Do you know what you can do with your tv?

I always have friends and family saying to me that a friend told them that they can do this or that with their TV or DVD or Tbox, and I think "Yeah" that's easy.
There is so much you can do with your devices and gadgets these days in the way of linking them up or watching different types of media on them.
I hear people say " I want to get a smart TV", so I ask them what is it they actually want to do with the smart TV, sometimes all they want to do is catch up on missed TV shows or watch You Tube!.

Basically the TVs we have these days are a massive computer monitor with a built in TV tuner, and they come with a multitude of connections on the back, we all have a DVD player or some sort of box hooked up, whether it be a Foxtell box, a Tbox, or a set top box. A lot of people aren't aware, but most of the devices these days come with a network connection (RJ45, your normal network lead) and also usually have a USB plug, a HDMI plug and sometimes even a card reader slot. Did you know you can use the USB input on your devices to plug in your USB drive and look at photos or watch movies that are on the drive, and the same for card readers. Some TVs you can even put a USB drive in and record TV programs to it. Ocassionally the USB slot may only be to perform Software updates, but this not very common.

Another great option is that if your DVD player has a network input, you are normally able to access the Internet and places like You Tube and watch them on your TV. If your DVD is plugged into your home router, it becomes part of your home network and you can access computers on that network and watch clips and movies that are on them!. All that is involved is to enable home network sharing on your computers,  that allows the DVD to see the movies or clips on the other devices.

Something else that is very easy to do, is to connect a laptop to your TV, most laptops have a HDMI out put and most TVs and a HDMI input, so just connect the two and suddenly your big screen tv is now your big screen computer, I have an old laptop under my DVD I set it so it wont go to sleep with the lid shut, and have a wireless keyboard and mouse that sits under my coffee table!. To easy!
Your DVD and/or box will have an HDMI output as well, it all depends how many devices you are connecting as to which leads you use for which.

HDMI port

HDMI Cables

Don't be fooled or conned into buying big dollar HDMI cables, its not like the old days where dearer cables were better quality than cheap ones. Have a good search around online and only pay somewhere around the $10 mark for a cable instead of the $30-$40 that some people tell you that you need. Of course it the cable is a really long one, the price will be dearer.

 Windows 7 has a great function of seeking out other windows7 devices on the network and sharing between them, you will find it under "Homegroup" in the control panel or just type Homegroup into the run box. This makes sharing things from any computer to your laptop that is connected to your TV very easy.

Of course there are a lot of products out there specifically designed for sharing and transmitting media over your network, Or getting Internet to your TV, but before you rush out and spend your hard earned money, have a good look at the connections on the back of your device and explore your options. If you are not sure don't be afraid to ask, or like I always say, just type into google exactly what you are thinking, and see what it comes up with.

The latest from the tech world

Hello Every One, It has been a big week in tech with new products being released, here is a rundown on the major items.

Apple held their WWDC keynote this week, releasing details of their new products. They have unveiled the new Mac Book Pro, which now sports the famous "retina display", however this laptop once labelled as the "user serviceable laptop" is now moving away from that label.

Technology company "Ifixit" have already dismantled one, and noted that this latest model can not even have extra ram added, as the ram is now soldered in. The battery is glued in, making replacement risky of damaging near by components, and there are special screws used to eliminate removal of parts by just anybody. In short you need to decide what you want when you order, because the only part upgradeable is the SSD hard drive. With a 512gb hard drive fitted, It has a price tag of around $2800 which will surely eliminate "buying just to have the latest" buyers. Apples "tower" computers are only getting a processor upgrade this year.

The New IOS 6 mobile operating system has been announced, it will now contain more control of how you take your calls and respond to missed calls, free turn by turn direction function with traffic updates, 3d fly over mapping, and photo to emails, it will also bring Siri to iPad 3. However IOS 6 will not work on iPad 1, iPhone 3, and certain functions will not work on iPhone 3gs, 4, and iPad 2, so It would be wise to do some research before you upgrade to the latest system, and make sure you will actually benefit from the update. This is inline with Apples tendency to not look after older products and force the purchase of later models.

