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Why are you still paying for TV?

melody — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:44:48 +0000

Everyone talks about our fast-paced lives and how it’s becoming increasingly hard to make time for things. I have a few things to say about that, but for the purposes of this post, let’s address one of the reasons it’s hard to ‘make time’ for things -

you have to work with someone else’s schedule.

I would imagine most mother’s can relate to me when I say that the idea of sitting down on the couch every night and watching a program or movie sounds great, but isn’t very realistic. Does it happen? Of course! But it happens by way of us deciding to let someone else dictate our schedule. Because networks put programs on at specific times, and instead of watching something you might enjoy more, you are forced to watch whatever show is on at that time, or re-arrange your schedule to be ‘available’ when the other show airs.

Many of us, including myself, were excited when we got a DVR. Whether it was a TiVO unit, or just the type that can be leased from your cable company, it was schedule-saving! Now, we could DVR that show we really wanted to see, and watch it later. Of course, then it became a matter of which DVR show we want to watch…there were so many, right? And if you didn’t watch one fast enough, it would no longer be available. And if you really wanted to see something again, like a movie or a favorite episode, you had to sacrifice room for future shows. But yet, we could fast-forward the 5 minutes of commercials and we weren’t beholden to the networks. And it was good.

Now, even having a DVR seems ancient. With the explosion of streaming media, paying for television shows is fast becoming unnecessary. Why lease a DVR for $6.99/month from your cable company, plus pay $30-$50 or more to get programs? They are available, with extremely short commercial breaks (we’re talking 15-30 second spots) online. Hulu and Netflix are slowly but surely changing the way people get their entertainment while still providing an outlet for advertising. The best part? You rarely have to worry about not finding a show. But, even if you can’t find a particular show – is it really worth paying $30-$50 every month for the privilege of watching it? Only you can decide that, but for my money, shows like “Dancing With The Stars” are nice distraction, but not worth $30/month!

There are certain restrictions with streaming through Hulu, but overall there aren’t many negatives over what you get with cable. For example, a show currently airing will have the last five episodes available. So if you miss more than five episodes, you can’t go back far enough to completely catch-up. But, if you had cable, you wouldn’t be able to catch-up at all, until re-runs. Certain channels don’t have content through Hulu yet, but in time it will come. And what you cannot get with Hulu, you can often find on Netflix. You must pay for a Netflix account in order to stream video, but plans run as low as $8.99/month for 1 DVD (at-a-time) and that would replace your need for a Blockbuster membership. If you utilize streaming from Netflix, depending on how many shows/movies you watch per week, it can certainly be more cost-effective than paying for cable and renting $1 movies from a kiosk like Redbox.

The biggest hurdle to moving away from cable or satellite to streaming media is the initial cost. You can access Hulu right now on your computer, and if you have a Netflix account, you can stream directly to your computer as well. However, I doubt most members of your family will want to sit in a computer chair in front of a 20″ monitor to watch a show or movie. Also, it’s hard to do family movie night in a small office if more chairs are needed. Instead, you will want a computer for your entertainment system with wireless control. There are a few options on the market, that run from the $700′s to over $1,000 with added peripherals. You can also have a company like ours custom-build a system for you, often for cheaper than retail pricing. That seems like a lot, but consider that if you keep paying for just cable, you’ll have spent that amount in a year – less if you have premium channels. Consider the difference in cost between how you rent now and the potential savings from a Netflix membership and your time until it saves you money gets even shorter.

This may not be an ideal solution for everyone, yet. You must be comfortable enough with using the computer to navigate a website, rather than just scrolling up/down on your cable menu to choose programs, and the resolution on a bigger screen TV might be a problem. Overall, however, streaming media is definitely the future of television and with everyone wanting to save money, ditching the monthly drain of cable or satellite service seems like a great place to start!

Hurricane Season 2 – After the Rain

melody — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:37:39 +0000

I received quite a few comments about my first post regarding preparing for our favorite non-season, and several requests for more information. Since none of you were terribly specific, I had to go out on a limb and guess – what else can I cover? And then, thanks in part to someone in a networking group I attended this morning, the answer struck me.

After the storm passes, what do I do?

