While VariableGHz is primarily a PC enthusiast sort of site, and by extension its gaming articles primarly focused on PC gaming, I envision a world in which consoles and PCs may live together in harmony. And as a pioneer of gaming equality, I did some research on uniting the two as seamlessly as possible. The primary reason why somebody would want to do this is for a cheap alternative to an HDTV. With the 360 and PS3 both capable of HD resolutions, you’re truly missing out if you’re still hooking them up to your old tube TVs. Unfortunately, HDTVs are still fairly expensive, but many people already have widescreen LCD monitors with their PCs.

For my setup, I wanted to be able to route the console’s video through the monitor, and the sound through the computer speakers. It wasn’t easy to find very reliable information out there; I found lots of forum posts asking how to do this. They were receiving very few definitive responses, and it sounded like a lot of folks were just guessing. So, I decided to make my own guide with as much detail as possible. The end result became a little lengthier and image-heavy than I anticipated, so I’ll be dividing it into two parts for each system.

Next week, I will cover the instructions for connecting an Xbox 360 without HDMI.

Here are a few additional things for you to consider:

• I’m entrusting you, the reader, to know already what basic terms like HDMI, DVI, and VGA mean. If not, hopefully the images will be detailed enough for you to recognize things visually.
• In most cases, buying cables through an online retailer is easier and cheaper. Most brick-and-mortar stores only have a few, if any, choices for cables and they’re also overpriced. Monoprice and Newegg are two great online vendors.
• I would not suggest doing this with a non-widescreen monitor, especially with the PS3. The Xbox 360 will automatically letterbox based on the resolution you choose in the setup menu, but the PS3 will not.
• Additionally, the PS3 only supports a 16:9 ratio, which is seen more in HDTVs than widescreen montiors, which are usually 16:10. There are 16:9 monitors available, but they’re pretty much brand new and fairly small in size. So, unless your 16:10 monitor has 1:1 pixel mapping (which is model specific and can’t usually be counted on) you will lose a little bit on the left and right of the frame in your PS3 games, but it’s not at all noticeable.

Let’s get goin’.

For starters, you’ll need an HDMI-to-DVI cable. Pretty straightforward:

Any longtime gamer will be familiar with this next item. It’s a PlayStation AV cable, which is the exact same thing that was used for the original PSOne and the PS2. You probably have a bunch of these laying around collecting dust. If not, you can get one branded for the PS3 for about ten bucks. We need this for the red and white audio connectors:

Lastly, we’ll need an RCA-to-3.5mm adapter. This will allow you to send the audio through your computer, and thus, through your computer’s speakers.

Let’s start by connecting the PlayStation AV connector to the RCA-to-35mm adapter. Insert the red plug into the corresponding jack on the adapter, and the white plug into the white jack. The yellow plug will not be used, since that’s for transmitting video and that’s going to be sent via HDMI.

Now, you should have your AV cable with the attached audio adapter, and your HDMI-to-DVI cable. These two cables will be what you use to connect your console.

So let’s insert the HDMI plug of the HDMI-to-DVI cable into the HDMI port of the PS3. Then, insert the AV cable into the port marked AV Multi Out.

Then plug the DVI end of the HDMI-to-DVI cable into the DVI port of your monitor. If you’re lucky, you might have two DVI ports, and a switch on your monitor that lets you select which one you want to display. If not, you’ll have to unplug the DVI cable coming from your PC and plug in the one from the PS3 whenever you want to play your console, so get practicing. It’s not a huge deal unless you hate getting out of your chair for a few seconds.

Lastly, find the line-in jack on your computer, and plug in the 3.5mm jack from the AV cable. It’s usually located next to the line-out jack, which is where your speakers or headphones are usually plugged.

Open up the sound control panel in Windows. Find the Line-In device, select it, and hit “Properties.”

Make sure “Listen to this device” is checked, and that “Playback through this device” is the same as your current Line-Out device (usually referred to Output). Hit “OK” and exit the control panel.

This should be all you need to have the PS3′s audio come through your computer speakers. Another bonus with this method is that if you’re using a multimedia keyboard with your PC, you can use the volume control buttons on the keyboard to affect the volume of the audio coming from your PS3.

Now we need to configure your PS3′s video to display properly on your monitor. To make things as easy as possible, we’re going to reset your PS3 video settings to default. to do this, hold down the power button on the console for about 5-6 seconds. You will hear a single beep when you first touch it, and then a second when you’ve successfully reset your video settings. Now, turn on your PS3 and make sure the HDMI-to-DVI cable is inserted into your monitor’s DVI port. Remember, if you have two ports, you should have a button somewhere on your monitor that lets you choose which port you want.

