Cutting the Cable

With tough economic times comes a breath of sanity as we re-evaluate how much we are spending on stuff we don't really need. Cable TV is near the top of that list. And its high cost makes it a tempting target. But can you survive without cable?

First of all, you don't have to pay for both cable and high-speed internet access. Check out what you pay for cable TV and you may find that by dropping it and keeping your internet access, you can save hundreds (or maybe thousands) of dollars each year. And if your phone is also provided by your cable company, consider what many people have done: go with cell service alone.

But what will I watch?
That is a legitimate question. Let's examine the options:

Broadcast TV -- Long regarded as "a vast wasteland," things have improved in past years. Granted, you may not find a gripping show about origami or bonsai pruning (or whatever other esoteric topic), but there is very entertaining stuff out there for free. The cables companies have long made their money by convincing you that you need to see their stuff and that there's nothing like it on "regular" (that is, broadcast) TV. And it is true that all those cable channels are able to offer content the networks don't have time for. But, the truth is, you end up paying for dozens and dozens of channels you never watch.

However if what you're looking for is to be well entertained for a few hours each night, an antenna, an HDTV and a DVR (digital video recorder) or Windows Media Center can do the job just fine for free. That is, if you can receive over-the-air (OTA) TV where you live. Almost everyone can, and if you can't, your cable company probably offers (at a reduced rate) a selection of just your local channels.

Hulu.com -- this free site has a huge collection of shows available on-demand with reduced commercials. Hulu's biggest attraction is that it allows you to watch TV when it is convenient for you, not the networks. Since it was formed by NBC and ABC, most of their shows are well-represented, but Hulu also has lots of shows from the other networks and even some cable shows.

Other sites -- there are many, but the free ones worth looking at are CBS.com, Crackle and IMDB. The paid sites include HuluPlus.com (which has commercials), Netflix and Amazon.

Boxed sets of DVDs -- you can buy a season of most TV shows in a boxed set that will set you back somewhere around $30-$40. If one or two shows are all you really watch, then watching them this way is a huge improvement. This is partly because it frees you from "appointment TV" where you watch when they tell you to watch.

Movies from Redbox -- for $1 to $2, you can rent a movie from Redbox. The kiosks are plentiful and have a supply of the most recent films. Plus, you can reserve them on line.

Blu-rays and DVDs from the library -- you can't beat the price on this one. And while the selection at smaller branches is limited, larger libraries have hundreds or thousands of DVDs to choose from. Again, don't overlook the boxed sets of past TV shows.

That sums up most of the options. If you're worried about your favorite football team, there's NFL Game Rewind for about $40 for the regular season which gives you all the games (for all the teams) usually on the next day (no live games). And there are all kinds of other sources for video content on the internet, far more than what is on cable.

Well, I dunno.
There's no doubt about it, this kind of change will force you to update your philosophy. If you've formed the habit of watching "whatever is on" and have relied on the cable to broaden that to a bearable minimum, then things are going to have to change. Four or five networks can't provide the variety of a hundred cable channels. But they can match the quality of the entertainment experience if you do the following:

1. Take the time to find the broadcast programs you enjoy
2. Find a way to watch those programs when you want to
3. Break the habit of "watching whatever"

OK, how?
I'm glad you asked! Try this:

• Check out the most popular programs and other things that look good on Hulu.
• Ask your friends what they watch.
• Watch the fall preview shows to find new shows to watch.
• Get a DVR or Windows Media Center (see my posts on WMC) and record your favorite shows and possible new ones.
• Or get familiar with Hulu or other sites that have your content.
• If necessary, get a media extender so you can watch more content on your TV.
• Or move your computer to the living room and connect it to your TV.
• Or add a large screen, nice speakers and comfy chair to your computer.

You can do this! And once you have, you'll wonder why you waited so long.

Windows Media Center - Part 2

In my previous post about Windows Media Center (WMC), I shared some of its advantages. But it has more, and if you're not enjoying them, here are some things to consider:

It's better than Hulu
Hulu.com is great, and it's free, but it's not in high definition. If you have an HD tuner for your computer, everything you record can be in stunning HD. Hulu also forces you to watch commercials; WMC has a skip-ahead feature that works great to remove commercials.

