Thinking of Cutting Cable for the Summer? 4 Sites to Help You Be a Streaming Champ

Quick post today. No time for sentiment. Iron Man 3 is out and I'm barely able to write this, let alone make it poignant. (Confession: I just spelled that last word as poingnoint, I'm in such a hurry.)

So, here comes summer and you want cut back on your $50 to $200 dollar cable bill. I don't know how much you spend but let's say you don't want to spend it anymore. What are your options?*

Books, games, outings, vacations, movies (theater or DVD), regular TV, tube storage TV, and ... STREAMING everything. I won't focus on anything but streaming here.

The technology we have available these days for streaming TV and movies is remarkable. It's nearly perfect except that, to remain competitive, companies have to offer exclusive content (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon) or keep the content you buy from them locked into their services and/or hardware (Apple, Amazon, Google). So, it won't be perfect until they can all get along and that will never happen. Moving on ...

How can you be a champion streamer? Well, it's more than just having the services. You have to know how to get the most out of the services. Assuming you have access via web, Roku, AppleTV, etc. to the big names in streaming (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Vudu, etc.), you can use these sites to queue nearly everything you'd ever need to replace cable for a season. Here they are:

WatchItStream.com
Why it rocks: "Have you ever rented a movie, only to find it streaming on Netflix? Or paid for a show on iTunes, not knowing it was cheaper on Amazon? ... With so many streaming services available, it can be time-consuming to hunt down ... Watch It Stream will show you if it's available on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime Instant. Even if your show is not streaming, the search results will guide you to the cheapest way to purchase the title online or on DVD/Blu-ray."

CanIStreamIt.com
Why it's brilliant: "A free service ... that allows you to search across the most popular streaming, rental, and purchase services to find where a movie is available. If the movie you're looking for is not available, just sign-up, set a reminder and voila we will shoot you an email when your chosen service makes the movie available." It breaks down the services into movies (streaming instant/rental, digital purchase, DVD purchase, and Xfinity subscription) and TV (streaming instant, digital purchase, and Xfinity subscription).

InstantWatcher.com
Why it's helpful: "If you're a frequent viewer of Netflix's streaming fare, you're probably numb to how inefficient the rental service's browsing and search pages can be. InstantWatcher is a soothing balm of clean, fast movie browsing."— Lifehacker Feb 16, 2009

HackingNetflix.com
Why it's hacktastic: This site gives you all the Netflix New Releases for each week including the full list of new DVD releases that week (if you're still having DVDs sent to your home) and a list of interesting streaming releases in that past week. I like that option because I'm always looking for content new to Netflix.

There you go. Use these and you're off to a great summer of viewing in between all the other unfreakinbelieveable activities I'm sure you have planned.

Did I miss any? Have you used any of these? Let us know in the comments.

*This post was inspired by this one.

Privacy Matters

Image from here.

I read an interesting article in Time Magazines Techland Blog. It turns out there was a man who complained to his local Target that his teenage daughter was receiving coupons in the mail about baby clothes and cribs. He couldn't understand why they would be sending these mailings to a girl who was clearly not pregnant...except it turns out she was. And the kinda incredible thing is that Target knew she was pregnant before her parents knew.

Here is how they knew:

It was a fact Target had obtained after carefully collecting information about her. The company, like many others, assigns each shopper a unique Guest ID. Every time you buy toilet paper with a credit card, visit its website, fill out a survey or, really, interact with the retailer in any way, Target assigns this information to that ID.

In a nutshell, but tracking the way this girl had interacted with them, Target was able to predict (with great accuracy, apparently) that she was pregnant and started to send her the coupons and marketing designated for pregnant women. So is that creepy? Or amazing?

Privacy is kind of a big buzz word lately. Are we all silly to be giving away all of our information to these companies? Should we be worried that in a certain way advertisers may know more about us than our loved ones? Should we be terrified that every dumb photo and stupid comment that our kids make on Facebook during high school will be accessible in perpetuity by every hiring manager, college admissions board and future in-law? Or is it no biggie?

