Lifestyle Design | Electronically Obsessed: A tech addict's guide to using the Internet to streamline your life

11Dec/092

Break free from (and cancel!) your cable or satellite subscriptions (Part IV): My setup vs. the New York Times

Internet Video replaces Cable and Satellite Subscriptions

Summary

This post is a bit long, so here's the capsule summary:

The New York Times details an entertainment setup to acheive "cable freedom." (Thanks to a reader for telling me about this NYT article!)
The setup includes an Xbox 360 and a Mac Mini.
The NYT's setup requires some knowledge about which services to access for certain types of content. It also requires the user to use a mouse (preferably wireless) to navigate on the Mac Mini. This can all be pretty complicated.
My personal setup (which I believe greatly streamlines the process) includes a Sony Playstation 3 and a Windows Vista PC running Media Mall's PlayOn Digital Media Server.
PlayOn sends content to the Sony Playstation 3 and can be controlled via the Sony Playstation 3's interface and wireless controller (eliminating the need for a mouse and complex switching between services).

The Details

On December 10, 2009, the New York Times published this article about how to achieve "cable freedom."

The author, Nick Bilton details his setup:

Those devices are all behind me now. I disconnected everything, threw it to the side and canceled the cable months ago. Instead, now I have a Mac Mini, wireless mouse and a Microsoft Xbox hooked up to my television.

However, he did run into one slight problem:

I have to be honest, this isn’t as easy as just plugging a computer into a monitor, sitting back and watching a movie. There’s definitely a slight learning curve. One difficult part of this equation was getting used to the wireless mouse.

The use of a wireless mouse is not required, but makes his family's life easier when manipulating the setup from the couch.

The navigation options are a bit complex since he appears to be using a lot of different services at once:

Over Thanksgiving a friend graciously house-sat at our apartment. It took my wife more than an hour to write a detailed description explaining how to use our new TV setup. After explaining how to use the mouse and keyboard, we had to describe how to switch among applications.

I don't doubt that this setup works, however, I believe that all of this clicking around can be streamlined with a slightly different setup.

Streamline your Internet television experience: My current setup (Part I - The Windows Vista PC)

My personal Internet television setup includes a Windows Vista PC (vs. Mr. Bilton's Mac Mini) and a Sony Playstation 3 (vs. Mr. Bilton's Xbox 360). I know what you're thinking now. "Ronald, you're such a Mac fan. Why did you opt for the Windows Vista PC?"

Two reasons motivated by selection of a Windows Vista PC vs. a Mac for this setup:

I already owned the PC.
The program (Media Mall's PlayOn Digital Media Server) that bypasses the need for a wireless mouse and clicking around with a wireless mouse and keyboard is currently PC-only.

Media Mall's PlayOn Digital Media Server (which I reviewed in this post - currently a one-time $39.99, after a 14 day free trial), streams content from Hulu, Netflix, CNN, YouTube, ESPN, and more to the PS3. In other words, the Windows Vista PC, with PlayOn, downloads all the content from the Internet, puts the content in a format that the Playstation 3 can understand, and then sends the content to the Playstation 3.

You can control these data streams using the Playstation 3 interface and the included wireless (Bluetooth) PS3 controller, which eliminates the need for a wireless mouse or keyboard.

PlayOn is not limited for use with a Sony Playstation 3. It can stream content to the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, and many other DLNA-compliant devices.

Streamline your Internet television experience: My current setup (Part II - Sony Playstation 3)

So, now you're probably asking "Ronald, why did you opt for the Playstation 3?" There are two reasons:

The Playstation 3 is also a very capable Blu-ray player, which the Xbox 360 lacks.
Playstation 3 can access the Netflix Watch Instantly service (via a DVD provided by Netflix) with no additional charge. The Xbox 360 also has Netflix Watch Instantly access, but requires the user to upgrade to the Xbox Live Gold Membership (an additional $39.99-$50/year, depending on the current special).

Downsides of my setup

Of course, there are a few downsides to my current setup.