It's better than Tivo
While it requires more tech savvy than Tivo (or some other video recorder), WMC has some distinct advantages:

• There is no subscription or any other fee; at $20/month, 5 years of Tivo costs $1,200
  
• You can burn DVDs of your favorite shows to save or share
• You can store a large library of shows to watch on your huge hard drive

You can add as much storage as you like to your computer by adding a second or even a third hard drive. Two terabyte hard drives, which can hold over 300 hours of HD broadcasts, can be had for around $100. Plus, any money you spend on your computer makes it a more powerful tool for many things while a high-capacity DVR can only do one thing. And with a DVD-burner, you can make a DVD that your aunt Matilda can watch on her DVD-player.

It's better than paying to watch shows on the internet
Hulu Plus, Netflix and Amazon all charge you to watch content that was once free over the air. And their image quality can't really compete with WMC. Of course, the trick is to set up WMC to record shows in advance. Then, you can watch them for free any time later. So, if you were born with the "planning" gene (or if you can learn), you can save money with WMC and have a superior experience.

What about buying a season of shows on DVD?
WMC is free. A season of shows on DVD costs around $30-$35. Now, while you do get extra features with the DVDs, you have to wait a year from the time the first episode airs before you can buy and watch them. And WMC can sort your recorded shows into series (sorting by title) then sort those series into episode order (sort by first air date). However, if you want a show that's only available on cable, you might avoid the cost of cable altogether by buying it on DVD.

Watching Windows Media Center in the living room
The biggest downside to WMC is that it is easier to watch on your computer (which is probably not in the living room and therefore less comfortable) than on your TV. But there are solutions for that problem:

• move your computer to the living room and connect it to your HDTV
• use your Xbox as a media extender
• use your Blu-ray player as a media extender
• add a large monitor and some easy chairs to your computer room

A media extender brings audio and video content from someplace else, such as your computer or the internet, to your TV. My Blu-ray player does this and it works fairly well. Adding a 22-inch (or larger) monitor to your PC (not to mention a decent chair) can really improve your computing experience and is well worth the expense.

Other features
The guide shows your current TV listings and listings up to 10 days in the future. It is searchable and you can easily record a single episode or a whole series. But what if you want to record something that isn't in the guide? You can add a search term to what you want to record, so that you can record everything with your favorite actor or your favorite sports team. If the network tends to run a little (or a lot) late, you can have WMC add minutes or hours to the end of the recording--so you never miss the end of the show. By adding a second tuner, you can record two shows at once on different channels, or watch one live while recording another (or even record two and watch a third recording).

Like most Microsoft products, this one is so loaded with features you may never discover them all. And if there's something else you need it to do, there is an army of developers out there with add-ons that probably do it.

Microsoft Windows Media Center

If you've purchased a Windows computer (in the last few years) then you probably got Windows Media Center with it for free. It is included in most versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Gone are the days when you had to buy a special version of Windows XP to have it.

But what does it do? It:

• Lets you watch internet TV on your PC
• Plays DVDs
• Plays Music
• Shows Pictures
• Shows the TV listings in your area

And if you have a TV tuner card or external (USB) tuner then it lets you:

• Records, stores and plays broadcast/cable programs
• Watch and pause live TV

So, with an inexpensive TV tuner (mine is a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950Q) that can be had for $60-80, you can turn your (newer) computer into a high definition DVR (digital video recorder). It will even turn your computer on (if your computer's motherboard supports this) or wake it up from sleep mode to record a program you've scheduled. And, of course, when you play back the recordings you can quickly skip the commercials.

Watch Hulu without a Browser

Hulu.com has the most popular collection of current TV shows on the web. ABC, Fox and NBC have all contributed most of their content. Gone are the days when, if you missed a show when it first aired, you had to wait months and hope for a re-run. Now, just go to Hulu.com, find the show the next day and watch it. It kinda makes you mad that they didn't have this when you were growing up, huh?

But wait, there's more! While you can watch these shows inside your web browser, now there's a better way. Hulu's desktop application allows you to pull up a window and watch TV and movies in that window from Hulu.com. It is true that you don't need this application to watch this stuff, you can do it from a browser. But it is much nicer and cleaner this way. This is one of the top two or three coolest programs on my PC. After my web browser, that is. The desktop app lets you navigate more easily and allows you to instantly skip to any portion of the video. There is even a preview window that pops up to let you know what you're about to see while you continue to watch at your current position.

