Tech Olive

One weekend project I had recently completed was connecting a family member’s computer to a television in another room. While this sounds dead easy at first, there were some problems with the particular setup that I was dealing with. First and foremost, this is a standard-def television that has limited connections and the PC doesn’t have S-Video, so it’s not as easy as just slapping on an S-Video cable and calling it a day. Also, the setup that I use must be simple. While I’m technically capable, said family member is not. So, I can’t do anything too complex. Join me after the break for a quick tutorial on getting your computer connected to a TV, despite there being several blocks in the road.

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It’s very apparent that netbooks are known for not being all that powerful. They’re great for portability, checking your email and surfing the web, but when it comes to heavy information processing like playing HD video, you’ll have to look elsewhere…or do you?

One of the biggest cons with my netbook was that it would barely play my HD collection, but I discovered a way to fix this problem by using the ever-diverse (and my favorite) Media Player Classic and the CoreAVC codec. CoreAVC is known as one of the fastest software decoders out there, and when it’s coupled with Media Player Classic, you get the ultimate video player for your netbook. Mind you, CoreAVC will cost you $10, but there’s also “other ways” to get it, of course.

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Netbooks — as convenient as they are — lack a bit in the performance category, but that doesn’t mean you have to settle for less in productivity and overall experience. You can get a lot of power out of your netbook by utilizing these five applications. The best part? They’re all completely free.

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The boys over at Lifehacker have rounded up the best tips, tricks, hints and hacks of photography for this past year. Everything from simple tips to better lighting all the way to DIY tilt-shift and macro lenses, but our favorite one has to be the DIY flash diffuser made from an empty cigarette packet. Hit up the link below to see all the cool hacks.

[Lifehacker]

Image Credit: mariczka

I’m sure most of us are all familiar with the BitTorrent system. If not, then you’ve at least heard about it. Maximum PC fabricated an excellent guide for BitTorrenters just getting started (and maybe even for those that have been in the works for a while). Nonetheless, this 8-page guide shows you how to get the most out of your torrenting experience.

[Maximum PC]

A couple of months ago I decided to connect my business fan page on Facebook to my Twitter feed, since it would be easy and pain-free to only update one social networking site, while the others were updated automatically.

It turns out that whenever I update my Facebook fan page, it updates Twitter, but adds a link back to Facebook with the exact same thing, thus making the link quite worthless. I decided to just unlink Facebook and Twitter, but for some reason, Facebook makes it hard to do that, so I’m spreading the love of my discovery.

To unlink your Facebook fan page from your Twitter feed:

1. When logged into Facebook, go to http://www.facebook.com/twitter/.

2. Click “Unlink from Twitter”

Simple to do, hard to find!

I’m pleased to present a 24 minute video to help beginners start out in programming in C# and XNA game studio. If you’ve never written a line of code, hopefully this will inspire you to start. If you’re programming, but never used XNA, let this be your push. If you produced the next Halo and are currently working on Crysis 3, well this might not be for you, unless you have 20 minutes to do nothing but listen to my sweet sweet voice over the world’s worst microphone. Enjoy the video after the break.

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To celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day, we thought you might benefit from this little trick. You can change your Facebook language into pirate talk. The feature has been around for some time now, but it’s very noteworthy on these kinds of days.

To change the language to pirate speak, just scroll down all the way to the bottom of the home page and click on English (US) (or whatever language you currently use) on the left side. Then select English (Pirate). This only works for the English language though. Sorry foreigners.

[Thanks, Lucas]

If you’ve been following me on Twitter (which you should), then you’ll know that a few weeks ago I tried my hands at installing Mac OS X on my HP laptop. To a certain extent, I was successful, but had numerous issues once I booted to the desktop such as no wireless, no proper resolutions and my touchpad wouldn’t fully work. I had solutions for all these problems, but I decided that it was more trouble than it was worth, so I did what any unmotivated geek would do and simply gave up.

After finding out that Mac OS X hated me and I it, I felt that I should still search for a project to do with my laptop. So I decided to see if I could rid my HP device of evil spirits Windows Vista and run XP on it instead. This would make both my laptop and I extremely happy.

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I love to see pictures that others have taken, be it of a portrait or just an object. It’s sad however, to see this beautiful shot ruined because of a spare sock in the background or incorrect lighting. We can eliminate both of these problems with a quick and easy photo booth. You can spend hundreds of dollars on photo paper, reflection glass and prop boxes or you can easily find them around your house – a white bed spread, 5-inch square piece of plexan, and cardboard!

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