technotes

Great site for software alternatives that won’t leave you broke October 4, 2009

Posted by Kristin Lynch in : technology , add a comment

This is a great site for finding [cheap] alternatives to all that cool software you just can’t afford.

You can look for Windows, Mac, Linux and online software alternatives.

Or click on the ‘mobile’ link under the site logo and search for alternatives to iPhone, Blackberry, Android or Win mobile apps.

desktop: http://alternativeto.net/desktop
mobile: http://alternativeto.net/mobile

technorati tags: Android, iPhone, iPhone 3G, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Smartphones, Windows

Netflix streaming option worth the switch from Blockbuster Online June 21, 2009

Posted by Kristin Lynch in : technology , 2 comments

I’ve been a long-time movie service subscriber – all the way back to my subscription with Home Video Exchange in the early 1980s. Ah, VHS…how you sucked in comparison with what we have now, but how lucky we were to have you all those years ago.

: Image via CrunchBase

Fast forward (ha…get it?) to the past 10 years and I’ve moved on to the online movie services. I know there are other services out there, but let’s face it – Netflix and Blockbuster are the only services worth considering.

I became a Netflix subscriber when the service first became available in 1997 and remained with them until Blockbuster Online launched in 2004 with their Total Access package. I had been pleased as punch with Netflix, but couldn’t resist jumping ship with Blockbuster’s in-store trade option.

: Image via Wikipedia

The services were very similar otherwise – pricing, selection, etc. – with the obvious exception that Blockbuster had brick-and-mortar locations and Netflix was strictly online.

Well, I just changed back to Netflix. Again, nothing wrong with Blockbuster. Both are great services, especially if you’re a die-hard movie fan like me. So why did I switch again?

Reverse to 2008 when I bought my 42″ Sharp Aquos LCD TV and got a free Sharp blu-ray player as part of the deal. I began choosing more and more blu-ray movies since I had the option. Between my addiction to movies and Time Warner Cable‘s steady addition of more and more HD channels, I could no longer tolerate watching the NON-HD channels on my bedroom TV. I was getting free HD but only able to watch those channels in my living room.

Blockbuster also recently changed their policy on rentals and in-store trades. They previously allowed you to get unlimited in-store trades, but reduced this to 3 in-store trades per month if you were on the 2 movies at a time plan (like me). They also changed how the in-store trades worked. Previously, you could only keep those out for up to 7-days (plus grace period), following their normal in-store policy. When you returned one to the store, Blockbuster would recognize it as having been returned and you’d get your next film regardless of whether or not you chose an in-store trade. This worked fine for me. Recently they changed this to allow you to keep the in-store trade as long as you wanted, but wouldn’t send out your next queued movies until you returned them.

If that sounds confusing it’s because it IS. I had to ask a couple of times I was in the store, and I realized this was two steps backwards for the customer. From a balance sheet perspective, I could understand why they made this change, but it left a bad taste in my mouth since it was confusing, lousy for the customers, and hadn’t at ALL been communicated by the company. And yeah, I do receive their postal and e-mail newsletters.

OK, so back to the TVs. I bought a 37″ Samsung LCD TV and blu-ray player for my bedroom – not because of Blockbuster, but because of my increasing inability to watch anything NOT in HD. The Samsung blu-ray player includes a wireless feature if you buy the $80 USB adapter, and easy setup for connections to Netflix and Pandora.

: Image via CrunchBase

After setting up the blu-ray player to connect to my wireless network, I hopped on my MacBook Pro and activated my Pandora account (to connect to my existing Pandora account), put a 3-month hold on my Blockbuster Online account and re-activated my Netflix account.

Within 2 minutes I was adding movies to my queue and chose several movies plus season one of ’30 Rock’ to my ‘instant queue’ and saw everything in my instant queue immediately appear on my TV.