Once the PS3 is powered on, navigate to the Settings icon on the XMB. Then scroll down to Display Settings and hit X to confirm.

Next, select Video Output Settings. You will be asked to select the type of connector on your TV. Pick HDMI.

You will then be prompted to pick between an Automatic or Custom setting method. Pick Custom. The next screen lets you check any and all supported resolutions. Check all you can except 1080i. This will force all games to render in the highest progressive mode they support.

You will be presented wth a summary of your selections. Hit X to confirm. If everything went well, you should now be ready to play.

If you have a newer or high quality LCD monitor, another thing you can try is navigating to the RGB Full Range option in the Display Settings menu and setting it to Full. This will improve your black levels and give you some richer colors. If your monitor can’t support this feature, you’ll actually get a crappier image quality, with lots of black crush – i.e. making the image too dark with loss of definition. Experiment and set to your taste. I have this setting enabled and the colors are fantastic.

Enjoy your new, all-in-one gaming setup.

Got any questions? Please leave a comment or send me an e-mail and I will do my best to address them. The most likely difficulties, if any, are going to be related to audio. A host of issues can keep audio from working correctly. Make sure all your audio devices are properly detected in the Device Manager and that their drivers are updated. Of course, make sure you’ve got the adapter plugged into the correct port.

Remember to check back next week for instructions for the Xbox 360.

Cameron
cameron@variableghz.com

All of my years of experience with proxies doesn’t much help those who want the benefits of a proxy, yet don’t have the technical wherewithal to accomplish it. As such, I set out in search of a sure thing, a foolproof proxy that anyone could use with minimal setup. I was surprised to find Vidalia.

Vidalia has proven by far the simplest (free) proxy solution. By GUI-ing Tor & combining a Torbutton for Firefox, it couldn’t be simpler. Here’s how to anonymize your Internet activity in just a few minutes.

- Go to www.whatismyip.com and take note of your IP address.

- Go to the download page.

- Select the Installation Bundle for Windows.

- Install with default options. Install the Torbutton extension for Firefox. Restart Firefox.

- Let Vidalia connect — it should connect in about 10-15 seconds.

- In Firefox, go to View > Toolbars > Customize; find the Torbutton icon, click and drag it somewhere to the right or left of the address bar. Single click it to enable Tor. At the bottom right it’ll say “Tor Enabled” in green.

- Go to www.whatismyip.com again to verify that you are indeed browsing via another IP address. All done.

In my experience, performance has been acceptable — not blazing fast, but not entirely sluggish either. I’ve read that it is horrendously slow for some, your experience may vary.

admin@variableghz.com

When the laptop “dies” or doesn’t boot up, if you’re lucky, the HDD has suffered no mechanical failure and is just fine, even if somehow Windows won’t load (like an NTLDR missing error, for example). Chances are, your data will be just fine and the fastest possible way to get the data off is to simply take the drive out and deal with it at the source.

In the laptop depicted in the video below, the power supply was shot and the system had 256MB of RAM running a very hot P4. A project for later, but the data needed to be taken off immediately.

(YouTube, Google Video, MetaCafe, Veoh, MSN Video, blip.tv, DailyMotion)

In this video, I walk you through the typical steps necessary to take data off a working laptop HDD from an old system. Note, that this video does not cover data recovery techniques in the event of a mechanically damaged HDD.

Taking the HDD out of a laptop is sometimes easy, sometimes very tricky. In this particular laptop, it wasn’t that tricky. In my experience, the HDD is usually accessible from under the keyboard in older laptops, so I checked there first. Obviously it wasn’t accessible from there, so I tried another opening which turned out to be much easier.

After the HDD is taken out, it is usually outfitted in a caddy of some sort to prevent shock & align it with whatever proprietary connector may or may not exist. In this case, there was a proprietary connector which comes off relatively easily.

For my purposes, I used a SATA/IDE to USB converter to transfer the data over quickly and easily, but I would have just as readily used an external 2.5″ HDD enclosure if I had one laying around. These can be had on eBay and elsewhere for as little as $10. (Search NewEgg.com for “SATA IDE USB” and that should deliver a lot of results. I suggest a brand like Vantec. It’s important to note that products like these are usually made by brands that are uncommon like Bytecc, iStarUSA, etc. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are bad, but I can’t really guide you here — it varies tremendously. The good news is that these particular products don’t cost all that much in the first place. Remember that a laptop hard drive is 2.5″ and a desktop hard drive is 3.5″)

As a cautionary note: when handling electronics, it is advised to ground yourself using an anti-static wrist wrap. The only reason why I was not using one for the video is because it was not mission-critical. Static electricity can devastate electronics! Be careful.

admin@variableghz.com

Enough. I want you to stop emailing yourself files, telling somebody over the phone where your stuff is, driving back home to turn on your PC to retrieve a file you forgot… Enough is enough. It’s time for a real solution. Rather, a combination of solutions to ensure this problem is eradicated for good — and I mean it!

