VGA

I hesitated writing this How To. Compared with the olden days of installing and configuring video cards and giant CRT displays, the process of adding a secondary monitor to any modern computer is practically plug-and-play.

But when I sat down to write a tutorial on this that included both Mac and PC, I realized there's still a surprising amount of variables to the process, and plenty of details that I hadn't considered before.

"Is VGA video quality inherently worse than HDMI?"

"Will generic Mini DisplayPort cables work in a Mac's Thunderbolt port?"

I … Read more

The MacBook Air is Apple's new mainstream MacBook, and though the latest version is undoubtedly the best, there are still aspects of this slim laptop that could do with accessories. The Air achieves an excellent balance of design, performance, and battery life, but it still leaves out some features that many people consider essential to their laptop experience.

Consider these accessories a way of mending the missing pieces and providing true MacBook Air road warriors with all the tools needed for a worry-free Air-based lifestyle.

Click through for our picks. Did we miss any? Are there even better examples … Read more

It's our last episode of 2010 today on preGame and we end a great year of gaming by wrapping up some of the debut trailers from this weekend's Video Game Awards show. Tune in for some high-quality cinematics from Uncharted 3, Batman: Arkham City, Mass Effect 3, and SSX Deadly Descents.

Next we'll talk a bit about a new iPhone and Android app from the ESRB that allows customers to take a photo of a game box with their smartphones and retrieve valuable ratings information within a matter of seconds. It makes a great holiday-buying companion and … Read more

It's a shoestring-and-gum operation around here, and someone took our gum. But somehow, we've got another show for you today, and we're talking more Wikileaks Web warring (WWW3, perhaps?), Google activating 300,000 phones a day, and Apple's refusal to let you donate money via iPhone apps (and weirdly robotic response). --Molly

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them.

This old saw is arguably less true than in years past. Today, for a lot of reasons, there's more pressure to reach agreement on one way to do a certain thing. (Think the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray debacle for an example of what happens when vendors can't agree on a single approach.)

Standards aren't a single thing. Some have been blessed with the appropriate incantations by some official or quasi-official body. Others come from an industry consortium. And still others are "de facto&… Read more

Rafe Needleman and Brian Cooley talk monitor tech and advice with special guest Eric Franklin from CNET Labs.

If you've always wanted to connect an external display to your laptop without having to physically hook a cable between the two, I have good news for you.

Iogear introduced on Tuesday its Wireless USB to VGA Kit for streaming PC content to an alternate display. This is going to be one of the first implementations of Wireless USB.

WUSB technology has been under development since 2004, and the first time I saw its demo was during Winhec 2006. As the name suggests, it's essentially the current USB 2.0 technology without USB cables. WUSB can operate at … Read more

Sure, Panasonic may have made a splash in Vegas with its 150-inch plasma, but size isn't everything (or so we like to believe). Display maker Kopin, for example, is perfectly secure in its diminutive stature--so much so, in fact, that it claims to have invented "the world's smallest SVGA display."

But Engadget points out that the company's "CyberDisplay" SVGA (Supervideo Graphics Array ) stretches the tape measure diagonally at 0.44 inches, which happens to be the same size as its VGA (Video Graphics Array ) version, so the claim is really more about resolution … Read more