Josh Eastburn.com

For once I have a valid reason not to post anything to my blog for months on end. Over the last several weeks, we have made our transition from the Chicago area to Charlotte, NC. Thanks to my Uline employee discount, I was able to stock up on boxes, moving blankets and stretch wrap at cost (one of the first times it made the employee discount worth while). We used ABF’s U-Pack moving trailer which worked out great. The night before the move, they dropped the 28′ trailer in our driveway, leaving only a few feet to spare. They recommended that I notify the police that I was obstructing the driveway for a day and that the police “will have no problem with it.” Upon calling the Buffalo Grove police department, they told me that I would most certainly receive a citation for blocking the sidewalk and that I need to move the trailer (oops, too late). Fortunately, the BGPD never followed up on that promise.

We hired 2 movers to load the truck and they packed 19 of the 28 linear feet of trailer in just over an hour. Since ABF charges by the foot, it was well worth their expert packing to use every cubic foot of the trailer. Three days later, the trailer arrived at our storage unit where we are temporarily storing our possessions until we move into our new house. Overall, it was a fairly painless process and we paid less than half the cost of a U-Haul one-way trailer.

As we get settled in, I will try to post my observations on life in the South, which will undoubtedly include references to NASCAR and sweet tea.

I suppose I was asking for trouble when I mentioned that I would never trade in my DirecTV TiVo for the DirecTV Plus DVR. Super Bowl XLI, 3rd quarter, the picture suddenly freezes. I didn’t press the pause button and nothing on the remote seems to work. This had happened a handful of times over the last few weeks, but a reboot would always solve the problem. Not this time. After I accepted the fact that my TiVo was not coming back, I placed a call with DirecTV. I explained the situation to the rep who kindly offered to ship out their DirecTV Plus DVR in exchange for a new 2-year commitment. I said, “no thank you, your DVR is awful.” The rep asked, “have you ever USED our DVR?” I answered, “yes, have you ever USED TiVo??” He told me that he had, but I think he was lying.
As I saw it, I was left with 3 options:

1. Give in and take the DirecTV DVR (I refused this as a matter of principle)
2. Buy another DirecTV TiVo at Weaknees or eBay (over $150 to get what I have now)
3. Give up DirecTV entirely and get a standalone TiVo

After much contemplation, I went with a refurbished standalone TiVo for $50 and $13/month TiVo service. Paired with the basic, basic cable package from Comcast, I would be paying $40 less each month than I was with DirecTV. Sure, I’ll miss the excellent picture quality and the huge storage upgrade I had with my DirecTV TiVo, but now I’ll finally get to try some of the features that are only available on standalone TiVos, such as the Home Media Option and hopefully in the near future, Amazon Unbox on TiVo.

Netflix is gradually rolling out its new streaming movie service. Subscribers get 1 hour of streaming movies for every $1 in their subscription price. Those with the $17.99 plan will get 18 hours every month for no additional charge. The selection is a bit limited now and you can only watch movies on your computer (XP with Internet Explorer), but it is a nice extra feature that may or may not keep people from defecting to Blockbuster’s Total Access.

If you do not see a link on your account page, it seems like just viewing this link while signed in will activate the service on your account:
http://www.netflix.com/WatchNow

For the past 3 years, I have been a very happy DirecTV+TiVo customer. Before DirecTV and TiVo severed ties a year ago, you could get one of these satellite receivers for $50 or less after rebate. With a $120 hard drive upgrade from Weaknees, you’d have enough space to store almost 150 hours of programming. Now that DirecTV no longer subsidizes TiVo receivers, it will cost you around $300 for a TiVo DVR. At that price, the free 100-hour DirecTV DVR seems like a good option.

I had always heard disappointing reviews for both Comcast’s and DirecTV’s non-TiVo DVRs. After convincing my parents on the merits of a (free) DVR, I had the opportunity to try one out myself.

