You can do so with Where I have Been app. This way you can also mark and track where you have been on the world map.
Bumper Sticker – This is another very popular and cool Facebook app. With this app you can view, upload and share virtual stickers and can display them on your profile. There are millions of stickers which you can browse from this app and if you are unable to find any sticker then just create your own.
Are you interested – This is very useful Facebook app where you can ask your friends about their opinion on something. It can be very useful for MBA graduates or may be when you are buying some electronic gadget or some other product. Just one simple question – Are you interested ?
Fluff – This is another very cool app which lets you put a fuzzy pet on your profile which your friends can feed too.To buy food for your pet you have to feed other people’s pet and earn "munny"
Graffitti – It’s a very creative Facebook app where you can show down your creativity even if you don’t have the required skills. You can express yourself with drawings. You can just start drawing from your profile page and can save your art for resuming later and can also watch animated replays etc.
Hug Me – Emotions speak very well . With Hug Me Facebook app you can poke, hug, slap, tickle, kiss etc your friends. Well this is not it, you can also give beers or throw Britney Spears to your friends.

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Download Microsoft Office 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Mac

whibb — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:21:00 +0000

Now Mac owners can download Service Pack 2 if they have Microsoft Office 2008 installed. This Service Pack fixes lot of bugs and improve stability and performance. From MS Word Mac to MS Excel one can see lot of improvement in the performance.

New Changes in Microsoft PowerPoint 2008: Microsoft Office SP2 also supports path animations and animated Gifs in MS PowerPoint slides. Apart from this you can replace the default theme with your own custom theme in the PowerPoint slide backgrounds. And now, PowerPoint will also embed the font inside it, so the fonts are now retained if you copy a slide from other presentation.

Changes in Microsoft Word: With increased performance and stability, SP2 also improves the compatibility with Word 2007. Among some minor changes section indicator is now included in the Word status bar.

Changes in Microsoft Excel 2008: There are bunch of improvements related to stability and performance along with couple of bug fixes which includes correct position of shapes on Chart. Now linked cell in an excel workbook also updates when the source cell in some other excel workbook updates. Also, Excel 2008 workbooks are displayed correctly by Excel Web Services.

Prerequisites for installing Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Microsoft Office Mac
To apply and install Office 2008 12.2.0 SP2 update please make sure that you have a Mac OS X 10.4.9 or above Operating System.

Download Location
You can download Microsoft Office 2008 SP2 directly from Microsoft’s site.

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Know your iPhone’s Video, Audio, Internet and Talk time battery status

whibb — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:13:38 +0000

iPhone or iPod touch only shows you the battery status irrespective of how many hours of talk time or Internet usage is left. Even there’s no indication of the battery status indicator as some value.

And when you charge your iPhone or iPod touch the battery status indicator becomes bigger in size but still not showing you the exact stats that after how many hours of internet, audio, video or talk time usage the batter will drain out.

iPhone Wizards has released this BatteryStatus app for an iPhone or iPod touch which will tell you the battery status when you launch it. It will tell the remaining battery charge in hours and minutes for all of the following activities

Talk Time (3G Mode)
Internet Time (EDGE)
iPod Video Play Time
iPod Audio Play Time

The app has simple list view of your iPhone/iPod touch battery charge per activity.

Please Note: The app requires you to have iPhone OS 3.0 and above.

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Sony 32GB Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo HX

whibb — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:10:49 +0000

Sony has announced world’s highest capacity memory stick recently. Now you can take as much snaps or take so many videos with your camera/camcorder. With High Definition (HD) making all the other video resolutions obsolete, this is very essential for you if you are in habit of recording HD stuff.

Data Transfer

This memory stick Pro has very high speed data transfer accounting to around 20Mb/second. This means that you can store more than 4 hours of Full HD stuff in it which is very cool.

Price of Sony 32GB Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo HX (Mark 2)

Price of this memory stick has not been announced yet but looking at their previous range of 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB memory sticks it can be assumed to somewhere around 130$ which is little expensive but then you don’t need any more storage for your devices.

Who should buy 32GB memory card

With lot of other companies coming up with 32GB memory cards which are currently little overpriced, you should only buy it if you are into professional photography or you own Sony PSP or a digital music player that uses memory stick Pro.