Google TV the cheapskate alternative

View the YouTube video and catch a glimpse of what Google envisions as GoogleTV. Their main goal is to bring the best on the internet to the home’s tv screens.

 Are you a high roller with a loaded bank account? Than you possibly have the following:

·         Have just bought a new and very expensive HDTV flat screen

·         Fast internet connection through Wi-Fi

·          laptop (netbook, regular notebook or professional)

·         A Cable TV service subscription

Or are you a person that no matter what your income is, you want a reasonable deal? Than the following applies to you:

·         You don’t want to pay for a new TV with GoogleTV

·         You don’t want spend extra for another set-up box

·         You have a blue-ray unit on your laptop but the screen is to small

·         You want to maximize the devices you already have

·         You probably play some games in your laptop

·         You like to surf the web looking for content to share with your friends

·         You hate cables running through you house and walls

·         You want internet on the TV today

·         You like to see movies at home with top quality

If the above points are appealing to you, than we at dopamina360 have two solutions that may help you; the Cost Effective solution and the cheapest one:

Cost Effective solution:

If you want to surf the web, play games and share content with friends (on your own or others laptops), watch HD movies on your laptop, and have an strong dislike for cables, than all you need is:

You buy Q-Waves AV Kit on the web market for around €140. It allows you to use your flat screen or wall projector as an extension (or duplicate) screen on your screen without any cables. Just plug the USB dongle on the laptop. It also transmits audio, but only on stereo.

If you are a true film fan, and can’t go by without 5.1 surround sound (you probably own a very expensive home cinema), you should get this also:

We found Sirocco Wireless Audio Bridge on the web market for 155 USD

Just install it and the sound will travel to your 5.1 speakers through WLAN.

Finally, if you liked all the above solution but dont want to spend so much to have the complete experience, place your laptop near the flat screen and home cinema and buy on of these:

From Keysonic, one of the various 2 in 1 keyboard and touchpad systems, (cordless mouse don’t work well on the couch) and you will have no cables on the floor. The downside is you can’t have the laptop near you and extend the TV screen just to show content, and if you want to use the laptop while watching TV, you need to get up and pick it. Also, every time you leave home with the lap top, you need to unplug all cable and reconnect when come back home.

It would be simple just to have another computer just for this, but the goal is to save money and take maximum profit and extend usability of existing devices at home.

Super Easy Project Manager Web-based Application

Here at dopamina360, both the team and project volume has grown extremely fast that we decided to search online for a web based application to serve as platform for our teamwork projects.

As a small creative thinking tank, the requirements we find necessary are the following:

·         Users

o        Customized and variety profiles with various permissions

o        Email notifications to other users

o        Personal profile

o        Online chat between online users

o        Messaging between users

o        Very simple and user friendly interface

·         Project objectives

o        Files and folders

o        Tasks associated to users

o        Milestones

o        Project related messages

·         Cost Effective resource

o        Preferable for free

Essentially this application suits any small work groups with employees working on numerous projects simultaneously.

After conducting research and trial running many softwares, we chose the open source solution Collabtive.

Installation instructions are very face forward.  If your website host is able to give you access to cpanel, than the software is available to install in 5 minutes.

Here at dopamina360, our staff found the application user friendly, and nor did we face any major problems using it. The software satisfies all our requirements simply and efficiently. In addition, there were no unnecessary complicated features, as we had experienced in two other trial versions of commercial softwares.

The only negative feature we found is the user desktop menu disappears when you choose a project, instead of appearing as a submenu. This could potentially cause some confusion when the user opts to return back to the desktop menu.

The only custom adjustment that we have made to this software was to change the login menu image to make our logo appear. Maybe they will add this to the installation menu.

After our trial run of this web-based application, we here at dopamina360 rate it  7/10, making this a very good, much needed software.