How to Mirror Your iPad Display to Your HDTV

The iPad's king-size display is great for watching a movie by yourself, but it's not so great for group screenings. Fortunately, getting it working with the HDTV in your living room for impromptu movie nights, vacation photo slideshows, or YouTube viral video marathons isn't difficult. Depending on your needs and preferred uses, you'll be working either with a wired adapter (HDMI, VGA, or Composite video) or with an Apple TV and AirPlay--we'll walk you through both methods in this article.

How to Make Your Own Network Cables

Although it’s easy to head to the electronics store to buy network cables, making do with cables of predetermined lengths can be a problem. More often than not, premade cables are either too short (and require coupling) or too long (in which case, you have to tie up excess cabling and tuck it away somewhere). The end result is usually a mess of extra network cable, wrapped and bundled up alongside your devices and network switches. It works, but it isn't ideal, and it looks horrible.

You don't have to deal with premade network cables of incorrect lengths, however. Creating your own custom-length network cables is quite easy once you have the know-how and the right tools. Making network cables takes just a little cutting and crimping, plus a bit of wire arranging. Here's how to do it.

How to Install Ice Cream Sandwich on Your Kindle Fire

With a vibrant 7-inch IPS display and a 1GHz dual-core processor, the $199 Kindle Fire can make for one lovely tablet. With a bit of work--but no hardware modifications--you can set up Android 4.0 on your Kindle Fire and thenceforth use the device as a powerful general-purpose tablet despite its incredibly low price.

Email, games, Web browsing (with Chrome for Android or any other browser)--the Kindle Fire can do it all.

Should I Update My BIOS?

Rohkai asked the Answer Line forum if a PC's BIOS, like an operating system or an antivirus, should be kept up to date.

You should update several programs on your hard drive regularly, usually for security reasons. Many of them, including your antivirus and Windows itself, probably update automatically. (For questions about automatically updating Windows, see Should I Turn Off Automatic Updates?)

But the BIOS is different. It's not even on the hard drive. And you should only update it with good reason.
Unlike other programs, the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) sits on a chip on the motherboard, and is the first code to run when you boot your PC. It tells the processor where to look for the operating system. It continues working after the bootup, facilitating communication between the OS and the hardware.

Turn Your Old iPad into a Dedicated E-Reader

Editor’s Note: If you’re planning to replace your old iPad with a shiny, new third-generation iPad, you don’t necessarily have to sell your old tablet or give it away. This is the latest in a series of articles in which we look at ways to give your old iPad a new purpose. In this installment, we focus on converting your old iPad into a dedicated e-reader.

Turning an iPad into a one-trick e-reading pony may seem counter-intuitive. After all, your iPad can take on lots of tasks from surfing the Web to marshaling an army of angry birds. Why limit yourself to just one task, even if that task is as pleasurable as sitting down with a good book?

Two More Alternatives to Your iGoogle Home Page

Last week I told you about the impending demise of iGoogle -- and suggested three iGoogle alternatives. The response was great, with many readers sharing my dismay over Google's decision and others offering their own recommendations for replacements.

With that in mind, I thought I'd share two more home-page options worth considering. One comes pretty close to replicating the iGoogle experience, while the other takes a totally different tack.

16 PC Mysteries Solved!

Why does my Windows desktop look weird on my HDTV?
It can be terribly frustrating to run a cable from a good HDTV to a PC graphics board and get skewed proportions, faded colors, and slightly blurry images.

Your HDTV might not perform well as a monitor for several reasons. First, many HDTVs aren't designed to display fine details (such as text and lines) at close distances, but to display smooth motion and vibrant colors from distances of up to 5 feet away. Some HDTVs are configurable for use as PC monitors, however, so check to see whether your HDTV has an 'Alternate Monitor' display setting, or something similar.

Sync Mail, Contacts, Calendar with Your iOS Device

SuPaw asked the Networking forum how best to sync multiple email accounts, plus contacts and a calendar, so that it's all accessible on both a Windows PC and an iPad.
A lot of this depends on what email service and/or local email client software, and what calendar program, you're using. I'm going to concentrate here on Gmail, because many people use it, you can easily channel multiple email accounts through it, and, since it's cloud-based, syncing comes naturally (well, sometimes).
I'm also assuming here that you're using Google Calendar.

View Only Your (Important) Unread Messages in Gmail

A couple months back I wrote about how to filter your Gmail inbox so it shows only unread messages.
A while later, reader Patrick wrote to ask if one could further filter the inbox to show only those unread messages marked as "important."
Yes. Yes, there is. I know this because Patrick followed up a day later with the solution. (I love it when readers do my job for me. The rest of you are slackers.)

Access Your Gmail Contacts Offline

Robert Conner keeps his friends' phone numbers and snailmail addresses in Gmail. He asked me how he can access this information offline.
The trick is to sync Gmail's contacts with another contact manager--one that stores its information locally. Not surprisingly, this is a no-brainer on an Android device. You just give the phone or tablet your Gmail account name and password, and it syncs.
It's also reasonably easy on an iOS device, such as an iPad--once you know the not-very-obvious trick. You can learn that trick at Sync Mail, Contacts, Calendar with Your iOS Device.

Windows Icons Suddenly Looking Generic? Here's the Fix

Reader Barry is running Windows 7 Professional. Out of the blue, his system started displaying generic icons for various files and folders.

Thankfully, he was kind enough to include a screenshot, which is invaluable in troubleshooting problems like this:

Although some icons are still rendering correctly, like those representing Windows' Libraries, others -- for things like drives and documents -- obviously aren't right.

