Frame9 » Computing

Better Video Game Storage Solutions

admin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:57:06 +0000

Some things never change. For once, I still love to play video games, even though I started back in the days of the Atari 2600. Part of me is still the passionate kid who loved nothing more than a trip to the arcade on Saturday nights, even though I’m over 30 years old now. Another thing that hasn’t changed much is that I can be careless about my video game storage. But now I’m taking it more seriously because of course, my parents aren’t buying my games for me.

So in this article I’ll be laying out a couple of storage methods that have worked quite well for me, once I can get myself in the habit of putting my games away as soon as I play them.

Cartridges or discs?

Here is the first question to ask yourself. Are the majority of your games on cartridges or discs? If you’re a retro gamer–think of the Nintendo 64 and its Sega equivalent back to the Atari and Colecovision–then you have cartridges. They have their charm, but they also have their downsides when it comes to storing the games safely. The major drawback is that the bottom of the games is open, exposed to the air. I have never met a kid who owned a Nintendo Entertainment System who didn’t have to spend some time blowing into the cartridges to clean them off before they would work.

So, if you have any cartridges, I recommend putting them in a video game storage cupboard with drawers or a lid that can be closed. This is not going to be a hermetic seal, but it’s better than having them stacked on a piece of furniture where dust can get into them and careless feet can trample them.

If you have discs and you’re okay with putting them back into their cases when you finish playing, the same storage cabinet you are using for your game cartridges is probably going to be sufficient. But if you like to have the discs out of the cases, I would recommend buying a three ring binder with sleeves to hold your games on disc. You probably used something similar to store your music in back in the days before the iPod.

Discs or cartridges, racks or binders, the only other recommendations I have are:

1. Mind the temperature. You don’t need to construct a climate-controlled lab to stores videos games in, but do not store in places that are obviously hotter or cooler than the rest of your home.

2. Get enough storage space the first time if possible. If you’re a gamer, you probably already know the next three video games you want to buy. Expect that pattern to continue and plan your storage units accordingly.

Treat your games right and they will never be a waste of your money. Your time, maybe…but you won’t wind up buying a bunch of games that quit working before you’ve gotten your money’s worth.

Travel Printers – An Indispensable Tool for Living and Working On-The-Go

admin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 06:03:04 +0000

People are trying to find means of coping with their increasing responsibilities. They are constantly on the lookout for things that would better equip them with the necessary edge to accomplish everything that needs to be done. Consequently, manufacturers have made it a point to provide products that better address the demands of those who lead hectic lifestyles.

Travel printers, for instance, have proven their worth to those who are always up and about. These kinds of hardware provide great convenience because of being lightweight but still possessing the same features that ordinary printers have. What’s more, purchasing the said products is made even easier through online stores such as amazon.com. An added bonus is that you get to see product reviews as well as compare one product from other goods in the market. Currently, Hewlett-Packard’s Officejet H470 Mobile Printer holds the top place among all compact printers. A look at its features would answer any doubts on why this brand comes first in line. Along with the usual Bluetooth and USB connection, the Officejet H470’s Wi-Fi capability makes wireless printing more convenient than ever. In the absence of an electrical supply, the battery or the car power adapter may be utilized. Its appearance is also pleasing to the eyes because of its sleek design and rounded contours. Prints are also of great quality and are produced at high-speed.

Not to be left behind is Canon’s PIXMA iP90 Photo Inkjet Printer and PIXMA iP100 Mobile Photo Printer. Like the HP Officejet H470, these printers are equipped with Bluetooth and USB connectivity. The main difference between the two brands is that Canon has infrared while HP has Wi-Fi. For both Canon printers, consumers have the choice of purchasing add-ons to facilitate greater mobility such as the long-life battery and the car power adapter. The PIXMA iP100 is a cut above the others due to its superb print resolution, beating the other brands and models.

People mainly buy products that are popular and well-advertised. Before splurging on an item, such as a travel printer, do make sure that you have evaluated its features. By doing so, you do not only ensure the quality of the gadget but you are also certain that it will be able to meet your needs.

Do Touch Screen Laptops Work Well?

admin — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:18:02 +0000

If you follow advances in technology at all you probably know that touchscreen laptops are becoming very popular these days. There are two types of people when it comes to people who buy electronic devices. There are the people who want to have the latest and greatest toys just as soon as they come out and there are the type of people who would rather wait a little while to make sure that the technology has all of the bugs worked out of it before they make their purchase.

Many people wonder if touch screen laptops are any good or if they’re just a gimmick that will take quite some time before the technology is actually worth using. I can tell you that I have tried several touch screen laptops and from my experience the technology works great.

