It all started with Netbooks, which where mini-sized Notebooks. Then along came Nettops - no, not small laptops, but smaller Desktops.

Now MSI, maker of the popular MSI Wind series of Netbooks, like the MSI Wind U100-432US, has brought out what they call “Wind Netons”, which are all-in-one PCs. They didn’t just announce one, but three – see this article from CNET’s Crave “Crave: MSI announces three all-in-one PCs, calls them Wind Netons for some reason“.
The all-in-one PCs are related to the Netbooks as they both make use of Intel Atom CPUs.

MSI is not the only Netbook manufacturer to introduce an All-in-One PCs running Intel Atom CPUs. Asus has introduced an “all-in-one touchscreen PC” called the “Asus Eee Top ET1602 PC”. A third All-in-one Nettop to be announced was the “Averatec 18.4 inch All-In-One PC”. It also runs the Intel Atom CPU, but doesn’t feature a touchscreen. Instead, it has a DVD burner and a larger screen

One question which needs to be asked is why Desktop PCs are using the Intel Atom CPU, which is primarily intended for low battery usage on Netbooks. It could be that it is a “greener” option, but it does leave the Nettops rather underpowered.

At the end of my last blog entry, I was stuck with a dead monitor. After a family meeting (not “the family“!), it was decided that I could get a replacement monitor due to the exceptional circumstances.

Unfortunately I did not just need a new monitor - I needed one or more cable(s) which would connect the PlayStation 3 to an LCD monitor. If I got a monitor with DVI input, then I could get a HDMI to DVI Cable, as the PlayStation 3 has HDMI output. However, since DVI does not carry sound, I would need an audio cable. Whatever LCD monitor I bought. I would have to buy additional cables. A replacement LCD monitor plus cables would work out at a little over $200.

Then I noticed something. Small HDTVs, that is ones with screens of 19 inches or so were not much more expensive than LCD monitors. The HDTVs had multiple inputs, ranging from HDMI to VGA. Finding a small HDTV which had a VGA input and a component AV input was relatively easy. The switching between the inputs would be done on the TV itself. The main advantage was that I didn’t have to buy any additional cables.

There was a 19 inch HDTV on sale at a Best Buy within 10 miles, one similar to the Coby TF-TV1913 19 inch LCD TV. Two hours of post Christmas Day shopping later we had the HDTV.

Setting the HDTV up to work both as a computer monitor and a PS3 display was relatively easy.

Continuing from yesterday, I thought a description of the YPbPr to RGBHV VGA Box might be helpful:
It is a small box, only about 3 inches long by 1 inch wide, and less than a 1/2 inch thick. At one end is a VGA input adapter, and at the other end a VGA output adapter. At the bottom are three inputs that are labeled Pr, Y and  Pb and colored red, green and blue, into which a standard AV cable like the Belkin Component Video Cable could be plugged. Finally there is a switch that toggles between VGA input and AV cable input.

I had tried connecting it to my primary monitor going from VGA in to VGA out, and for some reason it did not seem to remember the settings and made the picture quite dull.

Before hooking up the PlayStation 3, I decided to use my secondary monitor – which is a smaller LCD monitor hooked up to Desktop PCs I don’t use that much. My Xbox 360 was also connected to it, so I had to disconnect all its cables first. When I hooked up the VGA box to my secondary monitor, it also made the picture quite dull.

It was then that I should have stopped. Of course I didn’t. I connected the PlayStation 3 to the VGA input. When the PlayStation 3 started, something flashed on the screen, a message about reducing resolution to 16xx by – I could not make out the rest of the message. After that the LCD monitor was blank, even though it was on. The On Screen menu did not display. I connected the LCD monitor up to a Desktop PC. Nothing, it was dead.

This Blog Entry was going to be called A Christmas Story - more with the irony of Jean Shepherd than the true Christmas Story, but one needs to be politically correct in these times.

So, I got my Christmas present (”Holiday/Seasonal Gift?”) and spent some time figuring out how I was going to hook it up to my LCD monitor. Unlike the Xbox 360, for which you can buy a VGA adapter cable, the Sony PlayStation 3 has no similar simple solution. About 18 months ago, when I was choosing a gaming console, my first choice was the PlayStation 3, until I came up against this problem of no VGA adapter cable being available. Then I chose the Xbox 360, this time I chose the PlayStation 3. I had found the “YPbPr to RGBHV VGA Box”, which supposedly takes YPbPr (component input, that is from the PlayStation 3) and converts it to RGBHV (Monitor, LCD, TV) output.

