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Tech News & Commentary
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Jack in Los Alamos, New Mexico listening Online asked: “The motherboard in my desktop computer has been fried. I’m wondering about buying another board and replacing it. How do I keep my OS? I’ve been using Windows 7. Can I just put in my old Hard Drive and use it that way?”
Well, depending on whether your PC is made by a popular manufacturer such as Dell or HP or if it’s a custom built one it is possible to change to the exact same motherboard and keep the hard drive, however, it’s not recommended because there might be some driver and compatibility issues.
We recommend that you do a clean install of your operating system and restore your files from a backup, or if you don’t have one, get a new drive, install Windows and restore from your old drive.
Also if your motherboard had fried, we would like to advise you to make sure that your CPU and components haven’t suffered from damage because if you put faulty components in your new motherboard, it may damage it.
So please be careful.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Jan in in Leonore, Illinois asked: “I have tried to get through by phone but no luck. I absolutely cannot get pictures taken with my Motorola Milestone X2 onto my mini card. What am I not setting correctly? Thanks much. Love your show!”
Thank you too. If you want the photos that you take with your phone to be stored on your memory card instead of on your phone’s internal memory, open your camera app, then touch the menu button (in case you don’t know, it’s the one that has 4 small squares, on your particular phone), then select settings and you’ll have an option for “Storage location” just select the card instead of “internal storage”.
If what you want is to move the pictures already taken from the phone to the card, since you have a Motorola phone, it should come with an app called Files. Open the app, select the pictures you want to move, and then select move to SD card.
While all of these steps work, my favorite, another way to keep and organize your pictures is to use one of the many cloud based services that offer automatic uploads to their servers. Dropbox offers a feature on their mobile Apps called Camera Upload The photos and videos you take with your Milestone will upload automatically to Dropbox—meaning they’ll be safely backed up and viewable anywhere. Dropbox will give you 3 gigs of free storage for using this feature.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Matthew in Sterling Heights, Michigan listens on the iPhone App asked: “I want to get an ASUS K55 series the model with the AMD series processor. Wondering if I can get it for a good gaming machine and every day use. Wanted some info on it and see if it’s a good buy.”
For everyday use … sure! For gaming though… The ASUS K55 series are basically ultrabooks, they very portable, very light, they’re nice looking… but they’re probably not powerful enough for high end games.
If you want to play just casual games, and you don’t mind choosing from what you computer can play, not what’s available in the market, it may work for you, but if you mostly want a gaming machine, maybe you should pass on this one and look for something more powerful.
What’s the primary use you’re going to give this computer? Is it mostly “every day use” or mostly “gaming,” if gaming is secondary, it might work for it, but if gaming is important to you, you may not be satisfied with the K55 series.
The key to being able to play games on a laptop is to have a powerful discrete graphics processor. But including that extra chip adds cost, generates heat, and drains the battery more rapidly. That’s why you don’t HAVE a lot of gaming Ultrabooks. The ones that do exist will be pricey.
ASUS makes the excellent UX51 series, available in various configurations, with prices hovering right around $1800 depending on options. Gigabyte has just introduced new models of its U2442 series, called the U2442DT, that puts an Intel Core i7 processor and an NVIDIA GT 730M graphics processor into an Ultrabook format. No word on the price of that machine, but trust me — it will be right up there with the ASUS.
You have to ask yourself what kind of games you want to play and what level of performance you’re willing to settle for. For most modern 3D graphic video games, an NVIDIA GT 650M video processor will get you around 30 frames per second at medium settings. If you want to go higher and faster than that, you will need to pay for it.
If you get away from Ultrabook form factors, then you get a lot more choices in gaming notebooks. Alienware, MSI, Sager, Razer, iBuyPower, Origin, Samsung, Dell XPS, and ASUS are all brand names that make powerful gaming notebook computers. But again, they will be pricey. For bargain shoppers, check the MSI brand. They offer a very good value per dollar, but in a rather plain package.
Hope this helps! We can answer you more specifically if you told us what games you were intending to play and what resolution and graphics quality settings you expect to use.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Noah Dentzel, CEO & Founder – ChargeCard Project
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
Dr. Walter Bruch worked on the giant electronic camera he had developed for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. In 1937 during the Funkausstellung, today known as IFA, a clearly advanced model of the camera was presented for live broadcasting. One of the interview partners was Paul Nipkow, who was baptized the “father of television”, who’s famous mechanical Nipkow disc had become obsolete with the new electronic capturing. Dr. Bruch went on in the early 50s, to invent the PAL color TV standard for Europe.
Comments from our COOL “Into Tomorrow” HOT Summer Giveaway!!!
Gary from Canton, TX, Listens: on our free podcasts and Heard about the big “Into Tomorrow” IFA giveaway from our weekly email. Reason for wanting to travel: Berlin, what wall? But … he does meet all the other requirements, like having a valid Passport and is availabler on the IFA dates to travel and so forth.
Richard in Idaho Falls, ID Listens and heard about the COOL “Into Tomorrow” HOT Summer Giveaway on our FREE Podcasts. Reason for wanting to travel: he says: “I love technology and “Into Tomorrow”
Joe From: Hope Hull, AL, Listens: on WLWI in Montgomery, AL He said: “I am always an early adopter of technology — like you guys refer to a lot — and work in the computer industry. Seeing IFA and you guys doing the show from there would be awesome!”
Judy in Toledo, OH Listens: on the Radio on AM 800. She said: “I enjoy listening to your radio program. You provide very important information”. She said that she doesn’t watch ITTV because “I did not know about where to view them.” IntoTomorrow.com Right there on our Main page! She says: “I love the European culture. I have not been to Germany since 1970, but would love to go back. We also had a German foreign exchange student in 2000 and we became very close to her. We would love to see her again”.
You may enter ONCE a week … AND … when you call-in, using our FREE APP or 1-800-899-INTO (4696) and we can HEAR you … we will BONUS you with yet another entry!!! Good luck!!!
Steve in New Jersey listens to the Podcast sent some techrage our way about his dislike of iTunes.
Thank you, Steve.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Mark sent us the following comment: “Thanks for the Newsletter. They are very helpful in keeping up with my favorite Tech news. Thanks again for letting me win a weekly prize recently.”
Thank you, Mark!
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
John in Bridgewater, New Jersey listens Online recounted his experience using his Microsoft Surface tablet.
Thank you, John!
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info, please email us here.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
eton: FRX3 – Hand Turbine AM/FM/Weather Alert Radio
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yo — Now with Dave’s face on them! — A clever solution to tangled earbuds.
iolo: Copies of: Drive Scrubber – Erase data so it can NEVER be recovered.
SoundMatters: foxl – Pocket Sized portable Bluetooth Loudspeaker.
V Moda Headphones: a variety of styles of the DJ Inspired, Hollywood Designed Headphones