There are two types of touch screen laptops that you should consider when making your purchasing decisions. One is designed with a passive digitizer touch screen and the other one is designed with an active digitizer touchscreen. What is the difference, you might ask? Well, an active digitizer touch screen requires that you use an electronic stylus. Touch screen laptops with active digitizer touch screens do not recognize touch input from the human finger.

If you want a touch screen laptop that will recognize the touch from your finger, you should buy a touch screen laptop with a passive digitizer touch screen. Passive digitizer touch screens will support multi touch functionality which is very popular because this is the same way that the touch screens on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the new iPad work.

Both types of touch screens work well and have their place. If you’re wondering how to make the decision on which type of touch screen to buy, let me give you a little tip. If you plan on using your touch screen laptop for handwriting recognition to convert your handwriting into text, you definitely want to buy a touch screen laptop with an active digitizer. A passive digitizer touch screen will recognize input from your finger, the stylus, or even the palm of your hand rubbing on the screen as you write. This may cause many errors that you would get frustrated with quite soon.

Where to Place Google Adsense Ads

admin — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 02:22:05 +0000

There many different programs to use when trying to come up with ways to help generate revenue for your niche websites. While people may like to try two or three different programs on their site, the clear winner time after time is the Google Adsense program. The program costs no money to join, it is simple as pie to set up and there are some great tolls that come with it to help you better understand your customers.

Once you are in the program, the challenge then becomes trying to determine where to place the ads on the site and what size and color that you are going to use. You will be surprised to see when you do some testing how much tweaking a color to changing an ad size or position will have on your CTR, or click-through rate.

If you are just getting started with your first website and are unsure where to place the ads, Google has made it easy by creating a heat map for Adsense which shows the areas of the web page that tend to get the most clicks. In general, the best places to place the ads are just above either the content or the post title. You just have to be careful if you go the route of the ad under the title that the title is not worded in such a way that people are going to click the ads, which is in violation of the Adsense TOS policy. If you do place it under the title, make sure there is a line of text under the title that say either posted by, or has the date timestamp. If you have neither of these things, you could simply ad a piece of code that says Advertisements or Sponsored By so there s a break between the title and the ad.

Other parts of the website page to optimize include the left sidebar, the area underneath the header navigation or at the bottom of the page above the footer. Most people when they view the web page read it like a book, going left to right and top to bottom so it makes sense that is how the heat map matches up.

When it comes to picking colors, one camp of people will tell you to stick with the standard colors because those are the ads the people are used to seeing, blue with the url in green. Others will tell you to match the color off your ads to the site to it all blends in and looks like a nice uniform page. There really is no right answer, when in doubt, just ABT, or always be testing. Changing after every 1,000 or so page impressions will give you a good idea of what type of ad size or placement works best in terms of generating clicks for you.

Once you have the ads set up but are seeing very few clicks, it could mean you are just not getting enough traffic to your site. An easy way to get people coming to your site is by using an article directory or free article directory to post interesting articles with links that will point back to your pages. This will help to get additional visitors as well as help to boost your Page Rank over time as well.

Choosing A New Vsmile Games

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:19:03 +0000

Vsmile games are nothing but ROM cartridges that contains the memory for games and activities, formally known to be “Smartridges” in the Vtech world. The adventure games in the vsmile franchise would only work along with Vsmile Learning System, an educational game system designed by Vtech. The whole learning system acts like a wired gaming console, plugged with smartridges to work. As there are wide array of smartridges available in the market today, and it is possible to find them in a variety of places. These smartridges are also classified according to age appropriate groups, so that both kids and parents would have a pretty idea which one is the most enjoyable for the other.

As a parent, choosing a set of vsmile games can be quite challenging, because that means you have to delve deeper into the interest of your own child and also appropriate the game according to his or her age. Some of these gaming cartridges are best for toddlers as young as 3 years old while others are so highly developed in graphics details they are made exclusively for children of 9 years of age. The type of games that you will buy for your child is a vital component of the whole gaming and learning experience. It is something that parents should not take for granted. Having witness what interest your child and what ticks him off, it is recommended to base your choice based on what fits him the most. If he loves games that involve strategic thinking, then there are certainly lots of options to choose from. If you want to focus on a specific skill that he needed to explore (for example, math skills) then there are also a myriad of choices to explore.

Young children playing the vsmile learning systems have been known to develop the cognitive aspects of their brains – which is helpful in the least because this is the part responsible for problem solving, reasoning and analyzing things. In other words, this educational interactive system is gaining popularity simply because it has a purpose to enhance the child’s ability to interact with his brain. In addition, learning concepts and basic education ideas in the areas of English, reading, math, music and in any academic subject is brought into the fore for the child to explore. Yet as parents it is important to note that the advantages and the benefits of a vsmile game and the vsmile learning system go beyond the its design interface and its gaming features – still, parental supervision still would be quite helpful in as much as any other educational toy can give. Just always put into careful consideration that choosing the appropriate vsmile learning game for your child is as important as spending quality time with your child from time to time.

