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Learn to Connect a Laptop to a TV in Under a Minute


There was a report recently about how young people these days, while they do watch television shows like everyone else, like to watch those shows on their computers or their cell phones.

More and more, television manufacturers are coming to understand that people don’t just want to connect their TVs to their cable or satellite dish and watch stuff as it comes.

They want to watch stuff that comes on their computers on demand., But they do want their TVs – to use as a monitor so that they can connect their laptops and iPads and cell phones to them and watch their on demand content on those big screens.

If you want to do the same, but you’re not quite as comfortable with all these new things the way young people are, here’s how to connect a laptop to a TV.

Here’s the thing – it doesn’t take much to connect a laptop to a TV. The connections are easy. You just need the right kind of cable, and your three-quarters the way there. If your laptop is somewhat recent, you’re sure to have an HDMI port on there.

Chances are though, that your laptop isn’t that recent, and you might not have one of these. What you might have instead is regular old-world VGA connection or, if you’re lucky, a DVI connection.

If you have one of these, you’re in luck. You get adapter wires that have an HDMI connection on the one side to plug into your TV, and a DVI or VGA connection – whichever you have on your laptop – on the other end. All you need to do is to plug each side into the right port, and you’re practically there.

The thing is, that DVI and HDMI are practically the same thing when it comes to the picture department. The only way in which they are different is that HDMI will carry sound only (if it’s there) and DVI won’t.

So if you’re connecting your laptop to your TV with a DVI to HDMI adapter cable, you only get the picturing on your TV. For the sound, you’ll need to run another wire from the headphone output on your laptop to the audio input on your television.

If you’re running a VGA  adapter cable from your laptop to your TV, your TV probably has a VGA port too, and it’s usually marked PC Input. If you don’t have that, an adapter cable will work just as well connecting your VGA output to the television’s HDMI input.

If you have a MacBook of any kind, you probably have a Mini DisplayPort connector. In this case, you’ll have to buy the right Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter, and you’re set.

On the television, whatever way you choose to connect a laptop to a TV, if your TV is getting the signal through some means, you’re now ready to view it.

On your remote, look for a button with an icon that looks like a square with a right-angled arrow pointing in. When you press that, it’s going to show you a list of all the inputs on your television. You just have to select the input that you’ve plugged your laptop into, and you’re set.

About This Site

Welcome to ComputerSpot.Net!

My name is Edy and I am passionate about computers. This site is dedicated to sharing my knowledge of computers; and, as technology evolves, sharing all the new discoveries I make along the way. Some of the topics include: choosing the right computer (or laptop) for your needs, tips on using and choosing software programs, reviews on the different hardware and software programs out there, computer networking, and how to use the internet to your best advantage. I will also share the latest computer news as it comes available. If there is a particular topic you’d like me to discuss or have a computer related question, don’t hesitate to contact me. Click here to contact me!

Garmin nüvi 1390LMT 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator


With fairly good features and very intuitive to register, set-up and use, the Garmin nüvi 1390LMT 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator is for selling to the market. This tool is equipped with additional features, such as Lane Assist, traffic updates and Life Time Map, which I think is quite reasonable for the price that is not cheap.

Features such as Lane Assist should be there because it is useful for your trip along the road that you have never passed before. Without using this Lane Assist feature, many drivers are driving the car into the wrong-way and out of the track.

Traffic Updates feature in the Garmin nüvi 1390LMT 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator is also quite useful. By using this Traffic Updates feature, you can find traffic information in front of you.

If the traffic is very dense in front of you, you can choose a better path to traverse. In other words, you can avoid the congestion on the road. One more that I think is a nice feature in the Garmin nüvi 1390LMT 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator is a Life time Maps. With this feature you will get the Garmin map updates 4 times in a year.

Garmin nüvi 1390LMT 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator comes with a 2GB memory on board. For those of you who want to get all the maps available, including all of North America, parts of Mexico, and other areas, 2 GB memory are not enough. But do not worry, because you only need to narrow down the map to install, there will soon update about it.

Overall, the Garmin nüvi 1390LMT 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator is quite satisfactory. With the unit and its features, the Garmin nüvi 1390LMT 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator can be categorized as a 4 star GPS. But because of limited memory, some consumers feel bothered in the use of the ‘Lifetime Map updates’.

Designing a Video Game: the Steps Involved


If you think about it, the Michael Douglas–Sean Penn movie The Game is about giving the rich and decadent the ultimate videogame-like experience.

The movie is about how you can take someone who has a regular life, and put them in fantastic James Bond-Lara Croft like situations where they have horrible things happen to them, but they somehow escape unscathed.

Well, designing a videogame is all about putting a person in the kind of situations that Michael Douglas found himself in in the movie. Except that it’s all virtual.

