Category: Tips and Tricks

Basic Home Theater Setup and Installation for Newbies

Posted on by M o u s h i g o

Looks complicated doesn’t it? Nowadays home theater systems are getting cheaper and more affordable and I still can’t find a decent guide about installing, setting up and basics of these home theaters. Then I realized there are not a lot of good guides because there are hundreds of home theater variations and so I created this guide. This is a very basic guide for home theaters. It won’t deal with how DTS works or how HDMI works. I won’t bother with very technical details because technology changes but the basic fundamentals do not. This guide just tells you how to connect the devices, the two types of experience you get from a home theater and to understand what __ IN / __ OUT jacks are so that you can use the system without paying for the expensive installation cost.

 

A. Before setting up, try to read a little about these topics:

1. RCA Cables
2. HDTV
3. Component Cables
4. Digital Theater System
5. Surround Sound
6. TOS-LINK Cables
7. TRS Connector

 

A. Understanding the common setup for Home Theater Systems

Before starting the setup you need to understand that in a home theater there are only two things you can experience, the audio experience and the video experience each of which gets data from a source, and so by putting this in mind it will be easier for you to understand how to create basic setups and troubleshoot problems.
 
Video Experience Devices:
– Television / HD Televisions
– Projectors
– Computer Monitors
 
Audio Experience Devices:
– Amplifiers
– Speakers
– Subwoofers
 
Possible Sources:
– DVD Players / Blu-ray Players / VCD Players
– Xbox 360
– PSP / PS3 / PS2
– Digital Camcorders
– Digital Cameras
– Personal Computers
– Cable TV
 
How do these devices work together/communicate?
After knowing these, the next thing to understand would be to learn how these devices communicate with each other. These devices communicate using IN/OUT jacks. No matter how complex the jack may look like (RCA,TOSLINK,DVI,HDMI) or how many there are (RED,WHITE) they only can only do one action. IN jacks receive data/video/audio signals from other devices while OUT jacks send data/video/audio signals to another device. Like the principle of north and south poles of a magnet they need to bind together.
 
 
Now that you have read about the basics on the next page I will be showing some examples and jack scenarios on basic Audio and Video Experience connections for home theaters. Don’t like HTPC? I will also include a scenario wherein your PC will be used as a source. ^_^
 
On to Page 2!

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The Science of Opening a New Ketchup Bottle… Easily! >_<

Posted on by M o u s h i g o

tomato.jpgAnother slow day, I was trying to open a bottle of ketchup a while a go and it seemed really hard to do so and it just hit me. Why does this have to be so hard? It should not be an enigma c(”,)

As I found out I was exerting force towards the center of the cap while trying to twist it around. For bigger hands this is a problem because you will be exerting more force in compressing the cap rather than twisting it >_<. It seems I have found the answer why smaller hands do better in opening bottles, such as soda and ketchup.

ketchup1.jpg

I sat down and looked at the bottle for a few minutes. Can this be solved without googling it? Woooot! I was able to solve it, take a look at the image below, hehe. To be able to open the bottle it would be better to apply two twists on it, one at the cap and a counter-acting one at its body. What this does is you will be able to multiply the effort in trying to open the bottle. I also thought that it kind of heats up the inside of the bottle which should expand it a little bit. Also shaking the bottle might do so but I do not think that it helps out a lot c(”,)

ketchup2.jpg

+1 Post! lol

Taking Care of A New German Sheperd (Check Out His Pedigree!)

Posted on by M o u s h i g o
We are getting a new German Shepherd puppy this Sunday, his name is Solo Von Kaiserplatz. He was sired by Tasso of Greenwater, and his mom, Hana vom Team Fiemereck, was a purebred champion. I also posted his pedigree database entry. He has a really interesting story when he was born, Something terrible happened to his tail….

531835.jpg
a solo picture of solo
Solo Von Kaiserplatz’s Pedigree Database Entry
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/531835.html

He might be small but he will grow bigger! His father Tasso can stand up and reach your shoulders with his paws!

Solo was born an only pup, and during his birth his mom had a difficult time, so in order to speed up the process she tagged on his tail and pulled. A portion (at least 1/5 of the total length) of his tail got cut off due to this. It looked bad from the start but in any other case it might be a sign that this dog is something else! c(”,) Hopefully it will grow back since he is still a puppy. I only have experienced taking care of one GSD (German Shepherd Dog) and I really don’t know that much about caring for for them but…

image_002902_520.jpg
our other two dogs, goku (black daschund) and lara (GSD), seems to me they were talking about who gets to poop where

Here are some of my self learned GSD caring tips:

1.) German Shepherds can have layers and layers of dead or dull hair as I found out one day when it clogged the drain >_<. So whhen giving your GSD a bath make sure to scrub the fur with your fingers and not with your palm or a plastic bristle brush, this removes a lot of shedding hair plus you will know if your GSD has ticks. Scrub his fur also when rinsing it. Doing this will give your dog a very shiny coat after the bath. I have learned this through weeks and weeks of giving our GSD a bath.

2.) Thoroughly dry out the fur after the bath and do not let the wind dry it out, doing this slows down the time it takes for him to take another bath. Dogs have a lot of body heat and I think this dries up any moisture in their skin, since they do not have sweat glands a lot of stuff stays there, and that I think this causes stink that is really bad sometimes.

