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Posts Tagged ‘home’

One of these things is not like the other

Media streamers like the Western Digital WD TV Live and Netgear NeoTV make just a little less sense than they did a couple of years ago. In those days, they were the perfect alternative to stuffing a home theater PC into your entertainment center. These days, you can get nearly all the same functionality from a new Blu-ray player or a Smart TV.

On the other hand, the latest incarnations of these two products cost less than a new Blu-ray player, and they’re several orders of magnitude cheaper than a new … [Read More...]

Despite Microsoft’s apparent lack of love for Windows Home Server 2011—the company stripped Drive Extender from the final version, and good luck finding a retail Windows Home Server 2011 box in the U.S.—it’s still a great server OS for a Windows-heavy home environment. Backups are effortless, streaming is hassle-free, it’s easy to administer, and there are tons of add-ins available.

Given a choice between buying an off-the-shelf product and building one myself, I’ll opt for the build any day. And since you can’t get a retail WHS box in the U.S. anyway, I figured what the heck. I pinged Michael … [Read More...]

A barely there home-theater PC

PCs make great Blu-ray players, but Acer’s Revo RL100-UR20P is the first Blu-ray-equipped PC we’ve seen that’s thinner and smaller than most purpose-built Blu-ray players. If it played high-definition audio discs such as SACD and DVD-Audio, it would be one of the most powerful Blu-ray players on the market, but this machine isn’t that ambitious.

It is, on the other hand, considerably less expensive than very high-end Blu-ray players that are capable of playing those high-definition audio formats. The Oppo BDP-95, for example, sells for $999 and is almost never discounted.

Acer’s Revo RL100-UR20P is … [Read More...]

Extra dimensions don’t come cheap. If you’ve dreamed of a Sam Worthington-shaped avatar running through your living room, you know that 3-D projectors — the few that are available — have price tags in the $3,000-and-up range. (You also know that Avatar has yet to see a public 3-D Blu-ray release, but that’s another story.)

Optoma’s HD33 brings 1080p 3-D home for a 2-D price. At $1,500, it costs less than many 3-D-ready TVs, which, incidentally, can’t produce images as large as 300 inches. That’s 25 feet, in case you’re math-challenged. Eat it, local Cineplex!

Actually, don’t shred your concession-stand … [Read More...]

A leaked user guide has outed Comcast’s upcoming AnyPlay service, which will let customers stream live TV to assorted mobile devices. On initial offering will be iPad support, but other tablets are expected to be added as well. The service will rely on in-home Wi-Fi, and users will have to get a special Motorola cable box from the cable provider.

Comcast plans to make most channels available to the user for streaming, but some content will be missing. For instance, on-demand and pay-per-view content won’t be available through the AnyPlay service. Comcast’s document did not make mention of any additional … [Read More...]

We took a look at the Ooma Telo recently, and found that this almost free VoIP service was a great solution for penny pinchers. Ooma’s Telo bay station connects to your home network and offers nearly unlimited calls, and all you have to pay is a few bucks in taxes. Today, Ooma has announced the system is getting a refresh with a new wireless adapter and free Bluetooth capability.

Ooma previously required a direct ethernet connection to operate, though the handset itself was cordless. This was our primary gripe with the device; the wired set up was a bit of … [Read More...]

What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

We’ve never been big fans of headphones that use active noise cancellation, chiefly because they mask the sound of aircraft engines, HVAC systems, computers, and other sources of ambient noise by generating noise of their own. A far better strategy, in our opinion, is to sufficiently isolate your ears so those sounds don’t reach your eardrums in the first place.

The best way to do that is to plug your ears with miniature headphones fit inside your ear canal. But some folks just aren’t comfortable sticking bits of foam rubber or silicone in their ears, which … [Read More...]

Is it possible to convert a standard home office into a surround sound home theater with minimal fuss?

I have an average-size spare bedroom that mostly functions as a home office and gaming room, and has been used primarily by me. Given the cramped quarters of San Francisco apartments, I set out to make the room less me-centric and more family-friendly by transforming this home office into a home office theater. The goal was to create a room suitable for three things: normal PC computing, big-screen surround sound movie viewing with no reconfiguration needed, and big-screen gaming. Ancillary goals were … [Read More...]

By now, you’ve likely seen our favorite new Windows ads running on television with Julie who “never shopped for a new PC, because she didn’t think there was anything better out there.” To show her what she was missing, we built a PC store in her house and filled it with the newest, sexiest, and fashionable Windows 7 PCs on the market. While we can’t do this for everyone, we can help you to create a beautiful new space with a stunning Windows 7 PC.

Combining a technology makeover with a room makeover means that you can proudly … [Read More...]

With Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft has been making some big strides in the quality of Windows’s native search. For regular, targeted searches (finding a file in your downloads folder, for instance), it does a great job of giving you near-real-time results. Unfortunately, that’s not always good enough.

Sometimes you know you’ve got a file, but you just can’t remember where you put it. That means you’ve got to resort to the dreaded Search Local Disk (C:), or even worse, Search Computer. It doesn’t take as long as it used to, but it can still take quite a while to … [Read More...]

Although many features included in early OS builds never make the final cut, this is one I hope will stay. Picture this: you log on to your PC at home and get it just the way you want. Now, when you go to a different PC, you can use these same settings just by logging [...]

This article was written by Windows Guides (Source)… [Read More...]

According to the Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey for Q1 2011 from Forrester Research Inc., March 2011, “overall, 13% of employees who use a laptop at the office report that they chose their own “work” laptop and paid for all of it themselves.” That means their PC needs to work great at home and at work. And according to IDC’s Worldwide Windows Client Operating Environment 2011 – 2015 Forecast: Maturity with Renewed Potential for Disruption report, 9 out of every 10 newly acquired PCs are running Windows. We’ve talked a lot about features in Windows 7 that allow you to do … [Read More...]

Remember I told you about the HTC Home weather gadget (Here) a while back? HTC Home is a Desktop Gadget developed to look like the weather and clock gadget found on the HTC phones. Last time I wrote about it, version 2 was still in Beta. I recently decided to check back with the developers and found that they have recently released version 2.4.

The New and improved

Where the 2.0 beta promised more gadgets and functionality, this version delivers. The weather gadget now comes bundled with 4 free weather providers, and several skin options (about 30 skins to choose … [Read More...]

You know you’re a fabulous blogger. You’ve been around the block and know it’s not just about the words, it’s also about content development, business skills and networking. So of course you’ll be at Mom 2.0 in New Orleans next week. Good, because I can’t wait to meet you there with the rest of the Windows and the Office team. We’ll have a suite at the show where we can answer all of your questions about Microsoft and we’ll some fun contests and prizes (new PC anyone?) to give away to attendees. And seeing as how the show is sold … [Read More...]