Archive for March, 2010
Western Digital's Wdtv – A Must Have For Portable Audio/video
When I bought the WDTV I was excited for the ability to watch digital video, listen to MP3s or play slideshows of photos on my computer. The WDTV eliminates the need to plug your computer in to the television. Prior to buying the convenient WDTV unit, I struggled with separate connections for audio and video, namely with s-video connections requiring an additional cable from my computer to the stereo. Well the WDTV eliminated the need for this.
The WDTV unit has two USB ports, rca video out and a HDMI out. Furthermore, it has an output for DTS. So very small in size, you can easily take it to a friends house to share videos and photos. Buy in conjunction with the portable Passport drive by Western Digital and you can take hundreds of gigabytes of media with you on the go. So small it can fit in a purse.
The unit comes with a small remote control. The interface is clean and to the point. You can easily browse between audio, video and photos. If your media has the accompanying data like title, artist or album you can easily sort and find the media you need. Furthermore, you can view folders either by the basic folder structure or you can set up playlists. The interface is very easy to use. During video play, there is a menu at the top you can access to turn on and off subtitles, zoom in or zoom out, or pause the movie. Furthermore, if you stop a video in the middle the WDTV player will ask if you want to start from the beginning, or continue from where you left off when you go to replay the video.
iPhone Gaming : My Game Engine of Choice
I used to own many game consoles as I was young. The game boy, the nintendo, and you can go old as you can go, I have it.But when I grew older, I slowly realized that gaming with all those big cartridges may not suit me, so it kept the gamers gaming spirit suppressed inside.
Then born was the PSP’s, the Nintendo DS, and other portable gaming consoles that went popular with all those cool graphics and great games of every genre. From racing to RPG, to more casual games when you just want to “kill time” while waiting in line or something like that.
It sure made some high hopes for me, because I can bring my gaming experience anywhere and do it when I choose, but there is another tiny dilemma, working in the corporate world, don’t you think its a turn off seeing a grown man working with a PSP in hand? Well, in my opinion at least, I was not comfortable with the thought.
I wanted something discreet, yet it could deliver the gaming experience I always wanted, the great graphics, the gameplay, and the gamer inside of me could be unleashed.
The iPhone, ah, the sheer genius of Macintosh, isn’t it? A great company creating a hip phone with all the cool graphics and interface built in a pocket size mobile phone.
The news broke out that iPhone was made, and there was a “sub-world” if I may call it, iPhone gaming. Because of the great hardware Mac created with the iPhone, applications did not only came in calculators or the default games like Snake, but it created a whole new opportunity to enjoy gaming even in a mobile phone such as the iPhone.
Wireless Technology for Home Or Work
10 years ago the Internet was quite uncommon. Today the Internet has become a vital part of our lives, work, economy and study. The same can be said for wireless technology. 5 years ago virtually non-existent, today your WIFI finder goes crazy with all the available wireless networks. I find it perfectly normal now to go and sit outside on my terrace and wirelessly surf the Internet. And WIFI technology is not just limited to connect computers to each other or the Internet.
A whole range of utilities and gadgets are jumping on the WIFI train. You can have a baby phone camera system that uses your home WIFI network to transmit the images & audio from the camera to your Computer or PocketPC. Or what about the WIFI rabbit? It is a toy rabbit that is permanently connected to the Internet. You can talk to it, giving it commands. It can talk too and Alert for incoming emails, SMS, phone, etc. You can have it read out your email, the weather, information of the stock market and so on.
One of the coolest applications of WIFI is IMHO the airport express access point from Apple. It is a wireless access point, effectively creating a wireless network. It has a USB port so you can connect a printer to it and print wireless. But the absolute coolest thing about it is it’s mini jack audio port. Here you can connect any speaker system or HIFI equipment. So basically for €129 you can have a WIFI network that can print without cables and you can play your music wireless, without cables! And that is not all. With the latest version of iTunes you can now use multi speakers. That basically means that you can connect various Airport Expresses together and have the music come out all of them simultaneously. At home I know have music coming out of the living room, bedroom, office and kitchen all at once!