It’s about taking someone who has a regular life and elevating him to a different plane altogether.

When you come away from playing a game, you’re supposed to feel like you’ve been through an experience – not like you’re just playing a game.

Designing a videogame takes a designer who has a spectacular grasp over the nuts and bolts of programming, of design, art and at least a half-dozen other disciplines. It’s a wonder that there are as many people out there designing a videogame as there are.

There are lots of people out there who have the technical skills needed to program something. What they don’t have is the idea. An idea for what it is that they can do to turn a game into a mindbending experience. In fact, it’s this stage that trips up most game designers.  if anything, you need to spend the most time coming up with what can really blow a gamer’s mind.

Once you have the idea, it’s practically like coasting after that. You need to create a rough sketch of everything in your game – the characters, the environment, the kind of action that will take place and so on, create a storyboard for two and so on.

The storyboard, as you draw it, will give you ideas on how to flesh out what you’ve started – the general character everything will have, the actual qualities you characters will have so on. You can list everything out that you think of, they can build your game universe.

In the end, you’ll put everything together and prepare a design document – a script for your game.

The storyboarding part happens to be the best way ever to build an idea for a videogame out. You just need to draw everything you just need to prepare rough sketches of everything that’ll go with the case – the environment, the characters, how the story will progresses a player plays the game and so on. Every drawing well have a  descriptive paragraph attached, too. It’ll be kind of like comic strip. N

As you create your storyboard, you’ll see all kinds of details. What kind of powers does the character have? What kind of things can he do it will he do? What kind of music will you have in the background? And most importantly, what will the character look like?

How to Rip DVD to iPhone and iPad?


WinX DVD Ripper Platinum – developed by Digiarty Software, Inc. is a DVD to iPhone iPad ripping program compatible with both Windows and Mac platinum. This DVD ripper allows you to play DVD on iPhone iPad iPod AppleTV freely.

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is able to:

  • ?Convert and Rip both DVD movies and DVD ISO image to video in popular formats: rip DVD to AVI, MP4, MPEG, WMV, MOV, FLV, 3GP, etc.
  • ?Convert and Rip DVD to iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV and other mobiles.
  • ?Copy and backup DVD to MPEG2 format video.
  • ?Clone DVD to ISO image.
  • ?Extract DVD audio to MP3 file.

It’s easy to download and use. Take ripping DVD from Windows PC to iPhone for example, you only needs to follow steps below:

  1. Download WinX DVD Ripper Platinum and insert your DVD disc.
  2. Run the software and choose your DVD by clicking ‘DVD Disc’ button. Or you can select other ISO image or DVD folder on your computer Hard Drive.
  3. The software will automatically show movies titles, and you just need to select which one you want to rip to your iPhone:
  4. Select ‘to iPhone’ button among these tabs and then select the output video folder.
  5. Click ‘Start’ button and the software will convert and rip DVD to iPhone supported format.
  6. The rest work is to find the output video and move it to your iPhone.

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum has No.1 fast ripping speed in the market and the outputs file preserving original DVD video and audio quality. I tried this software, and it works really fast and smoothly without any program error. Really awesome program!

Now Digiarty is holding a big Hello Summer Giveaway, where you can get WinX DVD Ripper Platinum for free. This popular software is sold at $45.95 in common days. If you are interested, hurry up and grab it as the giveaway deadline is May20, 2012.

Grab it for free here.

Inexpensive Laptop Computers Are for Me


I have worked for a number of years as a freelance sports writer, where a laptop is an absolute necessity. Because the lifespan of a laptop in my line of work is about two years, I am always looking for inexpensive laptop computers to make sure that I am covered.

The first year that I started covering high school sports was 1999. I was not really sure at that point of all the things I would need, but I did know that I had to be able to keeps stats and produce a story in some form or fashion.

I had been made aware of some inexpensive laptop computers that I could purchase to use, but at that point, I was not even sure how I would use one in what I was doing, which was covering high school football, as all of our stats and stories were called in by phone.

So, off I went to my first high school football game with a note pad, a score sheet and two pencils, and man, did I feel stupid!

Every other reporter at the game had a computer, and it became pretty clear fairly early on that I was the rookie out of the bunch.

I got some looks, and after a few people had asked if I needed to plug in and I explained that I did not have a computer, I got some very interesting comments.

Several of the writers tried to tell me about places where I could go to get inexpensive laptop computers, and I think it was then that it finally started to sink in that I would actually need one. I made a trip to a local electronics store the next day.

The store I went to had a pretty impressive selection of inexpensive laptop computers, and I was able to get a pretty good deal on one of them.

I took it home, got it all set up, and felt a lot better about going to cover my next game with my new laptop. The reality of the matter is, however, that I really was not using the laptop the way that many of them were.