Free Movies and TV

I found out about this site, not from my computer but from my Blu-Ray player. This is one of the sites Sony gives you access to with my new Blu-Ray disk player. But you don't need any new gizmos to watch TV and movies there, you can use your computer.

Crackle.com has 105 TV series that you can watch including Seinfeld, Barney Miller (which was good for its time and seems better now) and Bewitched. In addition, there are 275 movies on Crackle. Now, you'll have to watch some commercials, usually about one every 10 minutes or so. And you're not going to see any recent stuff here. But, for that, you'd go to Hulu anyway. Crackle gives you more choices of vintage TV and movies.

See the Weather Graphically

We are wired visually. Things we see make so much more of an impression than things we hear. Weathersparck.com shows you the weather in the next week in a way no other site does, graphically. When I look at the graph of the future temperatures, cloud cover and rain (or snow), it makes a more lasting and meaningful impression. I instantly have more detail and yet it is presented in a way that is more memorable. This site also displays averages for the date, historical weather data and forecasts from four different sources.

http://weatherspark.com/

Cut Clutter from Sites You Browse

iReader is an add-on for the Firefox and Chrome browsers. If you use one of these browsers, you owe it to yourself to try this. I don't like add-ons for my browsers in general because they slow down loading and use memory. This one is a very worthy exception. It puts a little icon next to the web address in the address bar if it can work with a website (it doesn't work with all sites). Then if you click on the icon, a nicely formatted window overlays the site with the text of the site (and perhaps a picture or two). All the ads and clutter are removed. Download it here http://www.samabox.com/extensions/iReader/

Free online storage: SkyDrive

Why would you want to store your files online? Well, if your hard disk crashes or your laptop is stolen, your files could be lost forever. Plus, it is handy to share pictures, short videos and any other files with friends and family without emailing them. And once your files are online, you can access them from any computer on the 'net. View your pictures from the library, your friend's house or even your mobile device. (You don't have to download a picture to view it.)

The service that does this is called SkyDrive (a "hard drive" in the cloud, I guess).

So, slick as it sounds, what does it cost? Why, it's free, like all good things in life. So what are the limits, you ask. You are limited to 50 Mbytes per file and 25 Gbytes (gigabytes, that's 25,000 Mbytes). Since the average digital picture is somewhere between .5 and 2 Mbytes, that's room for at least 12,000 to 100,000 pictures.

So, who provides this free service and is it reliable? It's from Microsoft, so I think it should be around for quite a while. You begin by creating a Windows Live account. If you have a hotmail account, you're already set. From the Windows Live home page, (after you log in) click More and SkyDrive. I haven't tried this, but I don't see why you couldn't create as many accounts as you want and upload as much stuff as you want. Once it's uploaded, you can organize it and share with other people (or keep it private).

This isn't exactly a poor man's backup service, though. You have to upload each file by selecting it from a list. Nothing is automatic, so if you change your file on your PC, the change is not reflected on SkyDrive unless you upload it again. If you forget to upload, well, you forgot; nothing will cover you. And if you want to restore a file from SkyDrive, it's easy enough but SkyDrive doesn't know where your file came from originally, so you have to put your pictures back in your picture folder and your documents into your document folder, etc.

But these are nit-picky complaints. SkyDrive can be a godsend if you lose files or need to transfer files to or from another computer. Plus, it can help you to avoid storing personal files on your work computer while still giving you access to them any time.

Free Anti-virus Software

Don't tell me you're still paying for anti-virus software? If you're using Norton, I bet you've had trouble with it, too. But you're afraid to cut the cord, right? Avast is a totally free program with free updates that will save you money every year. You never pay a cent for anything with Avast. Another, similar, product is AVG (www.avg.com), but I haven't used it.

I've been using Avast for years now with no problems, and it has yet to cost me anything. Avast protects you from viruses in email, in programs or files you download, peer-to-peer and instant message viruses, rootkits and spyware. Free updates are automatic. Like other anti-virus software, Avast sits in your system tray (or "notification area " in the lower right corner of your screen) and shields you from viruses. It also can be used to scan your disks (including all hard drives) for viruses.

To get Avast, go to www.avast.com and click on "Free Software".

