A quick last post of 2008. It’s been a great year and I’m convinced 2009 is even going to be better! For those already in 2009, Happy New Year! The rest of us: see you all on the flip side! Remember: be safe and don’t drink and drive…
My Yahoo! Fantasy Football league is coming to an end and I clinched a spot in the playoffs. I ended up second place in the regular season and this weekend the FF playoffs will start. The #1 and #2 (me!) will have a bye week meaning we just can sit and relax this weekend. The other 4 contenders will play and decide the semi-finals.
My team has a pretty difficult match up this week so I’m glad I’m on a bye week. Winning next week will guarantee cash money so hopefully none of my star players will get injured this week. Adam: I hope you win this week so I can kick your ass for a third time in a row!
We’ve all been there, zapping through hundreds of channels and nothing interesting to watch. It only get worst if you forgot to record a show or something similar to your DVR. You still want to watch the damn tube but at the end of the night ended up with unnecessary purchases of some retarded infomercial channel.
But there is a ‘new’ way of watching TV and the best thing of it all, it is free!
Well, not completely free but for one thing you can cancel your subscription with your TV provider saving roughly 40 bucks a month. That’s almost $500 per year! In extreme cases (DirecTV premier package $82/mo) you will save $984.00
You need a few things but I bet most of it you already have. Let’s go over the list:
Since you are curious on how to save money on your monthly TV bill I’m guessing you already have a TV. You wouldn’t be able to read this post so you can check of internet access as well. A flash drive is a pretty common household item these days especially if you’re a geek. Flash drives are pretty cheap these days. Just do a Google search. Cheapest flash drive I found was 5 bucks.
That leaves you with the Apple TV and the boxee account. The low end Apple Tv (ATV) is $229 and is sufficient for the job. The next thing you’ll need is a Boxee account. If you don’t have one leave a comment with a valid email address and I’ll send you an invite. Boxee accounts are free!
Very simple. Connect your AppleTV to your TV. You just enhanced your TV viewing pleasure! Movies and/or music videos rented or bought through iTunes can now be viewed on your TV. Playlists can be streamed or created on the ATV.
But it doesn’t end here. There is more you can do with your ATV. Way more…
To get the fullest of your Boxee account you need to hack your ATV. It sounds scary but it’s not. All it takes is five minutes. If your not tech savvy I recommend buying your AplleTV with Boxee pre-installed. If you think hacking is your thing head over to atvusb-creator and follow the steps.
Basically what you’re doing is download a program on your usb stick (flash drive) and stick it in the back of the ATV. The usb port on your ATV is only used for diagnostics when you bring it in for repairs but with the atvusb-creator you just have opened up this port!
Congratulations! You have just hacked you ATV! Wasn’t too bad huh?
You’re all set up! Boxee is a media station and offers a wide variety of channels: CNN, Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, YouTube and as of today: Netflix. Netflix isn’t ready for the ATV yet but I’m sure it will in the future.
Well, since I’m only interested in a few shows I was able to cancel my account with Dish networks. The shows are now being streamed by hulu on my boxee. And it gets even better. The title of this post mentioned RSS feeds. I was able to successfully add video RSS feeds to my boxee account (Since I’m Dutch I added some Dutch TV programs) and I’m now able to play those feeds through boxee on my ATV.
There are tons of other video feeds out there and you can add the ones you like. It’s like creating your own TV station. No more zapping around to find good content. You decide what to watch and when to watch it!
That’s a personal choice. Live broadcasting can’t be viewed on the ATV. I decided to give up those perks simply because I was becoming a couch potato. I read the news in the morning. No need to see it live. All it showed was another murder in town and it became depressing. I miss out on sports though. But hey! Go to a friends place and watch the game together! Have a social life!
So if anyone is interested in a boxee account lemme know. Leave a comment and I’ll send you an invite asap!
We’ve been back for almost a week but I simply couldn’t find the time to give a proper update. Having 4 days off from work means a backlog of accumulated emails and more work when you get back to the office on Monday… (sigh).
Anyways, here are a few pics from the trip to Los Angeles.
We decided to take the I5 (Interstate 5) rather then Highway 101 since it would take too much time to travel choosing the latter. The problem with I5 is that it is the most boring road to travel. It’s an endless straight road with nothing exciting to see except for a bunch of trucks heading to SoCal.
The above picture is one of the many stops along the I5 to refuel and stretch your legs. Again, nothing to exciting to see unless you’re in to watching bored families traveling for hours to their destination. Note: it took us 10 hours to drive from Santa Rosa to Los Angeles.
Don’t get fooled by the smiling face! Just a quick stop to eat a sandwich and make sure Lola did her #1 and 2.
Ah yes! The infamous LA traffic. This picture was taken on day 2 of our trip. We just visited the Yo San University and had some time to kill between a second appointment. We decided to drive up to Santa Monica (Yo San is located in Culver City close to Marina Del Rey, Venice Beach and West Hollywood.
Traffic wasn’t as bad as we arrived in LA. We hit traffic coming in to LA right at Burbank. It took us almost 2 hours getting from Burbank to La Palma. With no traffic this could be done in 45 minutes…
Blue skies and palm trees! Yes! This must be Southern California!
On our way back downtown we had a beautiful sunset at Santa Monica.
Lunchtime at Venice Beach. Venice Beach felt kinda icky this time of year. Lots of bums and people trying to sell all kinds of crap. I guess Venice Beach is not the place to be off season. I did however had the best pulled pork sandwich ever at this place!
Overall the trip was worth every moment. Seeing my family with Thanksgiving was fun as well. We’re really thankful to Julius and Linda for letting us stay at their house and keeping an eye on Lola on Wednesday! You guys rock!
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