What's the problem? Most likely, Windows' icon cache has somehow gotten corrupted.

What's the solution? You can fix this with a series of command-line instructions, but over at The Windows Club, there's a simple batch file that automatically rebuilds the Windows icon cache.

Word of warning: that page is rife with ads, making it darn near impossible to know where to click to actually download the utility. In fact, be sure not to click the big blue Download button. The one you do want to click looks like this:

Once you've unzipped and run the file, it couldn't be easier to use:

Just click Rebuild, wait for the tool to finish, then reboot. All your icons should be back to normal.
View the original article here

Create Beautiful Star-Trail Photos With Almost Any Camera

If you're a space geek like me, you know that this has been a great season. Not only did we get to witness the extraordinary transit of Venus across the sun in June, but we also enjoyed a spectacular annular solar eclipse in May. And more recently, NASA announced that one of the Voyager probes has finally left the solar system for interstellar space.
Such events turn my attention to astrophotography. Some time ago, I told you how to shoot the moon, and I've also explained the basics of shooting star trails by using very long exposures. This week, I'll focus on shooting star trails by taking lots of relatively short exposures and then combining the results.

Tablet Encryption 101

Today’s workplace is becoming increasingly agreeable to the BYOD (bring your own device) concept: Employers are finally giving the green light for staffers to use their own equipment for work while they're at the office. For businesses, it's cheaper to let employees bring in their own laptops, smartphones, or tablets, since that cuts down on the need to purchase hardware (though not on the need to support it). Regardless, businesses seem to have little choice in the matter, since many employees are bringing their devices in whether they have permission or not--and some people are knowingly breaking the company’s security policy in doing so.

If you want to bring your own Android or iOS tablet to work, you should consider a couple of factors before taking the plunge. First, in some respects you lose ownership of your device once you commit to using it at work and keeping potentially sensitive data on it. Corporate intellectual property or client data is extremely valuable to your employer, and as such you lose certain freedoms regarding any device that contains that information. Mishandle that information, and you might lose your job.

Mengubah Nilai Rating System (Windows Experience Index) Pada Windows 7

Pada tutorial sebelumnya telah saya jelaskan mengenai cara mengubah Base Score pada Windows Vista. Sekarang kita akan mencoba cara yang sama untuk Rating System pada Windows 7.
Apa itu Rating System ? Rating System adalah nilai kinerja dari keseluruhan hardware pada komputer yang menggunakan system operasi Windows 7, atau yang di sebut "Windows Experience Index"(WEI). Standar nilai dihitung dengan melakukan test benchmark secara keseluruhan terhadap CPU, RAM, Graphics Video, Hard Disk, Kecepatan Transfer data dan beberapa hal lain yang menyangkut kinerja hardware. Skor yang didapat dari setiap komponen dikumpulkan menjadi satu dan kemudian digabung menjadi skor utama dari Windows Experience Index.

What Should I Choose...Python 2 or Python 3 ?

At the time of writing (June 24, 2010), both are still under development. There’s at least one more 2.x release planned (2.7), but the 2.x branch probably won’t see any new major releases after that. 3.x is under active and continued development.

3.x is the newest branch of Python. People decided to clean up Python 2.x properly, with less regard for backwards compatibility than new releases in the 2.x range. Nick Efford has a nice writeup about why you might like Python 3.x as a language here: http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/nde/papers/teachpy3.html

Python has amassed a pretty big amount of quality software over the years. The downside of breaking backwards compatibility in 3.x is that a lot of that software doesn’t work on 3.x (yet).

Configure Windows XP Professional to be a VPN server

For the Small Office/Home Office (SOHO), Windows XP Professional VPN features are a real boon.
Traveling users with laptops or handheld computers will inevitably want files on the home network; you just can't bring everything with you. This is where the beauty of the Windows XP Professional computer connected to an always-on connection, such as DSL or cable modem, shines. That always-on link can be used to accept incoming VPN connections and allow your mobile users to access shared folders and files on your private network.
In this article, I’ll explain how to configure a Windows XP Professional computer to accept incoming VPN connections and discuss some tips on improving the remote access experience for the VPN client computer user.

Download Facebook Photo Album Dalam Bentuk PDF & Zip

Berbagi foto di situs jaringan sosial adalah cara terbaik untuk menjaga hubungan dengan teman-teman, kerabat jauh, kenalan, dan rekan-rekan anda. Facebook sebagai platform yang paling diminati dan jaringan sosial terkemuka tidak memiliki opsi untuk langsung mendownload album secara lengkap. PicknZip adalah sebuah tool untuk para pengguna yang menghabiskan banyak waktu dalam menjelajahi seluruh album foto dan gambar lainnya di Facebook dan men-downloadnya secara manual. Hal ini juga memungkinkan para pengguna men-download gambar mereka yang telah ditandai dan juga galeri foto teman-teman mereka langsung dalam bentuk Zip dan PDF.

Apakah Handphone Nokia Anda Original ?

Apakah ponsel Nokia anda asli ?
Nokia adalah salah satu produsen ponsel terbesar di seluruh dunia. Sebagian besar dari kita memiliki ponsel Nokia tetapi tidak menyadari keorisinalitasnya. Apakah anda tertarik untuk mengetahui apakah ponsel Nokia anda asli atau tidak? berarti anda berada di tempat yang tepat dan informasi ini secara khusus dimaksudkan untuk anda. Nomor IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) dari ponsel anda dapat digunakan untuk mengkonfirmasi keaslian ponsel anda.