To switch from paid support to Avast, first: download (but do not install) Avast. You could save it on your desktop. Then click start, settings, control panel, add or remove programs. Then navigate to your antivirus software and remove it. This will probably require a reboot. Then install Avast (by double-clicking on it on your desktop). That's about it.

Put my desktop back the way it was (Icon restorer)

This little utility (called DeskSave) is priceless (and free) because it does what I often need it to do: it puts my icons back where I want them to be. It also restores my screen's resolution settings.

Why would you need this? If you have pesky folks or software that like to move your icons around where you don't want them. Of if you use your computer (especially a laptop) with, say, a projector or an external monitor, this can cause your screen resolution to get changed which frequently scrambles your icons around too.

Here's how it works. You run it once to save your screen layout. If your screen layout gets scrambled, you run it again and restore what you saved the first time. You can save multiple layouts in separate files.

Control Two Computers with One Mouse and Keyboard

If you have only one computer, skip this--it won't do you any good. But if you have two computers located near each other, you'll want this free utility, called Synergy. The first time you drag your mouse cursor from one computer's screen to another computer's screen, you'll say "Wow!"

Here's how it works. You install Synergy on each computer, identifying one as the server (where the keyboard and mouse are) and the other as the client. You tell the software where the second screen is relative to the first (left, right, above, below, etc.). Run the software on each PC and now you can use just one mouse and keyboard.

The coolest feature may be the ability to cut and paste from one computer to another. Of course, your two computers need to be networked together. I've had trouble getting the client PC to recognize the right shift key (this is a known problem) but it only happens a little bit and the added convenience is really worth it. I've been using it for about a month and I'm hooked.

Gmail revisited

It's time to talk about Gmail again. Why? Well, because some of you still don't have a Gmail account and because it's gotten better. How could it be better? Well, while it's tough to improve on free, Google actually has. Here are some of the improvements:

• Storage has increased from 3 GB to over 7 GB (7.3 at this writing and always increasing)
• Built-in Google Talk provides chat (keyboard, audio and video)
  
• Chat now allows you to log into your AIM (AOL Instant Message) account and chat through it to your friends on AIM
  
• Themes (more about this below)
• New features in "Google Labs" -- 3 dozen so far

You get all of this for free in Gmail, and you can easily use the parts you want and ignore the rest. Some of the new features are definitely eye-candy. But, let's face it, the "face" of Gmail was, to say the least, kinda plain. It is now almost anything you want it to be. And yet the 31 themes they give you don't tend toward the garish or overly colorful. A few even vary with the time of day and weather in your location. But when it's raining outside, I don't want to see rain clouds on my computer screen.

Some of the cool stuff in Google Labs includes:

• Offline operation (read and compose your email without an internet connection)
• Custom keyboard shortcuts (but still no "send" key)
• Mouse gestures (the coolest one, I think)
• A tweak to put your signature between your email and the ones included below it (without this, your signature goes way at the bottom, which is confusing)
• The forgotten attachment detector (no more embarrassing emails without the attachment you just described)
• Tasks (a to-do list that is integrated with your email)
• Canned responses (for sending automated responses)
  

I have tried all of the above, except the audio and video chat, and I like mouse gestures the best. When reading an email, you hold down the right mouse button and drag left (to go to the previous email), right (to go to the next) and up to go back to the in box. I was ho-hum about this until I tried it and now I'm hooked.

It really seems like Gmail is creeping up on Outlook and certainly the other online email providers (Hotmail and Yahoo, among others) with all their new functionality. The offline operation, integration with the calendar, tasks, reader (aggregator) and features like filters, canned responses and some recent tweaks to the way labels are handled each have made Gmail more like Outlook. While there are probably things you can still do in Outlook and not Gmail, none come to mind--and that says a lot.

Plus Google has added viewing PDF (portable document format) and PowerPoint (slideshow) files right inside Gmail. These, and a dozen other things, push Gmail in to areas where other email programs don't go.

With all these new features, you'd think Gmail was finally out of Beta (a test version, as opposed to a final product), but no, it still proudly says BETA under the trademark. And the Labs features are proclaimed as likely to break and not "really ready for prime time." (Mouse gestures has been broken for over a week.) But that's Google's mindset. They'd rather give you something cool that might fail than wait. Having said that, I have found the basic email service to be quite reliable. There's even a paid, corporate version.