It should come as no surprise that it is quite inferior to TiVo. As I was using it, I kept saying to myself, “have the designers of this system ever USED a TiVo?” However, there are a few welcome features provided with the DirecTV DVR:

• A bar graph shows you what percentage of disk space you are using
• 100 hours of storage comes standard and like the DirecTV TiVo, it has dual tuners, s-video output and optical audio output
• Unwatched programs are marked as “new”

When using the DVR, the negative aspects stuck out more clearly:

• While in menus, the top half of the screen shows live TV or the currently-playing program–a waste of space.
• The remote: The “left” navigation button takes you back, sometimes. Other times you need to use the “back” button or the “exit” button. Ambiguous, multi-function color buttons.
• Non-intuitive interface: it took quite some time to figure out how to set up a “Series Link” (Season Pass). Tasks that should be simple take several steps to accomplish.
• Bugs abound: during the one week I used the system, it locked up twice and when trying to record a program, it simply told me that “the prioritizer is full.” Huh?

Any DVR is better than no DVR, but if you’ve ever owned, or used, a TiVo, it will be an exercise in frustration. So I will be sticking with my DirecTV TiVo until the Series3 drops below $800. Read a full comparison of the two systems.

I was a member of BMG’s mail-order music service for a couple of years and then decided to cancel. After an eerie silence for a few weeks, the calls started coming. I saw “BMG” in the callerID, so I ignored the calls for a few weeks. This clearly was not working. Then I started answering the calls and stated that I was no longer interested in the service and that they should stop calling me. The calls kept coming until I had the following conversation:

BMG Rep: Hello, I am calling to present you with a special offer since you have been such a valued customer.
Me: Sure, how do I sign up?
BMG (startled disbelief): Great, let me just confirm your address of . . .
Me: Actually, I have a new address now (might as well get rid of those pesky mailings while I’m at it)
BMG: OK, go ahead with the new address.
Me: 201 North Main Street, Barrow, Alaska
BMG: B-A-R-R-O-W?
Me: That is correct. It is actually the northernmost town in the United States.
BMG: Wow, it must be beautiful there.
Me: No. It is just very cold and dark right now.
BMG: Oh, (long pause) I’m sorry. Well, I have you set up to receive 12 free CDs. . .
Me: Wait, these are CDs I am getting? I don’t have a CD player anymore.
BMG: (longer pause) I see. Well, did you know that you can also play CDs on your computer?
Me: I don’t have a computer either. We only have power for 1 hour a day.
BMG: Oh. . .OK. Well, if you ever get a CD player. . .or computer, please be sure to give us a call.
Me: I certainly will. Good-bye.

It has been over a month now and not a single call or mailing.
My sincere apologies to the kind residents of Barrow, Alaska. I hope I have the opportunity to visit your town some day. Until then, please hold my mail.

Half-skiing, half-parachuting down Mount Eiger, Francois Bon and Antoine Montant recorded footage of their extreme sport, dubbed “speedflying.” Watching these videos makes my palms sweat.

Here is an excellent collection of images taken by the Hubble Telescope.

Today TiVo unveiled the long-awaited Series3 DVR. It has most of the features that were promised: record 2 shows at once, HD support, CableCard slots, and an upgraded remote. Sadly, several features are “disabled” for now–the external hard drive port and TiVoToGo–most likely at the request of the Cable Labs group which hands out CableCard certifications. As much as I’d love to swap out my DirecTV TiVo for the Series3, I’m not ready to spend $799 plus subscription costs. Read the full review here.

I have always gotten a kick out of misused quotation marks. For example, at lunch the other day, the back of the menu read: The “best” pizza in Lake County!
Here is a great collection of unnecessary quotation marks. Link

For a long time I have been in search of the perfect backup program.  Necessary features include: remote backup via FTP, compression, and encryption.  Cobian Backup is the best free backup program I’ve seen.  It includes all the important features and it lets you customize just about everything. Link