The Xbox 360 is the more popular gaming console. If gaming is more important to you than access to Blu-ray movies, go with the Xbox 360 instead.
Media Mall's PlayOn Digital Media Server can be finicky. Sometimes, there are outages. However, Media Mall is always very good about addressing these outages as quickly as possible. When I want to watch something during a PlayOn outage, I plug my computer directly into the television and surf directly to the services detailed in the New York Times article.

Note: Some of the above links are affiliate links. This means that if you click the above links and subsequently make a purchase, I will receive a commission for referring the sale.

Action Item

Tell me about your own experiences with Internet television. What do you think about my setup? Any suggestions? Please comment in the comments section of this post or send me an e-mail!

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Tagged as: cancel cable 2 Comments

10Dec/090

Streamline your workday – Telecommuting comparison 2003 vs. 2009

Telecommuting (iStock) My friend Charles and his wife just became parents recently. However, their recent trip into parenthood included some interesting twists. His wife is from Peru, and because of various decisions detailed in this post, they decided to have the child in Peru.

Telecommuting from a small town

Since the child's birth, Charles has been telecommuting from Paijan, Peru. He details some of his experience in this post.

Using Skype, I am able to make phone calls from a Dallas, Texas number at no cost (for my previous post on Skype, click here). And the broadband internet service, provided by Spanish telecom giant Telefonica, is generally quite reliable, though the speed is a little less than what I am used to back home. (Still, even the suggestion that rural farm towns in Peru would have high-speed internet access would have seemed absurd just a few years ago...there are still pockets of the United States that are without high-speed service, for crying out loud!)

Tripped up by an old technology

This, however, made me laugh.

As it would turn out, I needed to fax a signed document back to the office -- ASAP -- and we didn't have a scanner in the house. It also so happened that the wife and in-laws had driven into the city, Trujillo, which is a good hour away, and I couldn't wait for them to get back. So, I left the ranch, documents in hand, and made the short walk into town in search of a fax machine...

But after a few wrong turns and after asking for directions in Spanish that I barely understood, I managed to find a 1940s-style children's toy store that also sold pirated DVDs and copy and fax services.

The shopwoman was pleasant and offered to fax the two pages for 10 Peruvian soles (roughly $3.50). I found out later from my wife that this was a shameless gouging and that she had jacked the price up by at least 300% after judging that I didn't have a clue (and I most assuredly didn't).

Charles was living in the 21st century with his laptop, broadband, and Skype, but was tripped up by a dying technology, the fax. His telecommuting experience got me thinking about how far laptops and broadband access has come.

In the fall of 2003, I spent a semester studying at the University of London, Queen Mary. I brought my then state-of-the-art Dell laptop with me to London, but was hard pressed to find any sort of broadband access outside of an expensive Internet cafe or university facilities. Voice-over-IP (VoIP) calls like Skype? Forget it! I was still using pay phones and expensive calling cards to call my parents in the States. Charles's long distance calls to American landlines cost him nothing, after a $60/year subscription. All this, from a small town in rural Peru.

These days, if you have the right job or business, all you need is a laptop, broadband Internet access, and (maybe) a fax machine to do business. What will the future hold? I don't know, but I know that I can't wait to see it!

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Tagged as: Charles Sizemore, Peru, telecommuting No Comments

7Dec/092

Streamlining your vacation with the Internet – Smartphones with GPS

Fog rolling in over San Francisco (Photo taken by the Author)

The Wife (that's going to take some getting used to!) and I just got back from our honeymoon in San Francisco. We both fell in love with the city during our trip as we walked through the streets to admire all the sights and sounds.

In the past, we traveled with our MacBooks and iPhones. This time, we decided to leave the laptops at home and see if we could actually depend on our iPhones as our sole source of information.

The iPhone Google Maps Application

For almost 99% of our navigation, we depended on the iPhone GPS and the built-in Google Maps application. In a recent trip to Los Angeles, we found that the iPhone gave adequate driving directions, but would sometimes get confused as to where you actually were located on the map. In San Francisco, we depended on walking and public transit.