All I was doing was completing my write-ups on the word processing program that came with the computer. I was not entering stats, updating online or doing anything else that everyone else was.

Fast forward a few years, however, and now everything is online and done by laptop. I get paid an awful lot more for assignments now and am in the market for inexpensive laptop computers every few years these days.

It’s funny how things change, because something I hardly used when I first started freelancing and for which I really did not see much purpose is something I could not get along without these days!

Navigating the Business Accounting Software Scene


Back in the day, it used to be that if you kept books or if your accountant kept books for you, you basically did it on big fat ledgers.

There were receipts and vouchers to keep track of, dozens of columns on every ledger page and so on. When business accounting software first made an appearance a couple of decades ago, small businesses had this way of scoffing at how they would never need anything like this. It was just pencil and paper for them as usual.

These days though, it’s far easier and cheaper for any small business to use business accounting software than it would be for them to hire someone to laboriously use the old method (this is is seeming that you could even find anyone willing to do this anymore). But that isn’t even just it. Business accounting software can make human error a thing of the past.

It can put all kinds of graphs in front of you at the touch of a button and show you things about how your business is doing that you would never have known otherwise.

You can get sales reports for a certain period of time at a moment’s notice, you can see three kinds of graphs for how quickly inventory is moving, it can show you what kinds of things you do that are profitable or not so much, and so on.

Of course, finding out which business accounting software package to choose out of the dozens available, could be the challenge you need to think about now.

Basically, the person who does the choosing needs to know something about business accounting. You’ll need to take a look at the kind of business accounting needs you have, to be able to assess which products might suit your needs best.

In fact, the choosing process can be so complex, you may have to go to a website like FindAccountingSoftware to find your way around the market.

Basically, you said understand that product prices are so cheap now that even if you are in a business with $1000 worth of capital, you can still benefit from one of these packages.

There are basically three different kinds of business accounting software out there. For the small business of average size that needs payroll and accounting help in its software, you have products like in Intuit’s QuickBooks, and you have the very easy-to-use Simply Accounting by Sage software.

Web based accounting software has been growing in popularity among very small businesses for a few years now. There is growing confidence these days that doing things over the cloud isn’t a bad idea.

And things have slowly then moving in that direction. Accounting packages by Less Accounting, NetSuite, Clarity Accounting and many more are very popular these days.

And then of course, there’s the free kind. For very small businesses.

ASUS Republic of Gamers G74SX-AH71 17.3-Inch Gaming Laptop (Black)


In general, if we want a good gaming laptop, the laptop should be able to play all the games that you wanted and you can take it anywhere with ease. Game never is separated from the computer. Be it a PC or laptop.

Not infrequently we find in offices, when there are breaks or leisure time, some people play games on their computers. This is fine, as long as not to interfere with work. If the office does not allow, play games on a laptop can be an option.

As I said above, Gaming Laptop is supposed to be able to be used for any game you like and convenient to carry wherever you like.

One best laptop that you can use to enjoy the games is ASUS Republic of Gamers G74SX-AH71 17.3-Inch Gaming Laptop (Black). Performance of G74SX-AH7 has no doubt.

By combining the second-generation Intel ® Core ™ i7-2670QM CPU and NVIDIA ® GTX 560M GPU with GDDR5 VRAM 3GB, G74SX-AH7 will satisfy users to play any games. G74SX-AH7 was asked as the fastest notebook in this country because it has a score of P2008 in 3DMark Vantage 3DMark11, and P9180.

If you have this notebook, you not only have the fastest rig in the city, but also the ability to play the game in a long time. This could happen because it is supported by DirectX ® 11.

Overall, the ASUS Republic of Gamers G74SX-AH71 is the best choice for gamers who want to feel the sensation of playing games with a maximum capacity. If you claim to be a true gamer, you should immediately have it.

Is it Worth It to Pay for Adobe InDesign Software?


Adobe InDesign software doesn’t come cheap. If you’re a new customer, a full version with no student discount or anything, sells for $662. Is it worth it? Let’s take a look.

InDesign Creative Suite 5.5 is what you buy if you want to indulge yourself in any kind of digital publishing. See, we said digital publishing and not just publishing.

Because if you’re interested in getting it printed on actual paper, Adobe InDesign software is not what you need. There is nothing there for print publishing. Computer publishing is a completely different matter though.

Throughout the 80s and the 90s, everyone in the publishing world used QuarkXPress. And for those who still do traditional print publishing, that’s a product that’s still completely relevant. But now that a lot of magazine publishing is fought out on the Internet, Adobe InDesign software is a real force.

If you completely concentrate on online magazine publishing and you don’t really have a lot to do with print publishing, you probably have to give your product away for free.

And perhaps buying such expensive software doesn’t really make sense when you’re giving the end product away for free. And that’s not even it.