VNC to the rescue? Yes, provided it is properly configured and secured. In this How-To, you’ll learn how to set up VNC to be your primary, secure, stable and immediately accessible remote data solution. In addition, you’ll also learn how DropBox can make for a fantastic alternative in the event VNC cannot connect or you need more realtime connectivity. Okay, let’s jump right in.

What is VNC, and which “flavor” should I be running?

VNC (Virtual Network Connection) is a powerful tool that enables you to access your remote PC or laptop from a another device anywhere you can get an Internet connection. The benefits are enormous — you can access your data from virtually anywhere! Controlling a remote computer over VNC is generally quite simple, you use your mouse and keyboard just as though you were right in front of that PC. VNC is not simple to set up for everyone, not even for so-called experts.

In addition to its remote computer-to-computer capabilities, some versions of VNC run so quickly that when used over a LAN (Local Area Connection) you can even use a spare laptop or computer as an extra monitor. More on that later.

There are a few “flavors” of VNC — RealVNC, TightVNC and my favorite, UltraVNC. Each has their advantages and disadvantages but in my opinion, UltraVNC has the least disadvantages and has proven to be the most stable and has the most robust feature set of any that I’ve ever used. It’s free and you should consider donating if you find it of great value, as I do. The primary reasons why you should go with UltraVNC over the others are: (1) VNC hook driver, this makes your connection with the remote computer (or LAN) incredibly fast and the display looks amazing; (2) file-transfer utility, this incredible feature is built right into the UltraVNC viewer; (3) ability to send custom keys (and CTRL + ALT + DEL); and (4) extras such as VNC chat and lots more.

Where VNC gets complicated.

Alright. You want VNC at home. VNC needs a few planets to align correctly before it can work: (1) it needs an IP address of the computer you are trying to connect to, known as the “VNC Server”; (2) the VNC Server needs a port to be “forwarded” from your router in order to accept the incoming connection, the defaults for this are 5800 (web, more on that later) and 5900; (3) the VNC Server must be running or the connection will not be accepted; and (4) your firewall must not be blocking the incoming connection.

Seems like a lot? Well, it gets worse. Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) most likely has a dynamic IP (Internet Protocol) set up for you. This means that your IP address changes, (and it eventually will sooner or later) your VNC connection will no longer work if you haven’t taken note of your new WAN (Wide Area Network, or “Public”) IP address. The solution for this is to link your IP address to something that won’t change sporadically. I use the fine folks over at Dynamic Network Services, Inc. They have an amazing array of services, but for the purposes of this How-To I am only focusing on making your dynamic IP “static.” Once you register an account (free or paid, your choice), you then install the DynDNS client, here (permanent archive).

Once you link the DynDNS service to your DynDNS account. It should look something like this on the website:

In my instance, I used the *.getmyip.com url, easy to memorize. There are dozens to choose from. Your system tray should look like this:

(note: the DynDNS icon may vary, depending on what version you have installed).

Alright. So now we have your IP staticized. Now we can get to installing VNC. As I mentioned earlier, I recommend UltraVNC for the aforementioned reasons. Download their latest version and install it (make sure you get the latest version and the correct one for your operating system).

When you install UltraVNC, you want to be sure to select that it installs as a service. By installing it as a service, you will be able to lock your screen in Windows thereby allowing for another layer of security. Moreover, having the UltraVNC server as a service enables you to use extra features like being able to send Control Alt Delete to the host machine, chat, file transfer, and the ability to kill Explorer.exe in the event a problem arises. Don’t forget this crucial step.

(UltraVNC Server running as a service. To access services, hold down the Windows Key and press R for Run, then type services.msc)

Once UltraVNC is installed properly you will see the blue eye in your system tray. Set a password, preferably one that differs from your Windows password so that when you walk away from your computer, you can lock your PC for added security. (You can “lock” your PC by holding down the Windows Key on your keyboard, and tapping L simultaneously.)

