Our Apartment Technology: Television

Over the past few years, Alicia and I have slowly worked up our television system. We've moved through many different solutions, and we are still evolving our system. What we're most proud of is putting computer capabilities onto the computer. Our new flat screen television had this:

That VGA is the input to connect a computer (it's essentially the same thing a computer monitor has). Most laptops come with this:

It's a spot to connect a monitor cable. This is so that you can hook up your computer to a projector when giving presentations. All that was left to fit the pieces together was the cable. Here it is:

The cable is the same on both ends, and it's pretty common (it's just a monitor cable)! Now we can treat the tv as a monitor. What does this mean? Well, first off, we can just sit on the chair and cruise the internet, or do anything you'd do at a regular computer. But we've got a whole lot more.

• We can watch internet television. Hulu.com, Netflix, Youtube... any video that plays on the internet, we can watch on our TV. This is the primary reason we've managed to avoid paying for cable.
• We can use it as a stereo system. We purchased these speakers with wedding money:

The speakers are on either side of the tv

The bass of the system

They are cheap as far as surround system speakers go, but they are high end for computer speakers. As a result, we've got great sound intended only to come out of computers... but it's coming out of our television. Using the laptop, we have access to our entire music catalogue.

• We use our system to watch movies. Occasionally, there's a movie that comes with a digital copy. We download it, put it on the laptop, and we can watch it at a moments notice. Theoretically, we could load all of our DVDs onto the computer and treat our movies like our music. We'd only have to open a file to start any movie in our catalogue. Now, this is technically pirating, since making a copy of a DVD is an unauthorized reproduction. But we wouldn't do this, of course.

What's great is that Alicia's laptop was going unused ever since we built the new computer last year. So we're both happy to be taking advantage of all our technology. If you've got a television with the above port and a spare computer, I can't recommend doing this enough. If you like it, you could get rid of cable and save hundreds of dollars a year!

Two side notes: First, you couldn't see the laptop in the above picture of the speakers. Her laptop is behind the television. Here's the side view:

What's awesome about this is that whatever is currently showing on the television will also be showing on the laptop screen. So when standing in the kitchen, you can still watch whatever's on.

Second, Alicia has since cleaned up this system. She moved the television back, cleaning up the cables and making it look great. But you'll have to come visit us to see it!