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Tech How-To Central
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Technology
Military & Law Enforcement
Transportation
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Energy Family & Digital Family
Tech How-To Central
Reviews
Technology
Featured Story
How to Build a Powerful Home Theater PC for Less Than $500
It used to be an expensive and time-consuming task to custom-build a dedicated home theater PC (HTPC). But today, mod guru Anthony Verducci shows that the process is a lot easier—and cheaper. Here's how to build a tiny dedicated HTPC with Blu-Ray drive, 2 GB RAM, 128 GB hard drive and heatsink for less than the price of most off-the-shelf Blu-Ray players.
Previous Tech How-To Central Stories
| How to Eject Discs from Mac Pro Towers: Digital Clinic A reader who no longer uses his Apple keyboard is having trouble ejecting CDs and DVDs from his Mac Pro. Here are several workarounds for the eject button-less computers. (Published in the November 2009 issue)
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| How to Ditch Wi-Fi for a High-Speed, Ethernet-Wired Home To take full advantage of your high speed Internet, you should hook up your networked appliances with Ethernet cables instead of slower Wi-Fi connections. PM shows you how to wire your home so that all your devices get real high-speed Internet. (Published in the November 2009 issue)
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| How to Get a More Connected, Intelligent Home Theater HD was just the beginning. New screens, networked devices, remotes and video gear change what we watch and how we see it. Here is how to chase the ultimate home theater upgrade—and avoid buyer’s remorse. (Published in the November 2009 issue)
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| How to Use Less Energy in Your Home Theater Surround sound systems are great for movies, but they can drain power and be overkill if you're just watching the weather report. Here's how to save money on your electricity bill without losing the immersive experience that your AV equipment provides. (Published in the October 2009 issue)
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| How to Get Your Gadgets Off the Grid Senior technology editor Glenn Derene shows that with a small wind turbine, generator, solar charging kit and two very powerful batteries, you won’t have to abandon your gadgets (or beer fridge) after an emergency. (Published in the October 2009 issue)
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| How to Install In-Wall Surround-Sound Speakers: DIY Tech Speakers should be heard and not seen. So when PM tech expert Anthony Verducci decided that his standing home theater speaker towers took up too much space, he replaced them with five nearly invisible in-wall speakers. Here's how he did it.
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| How to Make Your Own Battery-Powered Gadget Chargers With a few AA batteries and $5 worth of parts, anybody can cobble together an emergency cellphone charger. Here's how to do it, and how to extend your charger-building skills to work on digital cameras, laptops and even power tools. (Published in the October 2009 issue)
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| How to Take (and Make) Composite HDR Photographs Mysterious-looking, hyper-realistic high-dynamic-range (HDR) photographs combine details from multiple images taken at different exposures. With just a little work on your computer, you can make professional-looking HDR images yourself. Here's how. (Published in the September 2009 issue)
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| How to Ruggedize Your Own Gadgets (With Video!) How much foam and plastic does it take to save ordinary gadgets from everyday disasters? Here, we design DIY gadget armor for regular old laptops, cells and cameras so that they'll withstand drops, drinks and dirty dives. Then we lay on the abuse. (Published in the September 2009 issue)
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| Affordable Ways to Become an Amateur Astronomer PM's Glenn Derene explains how to add a a computerized guidance system to your telescope so you can find celestial bodies without star charts, and how to connect your digital SLR so you can photograph what you're seeing with a super-zoom lens. (Published in the August 2009 issue)
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| View Full Technology: Tech How-To Central Archive | ||
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