Xbox Kinect Games And The New Kinect Peripheral for XBox

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:54:05 +0000

The moment movie games succeeded in infiltrating our society, lots of parents are finding it extremely hard to control there children insatiable appetite for playing games, also accusing them of allowing the trends to occupy there valuable time. Nevertheless, in some decades back, this matter took another serious dimension, the introduction dance revolution took the scene like a thunderbolt, kiddies arena, cafes and shopping malls are affected by the sudden turnout of events and a number of people began giving the video game a praise for weight-loss. In addition, an additional invention known as Nintendo Wii, added another color to this notion by inculcating body movements to its major inventions and also the concepts of Wii – mote and Wii fit adds more popularity to Wii and an idea of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 came into existence. Finally, Microsoft arrived with another edition referred to as XBox Kinect games.

Kinect functions similarly like “eye toy” designed formally for use in Sony PlayStation. You can imagine a web camera that inculcates your actions to the game that that you are seriously involved with, it is really a game that removes the ideas of working with a remote control or standing atop a board, your body movements are recorded and they are mimicked immediately in the game. For example, the game of football which you play on your Xbox Kinect cannot be different from what you are expected to play while on a football pitch. Whenever you tried kicking the ball, the game player will record exactly your actions. Subsequently, this is a concepts which has taken away inconveniences that are linked with working with remote control

Other benefit attached to using Xbox Kinect is that it has the benefits of recognising your voices for films and games, the game can be paused by just say the word “Xbox pause” or resumes the game by saying “Xbox Play”, these are combined with other essential features. Though, these features may appear quite irrelevant but they are useful in any emergency condition. For example, you can imagine yourself deeply busy with Kinect games without the remote control in site and your mobile phone rang suddenly – just say the word and every thing will probably be normalised. It is a convenient another way of going round without using the remote.

Lastly, Kinect games for Xbox Kinect has been touted as a fantastic device that will never fail to thrill its numerous users by its interesting features that includes cardio vascular exercises and lots of comforts to home entertainment skills.

Get Comfy with HP Deskjet F380

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:56:16 +0000

There are three important elements that are required in most jobs: time management, efficiency, and quality. Such elements are not limited to people; but extend to machines and gadgets, too. Such electronic gadgets as notebooks, laptops, cameras, mobile phones, and printers, now have at most three features packed into one. Such features vary depending on the lifestyle and needs of the individual. For people who are always on-the-go, notebooks and smart phones are basically what they need. For those whose work is inclined to media and mass communication, notebooks and digital cameras are basically their lifelines. But for office workers who do not only encode data, but also photocopy and scan documents, an all-in-one printer is what they require.

It has been a trend nowadays for printers to have more than just one function. With the advent of technology, printing, photocopying, and scanning have been made a whole lot easier. If you are looking for the best all-in-one printer, HP Deskjet F380 is the answer. This printer not only prints documents, but also photocopies and scans any hard copy either in a black-and-white scheme or in a colored phase.

HP Deskjet F380 is very convenient to use primarily because of its all-in-one features. Such printer is also easy to carry because of its light weight. Its installer also has a software application that is designed to enhance the quality of photo printing—the HP Photosmart Essential Software. Furthermore, with its USB-connection compatibility, HP Deskjet F380 can be easily installed to other computers, particularly, those whose operating system contains generic software application installers like, the Windows Vista.

In the past few years, photo printing had to be done in a particular shop. But with an HP Deskjet F380, photo printing is made easier, faster, and better. In fact, you can just directly print photographs from your digital camera by connecting it, via a USB port, to your HP Deskjet F380. With its ability to allow customization and personalization, you can print your photographs in their best qualify.

With the use of the HP Deskjet F380, beating deadlines is made faster. It allows you to conveniently produce copies of such pertinent documents as certificates, receipts, bank statements, contracts, travel documents, office memos, and more. This incredible machine saves you from spending so much energy and time, rushing to the nearest photocopier just so you could photocopy a bunch of documents. This printer allows you to do this even while sitting on your desk or drinking your coffee.

HP Deskjet F380 is absolutely user-friendly. It is so easy to use. People who hardly have technical background could install and use this printer. In fact, installing this printer to your computer is simple and fast. It has both online and offline support systems, which assist you in the installation process when need be. This printer may also be networked to other computers in your workplace or company, thereby, maximizing your budget for the equipment.

So why settle for a single-purpose printer when you can acquire convenience from an HP all in one printer the HP F380?

Find The Best Wii Bundles

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:53:04 +0000

Finding a Nintendo Wii bundle at a discount price isn’t difficult these days, as many retailers are putting the console on sale, drumming up sales in advance of the holiday season when many new games are coming out for the Wii platform. Nintendo released the black Wii console, and immediately started to sell a black Wii bundle, including Wii Sports Resort and the Wii MotionPlus accessory, for less than the
console alone sold when it was first released. will prices drop even further?