So, we got UltraVNC ready to rock; we got DynDNS up and runnin’; now, we need to check out your port situation. We know that the VNC defaults use port 5900, so that port needs to be open and ready to accept connections. I cannot walk you through specific firewall issues because I have no idea what kind of firewall you are using — so, read you manual, ask your tech, do somethin’ but make sure it isn’t messing with your VNC connection. (note: you can check open ports by going to the command line, and typing netstat -a)

Next, if you are using a router (and you likely are), your port needs to be “forwarded.” If you are not familiar with this terminology, listen up. A router in your home allows multiple users to connect to one Internet connection. This is made possible by local IP addresses. On linksys routers, the default local IPs are usually something like this: 192.168.1.2. The first computer you plug into the router will be automatically configured to the “lowest” local IP address. So, the next computer would then be 192.168.1.3, for example. If you turn off your computer from time to time (you’ll have to restart once in a while for updates, etc.) then your local IP may change, thereby disrupting your local IP “forwarding” — major problem for consistency.

Every Internet connection on the Internet has an IP address, you can think of this is a license plate on a car. Each “person in the car” is a computer connected to the router with a local IP address.

Still confused? Stay with me. We’re first gonna lock down your local IP address to something that doesn’t move. But in order to do that, we need to gather some information first. We need to know your DNS servers, and your default gateway (router IP address).

Hold down the Windows Key on your keyboard, and press R to bring up the Run dialog box. Type cmd and press enter. CMD is, as far as I know, short for “command,” since the command prompt is where you, well, type commands. For a while (in XP I believe) you can type cmd or command to execute the command prompt. In Vista, you can only type cmd.

At the command prompt, type IPConfig /all and press Enter. Make sure you use a forward-slash. Know the difference, this is a forward slash /, and this is a backslash \. Don’t confuse the two. In this particular case it doesn’t matter, but other times it will.

Take note of the following information:

- Default Gateway

- Both DNS Servers

- Your current Local IP address

So now we have that information written down. Notice how my local IP address is 192.168.1.2? As I mentioned before, that’s a problem — so let’s dive in and change that. You’ll need to get to the “Properties” of your Network connection. This is tricky to explain, because it varies depending on what OS you’re using. In Vista Ultimate x64 which I happen to use, you get to it by going into the Control Panel and navigating to the Network Connections, right click on your Network Connection, select Properties, double-click on Internet Protocol Version 4 and then you’ll see the IPV4 Properties dialog box which should look like this:

So, notice how I typed in my own local IP address? I chose 192.168.1.8, this decreases my chances of running into an IP address conflict with another computer or mobile device connected to my router. My Default Gateway is the IP address of my router, and the DNS Servers match the data we got from the IPConfig /all. Still with me? Terrific. Let’s move on.

Now with our local IP address in place, we can connect to our router and forward our local IP to the WAN IP. Remember, the WAN IP is the IP address that is available to the public (I use www.whatismyip.com to find out what my WAN IP address is, simply because that domain name is incredibly easy to memorize). The DynDNS takes care of updating your local IP to the static web address (whatever.getmyip.com, for example) and the forwarding enables the incoming connection from port 5900 to “pierce” through the local IP and get straight to your computer. So we need to tell the router “when something tries to access computer 192.168.1.8 on port 5900, please let go through.” Make sense?

Since all versions, makes and models of routers vary, I cannot give you specific instructions on how to go about doing this. I will show you what my Linksys router looks like when forwarded properly as an example:

So now my router knows how to deal with my local IP correctly. Now, when I boot up the UltraVNC viewer from anywhere, I can connect to the static web url that I chose from the DynDNS and connect through to my computer 99% of the time without any problems.

Remember, VNC isn’t foolproof. A power outage, system failure, bluescreen, a change in DNS servers, or any other kind of problem can cause your VNC connection to fail. In the event this happens and you cannot connect to VNC, you need a backup plan. DropBox is that backup plan and so much more.

Enter Dropbox. In a nutshell, Dropbox is a piece of software that runs on your computer, it links itself to a folder entitled, “My Dropbox” which automatically syncs any data you put into that folder with other computers that you “link.” Some of you might be thinking “so? I use livemesh” or whatever other cloud based storage solution. Well, I am here to tell you to forget about the rest, Dropbox is the one to beat — performance is incredible, the whole process is very well considered, seamless and stable.

My advice to you is simple. Install Dropbox. Get your account sync’d up. Make a shortcut to Dropbox on your desktop like so:

When you make changes to any files inside of the Dropbox folder, the changes are replicated to the Dropbox servers and then when any other computers which are linked to your Dropbox account are turned on, immediately sync as well. Since the files are actually downloaded, you can access them even if your Internet connection is down at a later time:

Dropbox notifications are non-intrusive and informative. With Dropbox and VNC configured properly, your files are always at hand. VNC can be used on a variety of clients, including mobile phones, this can be very handy if you need to do something while you’re not at a computer. If you have a modern smartphone you should look and see if there is a VNC client for it.

admin@variableghz.com