3.) Be comfortable and do not be afraid with your dog biting your hands or fingers, I think it is how they play. But before you do this, make sure your hands are clean so that it will not have the smell of food on. I have played with our GSD using my my index and middle finger, pulling back the upper and lower fangs. German Shepherd dogs are extremely smart, they know when to stop. c(”,)

4.) When there is a stray cat around your home, let your GSD go and let him have some fun! lol c(”,)

Installing and Setting Up Teamspeak

Posted on by M o u s h i g o

Skype, Yahoo Messenger, GoogleTalk and Live Messenger, all these have a lot of useless stuff you will not need when the only thing you want to do is have a voice conference with 5-10 or more people. Teamspeak is a dehydrated version of all these messengers leaving only voice conferencing which is solely what you need when multi-tasking. This is most useful when in online games. So to all •Barons• members or anyone who is a member of guild that does sieges out there, this is how to do it. c(”,)

logo_left.jpg

Teamspeak Installation:

1.) Download the file named TeamSpeak 2 Client here. The file is about 5mb in size.

2.) Install the program, it is very easy, just click next until the program is installed.

3.) Done!

Teamspeak Test:

1.) Make sure your headset and microphone are properly connected to the rear of you computer, the green jack(speakers/headphones) should be plugged in the green socket and the pink jack(microphone) should be plugged in the pink socket.

2.) Open Teamspeak and click "Settings" and then click "Sound Input/Output Settings". You should see this window below:

screenie.gif

There are two settings here:

a.) The first one is just a Volume slider that increases or decreases the speaker volume, I did not highlight this in the image.

b.) The second one, Voice Send Method has two options, "Push to Talk" and "Voice Activation". Push to talk means that to be able to send your voice message you need to press a key in the keyboard, this key can be assigned using the Set button and reset by the Clear button. Voice Activation on the other hand does not need a keypress but rather the sound and volume of your voice, there is a slider below this that sets how easily the system will detect the volume of your voice. Whisper detects the faintest of sounds, this is not recommended when you are using a speaker because it will cause a lot of feedback. Move the slider to the right until you get the mix just right. Don’t put it in Shout though because you will really need to yell just for the system to detect your voice.

3.) The last thing to do would be to will be to test the setup, in the Local Test section, click "Activate local test mode". This will allow you to test your microphone. Try speaking into the microphone, if the setup was a success you should hear your voice from the speakers. The Test Codec option specifies the sound quality, the higher the Kbit the better the sound will be.

Troubleshooting:

I have not encountered a lot of problems with installing or using Teamspeak so far but these by far are the most common:

1.) Cannot use the microphone will using the front panel jacks of the computer. The best solution I have for this would be to disable the front panel detection. This commonly applies to Realtek sound boards. To do this:

a.) Open the control panel for the Realtek sound card and look for the Audio IO window. Click the Connector Settings button:

realtek1.gif

b.) In the Connector Settings window make sure "Disable front panel jack detection" is checked.

realtek2.gif

Intel Extreme Motherboard D5400XS (Skulltrail), the Overclocked Server!

Posted on by M o u s h i g o

Intel SkulltrailIntel’s latest top of the line motherboard, the Intel D5400XS, is the only desktop motherboard that I can say can perform as a gaming rig as well as performing the duties of a 24/7 server. It might be a pointless,stupid and unnecessary idea to do so because this would boost the price tremendously so no one will be able buy this board but that is just what Intel is all about.., to be able to balance extreme reliability and extreme performance. I dubbed it as the first ever retail "Overclocked Server" even though it is not a common thing to overclock servers. c(”,).

I am an avid fan of ATI and AMD as gaming platforms but since I work as a Systems Administrator, Software Developer, Web Developer and a hardcore Gaming enthusiast, I will always prefer a motherboard and a processor that can handle such tasks that pertain in each category, power, reliability, speed, efficiency and have good support. Based on my experience maintaining AMD class workstations (use, udpating bios, installing, formatting, bios/OS optimizations etc..), AMD is just not cut out to do this, AMD will always be for extreme graphics games and light computer processing. This is due to some motherboards that support the AMD platform, I will probably write a future article on why this is so. This motherboard however is a supports of all of the above. I was so amazed seeing this board when it first came out in February of 2008. Back then I was expecting if there was ever going to be a Pentium 5. Intel also does not support overclocking in their boards but this board is in the Extreme Series so it can do overclocking as well.

Intel® Desktop Board D5400XS (Retail Edition)
Intel Desktop Board D5400XS

As a Server and Workstation

dbextreme_74.gifThe Intel D5400XS can support 8 cores and is based on a Xeon supporting motherboard, Intel’s Xeon supporting motherboards are the best there is when it comes to reliability, as an example, Xeon class motherboards are used by IBM in its servers. I as a Systems Administrator have dealt with IBM Servers, they are very reliable and can be left on for months without slowing down and in my experience as an Intel user I too know how Intel boards are well built. My previous computer has Pentium 3 motherboard D815EEA2, it lasted me 5 years formatting only twice in that span. Dual booting with Windows 98 and Windows XP, it ran for at least 5-8 hours a days because my sister also uses it in the evening for her school assignments and other online activities, plus I leave it running to do downloads and uploads. I do not even hesitate or get scared in updating Intel’s motherboard BIOS, it’s just that reliable. It was the opposite back then when I still had a motherboard with a VIA chipset running S3… >_<

As a Gaming Platform

Let me just say one thing. Triple-crossfire support I do not know about Quadfire, looking at the board I do not think it will fit. Too bad for NVIDIA though it can only support 2 SLI and not triple. c(”,)

/hmm: It is a bit weird thought though, ATI is owned by AMD but Intel supports ATI over NVIDIA…

All in All

It’s an extremely good board! A bit expensive though but if you need a well balanced computer that will last you a long time, let us say 5 years or more, This motherboard or perhaps any Intel motherboard would be the best way to go.