Apple TV

I've been kicking this around in my head and thought I'd get some opinions. We currently pay about $65 per month for satelite service. Because of our Netflix subscription (and newly formed Guitar Hero 2 habit) we don't watch the TV a lot.

What I'm thinking of is buying an Apple TV. I've made a list of shows we try to keep up with. We could afford to buy those shows off of iTunes and still spend less than a satelite on a yearly basis. So, for less money, we would own the shows and could watch them anytime. Plus, it would allow us to keep up with the shows. We don't have DVR and so right now, we are missing a ton of our favorite shows because they don't come on at convenient times. This way, they would automatically download for us and we could watch them at our convenience.

But, then the HD-factor comes into play. The Apple TV currently supports up to 720p. We spent a good chunk of change to have a 1080p set so I'd like a box that supports the full resolution of the TV. The other thing is, I don't really want to spend money to buy these shows at DVD quality when I'd like to have them at HD quality. HD isn't currently available through iTunes. I'm thinking of waiting until they flip the HD switch to make this change. As much as we don't use the satelite now, we do have the HD package which is really nice.

At the end of the day, it probably isn't worth even the effort I put into this post, but hey, one has to think on the heavy topics of life.

Power drain

Does anyone know how much power computers suck? I'm trying an experiment. When I'm not using my main computer I'm shutting it down completely.

It's a Mac which means I can leave it on for weeks on end (which I usually do), but I'm giving this a shot. It's a PowerMac G5 Quad hooked up to a 20" screen and a 30" screen so I figure it has to be using a decent amount of power.

Here's hoping it cuts down dramatically on the electric bill.

Online apps

Over the weekend, I've switched a good chunk of my organization to the web. I'm using three 37signals apps including Basecamp for project organization, Highrise for contact management and Backpack for an online calendar and general notes.

I've also moved most of my RSS feeds from Safari's built in reader to Google Reader. I really like how Safari handles my RSS needs, but I work on two different computers and keeping them in sync was a pain. It often involved looking through tons of articles I'd already read.

That really turned out to be my motivation to moving everything I can online. I'm often not in the office and I like to have access to it anywhere. This came up this weekend when we were at my parents house for Colton's birthday and I wanted to check my reading but really didn't want to fire up the laptop for fear of work sucking me in. Now with Google Reader, I can check for new articles anywhere. So far I'm pretty happy with it. It posts new articles a little slow for my tastes. I still have the RSS feeds in Safari for now so I can see when one pops up there. It may be an hour or more before the same article shows up in Google.

The other great side effect of this is that I was able to pair down my RSS subscriptions. I had about 95 different feeds. Some didn't update often and some I found I just didn't have time to keep up with anymore. Now I'm down to just 28 and it's cut down tremendously on the time it takes me to get through it all. If I ever went away for the weekend, I might have 300+ articles waiting on me, most of which went unread. This has helped a lot.

Between 37signals and Google, I'm really enjoying this idea of using apps online. So what great web apps am I missing?

Spike

Ironically, I've seen a sudden spike in traffic to this blog. That's really funny to me considering I have been way to busy to post this month.

So what are you telling me? If I shut up, you'll show up?

I do keep this blog updated much more frequently. Starting this week I should be back to updating here regularly. It's been a crazy month.

One thing I want to write in-depth about is 37signals' new product Highrise. I'm in love with it and it's taken my organizational skills to a whole new level.

No computers? Seriously?

March 24th has been declared Shutdown Day. The idea is to shut down everything you have that uses a computer and go 24 hours without it. Seriously? It might be possible, since it's a Saturday, but still, nothing with a computer?

I'm looking around my desk right now. I'd have to do without the following (all of which I use every day): Treo cell phone, Powerbook, PowerMac, regular phone, fire department pager, Xbox 360, camera, and my TV. My beloved TV. That may be going too far.

I may actually give it a shot. It'll be easier if the weather is nice. We can get out with the kids and have some non-technological fun.

If you can still call that fun.

37Signals at it again

37Signals is set to introduce a new product known as Highrise.

As a user of their Basecamp and Backpack software, I can't wait to see what they've been up to.

We've got a man down!

Just over a year ago:

"Now, this 62" DLP HDTV has a bulb powering it that will eventually burn out. This isn't all bad, though because once you replace it, the TV will look just as good as it did the first time it was turned on," the salesman explained.

"What did he say?" I thought. "Something about a bulb I think. I don't know. I sorta spaced out after I heard the words 62" DLP."

"The bulb will be around $200 to replace," he continued.

"$200! After what I'm about to pay for this thing?"

"Oh well," I comforted myself, "that's somewhere in the future. Yeah, a long way away. Today I get 62 inches of widescreen high-definition glory."

Fast forward to today:

I sit down in my comfortable chair. Time for a quick game to relax after a long day's work.

The TV goes black.

"Dang kids," I think to myself, "They're always hitting the remote."

I look around. Nope, no kids in the room.

"Hey, what's that red light on the front of the TV?"

"Aw crap, it's the one labeled 'bulb'. That's not good."

"We've got a man down!" I scream.

Man I hope Gifford's can fix this quick.

The Onion on Vista

The Onion reveals the major features of Windows Vista.

Red Snapper

The aptly named Tasty Apps makes a great little program called Red Snapper. It's just about the best utility I've seen for taking screenshots if you use Safari. It adds a simple button to the toolbar. With one click, you can take a snapshot of the entire page and save it in any number of formats. This is incredibly handy if you have to take screenshots very often. Well worth the $8.

Thanks to TUAW for the link.

