VgaAdapter
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Editorial: For the umpteenth time, copy 'protection' only hurts people who actually buy your product
It's been said so many times, but I just got stung hard by the DRM bug, and since there's a "Senior Associate Editor" next to my name somewhere I get to complain about it. Now, if you're a regular consumer with a modicum of common sense, nothing I'm going to say here will come as a surprise or revelation. You're welcome to come along for the ride, but I'm pointing my quivering pen today at the media execs and their willing technologist accomplices that have the nerve in 2010 to enforce HDCP and other completely inane DRM and copy protection schemes to "protect" their content from theft: You idiots.
Real-life iPad: Presenting with an iPad, Keynote, and VGA connector
When I'm not having fun as a Mac consultant and TUAW editor, I teach community education classes at the Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, Colorado. Last night was the scheduled night for my blogging class, so I decided to see if I could teach the class from my iPad. I had mixed results. Normally, I use my MacBook Air to show my Keynote presentation, then occasionally bring up a web browser to demonstrate some of the finer points of WordPress or some other blogging engine. To move the Keynote presentation to the iPad, I had to sync it over via iTunes. It would be nice to see a way to grab that presentation from Dropbox, where I store it, and just open it in Keynote, but that's not currently possible. Last night (see photo at right), I plugged in the Apple Dock Connector to VGA adapter, plugged that into the PC projector in the room, turned on the iPad, and popped into Keynote. The moment I started up my presentation in slideshow mode, the Keynote slides appeared on the screen as they should have, and the text and graphics in the presentation looked great.
PSP to HDMI, all with one giant converter box
Props to Lenkeng for dressing up their otherwise anonymous VGA-to-HDMI converter box with a PSP-related angle -- the LKV8000 comes with the necessary cables to take your PSP-2000 or above's 480p video output and push out a 720p HDMI signal complete with stereo audio. Not a bad idea -- except that we can't think of an HDTV that lacks either component or VGA jacks and that doesn't have a built-in scaler to do the same job. Maybe you're just out of ports? In any event, this guy needs a Stateside distributor before we can tell you pricing or availability, so you're stuck swapping cables for a while, Sparky. [Via Oh Gizmo!]
HP Mini 1000 VGA cables: hard to get, hard to use?
HP's Mini 1000 certainly hasn't had much difficultly attracting its share of fans, but it looks like those wanting to hook the netbook up to an external monitor have been having their patience tested considerably as of late. According to reports on the HP Support Forums, the promised VGA adapter for the netbook has been nigh impossible to come by and, for the time being at least, HP doesn't seem to be getting any more specific than "early 2009" about widespread availability. The headaches might not end then, however, as some folks have been reporting problems with the VGA out for the very similar Mini 2140 netbook, and with a USB-to-VGA adapter used with the Mini 1000. In both cases, the Mini 1000 is apparently unable to automatically detect the external monitor's native resolution, so it simply pumps out a standard 1024 x 768 resolution no matter what size monitor is hooked up. Looking for more tales of woe? Then dive into thread linked below for the full rundown of laments.[Thanks, Shane]
