How to Choose the Right TV. Standard, HD or 3D?

Choosing a new television can be difficult and confusing. Commercials and advertisements make every TV look like the one you can’t live without. The various television brands and marketers put out lots of information, and not all of the advice out there on which TV is best for you is good. This brief introduction to the different types of televisions that are out there is a great place to start your search for a fantastic TV. So relax, take a deep breath and get ready to create your perfect home entertainment environment.

Standard TVs:

If expense is your biggest concern, then a standard television is the way to go. There are many new options and new technologies that are attractive but you can still get a good picture and fine quality from the high end standard TVs that are on the market today. Maybe you need a small TV for the kitchen or your new dorm room, and you don’t want to spend a lot of money on high definition and expensive cable stations. Standard TVs are cheap and easily obtainable and when you get it home all you have to do is plug it in. The options in standard TVs are as plentiful as ever and you just can’t beat the value.

HDTV:

The best picture on the TV market today is the High Definition Television. HDTV has revolutionized the home entertainment industry and changed the way we watch television. From 720p to 1080p, from LED to Plasma there are many options to choose from but whatever you decide the HDTV experience is worth the time and money it takes to get there. HD TVs come equipped with an HDMI outlet that allows you to easily connect your fabulous new TV to your high definition provider. HDMI cables usually come with the HD cable box but are readily available at a local electronics store, or online. With a movie theater quality picture and fantastic sound the HDTV is the only way to go if you’re ready to spend some money and you’re looking for the next level of TV viewing enjoyment.

3DTV:

The newest player on the high end TV market is the 3D TV. With outstanding theater style quality, and great visual effects the 3D TV experience is amazing. You can get your 3DTV in LCD, plasma or DLP format. Make sure you get your 3D glasses if they don’t come with the TV. They’re expensive but the cutting edge in TV technology always is. Your friends will be jealous, your kids will love you and your home entertainment experience will never be the same.

Whether you are looking for an inexpensive television upgrade to your home or you need the biggest most impressive television money can buy, being informed about your options is the best way to start. There are a thousand different televisions, in a dozen different formats to choose from. Don’t be disappointed in your TV choice because you didn’t know what you were looking at when you got to the store. The options are limitless, but with a few tips and a good idea of what you need, purchasing a new TV will be a great experience.

How to Buy a Digital Camera: Complete Guide

It’s not difficult to get lost in a sea of digital camera choices. Certain digital cameras are meant for professional photography while the rest are sufficient for capturing still life no matter where you’re at. We have brought the main digital cameras to your screen for viewing which would best suit your needs or work well as a gift.

Photos of distant galaxies like this are made possible due to the latest developments in the camera industry.

Digital SLR Cameras
Should you have a limitless budget and have the desire for professional grade photos, the SLR cameras are perfect for you. They have the look of old-school 35mm cameras, the power to snap photos from afar with perfect definition and offer the option to remove the lens giving you the ability to use multiple lenses with different focal lengths and light sensitivity. They primarily come with 18mm or 36mm sensors for high-grade low light performance. These are definitely top-notch and not for the faint of heart. They are best for professional photographers, photophiles, paparazzi or trips to the mountains.

Point And Shoot Digital Cameras
Most current digital cameras will fall under this main category, although many types do exist. Point and shoot devices are small, compact and have megapixel ranges from 4MP all the way up to 12MP with some brands ranging higher. Below are the main types of point and shoot cameras that you could potentially choose from:

1. Compact digital cameras: These cameras are meant for normal use, such as toting along to birthday parties or taking Christmas pictures. Kodak, Canon and Sony have excellent compact digital camera selections with variances in megapixel sizes ranging from 5.0MP to as high as 18MP. Compact cameras range in size from 20mm thick down to a credit card sized device.
2. Bridge Cameras: With a close resemblance to a digital SLR camera, these are slightly larger than your compact models of point and shoot cameras. They have live previews to show you what you’ll be snapping, autofocus using a contrast detection mechanism, and offer long-range camera shots in a range somewhere between the SLR and compact digital camera.
3. Super Zoom: These cameras are strikingly similar to their compact digital brothers yet come with 10x optical zoom options which allow far away shots to become extremely close. Some can control the inevitable camera shake through image stabilization software pre-installed.

What To Look For When Digital Camera Hunting

When shopping for digital cameras with foreign verbiage that tends to fluster us all, stick with the simple questions and follow this layman’s guide to seeking your next camera within your budget. Don’t try to understand what the salesman is saying about words you’ve never heard of and just tell him you’re looking for the following traits in your camera:

Image Quality
Most people are fooled into thinking the larger the megapixel of camera, the better off your images will be. ‘Megapixels’ (MP) are a measurement of amount of data captured and have little to nothing to do with image quality. Therefore, keep this simple rule of thumb when trying to ascertain what image quality is: 3-4MP cameras are perfect for 8 x 10 photos and 8MP cameras are great for 10 x 12 pictures. The quality will be lifelike should you stick with this rule. If you just want to send your buddy a funny picture through email every now and then, 2MP will work just fine.

