Copying DVDs: Going from DVD to DVD

In my last post, I wrote about how to copy a DVD to a hard drive. Well, sometimes, many people simply want to copy DVD to DVD to backup their expensive DVD collection.

Just like with copying a DVD to your hard drive, this process can be accomplished for free without and abundance of paid-for software. 

The problem is that when you search for how to do this, you find all of these pieces of software that you have to pay for or that are 30 day trials where you have to end up paying for the software or you have to discontinue the use of the software.

Fortunately, there are folks out there who write about how to do it for free.  As I read on Brack’s site in the article How To Copy a DVD to Another DVD For Free, this process is very simple and can be done for free.

You simply need three pieces of software:  DVD43, DVDShrink, and Image Burner. 

These three tools, which are widely available via Internet searchces, will have you copying DVD to other DVDs for free in no time.

I am not going to use the space of this article to go into how to use each of these respective products because there are endless articles about how to use them.

Suffice it to say though, you do not need to buy any other software.  These three utilities will get the job done and they are all FREE.

I hope this helps you guys when you are copying DVDs.

Take Care,
Toom of Wisdom!!!

On Copying DVDs To Your Computer

I just read an article about called DVDs on the Go which reviewed how to copy DVD to hard drive.

Why is this article important?

Well, for many reasons but not the least of which is that you need to safeguard your DVD collection. 

Let’s see…let’s say that you have 20 DVDs in your collection.  At $15 bucks a pop, that’s $300.  And, many of us have more than just 20 DVDs…I know that I have over 100 DVDS.

But the cool thing here for me is not the protection…it’s the portability copying a DVD to your hard drive gives you.

If you are like me, you like to watch movies in all locations.  However, I do not like to bring my external laptop DVD player with me and I do not like to carry my DVDs with me. 

With this solution, you do not have to do any of that.  When you copy your DVDs to your hard drive, all of your movies are stored on your hard drive and you can just pull them up at the touch of a button with no DVD media or DVD player needed.

I loved it.  Great ideas.

Looking at Insurance Companies

Now that the craziness of the holiday season has died down a bit, I am doing something that is a cold wakeup reminder:  looking at my budget.

One thing that currently sticks out at me is how much that I am paying for car insurance and health insurance.  For health insurance, I am kind of stuck because I receive this through work.

But my car insurance I can do something about it.  I signed up for my current plan many years ago when the economy was booming and $100 here and there did not matter.  Now it does.  $100 saved each month is more than $1,000 at the end of the year which is not a bad thing.

Thus, I am looking at an article entitled top rated auto insurance companies in United States to see where I can improve in these matters. Here’s is what I have done. There are 10 insurance companies listed and I am calling each one of them and acquiring information.

The first thing I want to know obviously is price. Second, service. I will choose based on a combination of the two.

It’s odd though. As I read in an An Insurance Rant, I feel like I am being bled to death.  So, I have never paid a car accident and paid over $10,000 to protect myself if that occurred.  Doesn’t seem fair does, does it?

That is why I am looking at insurance companies and trying to find the best deal…because I want to stop paying top dollar for something that I never use!

More Golf Wisdom

Well, another day and another attempt at mastering the game of golf.  Today, the objective is to learn how to drive a golf ball straight because I am spraying this thing all over the place.

You golfers out there know what it is like to be on the first tee, anticipating a good round, and then immediately hooking your drive out of bounds or something like that.

This immediately sets you up for a double bogey start which is horrendous and gets you off to a bad mindset.

Lately, after reading some golf ball reviews and deciding to buy the most expensive golf ball on the market–Titleist Pro VI (but I bought it used), I have learned how to drive the golf ball far.

However, length, when it is not straight, just puts the golf ball MORE out of bounds or in trouble.

Thus, I am focused today–like many others–on Driving a Golf Ball not only far but STRAIGHT!!!

Cooking Steak on a Cold Night: Got to Use the Oven

Here is the thing with steak:  It tastes absolutely the best when it is barbequed outside.  There is no doubt about that.

However, this Thursday night we are having a night that is entirely too cold to be outside.  It’s like 20 below O.  Now, I am no wuss…I cook outside in the winter.

I make myself a Johnny Walker (yeah, I “keep walking”) and then I head outside with a big jacket on and start a-cooking.  But 20 below…I could die. 

Thus, tonight I will be cooking steak in the oven and I don’t even know how to cook a new york strip steak in the oven because I always–ALWAYS–do it on the grill.

I suppose I should not start this process with bad results to begin with.  My wife wanted to cook some sort of Tofu sh*t so I win on that one.  I don’t even need to ask Is Steak a Healthy Meal like some others do because I know.  It is a healthy meal.

This whole “no-meat” to be healthy thing is a load of nonsense.

My dad lived till 98 years old and he ate meat for just about every meal.

He would disappointed tonight though that I am not outside, despite the fact that I could die of cold, cooking!

Getting Technical With HDMI

I bring wisdom to all of you and that is why I called my blog, “The Toom of Wisdom” 

Sometimes it’s half-baked nonsense but other times you get free advice that will leave you doing things that you never thought possible.  That is why my blog is risk/reward.

Ok, so here’s the deal.  I just bought a new ASUS laptop for Christmas that rocks the house.  This thing gets more than 12 hours of battery life.  And the most amazing thing about this statistic is that it is true.  I have unplugged and gone forever. 

Long gone are the days of my old Toshiba that lasted for a total of 30 minutes.  It wasn’t always like this…it use to be good.  In the end though, 30 minutes made me feel like the world.

But, now with the ASUS I can fly to Europe and watch movies the whole time.  It rules! 

And now, for the ultimate cool part.  I am wanting to hook my ASUS up to my LCD TV and have been wondering which cables do i need to connect my pc to a TV and I have found a very satisfying answer.

In HDMI and DVI, I began reading that most people have to hook up this connection using DVI, which only delivers video but not sound.  The reason people do this is because most laptops do not have HDMI, which does both audio and video in one cable. 

But guess what?

The ASUS has an HDMI port so I connected it easily just like I did my Blu-ray.  Now, not only can I use my LCD as a huge laptop screen, but I can watch movies, home videos, and play all my music through my home stereo. 

And that, my friends is cool and my Toom of Wisdom for the day!

Finding Unlisted Phone Numbers Is Easy

A funny thing happened to me this past weekend.  Well, it wasn’t funny at first, it was tragic.

I lost my iPhone which had all of my contact information in it.  Ok, this part is tragic.  Well, come yesterday-Sunday-it was my sister’s 40th birthday and I had no way to get in touch with her because I lost all of my phone numbers. 

So, I am wanting to call her for her birthday but she is unlisted because, in the past, she had a stalker after her and did not want her phone # exposed.  Since she was unlisted, I did not think that i had a prayer in H*ll of finding her.  But, I thought, I give it the old college try.

So, I searched for the best free people finder and find a website called Zabasearch.  This site is a little bit like Google in that it has an easy interface and is relatively easy to operate. 

Anyway, it asked for the name of the person to find and what state they lived in…just these two pieces of information, that’s it.  So, I entered this information and it gave a number that I called.

Guess who answered?  My sister.  So much for an unlisted number, huh?