Nothing like taking a 13 MacBook or 15 /17 inch MacBook Pro and connecting to a 50” or 60” flat screen!!!  From experience, let me tell you how awesome it is!!!!

Are you one of those that has been trying to piece together cables so that your MacBook or MacBook Pro would work with your HDTV or other HDMI compatible device and doing so without much luck, only to find out, after lots of research that others are struggling too and there really isn’t a sound solution available?  Well, I’ve got some good news for you but first, lets me remind you that there are solutions available.  You can put together a solution that does work and that does allow you to use your laptop (MacBooks) on your flat screen TV’s.  Some may ask why – but, think about this……..sitting in your  favorite couch potato chair, in front of your Panasonic 50”  or 60” flat screen TV and deciding that you want to do some research on-line so you plug in your Mini-Display port to DVI cable that is connected to a mini-dvi to dvi adapter.  Then you have a DVI to HDMI cable connected to your flat screen TV and walla; there you have it – the Internet as big as life!  Check that configuration out if you have a flat screen in your bedroom – it is awesome to work or research while hanging out in bed or in your other favorite chair. 

So, where do you get the cables and which cables do you get?  Well, of course you can get them from Apple on-line and they are actually cheaper there than most places I’ve found – plus, the quality is pretty good:  www.store.apple.com/us

Now, let me explain something that may help.  There are three kinds of DVI cables. “DVI-I” stands for “DVI-Integrated” and supports both digital and analog transfers, so it works with both digital and analog Visual Display Units. “DVI-D” stands for “DVI-Digital” and supports digital transfers only. “DVI-A” stands for “DVI-Analog and supports analog transfers only.  One tidbit that may be useful is that DVI does NOT transfer audio, only video. 

One of the hardest problems users have is recognizing the DVI cables.  Here is a quick help as well as a reproduction from datapro on how to differentiate between the cables:

There are two variables in every DVI connector, and each represents one characteristic.

The flat pin on one side denotes whether the cable is digital or analog:

                  A flat pin with four surrounding pins is either DVI-I or DVI-A

                  A flat pin alone denotes DVI-D

The pinsets vary depending on whether the cable is single-link, dual-link, or analog:

                  Two separated 9-pin sets (rows of 6) for a single-link cable

                  A solid 24-pin set (rows of 8) for a dual-link cable

A separated 8-pin and 4-pin set is for DVI-A.

If you head to www.datapro.com they offer pictures of the cables that can help you determine what you need. 

The DVI stated signal distance is 16 feet but you can find places that carry 25 foot cables and then if you have extra cash, you may want to pick  up a a signal booster.  But, I haven’t talked with anyone that has ever needed a signal booster for their DVI cable system. But, on the other hand, I’ve never tried going over 12 feet and my research has shown that users going over 16 feet and using the 25 foot cables are not experiencing degradation.  So most likely you wouldn’t need a booster.

What we all need to do is get them to develop the wireless DVI to HDMI.  Imagine a Mini-display port wireless card about and inch long and a quarter of an inch wide coming from the side of your Mac and then a small HDMI wireless connector on your TV.  Now, that is what I want.  There is good news on the development front, not on the wireless front but on the HDMI topic,  Monoprice has developed Mini-DisplayPort to HDMI adapter and was to have it to market in January 2009.  Unfortunately, they are having problems finding vendors that can produce the product for them. Stay tuned for an update, as this is a pretty, darn hot topic and lots of users are waiting for this solution.

http://www.macyourself.com/2008/12/11/macbook-owners-rejoice-mini-displayport-to-hdmi-adapter-soon/

So, bottom line, what you need is a mini-display port to dvi cable that you can get for $29.99 from Apple (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB570Z/A).  Then,  you grab a dvi to HDMI cable / adapter from datapro that is anywhere from $16.95 to $45.oo depending on the length (http://www.datapro.net/products/dvi-to-hdmi-digital-video-cable.html).  At that point, you have a HDMI ready cable and you are set!  And, it is a beautiful thing when you get it all put together, which only takes about 5 minutes.

So, I was understandably.. surprised when I heard the announcement that Asustek is splitting into three distinct companies. In recent years Asus has been making headway as a major manufacturer of computer systems. The decision to do the spin-off was not only to reinforce the brand name that Asus now holds in the PC manufacturing segment, but also to prevent conflicts of interest within the company. This frees up Asus as a PC company to use third party vendors for some of its components.

The motherboard division of Asustek will now be branded Pegatron. This seems like an odd move to me as their motherboard manufacturing business has been around much longer than the PC side of the equation. It makes more sense to me to sacrifice the branding of the newer PC business than to do away with years of established motherboard prowess. Obviously their board sees it differently. Also, I think that Pegatron is an incredibly stupid name. Seriously, it’s retarded sounding.

Unihan, the other spin off, will handle casing and other non-PC manufacturing.

Let’s hope that the quality of the motherboards and other PC components stays the same because I am not all that excited about trying to find another manufacturer to go with. Regardless, I won’t be sticking any Powered by Pegatron stickers on my case even if I do stick with their motherboards.

The email address I was having questions come in previously is still active if there are any of you that would still prefer to contact me that way, however, I’ve taken down any references to is as I prefer to be contacted through the form.

On a completely unrelated note: This past year has been incredibly productive for me, personally. I got the Series 7 and 63 in September of ’06 and have been working at a brokerage firm ever since. In June, I took the CEP (Certified Equity Professional) Level I, and then in November took the CEP II. Fortunately, I passed both tests the first time around, so it’s on to the Level III in June of ’08. Equity compensation is an interesting field, although I do still hold a dear place in my heart for computer repair.

So… Oopsie and my apologies to anybody that couldn’t find the info that they needed. The two most prominent ones listed were the “Could not detecy any Sound Blaster Audigy” error, and the “Internet Explorer will not open” error.

I’ll also get the contact form up again sometime, I promise. Mostly I keep forgetting to do it, and I’ve still got a few emails that’ve been unanswered anyway. This is sort of like a vacation for me, except for the fact that I keep answering stuff.

Any emails that I recieved while I had Windows Vista on were lost. The backup was utterly spaced by me, and may not have worked anyway because I was using Office 2007′s beta.

So, I’ll get to updating soon.

The issue is fixed now, but that didn’t stop a few people from sending me 10 of what were essentially the same e-mails. My apologies to everyone that had to re-type those detailed messages over and over again.

That’s what I get for not testing the thing. (What was I thinking?)

:)

I also still need to go update the images for some of the articles cause I was using TextPattern tags to call them. Come to think of it, I may have deleted the added images in the update…

Wish me luck..

There’s a few workarounds I need to get on (fixing image links, etc), but the site is mostly up and going again.

This will not only make new articles easier for the staff to create, but will also make site layout changes much much easier.

It’s going to take a while until the whole site is converted so if there are any hiccups, please forgive us.