The Google Maps application also gives walking and public transit directions. I was particularly impressed when the application would not only tell you which routes to take, but the bus numbers and fare as well.

Yelp

For the majority of our meals, we relied on the iPhone Yelp application. The iPhone (and many other smartphones offered by major manufacturers) include a GPS device that can target the user's location. The Yelp application enables the user to locate businesses in the user's area and read reviews of those businesses.

When we got hungry, we would pull out our iPhones, fire up the Yelp application, and start reading reviews. The Wife has Yelp analysis down to an art (which we will cover in a later post or newsletter) and has been very successful at finding some excellent meals. Here's a couple of places the Wife found via Yelp during our trip to San Francisco:

Sotto Mare - This small seafood restaurant in North Beach specializes in San Francisco's cioppino, a wonderful stew of seafood (crab, prawns, shrimp, mussels, clams, and calamari) served over penne pasta. Their Boston clam chowder was excellent as well.
Crepe O Chocolat - Near Union Square, this small, three table restaurant served up some amazing organic omelletes. This was the perfect meal for us after we got off the plane.
Golden Gate Bakery - Wow. Golden Gate Bakery makes some of the most perfect renditions of Chinese egg custard tarts and sesame balls (filled with red bean paste) I've ever had. The Wife and I were nearly shaking with excitement when we sampled these on the street outside the bakery.

Action Items

If you have an iPhone, download the Yelp application here.
If you have a Windows mobile or Android-based phone, surf to mobile.yelp.com with your mobile browser. I will look into mobile Yelp applications for Windows Mobile and Android in a future post.
Have fun on your next trip!
Share your wired travel experiences in the comments section below or shoot me an e-mail!

Note: Yelp is most effective in larger cities where there is a lot of reader participation. San Francisco and New York City are probably two of the most popular Yelp cities. Some smaller cities like Austin, Texas also have a decent Yelp audience.

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Filed under: Internet streaming, Lifestyle Design 2 Comments

20Nov/090

Streamline your shopping with the Internet (and save $$$)

Save money with a few quick Internet Searches

Here's a quick tip when you start thinking about your Christmas shopping lists.

The online and traditional brick-and-mortar store prices of the same company may be drastically different.

A few weeks ago, The Fiancée and I left for a weekend in Lake Charles, Louisiana to visit family. Since they live off the beaten path, I decided that it was time to invest in a GPS unit. I decided on a Garmin nüvi 765T.

On www.bestbuy.com, the 765T was selling for $299. However, to my surprise, the store price was $449! ! I brought up the Best Buy online listing on my iPhone and instantly got the store manager to match the online price. He told me that Best Buy also matches competitor online prices as well. Just with five minutes of online searching, I saved $150!

Before you buy anything in a physical store location, check their online store prices and the prices on the online stores of their competitors. You could be leaving money on the table if you don't.

Action Items

Before you go out to the store, run a quick check of the prices on the online store.
Run a quick check of the prices of the competitor's online stores
Save any web pages proving price discrepancies on your computer or phone. You can also print out the web pages as well. Just be sure that the printouts show the price and serial number of the item.
Get your item at the lower price!
I love feedback and suggestions! Send me an e-mail at ronald@electronicallyobsessed.com or comment below to tell me about your shopping deals and experiences. What websites do you use to save money?

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Tagged as: online shopping, save money No Comments

4Nov/090

Break free from (and cancel!) your cable or satellite subscriptions (Part I): Internet TV

Breaking Chain (iStock) Who needs seventeen premium movie channels and forty-three music channels? Who needs a terrible digital video recorder (DVR) that is slow, unreliable, and expensive? Who needs expensive monthly subscription fees?

With a television, computer, and a broadband Internet connection, you can replace all of those things. This post describes the services I use to replace my cable television subscription. A later post describes the hardware necessary to use these services.