I suppose I could live without Gmail, but I wouldn't want to.

The Cheapest Way to Rent DVDs

This service is fantastic, provided that there is a Redbox near you. What is a Redbox? It is a vending machine that rents new DVDs. They are frequently found in (or outside of) Walmart stores and other large stores like that.

Here's the deal: you pay $1 and you rent a movie until 9:00 PM tomorrow night. You want to keep it longer, it'll cost you exactly $1 per day until you return the DVD or 25 days have elapsed--then it's yours to keep. Most of the movies appear to be in widescreen--you don't get a choice about that.

But there's more! At Redbox.com you can reserve a movie. So Friday afternoon, you're sitting at your computer and you realize that the film you want to watch tonight will be gone before you get to your local redbox. In two minutes, you can find a redbox with the film and reserve it until you get there.

Plus, every Monday, Redbox can text a code to your cell phone that you can use at a Redbox to rent any movie free for one night. So you can get one movie free every week (as long as you watch it on a Monday). When I joined, they sent me codes for about two months for free movies that I could use any time. There's even a website that supposedly lists other redbox codes for more free movies.

To use Redbox you have to have one in your neighborhood, a credit card, be over 18 and have an email address.

TV on Your Computer from the Internet

Why would anyone want to watch TV on their computer? Typically the picture was either tiny or very blurry (pixelated, actually, which means made up of squares that are noticeably too big) and sometimes jerky. Who'd want that?

Well, times have changed and so has TV on the internet. Today, most people have broadband (cable or DSL) as opposed to dial-up. Hulu.com now offers hundreds of current and newer TV shows in two resolutions with multiple window sizes. If your computer screen is large enough and your cable or DSL connection is decent, you can watch any of these shows, any time you want for free. While some of them contain commercials, there will typically be only one 30-second spot every 15 minutes. (But hey, you watch 18 minutes of commercials on broadcast TV per hour. I think 2 minutes is an improvement.) You can skip around inside the show and watch parts over but if you try to skip past a commercial, it'll make you watch it.

Now, don't get me wrong, Hulu is not in HD (except for a very few offerings) but it's probably better than your old analog TV set. And you get to watch what you want, when you want. Did you miss an episode of a favorite? No need to wait for the re-run (with my luck, I'd miss that too). Now you can watch it with Hulu. (And they have movies!)

Hulu has streaming video, which means you watch it as it comes to you across the internet. This is as opposed to video you download and store to watch later.

There are also even better solutions as well, albeit with less variety. NBC has a downloadable viewer that allows you to then download selected shows from their site to watch later. The great thing about this is that, while you have to wait for the show to load (and this could take a long time), you never suffer from "the jerkies" and the picture is sharper. In fact, about half of their shows are available in HD. But if you're in a hurry, this is not a viable solution. I'd start downloading before you go to bed or to work. Be aware that you only have 48 hours after downloading to watch the show before it magically evaporates from your hard drive. And HD TV shows take lots of space, so be prepared with gigabytes of available hard drive space. NBC recommends 10-20 gigabytes of free space.

NBC, Fox, CBS and ABC offer a service similar to Hulu (streaming video, rather than downloaded). All offer most shows in HD. Results here, will vary with your bandwidth (that is, the speed of your internet connection). As always, the faster the better and the higher the resolution (HD as opposed to standard definition) the more bandwidth (speed) required. If you run out of bandwidth, the show stops until the data streaming catches up. This never happens when you'd want it to (probably because you'd never want it to).

So what do you pay for any of this? Nothing at all.

Now it's time to think about that big, widescreen monitor.

Watch Siskel and Ebert Again

Way back when, we used to tune in as these two young movie critics from Chicago battled it out on a TV show called "Sneak Previews" which we watched mainly to see the movie trailers. But we grew to love Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert until one day we learned that Gene Siskel had died.

Roger Ebert has carried on the show, since renamed to "Ebert and Roper" with Richard Roper. Ebert himself has been absent for many months as he recovers from surgery on his jaw.

But the big news is that you can now watch nearly any review from their 20-year archives by going to http://atthemoviestv.com. It's quick and easy. You just type in the name of the movie and the site plays the review on screen for you.