Since people do a lot of the reading on their iPads and iPhones these days, you’ll need to design your online publication for those kinds of devices, too. If you want to use InDesign to do that, that’s even more money.

On top of what you spend on InDesign, you’re going to need a subscription to Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite Professional Edition that involves hundreds of dollars every month too.

And if you have four computers running InDesign, all of these multiply four times. Even better, each time someone looks at your magazine on the Internet, you have to pay a fee to the Adobe.

It works out to something like $100 for 1000 issues downloaded by readers. If you’re unfamiliar with this kind of expensive software proposition, you have to remember that it isn’t something that just Adobe likes to do. This is the way the entire market works.

Thankfully, there are exceptions. If you want to just buy the software and you want to pay the software publisher for every single time someone on the web  looks at your free magazine, you’re better off with software like Woodwing’s Digital Magazine Tools.

But if you do have your heart set on Adobe InDesign software, it can be a very powerful and fully featured application. You can’t go wrong with the industry-standard. But the money…

Out Shopping for Cheap Laptops? Here’s what you need to keep in Mind


If you are perennially a price-conscious shopper, shopping for laptops has to be a unique experience. No other part of the electronics shopping experience ever encounters the kind of roller coaster of temporary discounts and sales that shopping for cheap laptops does.

The most important part to finding cheap laptops is this – you really need to know your stuff.  It can be easy to take a quick look at the specs on the machine and think you’re getting great value.

If you don’t really pay attention to everything, you could be missing a hidden unimpressive spec.

Well, here are a few tips on how to understand the market for cheap laptops. Go in armed with these tips, you should find yourself a lot better equipped to tell the good deals from the bad.

As you might expect, retailers put various brands and models of laptop on sale in the discount area because usually, they’re trying to clear out space for more recent inventory.

Sometimes, they just have to do that because they have B-stock – that’s the term they use for floor display models that they would like to get rid of or units returned by the customer for some minor reason.

All of these are sold as refurbished products. And of course, they couldn’t sell this kind of thing at full retail.

So that’s an interesting term you usually come across when you’re hunting for cheap laptops – refurbished.

What exactly is a refurbished computer?

Well, as you just read in the last paragraph, these are usually units that are either returned by a customer for no real reason or ones that have been sitting on the shelves as display models.

They typically go over these computers carefully to see that there’s nothing wrong with them, wipe the hard drive and reinstall all software, and they sell it.

There’s really nothing much to it. They just have to slap the “Refurbished” label on it because they have to by law if it isn’t completely new.

One thing you need to do before you go out shopping, you need to do your research. To make sure that you remember the specifications at the store, keep those specs written down on paper.

You don’t have to worry about how cheap laptops are somehow less durable or anything. They use the same quality standards more or less.

At their best, cheap laptops are merely marked down for no good reason – the manufacturer decided to overhaul the look of their laptops or something.

And do remember – if you are buying refurbished, make sure that you check to see that you’re offered the full guarantee.

Are you a Gamer without Gaming Headphones


If your involvement in gaming could hardly be termed casual, without a doubt, you need to look into getting yourself gaming headphones.

The thing is, videogame producers no longer work on tight budgets and relegate sound quality to an afterthought in the end.

Video games are produced on Hollywood movie levels of budget and they pay as much attention to sound as they would to a Star Wars extravaganza.

It’s really difficult to have a gaming computer connected to your home theater system – which is usually in the living room. This is where high-end gaming headphones would really come in.

You need something that can really placing the middle of the immersive sound environment that gaming sound designers designed these days.

Think about it –everyone else out be a lot happier if they didn’t always have to listen to try to your background music pounding through the walls all the time. If you’re still not convinced, read on.

Have you ever worn a pair of high-end headphones and listened to familiar music on them? You hear details that you’ve never heard before. And that’s just music.

The soundtrack and the sound effects on a game aren’t just ear candy the way sound is in a movie or on a CD. Every sound has a meaning – coming from an enemy, the metallic clink of your armor – it can be very exciting if you can really hear everything. Quality gaming headphones will truly place you in the environment.

Of course, when you’re playing, you like to think that nothing really matters as much as winning does. And you don’t put any money into anything that doesn’t help you gain an edgege. Gaming headphones certainly do do that for you.

Game designers always design audible cues to every event. If you can hear your enemy as well as see him, you get better reaction times – two cues to just one. And if you decide to invest in surround gaming headphones, that’s all the better.

They’ll help you place where each sound comes from with even more accuracy. Any opponents you are playing against who don’t enjoy this kind of advantage will be totally outclassed.

And of course, gaming headphones aren’t headphones alone – they are headsets – with a microphone built in. This has to be a much better way to stay in touch with your partners in crime (or heroism, depending on what you’re playing). Having a microphone held right next to your lips by a boom is going to just dramatically improve how audible you get.