Video-on-demand

Today, several online services offer premium video-on-demand, which effectively eliminates the hassle of dealing with a DVR. I'd rather not deal with trying to remember when to set recordings, wondering if the shows I wanted to watch actually recorded, whether I'm trying to record more than two shows in the same time slot, and the most ridiculous of all, whether or not my DVR's hard drive has enough space to record the programs I want. Also, barring any family commitments or traditions, there is absolutely no reason why a television viewer must sit in front of their television at an appointed time to consume content.

Hulu: Free (for now), ad supported

Hulu is my main source for newer content. For current TV shows, Hulu usually posts the last five episodes of a series. Sometimes, at the end of a season, the entire season is posted at once. Hulu features content from NBC, FOX, ABC, Comedy Central, and others. Noticably missing from the lineup is CBS.

Netflix: $4.99/month (Limited Plan); $8.99/month - $16.99/month (Unlimited Plans)

Netflix offers a large library of movies, television shows, and special events on DVD and Blu-ray. Netflix mails a selection of movies (specified by a user-created queue) to the subscribers. The subscribers return the movies via a postage pre-paid envelope. However, I personally use Netflix's Watch Instantly feature the most. Watch Instantly allows subscribers to watch unlimited streams of certain older titles over their Internet connection. Watch Instantly selections improve every month and feature lots of content popular movies and full seasons of "The Office" and "Lost."

Lower you subscription costs

Before I explored Internet TV options, I was a traditional cable subscriber. My monthly cable bill, which included broadband Internet, a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) rental, basic and extended cable channels (no premium movie channels like HBO or Showtime), and an ocassional movie on-demand or pay-per-view event, often averaged right around $130-150.

Today, my monthly home entertainment costs include a $52 broadband Internet bill and a $14.99 Netflix bill, for a total of about $67/month. That's a savings of about $756 a year!

Sports

One major drawback to an Internet TV lifestyle is the lack of live sports selections. You are limited to sports on the major networks and have some access to other games via live streaming sites like www.justin.tv.

However, if you are rarely home due to social, family, or work commitments, ditching your cable or satellite subscription appears to be a viable option.

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Tagged as: cable, cancel cable, satellite No Comments

28Oct/092

Moving to the Cloud: Taking Inventory

Messy Stack of CDs (iStock) That's it, dude. I got tired of all this clutter. Eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. I've reduced my entire life down to one suitcase and a single Blu-ray disk. - Jason

Admittedly, I'd always found Jason (not his real name) a bit crazy, but interesting. Jason grew up in Toronto and moved as far away as possible once he graduated from college. He ended up living in Thailand for the next nine years. During the first few years, he threw himself into the party lifestyle of Bangkok. He played in bands, stayed out late, and was quite involved in the ex-pat community.

One day, he realized that despite the constant party, he was unhappy and unfulfilled. He sought to eliminate the resource-sucking clutter in his life and concentrate his attention on things that actually interested him. He now spends his time living simply, learning new languages, and training Muay Thai kickboxing in Bangkok.

I understand that many people can't or won't go to such extreme lengths of clutter reduction. I am one of those people. However, there are many things that many people are programmed to accept. Here's a short list of time or resource-intensive things that you can eliminate today with a computer, scanner, and access to a broadband Internet connection.

Cable or Satellite Digital Video Recorder - Solution: Hulu, iTunes, and/or Netflix Watch Instantly
Stacks of CDs - Solutions: iTunes, Zune Store, Pandora, Last FM for new content; Digitize your CD collection using iTunes and put the CDs in storage (or sell them if you aren't that attached to them)
DVD/Blu-ray Movies - Solution: Buy the ones you will actually watch repeatedly; Netflix subscription for the others
Semi-important documents (e.g., receipts, contracts, etc.) - Solutions: Scan and shred. Upload the images to Amazon S3, Mozy, Dropbox and keep a local copy on a CD-R, DVD-R, Blu-ray disk, or a large capacity (750 GB or more) external hard disk drive.

So, today, make a list of things that you can eliminate or compress. If you like, feel free to share your list in the comments below. In the coming weeks, I'll go through detailed steps on my experiences with streamlining my entertainment and data using the Internet.

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Tagged as: Clutter reduction 2 Comments