First I connected the YPbPr to RGBHV VGA Box to my current LCD monitor and two desktop PCs setup. Something wasn’t right. Not only was my Windows Desktop on both machines duller and harder to read, but every time I booted on of the PCs I had to fiddle with the LCD monitor’s onscreen menu to get it to auto adjust. Okay, just a minor problem, I thought…

 (to be continued)

Any port in a storm refers to a ship on the high seas. It definitely doesn’t apply to input and output ports on PCs.

Most of the legacy ports have been around so long I’m pretty used to them. Mouse and keyboard (both the PS/2 type ports and the newer USB ports), VGA for the monitor, the fast disappearing parallel printer port, serial port (are there still any serial devices?), audio in and audio out port (and some ports I’ve probably missed).

My Dell Inspiron 530 threw me with another port, a DVI port. There were also two cables for the Dell SE198WFP LCD monitor, a standard VGA cable, and a DVI cable.
DVI is “a digital connector which is the ideal way to connect to an LCD monitor.”
DVI-I (Integrated) can carry both a digital and an analog signal to support VGA monitors, and DVI-D (Digital) provides only a digital signal. DVI was intended to replace VGA.

HDMI is backward compatible with DVI. HDMI carries both digital video and audio signals in a single cable. Most gamers would know about HDMI as the Xbox 360 Premium began shipping with a HDMI port last year.

Over the past few days I’ve been slobbering about the PC World editors’ dream PC — a machine that is valued at about $30,000. (See “Watching TV While You Compute” and “The Magic of the Solid State Disk.”)

Those of you out there who are my groupies (Thanks, Mom!) know that I consider this the era of the display. (See “Era of the Display.”) That means I was especially interested to see how the experts at PC World would want to view their computing activities. That would require three NEC MultiSync LCD2490WUXiSV Black 24.1 Widescreen LCD Monitors at a quoted price of $3,866.97 (which is just about the best quoted price on PriceGrabber.com too) and a three-monitor X-Top Scalable Multi-Screen Display System from 9xmedia for another $1,000.

About that brand of monitor, to accommodate three 24-inch displays, you’d think you’d need a desk wide enough to accommodate about 66 inches of screen, since these are just under 21.8 inches in width. But that wouldn’t be true. If you’re working on a troll table, like I do, you could set up that 9xmedia display stand to show the monitors, one on top of the other (in which case you’d want to work near your chiropractor, since your neck will, no doubt, go out on you on a regular basis).

Of course, my troll table probably couldn’t handle the 26 pounds x three displays weight, which tallies to 78 pounds, not counting the display stand.

But, oh, the pleasure of working at a bank of monitors that can show up to 16.7 million colors (from a palette of 69 billion). And they include clocks that lets the user schedule power management schemes in order to reduce energy usage.

So I’d say PC World got it right with this one — even though it would force me to upgrade to, oh, a real desk. Imagine! With the power of these monitors, I could view The Complete Series of The Andy Griffith Show in a third of the time — one episode per screen. Yes, I could get into blowing nearly five grand on displays.

Kids with unique challenges have been on my mind lately. In the course of doing research for an article, I’ve discovered a bunch of products that cater to their special computing needs. (Many of these things are just plain cool too.)

For instance, did you know that you can turn any standard monitor — desktop or notebook — into a touch interactive screen? Keytec, which developed the technology I’m familiar with, MagicTouch, claims the touch screen can be installed and removed easily without opening the computer case to install a board.

It’s activated by touch with almost anything — a finger or stylus, even a gloved hand. It can be used concurrently with your mouse, and it’s available for USB or serial port interface. Drivers are available for versions of Windows from Vista through ME, as well as NT, and Linux and Mac 9 and 10. Plus, the screen helps reduce that static electricity emanating from the monitor. Apparently, it’s easy to move from display to display and can be cleaned easily.

I can think of a user or two — little and big — who could put this thingie to good use.

If you wish you had two monitors on your desk at the same time to handle different functions on each, you’ll want to know about a new kind of technology that will soon be making its appearance — thanks to a little known Korean company called E-Detail. No doubt, the idea will crop up in other products soon. What they appear to specialize in dual displays.

The Multi Web Pad is a tablet PC that offers two displays, one standard sized and the other, well, dinky. The specs are pretty standard for a non-professional PC: an AMD CPU, Windows XP Home Edition (an odd choice for a machine that could easily be used for work), 512K RAM and a built-in webcam.

But having those two monitors built in is a boon. Imagine those situations where you have to crane your neck to see somebody’s display while they talk you through a demo of something at work. This way, they can flip a monitor around for you to watch. Or, if you participate in a project where the team is remote, you can view the webcam showing teammates on the mini-monitor while doing your note-keeping or wiki updating on the other.