Home Theatre Buying Guide by Jeffrey Lawrence
Planning Watching a movie in your own home theater is a great way to escape reality without leaving the house. But before forging ahead with a home theater construction project, you’ll need to put serious time into planning the system. The biggest decision will be what room to put your home... After briefly discussing those jacks, we’ll next dive into the advanced connections that transmit high-definition video and multichannel digital audio signals in a high-performance home theater. ... Next, we’ll get into some of the finer points of the various decks used for watching movie discs — a...

The Value of Software in Our Daily Lives by Bill Platt
Long, long ago when I was in high school during the early 1980's, personal computers were just coming into existence. Back then, I had taken on Basic programming as a high school student. In those days, the PC of choice was the Radio Shack TRS-80 --- this was just a couple of years before the... Many people jump up and down, scream and holler about software that employs advertising to pay the bills. ... In those dark days before the Internet and before Microsoft, the only software choices we had were retail programs that could cost hundreds of dollars, or cheap video games that were...

Lapping It Up by Alan Jason Smith
The idea of a laptop, or portable, computer was first conceived by Alan Kay, who worked for Xerox, at its Research Center in Palo Alto CA. He called it a Dynabook. He wasn't the first to offer a completed laptop computer for public consumption, however. ... RAM and VRAM - Random access memory (V is for video), should be a minimum of 126 MB to accommodate today's software programs. ... Although notebook size, it was still at the high end of the comfort scale, weighing in at 12 pounds. ... Pentium is the best and therefore the fastest.

Review - Sony PSP by Alex Mayo
I'm fairly certain there are folks at Nintendo feeling some serious self-loathing right about now. You see, back in the mid-90's Nintendo contracted Sony to develop a CD-ROM drive for the Super Nintendo. As the project progressed, a number of factors (one of them being the spectacular failure of... By the time you start messing around with music and video files, you'll be sorely aching for a big 'ole 1GB Memory Stick. ... Luckily, homebrew PSP programmers have already jumped to action, and there are already a number of freeware apps available online which will let you drag 'n drop video...

The Microsoft Xbox 360 Console: Powerful Gaming in a Box by Mark Robbins
Gone are the days of drab, underpowered gaming consoles with limited features. The Microsoft Xbox 360 is here! It doesn't matter if you are a serious gamer or a mere hobbyist, the Xbox 360 that Microsoft launched in November 2005 is suitable for all players. ... For some odd reasons, some games that run with excellent audio and video effects using the first version of Xbox don't run as well in the Xbox 360; these include "Madden NFL 06," "NBA Live 06." This must be given immediate attention by the Microsoft people because it is a source of great disappointment for hardcore gamers and, in...