I’m No Electrician | Tech Blog

This 2 part guide will show you how to copy a DVD to your computer or to another disc.

There are many reasons you might want to copy a DVD, maybe you have a DVD of your son’s soccer game or a wedding DVD and want to copy it for friends/family. Or lets face it maybe you’ve rented a movie and may want to watch it again without the extra cost. These two scenario’s throw up a different issue. Protection.

You can pretty much assume that with any home authored DVD there will be no protection on the disc and it will usually be burnt on a standard 4.7GB disc. The latter may differ nowadays with the drop in price of dual layer discs and burners. If the disc has no protection and you have a blank disc of the same capacity then a straight forward copy can be completed using burning software such as Ahead’s Nero Burning Rom or Toast on the Mac.

However, that would be no guide would it. So I’m going to assume that the disc is protected and/or you do not have a blank disc (or do not have one the correct size). This part of the guide will address getting the files onto the PC.

Step 1 - Download this great free program that will enable you to rip your dvd to the PC hard drive. - "http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/">DVD Decrypter

Step 2 - Install DVD Decrypter by following the on screen prompts. Once complete, start the program.

Step 3 - Insert your DVD into your PC. You will be met with the following screen:

A - Gives you some information on the region and protection.
B - Shows the DVD files on the DVD.
C - Shows the destination where the files will be ripped/copied. (Click the folder icon to choose a different directory).
D - Click this button to start ripping the files to the hard drive.

Step 4 - Now the files are on your hard drive and if you have a suitable disc you can burn away.

In the 2nd part of this guide I will address the issue of resizing the image files to fit a dual layer disc onto a standard 4.7GB DVD.

The second gadget of the week is the Wii Fit game and accessories for the Nintendo Wii games console:

What is it?

Wii Fit is the latest addition to the Nintendo Wii games console. A console that has brought gaming to the masses, to mum’s, dad’s and grandparents. Wii Fit is another title that will appeal not to the traditional gamers but to people new to the game console market. As well as the games disc you also get a Wii balance board. The balance board is basically 2 weighing scales placed side by side to enable it to weigh you, calculate your body mass index (BMI) and track weight distribution. The board and game will then let you carry out activities from fun mini games to yoga and track your weight and BMI throughout. The board is wireless and acts independently of the traditional Wii Remote.

Why is it so great?

The main reason I think this is a great piece of software/hardware is that it follows in Nintendo’s new wave of getting gamers active. Think back to the Wii release title of Wii Sports and you find it hard to sit down whilst playing any of the games available in the pack. It may not be the ultimate solution to obesity or weight loss but it is a step in the right direction. A few weeks on this and I will probably be more likely to use that gym membership that has probably expired.

For all the reasons mentioned above there is also the massive advantage that the Wii balance board will also be compatible with other games that are still to be released to the £70 ($140) price tag now looks more reasonable. It is rumoured that the board will be sold separately, probably after the sales of Wii Fit have died down and prices are expected to be around £40 ($80).

I’m just waiting for the Wii version of Tony Hawk.

The Freecom Mediaplayer 35 is basically a caddy or case for a standard IDE (PATA) hard drive. What it does then is turn that hard drive into a full media centre. Connecting the mediaplayer via Composite or S-Video cable to your TV will allow you to watch movies, play music or view image files through your TV with no extra hard ware of software.

The device is controlled by a remote which gives you ease of access from your sofa. A great benefit of the Freecom mediaplayer is that you can fit any size hard drive you like from an old 40GB drive that is sitting unused in an old machine to a brand new 500GB+ drive. While you find enough music and movies to fill the drive you can easily use any spare space as extra storage without it effecting the playback functionality of the mediaplayer.

The mediplayer is easy to connect to both PC and TV. No software is needed to add/remove files or to enable playback through your TV. The mediaplayer also has the option of a LAN connection so you can add it to your network. The advantage of this would be that you can stream the files from your PC to the mediaplayer without having to install a hard drive and keep taking the machine back to the PC whenever you wanted to add new files.

The Freecom Mediaplayer 35 is a great space saving device for me, not only does it store both mp3’s and movies digitally saving shelve space it also prevents me from unplugging something to plug in either the DVD player or Hi Fi as this acts as both. My movies are stored in div x format <strike>along with the occasional download</strike> meaning there is not even a need to keep the original DVDs in the living room they can be boxed up in the attic.

The only disadvantage for me is that the device isn’t wireless enable so I cannot move files to is without unplugging it and plugging it back in at my PC. I guess with the amount of mediaplayers that are now available recording from the TV would be an obvious improvement but it does a great job for me.

Do you use something similar? Would you consider a Freecom mediaplayer?

This is a new feature to the web site hopefully there will become a regular slot when this is announced.

Anyway this week’s gadget of the week is the Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro

What is it?

The Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro is an anti-virus solution like no other. This hardware portable device is actually a computer running a Unix system that’s all it takes to protect your computers security. The device can connect via USB or combination of USB and ethernet and is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

Why is it so great?

An external firewall acts as a stronger line of defence against incoming viruses and security attacks compared to the standard software firewalls that run on your machine. Once the device is connect it basically gives care free protection to your system. Its benefits are that it is portable to is ideal to plug into your laptop, it is reasonably priced costing around the £100 ($200) mark and with all the security taken care of you can uninstall the software firewall, anti virus and spyware programs and free up some valuable system resources.

Its this weeks Gadget of the Week and I’m hoping to acquire one in the near future so will do a full review/how to at that point.

As promised in my last post, this guide is courtesy of Lex of Lex224 forums.

This is a quick guide to getting yourself playing games online. It’s a very general guide, not covering any game in specific but a basic walkthrough to playing online.

Internet

Obviously, to play games online, you need an internet connection. Online games depend heavily on the type of internet connection you have. More recent games with better graphics and detailed game-play will require broadband of some sort. As long as it’s 1mb or faster, I think you’ll be alright.

Of course even with dial-up you can play some online games. This does restrict the type of games you can play like online casino games and other small ones. I’ll not go into these types of games with this guide so I’m assuming you’ve got broadband or some other semi-fast internet.

Game

The number of online games increases each day. The majority of games released these days have some kind of online mode where you can play with people from all over the world, together, against each other or both. Some games have different types of online modes. You’ll need to try each of these modes to see which one you like best.

Joining an online game

Well, you’ve got a game with internet capabilities and an internet connection. What more could you want? To actually play! To play with people online, it is much easier to join a server than to make one. This is for a variety of reason such as internet issues and difficulty of the game to actually make one to your specifications.

So, you’ll join a game which already exists. When you start up the game, you’ll be confronted with a main menu. This is where you can select what to play, whether you want to play online, where you can change the games settings and other tabs which show you the games features. What you want to do is join a game in the internet. I don’t know exactly what you will have to click but it could be anything from ‘Multiplayer’, ‘Join Game’, ‘Internet’, ‘Servers’ etc.

When you find your way to the internet part of the game, you will be faced with a list of servers, or separate instances of the game, ran by other people on the internet in order for people to join. Here will also be other information. Click here to continue reading the guide at Lex224 Forums