There will be an update to the Lion software to Mountain lion in July, this will add iCloud and its functions, safer downloading, dictation, and ability to for the computer to update while it is sleeping.

Still no word on the new iPhone, but the rumors are predicting a Sept/Oct release.

The SamSung Gallaxie S3 has been released, with a quad core processor, a 4.8 inch HD screen, and functions like smart burst, where it shoots off 8 photos and then chooses the best photo, it has Panoramic Picture where you hold the button on and scan the camera around, it then stitches all the photos together into one image in an instant.The phone also comes with the ability of the screen to know when you are looking at it, so it will stay bright until you are finished.

Windows8 is getting closer to public release, there is still a mixed reception to the trial versions of the release, with a lot of die hard Windows users not taking to kindly to the removal of the start button. Many claim that this is a tablet operating system and that business will bypass  Windows8 just like they did with Vista. With Windows XP on the countdown to end of support, Windows7 is likely to be the new Windows XP of the business and mainstream market. This will be very interesting to watch play out, as new products will come shipped with Windows8 once it is released, will we see the trend to "downgrade" your new device like we did when Vista came out.
So that's a small snippet of what the major players are up to, I will keep you posted

The amazing Internet

Hey Everyone,
I know a lot about how the Internet works, but when I saw this video, I was once again blown away and realized how much we do take for granted the amazing service we use everyday. Its mind boggling  that so many people use the Internet and our web pages are still delivered so reliably.
This video is made for the average non techie person, so please take the time to watch it, and of course if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Hope you all have a great weekend.

http://worldsciencefestival.com/videos/there_and_back_again_a_packets_tale

Keyboard shortcut, and what is "Ram"

Hey!, A nice light back to basic lesson, and a quick tip this week. 

I am not a huge user of keyboard shortcuts, but a few that I do use are to copy, cut and paste. The most common way that newer users perform these functions is to highlight the text they want to work with, then left click on the mouse and select either copy, cut or paste from the drop down menu.

A much faster way that you can do this is to select and highlight the text you want to work with, and then press the control key "Ctr" and the "c" key at the same time to 'copy' the text, or press the "Ctr" key and the "x" key at the same time to 'cut' the text, next click on where you want to place the new text, and press the "Ctr" key and the "v" key at the same time, to 'paste' the text back in. These are known as keyboard shortcuts, and once you get to know them and get in the habit of using them, they make your tasks much faster and easier.

The big talk when buying a new computer, laptop, of even a tablet is, how much "Ram" it has. So what is Ram exactly and what does it do?

Ram is what they call "Working Memory", that means that when you boot your device up, it takes everything it needs to work with' and loads it into the Ram for easy and quick access.

An easy way to understand this, is to imagine that you are going to cook a cake.

Well when you start, you go to your pantry and get all the ingredients, bowls, and utensils you need for the cake and put them out on your bench so that everything is with in your reach and easy to access, this will make mixing the cake a lot quicker and easier.

Well your ram is like the bench, it is your working area, and the more you are cooking or the more complicated the recipe is, the more bench space you need to fit everything on comfortably. Once you run out of bench space you have to walk to your pantry and look for what you want amongst all the other items, find it, and then find some more space to work , this will slow the whole cooking process down.

So to sum all that up, your Ram stores all the ingredients for your computing tasks, and if you are doing tasks like working with large pictures of video, these are the equivalent to having a complicated recipe, and require a lot more Ram. If you don't have enough Ram the processor has to go to the hard drive and find what you need, then make some space on the hard drive to use, this slows the whole process right down.

Depending on how you use your device, normally 2 gigabytes of Ram will be sufficient for your requirements, but if you are a heavy user and have a lot of programs open at the one time, or work a lot with video processing, you may want to increase this to 4 gigabytes. Some of the latest systems are coming out with 8 gigabytes, but the average user will never get the benefit of this much, and you  need to have a certain model of your operating system before it will recognize this much Ram.

I hope this makes sense to you and helps you to understand a bit more of the jargon behind your PC.