OK, so for a few dollars LESS than I was paying Blockbuster, I’m still getting 2 movies at a time via mail, no store trades which I was no longer using anyway, and lots of additional streamed content right to my bedroom TV. Even better, the 2 movies at a time deal doesn’t affect my ability to stream and watch as much as I want. Before my first movie even showed up in the mail (2 days after signing up), I’d already watched 2 movies plus the entire first season of ’30 Rock’ right through my TV.

By the way, as long as the items remain in your ‘instant queue’ you can watch them again, stop where you left off, pause, rewind, etc.

So, if you’re in the market for a blu-ray player, I’d highly recommend choosing one of the few that have this feature. Even though you’ll need to pay for an adapter (once), you won’t need to rent or buy the separate appliance(s) Netflix and other streaming services require.

I also recommend this if you frequently rent entire seasons of TV shows, because traditionally you’d need to count each disk as a separate rental. Through Netflix, if your title is available streamed, you get all the shows at once and they don’t count towards a physical rental.

Feel free to ask questions. I’ve learned a lot about how this works!

technorati tags: blockbuster, movies, Netflix, samsung, sharp, Television, tv, wireless

A few of my favorite things (Madison, Yankees and Macs) June 10, 2009

Posted by Kristin Lynch in : technology , 1 comment so far

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. I’ve been rather scattered working on several other projects. I’ve been catching up on some reading and research, but I can’t really share much of that now so I’ll save that for another time.

me w/ baby madison I’ve been spending time with family – and of course the new puppy! I am so crazy about Madison. I don’t think I could possibly love her more than I do already. She’s adorable from head to toe, and has an equally adorable personality. She was definitely worth the trip to South Carolina to pick her up!

I went to a New York Yankees game two weeks ago, as I usually do at least once or twice every summer. This time they played the Cleveland Indians at Jacob’s Field. Yes, I know it’s now called Progressive Field, but I don’t dig these corporately named sports venues so I tend to boycott these titles altogether.

I’ve seen the Yankees play countless times over the past 30+ years, but I’ve rarely seen them lose in person. Unfortunately, this was one of those times. But, the weather was perfect and we had great seats, so it’s almost impossible not to enjoy the day anyway. Well, unless you were the creep sitting right in front of me. This guy is a heart attack waiting to happen. He screamed at both teams…except when he was sulking and huffing in silence. Everyone turned around to get a look at this moron ranting and raving over almost every play. To make matters worse, his wife was visibly embarrassed.

jacob's field (aka progressive field): may 31, 2009 I think I have a problem. I’ve become a Law & Order junkie. I watch it so often I’m very confident I could pass the New York state bar exam.

On a completely unrelated-to-anything note, this afternoon I saw a professionally created poster sign for an upcoming event containing at least 3 VERY obvious errors. I got to thinking about how someone was obviously paid to do this project so that was bad enough, but then I wondered how many people saw this poster and signed off on it without noticing the glaring errors. But then, I frequently run across errors in magazines, the newspaper, commercials, etc. so I should no longer be surprised.

I’ve been well-steeped in homebody mode over the past couple of months. I haven’t gone out at all, haven’t had so much as a beer during this time, and haven’t missed it at all. I’m sure I’ll be off the wagon again soon, and I’m going to an anniversary party at The Plymouth this weekend but I think that would be a really bad time for me to start drinking again.

the new 15" macbook pro Anyway, for now I’ve been enjoying my toys at home – watching movies, working on my laptops, cleaning, reading, shopping, etc. I wouldn’t say I’m really saving money, but the money I have been spending has been put to better use than on renting beer.

Speaking of laptops, I still have my Dell Inspiron E105 (for now, anyway) but I just procured a new MacBook Pro – 15″ unibody, 2.66mhz, 320gb hard drive, 4gb ram, SuperDrive, and all the other standard items that come with the Mac laptops. It’s quite sa-weet! I’m still in the process of getting everything configured just the way I want, and set up everything so I can work most efficiently, but I’ll get there. At least now I have the time to devote to this kind of project.