Hopefully, if a hurricane does hit, you’ll be fine. That’s always our wish! However, let’s say you’re not. Nothing catastrophic, no trees on your roof or lawn furniture through your window. But, lets say you suffered what we personally suffered back in 2004 during Charlie, I think it was. At that time, we still had some undeveloped land at the end of our street, and a power pole was knocked-down along with a tree. Since we were certainly not the only ones without power, and as we later heard, out-of-state crews were having difficulty finding neighborhoods; we were without power for close to a week. Did I mention? We run our business from our home. Without a disaster operation plan, many folks in our same situation – even companies who could loose their storefronts, could be in for a very rough ride. How do you operate? Where would you go? How would employees work if their homes were fine, but roads were cut-off and they couldn’t come in? It’s that question I explore here.

1) From backup to Back Up
In my initial post, I mentioned backing-up your data. This is obviously an attempt to keep your valuable information, personal or business, from being lost. What do you do, however, if you can’t get it right back on your own machines? Obviously, smooth operations are the key to surviving in a post-traumatic environment. The easier and faster you can get back to ‘normal’ for your employees and customers, the more they will appreciate you. One way is to have a secondary site picked-out. In our case, we invaded the spare bedroom of a friend, and in the immediate, charged our cellphones at a neighbor’s home on another block. If your business is less mobile, you may consider having your employees telecommute. Paying for a local company to backup your servers at a secure facility and having web-accessible software options for your salespeople and even management, will allow your business to continue on with minimal interruption. For home users, the explosion of social media offers another refuge in the storm. If your relatives want to contact you and phone lines are down and the cell towers are jammed, you might be able to get online at a friend’s home and post your status on Facebook. If you’re sitting on the fence wondering why you’d ever use a site like that – there you go!

2) Have some low-tech options available
We are as guilty as the next people about not having paper backups. Especially now, the push is to be ‘green’ and that means using less paper. Maybe you don’t need to print-out every single interaction, but at the very least, have a recent phone list for both your employees and customers. Go old-school: get a three-ring binder, print out a neat list in Excel or equivalent program, hole-punch and insert. Depending on the database you use, it should be as simple as exporting your contact list as a .csv file. If you are a small business like we are, sync your contact data with your PDA or Smartphone. That way even if you can’t get to a computer, at least you’ll know it’s a customer calling and your people can still make calls to current prospects. Paper work orders, even if they are just kept for emergencies, will help in the field to ensure everything is covered. Make sure they are up-to-date with your correct address, phone # and any appropriate information-gathering fields are relevant. For the homeowner, having a three-ring binder at all times with up-to-date contact information, insurance policies and phone numbers (home/car/health), health information if relevant and any other information specific to your situation is vital. (Pet photos, nursing home info, etc) If you need to go to a shelter, for example, the last thing you want to be thinking is ‘how do I even contact my insurance company?’

3) Prepare for the worst – hope for the best
None of us want to believe a storm will hit. “That, won’t happen to me“, we say. Every time we see folks on the news, spray hitting their backs or water creeping up their porch, as they stubbornly speak with a reporter about how they just can’t leave their home and belongings.
Can I say this? Don’t be an idiot. Prepare now. Prepare on an off-year, tweak the plan where appropriate and stick with it. Don’t get lazy! The one year you say ‘oh, yeah we’re fine. It hasn’t happened yet’ will be the year you could have used that disaster plan. There’s this guy named Murphy – I’m sure you’ve heard of him. If he’s going to have the last laugh? Don’t let it be at your expense.

Another Hurricane Season!

melody — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:16:39 +0000

We tend to be a little complacent around here when we start seeing the tracking maps hit the stores and the sales on batteries, radios, water and other supplies grace our favorite stores’ circular. Florida as a whole can go for several years without having an actual named storm make landfall, and for us here in Central Florida the risk seems even lower; even after having a year of three storms hit us!

The reality is electronics are delicate things. Even if we just get some heavy rain (much like we just had this past week) it can wreak havoc on un-protected systems. So, even though I can’t force you to be prepared for the worst a storm can bring I can give you advice on what you can do to ride-out this hurricane season while keeping your equipment as safe as possible.

• Check your surge protection/UPS – when did you buy, or have installed, the strips connected to your TV & components? Your camera system? Your computer(s)/phone system? If the answer was anything short of ‘a couple months ago’ start looking for sales and upgrade! It only takes one hit to ruin a surge surpressor. Unless you’ve got some serious backup, it’s definitely time to change it out before you get nailed and it doesn’t protect your sensitive equipment! Heck, if it’s a really good deal – buy two. **Note: Those ‘guarantees’ that come with some surge protectors will require pictures of the equipment you have, possibly serial #’s and they are very strict about how things must be plugged-in. If you’ve had it for a couple years and you get burned, don’t expect that warranty money!

