Is this how your SQL Server 2012 installations are also used as far as the connect information for the proper way to connect to them?

As a general statement, yes. I watched the video, and aside from the fact that I usually install more services, and I generally use Windows Authentication (unless I have a need to used mixed mode), yeah, that's pretty much the same.

My current SQL 2012 VM is called win-txyzz14gh. (It's actually a domain - I had to install a domain controller in order to make SharePoint work, but that's a different story)

Then my instances are things like win-txyzz14gh\SQL2012, win-txyzz14gh\SQL2012Tabular, etc.

Now...when I install SQL 2012 on my regular Windows 8 laptop, as my computer name is KEVINDELLPC, my SQL 2012 instance is KEVINDELLPC\SQL2012

(I don't like using the default instance, I always want to provide a name)