For many years now, I have had my computer connected to my television and stereo so that I can watch films from my computer, sitting comfortably on my couch, or to set the mood with winamp visualisations and music when people are coming around. I have not seen many home setups which take advantage of this. It is so much nicer hearing your MP3 collection, pumping out the big speakers in your house.

It is very easy to set up and it can be done very cheaply, and in some cases free. The cost comes in with cables and adaptors which are cheap unless you need to buy an extra component. It should be possible for everyone to acheive for well under $100.

This article will show you how to connect your computer to your television and stereo. We will cover lots of different scenarios so I hope by the end of this article, everyone will have successfully been able to acheive this.

This theory is identical to if you want to hook your computer up to a projector so if that is what you use, this article is also appropriate for you.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have been using Vista for only two weeks and my Start Menu programs are cluttered and messy, requiring me to scroll through them to get to what I want. When I first played with Vista, I thought this may be a problem as you get to scroll through your programs folders, rather than hover over them and the menu open automatically. It is possible to go back to the classic start menu and use the menus as we used to, but Vistas Start Menu looks nice, so I want to tidy up my programs to make it more usable.

The most commonly used programs menu is still available and I will use this most the time, but I have more than 8 applications I use regularly so I am forced to go into the “All Programs” cesspit. I came across similar problems with previous versions of Windows, where user guides and uninstallers are all thrown into the Start Menu, when these can be accessed in the program directory itself or using by using “Add/Remove Programs” within the Control Panel.

This article will show you how to tidy up your “All Programs” menu to make it more usable. There are many different ways to file your programs away, so you will need to find out what works best for you. This article will show you how I organise my programs and hopefully give you ideas of how you can best tackle your own.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the big questions for people interested in moving over to Vista is “Will my games work under Vista?”. I have tried out 10 of my games and had quite a successful adventure into Vista Gaming. I was able to get all the games below up and running, but it wasn’t without its difficulties.

To be fair to Vista, most of the problems I came across were related to video card drivers which have nothing to do with Vista itself. I started off this experiment using the drivers that came with my video card. I soon found that an update was required and this allowed most games to work without any other tweaking.

This article will look at a broad range of games which have been popular over the last 8 years. I will also explain my successes and difficulties installing each of these. All games are legitimate copies and cross many genres.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the highlights for me when Inspect My Gadget upgraded to Windows Vista was that I could now check out Windows Mobile Device Center 6(WMDC) which is Vistas replacement for ActiveSync. While Activesync worked alright and did the job it was designed to do, the interface is old and it was time that Microsoft made an improvement. They have come out with WMDC for Vista which looks after all the synchronising of our Pocket PC/Smartphone with our computer. It offers us a nice new user interface which is easier to navigate, and a few extra features. WMDC replaces ActiveSync and does not currently run on older operating systems.

This article will guide you through all the options and features WMDC offers us. It is fairly easy to use and setup compared to ActiveSync, but at Inspect My Gadget, we want to get the most out of it, and this means looking at each and every feature individually.

This article is designed to guide newcomers through the Windows Mobile world. It does not cover much troubleshooting, as this is covered in my article “How-to: connect your WM5 device to WMDC via Bluetooth”. If you are having problems connecting your device, please check out this article as it has solutions for all the problems I have come across.

Read the rest of this entry »

Voice over internet protocol (VOIP) has been around for a few years now and is used in many call centres and homes as a secondary line. There is no denying that it is incredibly cheap, but is it as good as a Tel-co phone line direct to your house ?

I have had Engin VOIP as the main line in my house for a year now. I got married and moved out of home. The new house already had a cable internet connection so I decided to stick with it. Signing up to the Engin VOIP service meant I would not have to rent a phone line for phone or internet services. This seemed like the ideal solution, embracing new technology to save myself money.

This article will explain my experience with the Engin service in Australia and show you the positives and negatives of using VOIP services.

Read the rest of this entry »