Recently Nintendo sold the Wii console for $149, which was a great deal. It’s possible they could release the console at the same pricing for the holidays to get a bump in sales. Many game consoles have seen sales slow through the summer and due to economic downturns worldwide for the consumer. The Wii bundle remains a good way to afford the console and additional games and accessories without paying full price. compare the prices of games, controllers, accessories if you were to buy them individually at retail prices. You’ll see right away that buying everything as part of a Wii bundle will get you a discount off the price you’d pay if you were to buy them separately.

You can shop for the best Wii bundles at many online and offline retailers, but be sure you’re comparing apples to apples. Some sellers will include a lot of extra accessories for example, but they aren’t giving you a deal, as you can buy those separately at a higher discount. Look instead for bundles that have top selling games, where discounts are common over the retail price. Many $50 Wii games that are included with bundles are added in for about 10-25% discount pricing. You can find just about any game you like bundled wit Wii too. Games like Mario Kart and Mario party 8 are popular bundle games, as they appeal to families. Also, the Wii Fit bundle has been a huge seller, with buyers who are mainly buying the Wii for its fitness games. Whatever your game preferences are, you’ll find a Wii bundle that includes them and saves you money too.

Laptop Backpacks for Students

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:12:04 +0000

Some may wonder what is the difference between a regular backpack and a laptop backpacks. Can’t you use a regular backpack to hold your laptop? Well it may be possible but then you are putting your laptop at a risk. Laptop backpacks are designed especially for holding laptops. Regular backpacks are normally too narrow to hold an average size laptop. Also your laptop backpacks are designed with an extra thickness as well to protect and keep your laptop safe while moving from place to place.

Before You Buy

Now before you buy the hottest laptop backpack for students out there you need to know a few things about the hot laptop backpacks for students. First off it is wise to make sure your laptop will fit the laptop backpack. There are a variety of backpacks out there that are meant to fit your variety of laptops as well.

Features

Another thing of why laptop backpacks for students are better those regular backpacks for students is the laptop backpack has some special features. One of the special features is ergonometric shoulder pads. This feature is a definite must if you are going to buy. The shoulder pads help ease the weight more off the back for more comfort. Second feature is there are laptop backpacks that can hold your laptop and books all in one. So it you want totally hands free carrying then you will want a backpack with this feature. Inside the backpack is a special compartment for your laptop and then some expandable space for your books and all your other supplies in one neat carrying case.

Styles

If you are concerned about style then laptop backpacks got you covered and can be just as stylish and more than your regular backpack. There many stylish backpacks to choose from for students to business men, and even for the person that has to take their laptop with them everywhere from the workplace to the hiking trails. One of my best is the Swissgear laptop backpack that really provides a lot of protection and is also big enough to take the biggest computers including a 17inch MacBook Pro.

Durability

Laptop backpacks are also a lot more durable than a regular backpacks. The makers knew the life of a student is active and on the go. They made sure that the laptop backpacks protects the ones we love…which are our laptops. As you see laptop backpacks for students are much better than your regular backpacks for students.

Getting your Computer Setup On Your Computer Desk

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:58:18 +0000

It’s not worth your time or effort to hire an IT consulting firm to setup your computer. When you purchase your new computer the store you are at might suggest that you use their “computer setup service”. That is a perfect example of a scam. Setting up your own computer is a relatively easy task.

When you get home with your computer you will want to set the monitor on the top of the computer desk and the computer in the designated spot on the desk wherever you prefer. Now, don’t get confused by the plethora of cords in the computer box. All the cords are labeled and will only fit in certain spots on the computer and monitor, the only cable that should go from your computer to your monitor should be either a blue, white or black video cable. Once that is plugged in now attach the mouse and keyboard, and place it on the desk accordingly. Don’t forget the speakers, and lastly get that power plugged in. You may want to plug the computer into a surge protector, after all you do want to protect your investment. You’re compute should be ready to fire up, go ahead and press the power button. It may take some time for the computer to perform its first boot up. It also may restart during this time.

When everything comes up, you will want to follow the guide to setup the computer, new computers come with an on-screen guide you need to complete before you are able to reach your desktop. Once you have finished that process, we will now move on to how you can clean the computer out of bloated software, remove all icons on the desktop you will not use. After you do that, click the start button, go to “computer”, and in the top middle of that window click, “uninstall or change a program” from that menu you can remove software the computer manufacture installed on your computer so you would try their software they installed there because it makes them money. By doing this you will have more hard drive space and a faster computer. Now your computer is ready for you to setup, you can install your applications and get your internet connection working!