Light-Friendly
The brighter the LCD screen is on your camera, the better it will appear in bright sunlight or other bright lighting scenarios. LCD Screen at the back of the camera should also have a decent size so that you can properly view photos before taking them.

Computer Connectivity
If you find a camera that doesn’t have the proper USB port or cable to connect your camera to the computer for adding them to Facebook or an online album, run. Any decent digital camera should have at the very least, the standard USB port and, for moving many large pictures at once, look on the box for USB 2.0 which simply means it’s a better cable with faster transfer rates.

Other Great Perks To Find

Along with having great lenses and thin sizes, people who aren’t acclimated to digital cameras should stick with the basics as stated above. Along with those, the following perks are nice for the beginner to novice user:

1. Find the digital camera that has instructions in paper form. Kind of hard to put a CD in while out in the wilderness, no?
2. For those who get easily flustered, find a camera that has the minimal number of large buttons so you can focus and shoot quickly without finding a tiny button between two other buttons.
3. Internal memory storage would be great – most cameras come with Micro SD cards which hold 2-4GB worth of pictures (about 4000 large ones in total) with the ability to buy larger ones for relatively low prices. Simply take the SD card out, hand to a Walgreens or Wal-Mart associate and get your pictures developed.
4. A digital camera that comes with Ni-Cad batteries and a charger is a treat; most will come with standard AAA batteries which can be upgraded to Energizer Max or the likes.

Cost is relative to the features you want. Obviously, the more bells and whistles you require, the higher the price tag. Simply gauge what you and your family need for regular use, bring this guide with you to find the best value for your money and you’ll be well on your way to snapping pictures right out of the box with brilliant results.

Increase A Laptop’s Battery Life [How To]

When you’re constantly on the move and rely on your laptop to perform when you most need it, you need to be sure that your battery won’t suddenly drain on you, leaving you in the lurch. If this sounds like a situation that you frequently find yourself in, perhaps you should look at upgrading to a laptop battery with a longer life. But if that step sounds a bit drastic, there may be a few things that you can do to prolong your battery’s power, when you don’t have access to a mains supply.

Turn down the brightness of your screen

Most modern laptops allow you to control the brightness of the screen. As you might expect, the brighter the screen, the more power is required. Dim the screen and you could find that your battery lasts a lot longer.

Shut down programs that aren’t being used

It’s often the case that you’ll have a number of programs running, yet you’re only using one or two of them. Although you might not see them running, they could be running in the background, adding to your CPU load, and consuming more energy. Shut down the programs not in use and save energy. If you’re unsure about programs running in the background, simply open the task manager.

Clean the battery contacts

You should clean the connection points on your laptop’s battery every now and then. Dampen a cloth with alcohol and use it to clean the points. Clean points mean that electric current can pass through efficiently, meaning you save on wasted power.

Use the CD/DVD drive sparingly

CD and DVD drives use a substantial amount of energy to operate. If possible, opt to use the hard drive instead, as this requires less energy.

Defragment your hard drive regularly

If you regularly defragment your hard drive, it will operate more efficiently. The more efficiently your hard drive operates, the less demand is placed on the battery, meaning you will get more life out of it! As an additional advantage, this will also help in speeding up your computer.

Do not use wireless networks

If you are not in need of a wireless connection, it is better to turn off the wireless receiver on your laptop as it puts unnecessary strain on your battery. Most laptops have an easy to locate switch to turn off wireless networks.

Disable unnecessary visual effects

Your computer requires computing power to show all those stunning visual effects. More computing means more battery consumed. Hence, if you want your battery to last longer, it is advisable to preferably turn off or at least tone down those visual effects.

Change Power scheme

Changing your power scheme to Power Saver makes your computer adjust its settings to use power minimally and give you extended battery life. Most operating systems allow you to change power schemes.

Regularly clean the air vents and keep your laptop cool

Your laptop will operate far more efficiently at lower temperatures. If your air vents are clogged up with dirt and dust, the machine cannot be cooled efficiently. By regularly checking that air can pass freely through the vents, you can be sure that your laptop remains as cool as possible. You can use a brush or a lightly dampened cloth to remove any dust or dirt. For even better cooling, you can try a laptop cooling pad.

Refrain from using external devices

External devices, such as external hard drives, iPods, and even your mouse can put unnecessary strain on your battery. If it isn’t absolutely crucial that you use these external devices, shut them down and disconnect them entirely to save on battery usage.