In a way, I am lucky that I grew up before the dawn of the digital age. I recall some pretty embarrassing photos of me taken in high school. And I don't really want people to have instant access to my run as Oberon in my High School's production of A Midsummer's Night's Dream. I know I thought I was the next Olivier, but I am pretty confident looking back on it that I sucked. As an adult, I am pretty lax with my own Internet privacy. I am mindful of who I friend on Facebook, and I don't broadcast every detail of my life, but I enjoy putting information out there. I live a pretty boring life, so I don't think I have too much to be afraid of, but I don't carefully curate who gets to see what information. And truthfully, I think it is fun. I like posting what books I have read on Goodreads and letting my friends comment on them. I just returned from a family vacation where I was uploading pictures throughout the day and I would have a lot of fun each night coming home and reading comments that friends had written on them.

But maybe that is naive. Maybe there is a potential for harm to come from all of the information we post online. Cultural paranoia tells us that we need to safeguard our information because we could be endangering ourselves, as illustrated in the creepy Facebook lollipop video. (Be warned: it is pretty messed up. Don't watch if you are easily frightened.)  But truthfully, I am less worried that my Facebook updates will lead to some crazy person coming to kill me and more worried that when my neighbors dog goes missing I will be the prime suspect because of my well publicized hatred of the canine.

So where do you stand in the world of online privacy? Do you think we are living in a new age where eventually everyone will have an Internet history of embarrassing photos and stupid comments so we just won't care anymore? Or do you think we need to be mindful custodians of what we choose to share and who we choose to share it with? Or do you just publish everything on MySpace so you are sure that it is safe from prying eyes?

At least now we know that if your teenage daughter starts receiving coupons in the mail for diapers, you may need to set aside some quality time to chat.

A Man's Guide to Pinterest

I am a bit of a social network junkie. I'll try anything. I'm on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google +. I've used Path and Instagram and Photovine and Goodreads. I even occasionally check my Ping page. So when I heard so much hullabaloo on the interwebs about Pinterest I wanted to give it a try (you even have  to be invited, so it makes it seem even more exclusive.)

No doubt you've heard of Pinterest, probably from your wife or sister and probably with a comment about how addicted they are. Techcrunch.com reported that 97% of Pinterest users are female. And while I can't say that I am addicted or spend hours madly pinning things to my boards, I think there is some room (and a need!) for more men to join Pinterest.

First off: What is Pinterest? Basically it is an online bulletin board. It is a way to organize bookmarks of websites or ideas that you might want to visit later. Other people can see what you have "pinned" and re-pin it to their own boards, comment on it, email it to a friend, etc. When I started using Pinterest (and it is still what I primarily use it for) it was to keep track of recipes I had seen online that I wanted to try. Rather than having hundreds of bookmarks I had to flip through to find a recipe I wanted, I have an easy to navigate visualization of everything I have saved.

I know bookmarking recipes probably isn't really selling you on the whole "Why Men should be on Pinterest" argument. But I also pin DIY projects and ideas of things I would like to do around the home and garden. I have a pinboard of tech products I want to buy. You could just as easily have a pinboard of workout ideas, hikes you want to do or interesting articles you want to come back to later. There is also a whole world of humor (Like Beccy's "Trying to Hard" board) and geeky fun.

So as you begin to navigate the world of Pinterest, here are a few things that I have learned:
1. It is really complicated plan Young Women's Values night. Every third pin is a recipe for pretzels dipped in values-colored chocolate, or crocheted Values-colored iPod cases. I guarantee the men of the church are not spending 1/100th of the time planning anything for the Young Men.
2. Some women like to imagine Ryan Gossling is saying sensitive things to them, because you get a lot of these:

I'm not judging. Let's be honest, if I looked like Ryan Gosling I would have a board called "Awesome Pictures of Me: Check out my Hair."

3. Feel free to unfollow anyone who starts pinning a lot of ideas for great Halloween decorations in February.

4. People like to put babies in bowls and take pictures of them. What's up with that?

So join me in the world of pinning. Let's get some men pinning manly things. And if you are not into manly things, I have some great ideas for Young Women's values night that I wanted to discuss.