How To

Making the Most of Chrome in the Cloud
April 05, 2012

I've got a mini-laptop hooked up to my TV, a larger laptop on my desk, a 7-inch tablet in my back pocket for reading at coffee shops, a 10-incher that floats around the loft and rarely goes outside, and a 4.3-inch smartphone that works well on crowded transportation systems -- all lacking in synchronicity.

How to Overclock a CPU: Getting Started
March 29, 2012

Overclocking a CPU sounds seductive, right? Adjust a few settings on your phone or tablet, and the device goes faster. Games play without laborious, stuttering, forced slow-motion effects, and everything loads quicker. Well, like everything in life, these adjustments involve a tradeoff. Just as there are risks in taking your car out for a rural run and heavy-footing it, there are implications for a CPU speedup.

Taming That Spaghetti of Wires Taking Over Your Home
March 22, 2012

New home construction and remodeling projects, from a multimedia wiring angle, have the advantage of incorporating cable management at the design stage. That design is structured into the build. Unfortunately, existing homes don't have this luxury -- tearing into walls is disruptive and expensive.

And Now for Something Completely Different: Taking the Windows 8 Plunge
March 16, 2012

Microsoft has made available a consumer preview version of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system that you can try out. The OS caught my eye because the tile-like user interface appears radically different from the boring old reiterations of Windows 3.1 -- with minor tweaks that irritatingly require getting used to after every upgrade. This looks like it's worth it.

Diving Into GIS: A Starter Guide
March 08, 2012

If you were looking at television weather maps during last week's U.S. tornado activity, you were looking at a GIS, or Geographic Information System. Those red and purple splotches racing across the screen represented intensity levels of rotating storm cells. The map itself, the county lines, and the splotches were all data layer elements making up the map.

Bluetooth Is Not Just for Headsets
March 01, 2012

With cable-and-wire spaghetti proliferating in and around our homes and offices, threatening to consume our devices and us in the end, it may be time to take a look at Bluetooth wireless technology. Headsets protruding awkwardly from an ear is the typical Bluetooth image that comes to mind. However, there are other common wire-reducing applications, like file transfer and music distribution.

Tube Tweeting: How to Use Twitter When Watching TV
February 23, 2012

If you think of some of the more recent significant developments in television viewing, you'll probably come up with a list that includes the digital video recorder, which provides easy time-shifting without lossy tape; the flat-screen, high-definition television, which provides high-quality images as well as space-saving and eco-advantages over the bulky old cathode ray tube; and rampant cord-cutting.

Widening Your WiFi Network's Range
February 16, 2012

If you've followed the advice in my article, "How to Improve Your Video-Streaming Clarity," and can't use a Cat 5e or greater specification wired-solution for your network, you may be running into straightforward environmental limitations. The microwave just isn't getting from point A to point B and back again.

Mounting a Tablet in Your Vehicle's Front Seat
February 09, 2012

Factory-supplied satellite navigation and entertainment systems can add thousands to the cost of a new vehicle. Plus, the speed at which consumer electronics come to market is significantly faster than a car's development cycle, so your in-vehicle equipment is outdated before the car leaves the new car lot. Even an aftermarket OEM kit is in the thousands.

Setting Up a Virtual Phone System With a Little Help From Some Friends
February 02, 2012

Twilio's cloud-based communications platform allows anyone with rudimentary Web-development knowledge to build a voice and SMS text application. An API, client, and various XML and other helper code is available that lets you build in PHP, C# and more. Applications can include transcription, conferencing, voice calls confirming orders, appointment reminders, customer support and so on.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Slinging
January 26, 2012

Slingbox lets you watch your television remotely. The Slingbox hardware device captures the source image and audio at your home and squirts it into the Internet. Proprietary software is used to replicate a television-like experience on laptops or other devices like smartphones.

Tapping Your Smartphone's Processing Power for Classic Photography
January 19, 2012

The stumbling-block to using a phone as an all-in-one solution for photography is basically that the lenses aren't as good as those on any dedicated camera. While you would expect a DSLR camera to sport a better lens, even the most basic, sub-hundred-dollar point-and-shoots have higher quality glass than the best phones.

Updating the ROM in Your Mobile Device
January 12, 2012

Remember this: The phone or tablet you purchased is yours. It does not belong to the carrier that you bought it from despite the fact that the device is emblazoned with its corporate identity, logo or splash screen. This outright ownership you have in the device means that you can do pretty much whatever you like with it once you've walked out of the store.

Making VoIP Calls With Your Android Phone
January 05, 2012

If you live or work in an area with marginal cell service and want to use your Android smartphone to make and receive voice calls, you can. The key is to piggyback on an Internet connection at your location using the Internet bandwidth there to carry your voice traffic. This method of calling works using VoIP technology -- a form of calling over computer networks without traditional telephone copper wire.

Getting Your Video Game Fix Without a Console
December 22, 2011

Are we about to see the demise of the game console? It's hard to believe the days of Sony's ubiquitous PlayStation system, introduced in 1994 -- or even those of the Xbox -- may be numbered. But with changing delivery systems, the spreading cloud, and processor advances, those PlayStations and Wiis may be going the way of the Walkman.

Hacking the Google TV Box Without Rooting It, Part 3
December 16, 2011

Last month, I succumbed to a peculiar urge to go out to my local, friendly big-box consumer electronics retailer and drop almost a hundred dollars on a product that had been panned by the critics on launch, had a dubious life expectancy because of that, and had been almost universally rejected by the TV networks and their agents -- Hulu, for one.

Tracking Friends and Family on the Legit
December 15, 2011

Facebook's recent acquisition of location-tracker heavyweight Gowalla is an indicator of the potential strategic importance of location-tracking technology in the social network arena. Players in this marketplace include Gowalla, which lets users share favorite places with fellow Facebook and Twitter friends and then be rewarded with deals from local businesses, and Foursquare, which offers similar functions.

Tapping Your Smartphone to Stay Fit
December 08, 2011

One of the most-used leisure-oriented apps on my Android smartphones has been Google's free My Tracks. The app brilliantly measures data related to hikes and bike rides via the GPS radio. It tracks distance, speed, time, elevation, grade and so on. Pressing "Start" when setting off, and remembering to press "Stop" when ending ultimately creates a library of pretty useless statistics that I can't stop collecting.

Keeping Your Devices Powered While on the Road
December 01, 2011

Think of the devices that have been made redundant by smartphones: landline phone, laptop computer, GPS receiver, map, compass, flashlight, still camera, video camera, gaming console, calculator, wristwatch, electronic photo frame, newspaper, magazine, book, radio, weather radio, police scanner, MP3 player, television, home entertainment system remote control, main street bank, tape measure, bubble level, and coming up, your wallet.

How to Lock Down Your Laptop While on the Road
November 17, 2011

Losing a laptop may be less painful now than it used to be because the cost of replacing the physical device has trickled downward recently. You can now pick up a decent workhorse for three or four hundred dollars at a big-box retailer. Big deal if you lose it. What hasn't become less valuable, though, is the data held within.