If you've been to an electronics store in the recent past, you know that "Smart TVs" are all the rage, televisions that have the built-in ability to run apps, display YouTube videos, access your photos, and access slick content like Google Play.

Heck, what if you want to have Netflix on your TV? Or join the world of Hulu and Hulu Plus instead of paying that ever-increasing cable TV bill?

What if you want those features but don't want to buy a new HDTV system?

That's where the slick CTL HDMI gizmo comes in. A tiny box not much bigger than a pack of gum, it plugs in to the HDMI port of your existing TV and gives you all the functionality of those expensive TVs. Without the cost.

Let's have a look!

This is a guest post by Matt Moran...

Google Slides (formerly Google Presentations) has added the ability to embed "Unlisted" YouTube videos into your presentations. This has tremendous implications and usefulness for content publishers. In effect, presentations can be maintained and kept up to date without having to republish all of the content.

Let me explain...

I am a business coach... and a consultant... and an author... and a speaker... Plus I write & perform the occasional song. Content is my domain. Content is King!

One set of tools I use is Google Drive (Google Docs). If you are NOT using Google Drive... Create a Google (Gmail) account and start today!

When I do a search on Google why are videos showing up on page 1 now, and more importantly why isn't my YouTube video showing up? Is there some way to improve my chances of being found on YouTube and Google for videos I upload?

Ever watched a video that's a recording of someone demonstrating something on their PC and narrating what they're doing? There are tons of them on YouTube, and it's a terrific format for tutorials, demonstrating Web services and can even be useful in that big presentation you have with the boss tomorrow. Watching them is easy. But making your own? Seems like a tricky proposition.

The category of software that we're talking about are "screen recorders", and there's no question that The Big Kahuna of screen recording software on the PC platform is Camtasia, from TechSmith. It's terrific -- I use it myself -- but it's also expensive, at $299.

There are other solutions, including some that are web-based, but the challenge isn't to find one that works, it's to find one that's really easy to work with and does just enough of the job to accomplish your goals, not overwhelm you with options and complexity. After all, if your goal is to narrate what you're doing on screen, you don't want to learn something new, you just want a "record" button and the ability to save the output video in a format that YouTube understands.

That's why we had a look at Screen Recording Suite from Apowersoft...

A guest post by frequent contributor Gary Moskoff...

The San Francisco MusicTech Summit 10 was an experience I will not soon forget. In fact, I've attended six conventions this year, and this was simply the most informative one of them all. Held at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco's Japantown, the convention wasn't your typical Techy, Geeky, musical meet up. Approximately 1/3 of the attendees were musicians, while the other 2/3rds were technologists.

The conference itself was comprised of panel discussions, one after the other. Themes and topics that arose ranged from using API's to prolifically share one's products, to the licensing landscape and how some have become basement superstar phenomenon's on YouTube.

My favorite session was the final panel of the day, where a group of seasoned industry executives who are shaping this industry discussed what was coming next. I almost fell off my chair when the host hand delivered a beer to all of the speakers (high class at the end of a great day).

Seeing panel after panel provides a very different experience than watching speaker after speaker, leading to a deeper peek into how tech and the music industries are colliding as we learned about both the successes and failures of the panelists. People tend to be more relaxed and open up a bit more when on a panel, than when they offer prepared remarks and these insights are extremely valuable to entrepreneurs, technologists, musicians, and pretty much everyone who attended that were looking for insights to improve their businesses and/or careers.

I've been starting to upload videos of my daughter singing and playing guitar and we've hit a limit of 15 minutes for the entire video on YouTube. But I've seen videos on YouTube that are longer, including a conference talk you gave that's an hour long! What's the secret of being able to post longer videos on YouTube?

Have you bought Google AdWords Video [actually it's called "YouTube Promoted Videos" -dt] before? I'm confused about whether the CPM bid for 1000 "plays" or 1000 "opportunities to play" the video on YouTube? Thx for any help! Their explanations are both automated and opaque.

Just loaded my first video up to YouTube and it came out great, except that for some reason, Apple's iMovie 11 program has it marked to be "private" even though I specified "public" when I did the upload. What's up? How do I fix it?

Naysays aside, I'm a big fan of Google Plus and find it's a great tech audience, perfect for my job. Part of what I do is produce and upload videos to YouTube too, and I'd really like to be able to hook the two together so videos I upload on YouTube automatically also show up on Google Plus. Possible? How?

I've been having fun making weird videos and uploading them to YouTube. What I really want to do, though, is share them with my friends on Twitter and Facebook. What's the easiest way to share a YouTube video on Facebook?

Okay, I made a short video of my dog chasing his tail and want to upload it to YouTube so I can get millions of views and maybe get a guest shot on Conan or Tosh2.0. How do I upload my movie to YouTube?

I've had a Netflix subscription since I got my iPad so I could gain access to their streaming movie library, but I now realize that I haven't actually launched the Netflix iPad app for over a month. So it's time to quit Netflix. How do I most easily do that, Dave?

I want to add a YouTube search box to my Web site. Can it be done?

Hi Dave. I wanted to show my 12th grade a documentary about Fermat's Last Theorem. I was planning to send them the link via e-mail, and have them watch it at home. But the link (below) has a porn site listed under "related videos", so I don't feel that I can send it to them.

  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8269328330690408516

Do you know of a way for me to download that video onto my computer?

I have a friend's e-mail address and I want to send them a file from my computer. How do I send it to them by e-mail?

Thanks to your articles and some experimentation on my part, I have figured out how to make videos on my new Apple iPhone 3GS. My question is: how do I upload these videos directly to YouTube as I keep reading you can do?

One of the cool new features of the Apple iPhone 3GS is the ability to take videos. Nice, but I can't figure out how to get to the video camera? I know how to take photos, though, so I figure it's related to the iPhone camera (rather obviously, eh?) I have also heard that you can edit the video right there on the iPhone, but I don't believe it. I mean, isn't the screen too darn small?

In previous blog entries (see How do I sponsor searches on Google? and Advertising cannot be your only online marketing channel), I've talked about how to use paid services to promote your business online, focusing specifically on Google Adwords and how it lets your company appear as "sponsored" results on a search page. Then we talked last week about the distressingly ephemeral nature of paid advertising and explored examples of how mindshare rapidly declines once you stop paying.

The solution to the dilemma, the path to sustained visibility in the online world, is to understand the gestalt of Google, if you will, the core concept behind modern Internet search engines. Once you understand how they work, you'll see how you can rethink your online presence to maximize results without paying the proverbial arm and a leg.

In a word: content.

I've been a prolific commentator on YouTube in the entertainment channel and, well, now I regret some of the comments I left. Is there any way to go back and delete any of them?

I want to use my Mac as a sort of digital video recorder (DVR) by capturing movies from Hulu and other streaming services, then saving them for later viewing while on plane flights. Is that doable? If so, what's the easiest solution?