How to Record Every Network Show in HDTV

August 22, 2006 at 8:54 pm · in Computing · Comments (1)

With the fall lineup of shows sneaking up on us, I’m shrugging my shoulders with a big so what. All I’m interested in seeing is the next round of Doctor Who and maybe Family Guy. Over at the SnapStream company blog, they have another idea. Zack walks you through the steps required to record every single show on every major network during the season premiere week. Not just every show, but every show in High Definition. With this configuration there’s no chance you’ll get behind on water cooler discussion. Theoretically you could do this with SageTV or the beta version of Windows Media Center as well, although Beyond TV and SageTV have more real world testing with recording HDTV.

How to Maximize Laptop Battery Performance

August 14, 2006 at 1:54 pm · in Computing · Comments

Jeremy Toeman of SlingMedia (you know the Slingbox people) has a great list of tips for extending battery life on your laptop while on a plane or just disconnected from power for an extended period. I got a second battery for my laptop for exactly this reason, but I’ve still managed to run out of juice when I can’t find an outlet during long layovers. The obvious #1 is turn down your screen brightness, but the rest of them are all excellent ways to eek out a few extra minutes of flying time.

One thing Jeremy doesn’t mention (that you should be doing in-flight anyway) is turning off WiFi. If you don’t need it, turn it off. Next to screen brightness it’s the #1 battery drain.

What’s your favorite way to save battery life on a plane or elsewhere?

Found via HSXDunbar

How to Convert DRM Protected Music Files

August 10, 2006 at 11:42 am · in Computing · Comments (2)

There a several methods for stripping DRM from music files purchased through one of the various download music services. This happens to be one of them.

How to Open a Mac mini

August 4, 2006 at 9:21 am · in Computing · Comments

I need to add more RAM to my Mac mini, so this suddenly became an important topic in my world. If you can survive the cheesy branding for FastMac in the first 10 seconds, this video is the best of several I’ve seen on showing you how to safely remove the case so you can access Mac mini internals.

Re-Using Old Computer Parts

August 4, 2006 at 9:11 am · in Computing · Comments (2)

I recently purchased a product called Easy IDE. This is a USB devise that allows you to externally use any IDE device on a computer having USB 2.0 (all Windows XP support this). I found an old computer at the dump and had removed the drives and various other parts. Using Easy IDE I am able to use the recovered 20 gig hard drive as a back-up device on my computer. I can connect any type of IDE disk drive (CD, CDRW, DVD, etc) and use it with my computer as an external devise. Not being a computer “geek”, this product makes me feel like one. I purchased mine through MCM electronics, but I am sure they are available elsewhere.

Note: Easy IDE is available online from Amazon.

How to Use WordPress as a CMS

August 1, 2006 at 5:53 am · in Computing · Comments

This one’s for all the WordPress geeks out there. An ongoing set of tutorials over at http://www.marialanger.com detail how to make WordPress act more like a CMS (content management system). WordPress is the popular blog engine that powers over 111,000,000 blogs, including Lockergnome’s own Doing It, for which anyone can register and contribute.

Part 1: Discovering that WordPress makes a good CMS
Part 2: Finding and modifying just the right theme
Part 3: Planning the site’s organization and creating the pages
Part 4: Category-specific posts in the sidebar

How to Create the Perferct .htaccess File

July 31, 2006 at 4:40 pm · in Computing · Comments

Or how to prevent unwanted scraping of your content. On a Web server, the htaccess file is sort of like a keyless entry system for visitors. With the right credentials, you walk right in. Wrong creditinals, you’re left standing on the porch waiting for someone to answer the door. That’s not exactly a perfect analogy, but that’s sort of how it works. Good sites, like Google want to search your server for pages to index. Bad sites might want to summarily scrape your content for a spamblog. Using an htaccess file, you tell these visitors whether they can pay you a visit or whether they get kicked to the curb. While the scraping tools are constantly a moving target, JavaScript Kit provides something close to a perfect resource (for now) on building an htaccess file to defend your site by blocking bad bots and site rippers.

How to Publish iCal Calendars without .Mac

July 29, 2006 at 1:53 pm · in Office Productivity, Computing · Comments

Apple offers an awesome calendar sharing feature as part of the OS X Calendar app, but it requires a .Mac account or some other WebDAV enabled server to make it work. Unless you’re an ubergeek, setting up WebDAV is really tricky. System Boy found a slick solution for sharing iCal calendars online without the hassle of configuring WebDAV or the fees of a .Mac account. You do need to sign up for a free Box.net account to get on the iCal bus, but that’s a minor inconvenience for major calendar accessibility. System Boy offers detailed instructions on publishing iCal without .Mac.

How to Wire Your Own Ethernet Cable

July 29, 2006 at 1:25 pm · in Home Improvement, Computing · Comments

If you plan on wiring your house with CAT-5 or CAT-6, knowing how the wires work is a necessity. Without proper pinouts on the connectors, you get nothing but Local Network Connection Unavailable balloons from the Windows system tray. Along with proper tools, like a cable crimper, wire cutters and a mountain of patience, a configuration diagram will save you hours of troubleshooting later on. Follow the Internet Centre tips on wiring Ethernet cable to avoid frustration and acheive maximum throughput.