Only multitask when absolutely necessary

Performing multiple tasks at any one time, for example listening to music whilst downloading files and creating Word documents, will again put unnecessary strain on your computer. When battery power is scarce, don’t over-work your laptop and drain the battery too quickly.

Why a hard drive has less storage space than promised?

It has happened to most of us. We buy a new hard drive (or maybe a flash drive) with mind boggling storage capacity only to find that it has less space than what was mentioned on the box. Angered, we start cursing the manufacturer and our dealer for false marketing thinking that they should be sued for doing this. Hey, but have you ever wondered how they continue to do this again and again without getting into legal trouble?

The answer is that they are not marketing it falsely at all. Surprised? I’ll explain.

A manufacturer considers 1 Megabyte to be 1000 Kilobytes, 1 Gigabyte to be 1000 Megabytes, 1 Terabyte to be 1000 Gigabytes and so on. This is correct considering that kilo means 1000 and mega means 1000000 (10^6). However, computers calculate on base 2 and to them, 1 MB is actually 1024 kilobytes, 1GB is 1024MB and 1 TB is 1024GB. This difference in the method of computation is responsible for this “missing space.”

Lets take an example of a 500 GB hard disk.

From a manufacturer’s point of view, the 500GB will have 500*1000*1000*1000 = 500000000000 bytes.

From a computer’s point of view, 500GB is actually 500*1024*1024*1024 = 536870912000 bytes.

So, a hard drive that promises to have 500 GB storage space will actually display 465.66GB, 536870912000-500000000000 = 36870912000 bytes (34.34GB) less storage space when connected to a computer.

Space Promised	Displayed on a computer	Difference
100GB	93.13GB	6.87GB
250GB	232.83GB	17.17GB
500GB	465.66GB	34.34GB
1TB	931.32GB	92.68GB
2TB	1862.64GB	185.36GB

Take a look at the table given above to see how much space is “lost” due to computers working on a base 2 system. As you can see, with the increase in capacity of the storage device, there is an increase in the missing space.

Connect a Laptop or Desktop Computer to a TV Easily

Suppose you wish to watch a movie or share a slide-show of pictures with your family on your PC but have a screen that leaves much to be desired. In such a situation, you can connect your computer to a television screen to allow your entire family to enjoy comfortably.

There are many ways in which you can connect your laptop/ computer to a television. However, the overall video quality will be different for different methods. You can choose which one to use based on the quality or the availability of hardware. The first step is to know what type of ports and connections your TV and computer have. If you already know the type of ports and connections available on your hardware, you can directly jump to Step 2. If not, then the different types of ports are explained in detail below:-

Different types of PC to TV connection ports

1) RCA/Composite: The oldest and the lowest quality connection available. They are the Yellow, Red and White connections most of us are familiar with. Yellow is used for composite video, white for left analog audio and red for right analog audio.

2) S-Video: S-Video or Super Video offers slightly better quality than Composite connections. As it is one of the oldest type of connections available, most televisions and computers have it. There are two types of S-Video ports, one containing 4 pins and the other containing 7 pins. This type of connection is used only for video. So you will need to connect an audio cable from your computer’s headphone jack to the red and white audio inputs on your TV if you want audio to work.

3) VGA(Video Graphics Array): Most computers and televisions have a VGA port. It offers much better quality than S-Video and should be preferred if you have a HDTV. Older CRT TVs however, will not have a VGA port and will require a PC to Television converter. Just like S-Video, VGA also does not support audio and will require an additional audio cable.

Different types of connecting cables to connect computers to TVs

4) DVI: Digital Video Interface offers much better quality than VGA connections. Most laptop computers and HD TVs will have these connections. Just as the name suggest, this type of connection can be used only with digital TVs. Also like the previous two, DVI connections also require the use of an audio cable for audio to work.

5) HDMI: The highest quality connections available. Most HD TVs will have this connection, however, chances are that your computer would not. If your computer happens to have a HDMI connection port, this should be preferably used. If your computer doesn’t, you can use an HDMI to DVI adapter to convert HDMI to DVI.

Step 2: Once a common type of port between the two devices is recognized, you will need the right connector cable to physically connect them. The different types of connector cables are pictured above. If you do not find two matching types of connection ports, you will need an adapter to make the connections type match.

Step 3: After connecting the two devices, on your TV, select the external input with which your TV is connected to the computer. It may be HDMI1 or AV1 depending on how you have made the connection. This is much similar to how you select input from your DVD player.

If you have followed the steps correctly, your TV should now be displaying your computer’s screen.

Important: If your computer is not recognizing the external display, you must connect the TV before starting your computer. If the picture appears distorted, you will need to change the screen resolution of your TV by altering the display settings from your computer. Most older TVs will support only one display resolution while newer TVs will support plenty of them.