Publishing experiment

Nick Mamatas is releasing his first novel for free. He has his reasons which you can read on the site, but the most interesting fact is that the book is already in print. The hope is that you will enjoy the book enough to purchase it later. I'd be very interested to see how this effects the sales of his book. I haven't read it yet, but how can you not when he's willing to step out like this?

These new forms of publishing are really exciting to me.

Via Whatever.

Bad idea of the day

For anyone who has ever played on Xbox Live, you know it is filled with 14-year-old boys who's language would make a sailor blush. It's hugely annoying. Well, now their inane taunts can be premeditated thanks to the Trash Talk.

Basically, you prerecord your trash talk and then, at the magic push of a button, your probably less-than-intelligent speech is spewed across the internet to fellow players. This brings laziness down to new low thought previously unattainable. If there is any justice in the world, each of these devices will burst into flames permanently ruining the $50 controller it's attached to (and maybe even injuring, though not too severely, the player who saw fit to purchase it).

The best suggestion I've seen is for Microsoft to create an "Ignore All Tards" feature that automatically detects this device and doesn't allow you to hear anything they say.

Via Xbox 360 Fanboy.

Three hours

It's always amazing to me the difference three hours can make. We have some good friends that live in Longview, Texas and we visit them a few times a year. From one of these past visits I still have a weather widget set up on my OSX dashboard that gives me updates on Longview's current conditions. Here in Stephenville it will be a sunny 70 degrees today. Three hours away, Longview will be covered in snow and shivering with a high of 16 degrees.

Windows Vista review

This is probably the best review of Windows Vista I've read.

Shuffle now in Technicolor

Earlier today, Apple released new iPod shuffles in a rainbow of colors. Maybe it's just the bitterness of being an early adopter, but I still like my silver shuffle I bought in November better than the colors. It just looks classier.

Tech gremlins

For some reason if it can go wrong, it has gone wrong lately. First we had still unexplained e-mail issues for about two weeks. Then this weekend my Airport Express decided to take a one day vacation leaving us without wireless internet, but mysteriously worked fine the next day. Then, Saturday, one of the hard drives in my PowerMac decided to start acting up.

Today I have to spend the better part of the morning reinstalling OS X on a new hard drive and reinstalling every program I have. I've never had to do something this extensive, so please pray for me. I use Apple computers because they almost never have problems. Because of the usual lack of issue, I have no patience for tech problems.

UPDATE #1: OS X has been installed on the new hard drive and we're now updating all programs. I'll give one thing to Apple, they make reinstalling all this stuff fairly simple. I've never actually done any of this before, but it's going smoothly.

Take me off the friggin' list

AdPulp ran a snippet from a New York Times article about not responding to spam mail, even if it's to "unsubscribe."

The gist of it is if you respond to spam mail in order to "opt out," you're just creating more problems. At that point, they know they have a live e-mail address and will quickly sell you to what I assume are higher-level spammers (if there is such a hierarchy among snakes).

PS3 problems

For anyone interested in new technology or video games, it's been intriguing to watch the launch of the Playstation 3 and all the ensuing bad press. Sony has been having any number of problems with the much-touted new system. However, you know you have problems selling them when you can walk into the Stephenville Wal-Mart and buy any one of about 20 that were in-stock. This time last month, many people would have given a kidney to get their hands on one. Not so much anymore.

In 2005, the Xbox 360 launched in the same November time frame as the PS3 in 2006. This time last year, you couldn't find a 360 to save your life. I know. I tried. It probably doesn't bode well for the PS3 that is so readily available this early in it's life-cycle. Some retailers are even offering them for $100 off with the trade-in of a PS2.

Netflix gets better? Not so much.

Let me start by saying we subscribed to Netflix about a month and half ago and absolutely love it. In fact most of our friends and family have heard all about it from us. It seems perfect.

Now, they are making it where you can stream the movies directly to your computer instead of having to wait on the mail. The mail is so last century, after all. The bad part is, it's not open to Mac users. I know you are reading this and thinking "so," because you aren't a Mac user. Well I am, and it pisses me off.

But now that I think about it, streaming anything off the internet sucks. Bad. If I can download it directly to my computer and watch it, that's one thing (though I prefer to watch it on my TV), but streaming is often low-quality, stuttering video. Turns out you can keep your streaming Netflix. I don't want it. Me or my Mac.

I'd have to wonder about the economics of this offer, too. It won't be any extra charge to customers, which means no additional revenue from it (not counting any advertising surrounding the video you watch, which there will be). It surely took a huge investment in infrastructure and technology to make this happen. Does anyone really care enough to take advantage of it? If I can't wait 1 business day to see Weekend at Bernies, I've got issues. Most people savvy enough to take advantage of something like this are probably techy enough to own a very large TV with a nice surround sound system. Would those same people be content to watch a movie in poor quality on a computer screen? I know I wouldn't. With the advent of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disc (more on that later) for high definition movies, this seems like a step in the wrong direction. Maybe this will turn out a lot like mobile video.

Via American Copywriter...again.

Truly wireless?

Is it too much to ask for Apple to offer wireless headphones for the iPod? I spent part of the weekend catching up on some audiobooks and podcasts. I spent the other half of the weekend trying to untangle the headphone wires. These things are a nightmare to keep from wrapping around your throat in a threatening manner.

Cut the wires Apple.

However, this is the first significant amount of time I've spent with my iPod shuffle since buying it back in November, and I'm really impressed. Normally it is playing in my car, but this is the first time I've had it on me using the headphones. It's fantastic, and I can't imagine lugging around a full-sized iPod as I was listening around the house.