• Backup your computer’s information – This is something we should all do at least once-a-month for personal computers, and daily or weekly for business. If it’s not something you’ve done before, or are spotty about keeping up with it yourself, consider one of the many online services that will backup your data for you, automatically. We use LiveDrive, which is located in the UK. Isn’t the internet great?! There are other companies as well – another popular choice here in the states is Carbonite – no matter if you do it yourself using a CD writer or external drive, or use a service to backup your data: start doing it now! If you get a surge or strike that hits your internet source (cable or DSL) it can fry your system and leave you starting over.

• Check any outdoor equipment and be prepared to bring it in – The cameras we provide are weatherproof with tight housings. If you purchased cameras yourself in a kit, it might be a good idea to take a look after it rains and make sure the housing is still in good condition. If you are getting a ‘fuzzy’ picture on your TV or DVR, there could be condensation in the lens and your camera isn’t as weather/waterproof as you might have thought! Also don’t forget about outdoor rock/planter speakers. It’s one thing to keep working if it gets some pool water splashed on it. It’s quite another to expect it to survive sustained high-powered winds and driving rain. **If connections will be exposed, put a heavy duty plastic bag around them and secure with duck tape. For extra protection, wrap the ends with electrical tape beforehand.

If you have a generator, now is the time to get it serviced! If you don’t, taking these extra precautions will help you to get through even the smallest of inconveniences with your devices intact. We always hope if a storm does develop it will miss us! But Mother Nature is un-predictable and it’s better to be prepared than sorry.
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Why you shouldn’t spend $$ upgrading to Blu-Ray

melody — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:47:31 +0000

From the short-lived like 8-tracks and Laserdisc, to what we thought would be old standby’s forever like VHS and CD, we’ve all been down the road of upgrade-and-replace sometimes several-times over. Being in my thirties, I’ve had to upgrade my records to cassette tapes, and then to CD’s and then to MP3’s. My movies have gone from VHS to DVD (I personally avoided the Laserdisc fiasco) and now I have the option of Blu-Ray. Some video-philes are running to the store, happily dropping hundreds, even thousands of dollars to upgrade their viewing experience. And if they have the disposable income and it makes them happy, then I have no right to deny them their joy.

But, for the rest of us – aren’t you just a little bit sick of the game? After all, how many different versions of the same movie do you want to buy in your lifetime? Personally, I’ve still not replaced the original Star Wars movies with the DVD set. I owned three – yes, three different versions on VHS. I wasn’t about to go hopping to DVD and then find out they re-mastered, re-vamped and re-released it again. And that’s just for older films. What about the DVD you bought a couple weeks before Blu-Ray was available?! Do you now feel cheated? Have the urge to go out and spend several hundred dollars on a new DVD player so you can get what everyone else has? I hope not. If this economic crisis has taught us anything, it’s to appreciate what we have. From leftovers in the fridge becoming lunch to the backyard becoming a family weekend destination once again, we are all in a mindset of enjoying what is already around us.

Of course, you argue, eventually you’ll be forced to upgrade. The manufacturers will play some dirty card like making future players that don’t ‘downgrade’ well. If you want to watch it and not feel like it’s 1959, you’ll buy Blu-Ray discs – right?
Wrong.
The inevitability of the ‘next thing’ is upon us even now. If you are one of the millions with a Netflix or iTunes account, you enjoy it’s benefits and don’t even realize it.
Digital Media. Right now, it might be a confusing term but it shouldn’t be. Just imagine every movie and song you own being completely bought and stored on a computer hard drive. No physical CD/DVD. No cases piling up in the corner. No wondering how big of a movie collection you can get because your wife will kill you if you have all those out in the living room.
Many websites take advantage of this capability, as well. Why order a CD, when you can simply download the software directly? Need instructions? Download the PDF version, instead of waiting weeks for a manual. Computer hardware keeps getting smaller, but the memory storage and speed capability keep getting faster, spurred-on by such hobbies as graphics-heavy online gaming. Your DVR/TiVO is a simple computer – there are just so many examples.

So don’t run to the store for that Blu-Ray player just yet. With more hardware coming out designed specifically to make digital media more accessible, like the Roku streaming Netflix player, you will probably be phasing-out of buying DVD’s and CD’s sooner rather than later. The good news here is, unless they can find a way to beam it directly to your brain, the only thing you’ll have to upgrade in the future should be a hard drive.