Intelliflix -- not one of the coolest sites

You've heard of Netflix and Blockbuster, well Intelliflix is, according to them, much better. They are, by far, certainly the cheapest solution on the internet for renting movies. However, I am here to say that this is one site you should probably avoid.

Here's their best deal: for $99, you get to rent up to two movies at a time for a year (there are many other plans as well). You return the movies for other movies. I found it difficult to rent more than 5 movies in a month. But the local rental place costs about $4 a title and http://www.intelliflix.com/ costs only $8.25 a month. So if you rent 6 movies a month, you save about two thirds of what you'd spend at the video store. If you rent only half that many, Intelliflix is still cheaper. They say they have 60,000 titles to choose from. DVDs come to your mailbox and you return them in the same envelope. They pay for shipping both ways.

That's the upside. The downside is considerable. First, they flat-out tell you that you can just forget about getting recent titles soon after they're released. I had to wait a week after one popular movie was released before I could even request it. I complained. They said it was in high demand. They didn't say by whom. I assume it was the staff watching it before the rest of us. There is no on-line equivalent of camping out at the video store waiting for that new release. After seven weeks of waiting, I gave up and rented it from a video store.

In fact, they hardly have any recent films available for rent. The fourth newest release in their new releases category has been available on DVD for nearly 10 months. There are only three movies available that are newer than that.

While they say they have 50% more titles than Netflix, some of them are adult titles which lower-priced plans do not include. They say they have more distribution centers than Netflix, but it can take over a week for a movie to get back to them by US mail. To make sure that you have something to watch, you fatten your queue (wish list) with everything you can think of. Some much older titles, surprisingly, show as "in high demand" and are not guaranteed to be available to you for a month or more.

Another failing is the lack of sufficient numbers of titles in widescreen. Now that widescreen TVs are selling well, this really ought to change. Probably the biggest problem is the fact that you don't know when you're going to get a particular title. On the other hand, they email you a notification when they ship you a title, so you get advanced notice. You can mark one title as "shipped" on their website when you send it back and they will send you another one without waiting to receive it--a very nice feature.

Recently, they've put 10 of the movies in my queue in a "waiting area" and they say they will come out as soon as they are available. Most of these are older movies, so it is very difficult to get movies in a timely manner from them. When I first joined a few months ago, they kept the movies coming so that I was almost never without one to watch. But now I have to complain to even get one.

Puzzles, Games and Optical Illusions

BrainBashers has the best selection of optical illusions I've ever seen on the web. And they have a Sudoku game that is hard to beat (and hard to quit). This particular Sudoku has some very nice features including optional error detection, automated "pencil marks" (shows you the possible numbers for each space) and it even helps teach you tricks for solving the really hard puzzles. Oh and it has puzzles in six difficulty levels. You can print them out and solve them on paper or solve them on screen with as much (or as little) help as you like.

With thousands of brain teasers and puzzles, over one hundred awards, BrainBashers is updated with optical illusions and games regularly and has 5 new puzzles added every other week.

Slice of Sci-Fi

What's the latest picture released from the set of the new Indiana Jones film? What's the mystery behind the weird trailer that was shown before the Transformers movie? Did you hear about the town in Canada named Vulcan and the un-conventional convention it hosts?

I love science fiction and if you do too, you'll want to check out http://sliceofscifi.com/. This site is updated multiple times daily and it gives you the latest news about movies, TV and anything else that is SciFi, horror, fantasy or otherwise genre-related.

This site has an RSS feed. So if you took my advice and started using Google Reader (or some other aggregator), then you can link to it very easily. In fact, that is how I found this site; it comes up as one of the suggested feeds in Google Reader. I'm glad I tried it!

The Best TV Commercials

Probably the coolest minute you’ll watch this week on TV will be a commercial. The best commercials are funny, entertaining and outrageous. More thought and money go into a 30-second commercial than many minutes of regular programming. This site http://www.visit4info.com/ allows you to view the best commercials from all over the world.
Warning: some of these are definitely not family-oriented so be careful.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert www.RogerEbert.com has to be America’s best known film critic. Love him or hate him, you know where he stands and, if you know that, you probably have an idea of how his tastes and yours match up. Once a week, you can receive an email from him with a synopsis of his latest reviews. Subscribe here https://login.suntimes.com/register.do