Bishop of Technology

We are here to help "ordinary" people understand, acquire, and utilize technology in their personal & business environments.

The GTab has HDMI output.

You can connect your GTab to your TV via the docking port. The port seems to comply with the PDMI (Portable Digital Media Interface) specification. You can read more about PDMI on Wikipedia. It is a 30-pin connector that is similar to – but not the same as – the iPhone/iPad connector. DO NOT attempt to use the iPhone cable, it will NOT work!

The ONLY compatible HDMI cable that I found was one offered by electroniccrap.com (actually the name) here. I feel it is WAY overpriced ($29 plus over $7 for shipping). But if you control the market, you can control the price. Since it is the only one available, I bought it to check it out. It does work – without a flaw. Also, the same site offers a “Malata ZPAD Dock for gTablet” for $49. However, this is how it is described, “* HDMI Out * LAN * USB * Dock does NOT work without power and this item does not include charger.” Not much more functionality for the extra $20 in my opinion.

Resolution: As to the resolution, although there is a bit of pixelization, my TV reports it as 1920 x 1080 @ 60hz. I don’t really think that is what the GTab is sending but somehow the TV sees it that way. In any case, the video is surprisingly sharp – again with a bit of pixelization on the fonts. It should not be a problem for most applications.

At any rate, I did a video which demonstrates the GTab displaying on my 40″ Samsung HDTV. It is pretty cool – but probably not worth the $37 that I paid. Check it out (below) and tell us what you think…

Tell us about other stuff that you have found to work with your GTab.

GTab does HDMI

Bishop of Technology

We are here to help "ordinary" people understand, acquire, and utilize technology in their personal & business environments.

Do REAL men Twitter?

There are two very different views about Twitter (and Facebook, MySpace, and other social media sites). It all depends on who you speak to.

A couple of days ago, I participated in an online “webinar” hosted by the folks at HubSpot where they encouraged businesses to get involved in all of these sites. They said it was the  best (& cheapest) way to expand your brand awareness. Makes sense.

But just a few minutes on Facebook and I have to wonder, do any of  these guys actually have a life? It looks like some people must spend the whole day doing nothing but playing FB games and recording their high scores to all their “friends.”

Here is one that will put a kink in your trousers: Youth workers are evidently thinking that a lot of young people will LEAVE Facebook within the next couple of years because it has been overtaken by us old guys! I wrote about it here.

And, Twitter has even more useless posts! People “twit” about which TV program they are watching,  or having just finished washing the evening dishes, or admiring their car, or…  (you get the picture.) A TV commercial now pokes fun at some kid’s dad who is using his cell phone to tell (someone?) that he is “sitting on  the patio.”

Here is a humous video that puts it into (some kind of) perspective… <grin>

If the video does not display properly, click here.

And the very WORST of all scenarios: A guy (or girl) with an Iphone, “Twit”s about the current score on football (or some other mundane non-event in his life). Then, the Iphone software will push the same “twit” onto Facebook. On the Facebook site, 20 “friends” will respond with some more nonsense but the guy with the Iphone doesn’t have time to check Facebook because now, his team is loosing and therefore he doesn’t see the responses and they just scroll down the Facebook page into the “bit bucket” and are lost forever. (Hint to the world: If anyone CARES about the score, they are probably watching the game already.)

Honest DISCLOSURE: I have accounts on most of the common social media sites. I can actually see some value on FB & Twitter. I recently spent a reasonable amount of money advertising on Facebook. (My ad: asking people to “fan” my http://chiefshepherd.com website. It is a free site and has no real way for me to recover my costs. But I do want people to find the site and take advantage of it’s many free resources.) But I just cannot see the value in spending even a couple hours a day (some people evidently spend a LOT more) playing the games on Facebook or posting about what you are eating for supper. Come on folks – you need to get outside more.

So, do YOU use Facebook, Twitter & the like? What are some USEFUL posts that you have left (or just seen). Leave a comment to tell us what you think.

UPDATE (Dec 13, 2009): I now LIKE Twitter (a LOT)!

After putting down on Twitter for a long time, I have finally discovered how to utilize the service as a kind of “Headline Service” to display links to information about topics in which I am interested. The primary way to do this is:

1. Use Twitter’s “search” function to find tweets with valuable content
2. Find & follow the “influencers” in whatever your field of interest
3. Retweet (RT) the (valuable) tweets that you receive
4. Stop posting JUNK on your updates – instead be sure that  your updates add some value  - even if  just to bring a smile on someone’s face. After a while others will  retweet your updates & your sphere of influence will  begin to widen.
5. Search the web for other hints on how to make Twitter more effective for you. Or, just follow me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/raywaldo) to read more of what *I* find to be valuable (& then RT that – grin).
6. (Updated) Be well-rounded in what you post. A bit of humor or wisdom or family love is important on Twitter. Just don’t make it the ONLY thing you post.

Although I still do not like updates on (insert your favorite sports team)’s half-time score (or a lot of other such content), I have started NETWORKING with people who have VALUABLE content to share. It is that group which I will now follow on Twitter & leave the friends & family updates to Facebook.

For more info about why individuals and businesses should like Twitter,  see this post on the O’Reilly website.

5 ways to LIKE Twitter!

Bishop of Technology

We are here to help "ordinary" people understand, acquire, and utilize technology in their personal & business environments.

Recently, a friend asked me to recommend a computer solution for editing video. Here are my ideas. Do you agree? Add your comments at the bottom of the article.

The three elements to consider when purchasing a computer (either desktop or notebook):

1. Operating System (OS)
2. Software Applications (Apps)
3. Hardware to run the system.

OS:
I don’t do a lot of video editing but I use a small Dell with a 1.8ghz processor. But then I do it on Ubuntu Linux which is MUCH less demanding on the hardware.

If you are not familiar with Linux, it is very similar to Windows from the UI (User Interface) but it is much more secure and no viruses. The OS and practically all the apps you could ever need (same formats as their Win equivalents) are all free. That, along with the reduced hardware requirements could easily save you over a thousand dollars for the same processing power.

Apps:
You can easily drop several hundred bucks on the software if you go the Win7 or Mac route. The (nearly) equivalent software in Linux is free. Check out this link for info about some of the Linux video editing apps.

Check my review at http://raywaldo.com/2009/08/ubuntu-linux/ for some idea of what using Ubuntu Linux is like. BTW, the one app  that I needed but could not use in Linux (OnlineBible) now works in Ubuntu. There are a couple of emulators (free also) to allow you to run Win apps if you must have them.

Hardware:
Regardless of what computer you buy, there are three hardware elements that make the computer work well – especially for video editing.

1.  Processor: speed is everything in video. Most software today (Win, Mac or Linux) will not effectively use the “quad-processor” – If you have a choice between processor speed and the number of internal processors, select the highest processor speed that you can afford.

2. Hard Drive size: Video can eat up the storage space very quickly! A DVD is about 4 gigs and to produce it, you will need to splice together a lot more video than that. Add the original video size (likely will be 6-8 gigs) plus the 4 gigs output to the DVD and you will need about 10 gigs to each project that you want to keep on the hard drive. Again, the larger, the better. Also, (I don’t fully understand the technical reason here) but for some  reason, the LARGER the hard drive, the faster it generally operates.

3. Memory (RAM): For a given class of computers, the speed of the memory is generally the same. But save enough money to boost the memory to the full capacity of the hardware. There is a point where adding memory will not give as great a return on investment but you probably could not afford to buy that much <grin>. Realistically, for video editing, you will need a MINIMUM of 4 gigs of RAM.

Video Editing