When the iPad allows flash support, I’ll consider getting one.  Until then, thanks, but no thanks.  I would rather watch this on a real web browser than surf with one of those things.

I just installed it this morning, and I’m loving it!  Before, I had the mail app check my email every 15 minutes, which kind of got me push notifications, but up to 15 minutes late.  Now within a minute, I always get notified.

Sure, you can get push email through Mobile-Me, but that’s $100 a year.  This is a one-time cost of $5, and it works beautifully.  I just set it up on my phone, and it’s perfect.

There are basically no privacy concerns here.  You setup an account with the app that creates an email @dopushmail.com.  No mail is stored on that account.  And you don’t have to give your user name or password to your other account to PushMail.

This is how I configured my gmail account:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10957

I recommend this to anyone with an iPhone or iPod touch with OS 3.0.

Actually wasted is the wrong word.  Apple makes some amazing stuff.  So spent is the word I was looking for.

Ever since buying my iPod Classic a year ago, I have become more and more enamored with the Apple brand.  In December, I bought an iPod Touch, and was fascinated with the accelerometer, WiFi connectivity, and multi-touch screen.  None of those features had I ever seen in any pocket-size device, period.  

I sold my iPod Touch like 3 hours after I bought the iPhone.  It basically sold itself.  I told my friend I got an iPhone, and his girlfriend was immediately interested in my iPod Touch.

I had been carrying around my iPod Touch, my iPod Classic, and my Treo with me almost everywhere I went.  The Treo was out of place; it had to go.  With an iPhone, the touch was no longer necessary.  Now I only carry my iPhone and my iPod Classic.  My pockets love me again.

The iPhone is basically an iPod touch with a built-in phone, GPS and camera.  iTunes ported my settings/apps/data directly from my touch into the iPhone.  It was super easy.   Apps I have that use the iPhone’s mic (like Midomi, iSteam, Zippo, Lie Detector, etc) no longer need the mic/earbuds combo.

In summary, best purchase I’ve made since my Rhodes.

Beyond that, however, is another very interesting feature. It can access Skyhook data from WiFi access points. This basically turns the device into a GPS unit, as long as it is connected to the net.

I’m at the airport, right now, writing this from the WordPress app. Just a few minutes ago, I was blown away when the wireless location feature even knew what terminal I was in. Amazing!

So my feelings on this are mixed.  I paid $100 for watching movies 4 or 5 months earlier than I could for no extra money on my XBox.  So that’s not a good feeling.  BUT, Roku has been saying that there is an upgrade in the works that will allow the Roku to stream content from other providers, which might make the thing worth the money I spent.

Then again, the 360 is supposed to have a deal with NBC, and they’re actually disclosing this new content.  Roku has said next to nothing about what other content providers they’ll be adding.  They’re just myseteriously “Big name” as a descriptor.

In the end, I hope my Roku box will end up doing something that the 360 can’t… just to prove my money hasn’t been wasted.

My first experience with the box was very surprising.  The video quality is excellent.  I’d like to know if anyone can tell the difference between this and cable.  I even experiemented with limiting my Internet connection.  I had my computer using a lot of the bandwidth, so the box could only get 1, 2 or 3 dots out of 4.  I was unable to find a difference in quality, really.  The only difference was a lack of sharpness.  At 1 dot the video simply looked blurry.  The frame rate never seemed to drop, and there were very few “buffering…” moments, even though my computer was competing for every bit of my Internet connection’s 6 mbps.  I’m very impressed.

My only complaints so far are to do with the service Netflix provides.  The box works flawlessly.  I was even able to setup my Logitech Harmony universal remote with it, after a small amount of searching on their website.

So then I called Comcast, only to find out they don’t work past 9pm. They advertise 24 hours, but that’s only for their automated billing inquiries. So I called again the next day. I got the nicest, most personable guy on the phone, who actually seemed to care that I was leaving Comcast. He offered me a great deal: switch my Internet back to Comcast, and he’ll give me cable and Internet for $25 less than what I was paying originally. But, on principle (and because I’d just spent $99 on the Roku box) I went ahead and canceled. I still don’t agree with them raising the price of cable when I canceled the Internet. The poor customer service rep seemed heartbroken, and for a moment, I felt guilty, but whatever, it’s my money.

So that was done. I called Tivo, and talked to them about it. They offer a little bit more than just cable TV lineup (they have internet downloads from Amazon.com’s Unbox, and various podcasts). But I didn’t think that was worth paying $13 a month for. Then they mentioned that I could use my Tivo with an antenna, just like I’m doing with my cable, which was great. So I decided to stick with Tivo.

However, the next day I learned that my particular Tivo is only compatible with Satellite and Cable, not antennas. It’s a Dual Tuner Series 2 Tivo. It basically gives you the ability to pause one channel (live) and change to another tuner, on a different channel, and watch two shows at once, cycling back and forth. It’s too bad I can’t buy two antennas and have the same functionality. And there’s no way to get it to work on only one tuner. So it seems I was screwed. I call them back and cancel. They did with no problem.

My antennas and roku box should arrive later this week. I’ll be posting about my experiences setting everything up. One of my TVs has a digital tuner, so I won’t need a converter box to get digital tv. But my bedroom TV will need a converter box. I’m going to apply for the free government $40 coupon for one of those right now.

One could argue that Television and Internet are related, but one does not affect the other.  The infrastructures needed to put TV and Internet down the same tube are completely independent.  The frequencies of the data running down the wire are different.  One does not affect the other.  It’s just masquerading as the “buy more, pay less” deal, which has no bearing here.

I recently switched Internet providers from Comcast Cable to AT&T DSL.  DSL offered slightly slower download speed, and better upload speed, for less than what I was paying.  But Comcast raised the price of the Cable TV I have had.  They raised it by substantially more than what I was saving by switching to AT&T.

I’ve been contemplating what to do about this.  I do not want to spend more than I what I was originally.  And I do not want to switch back to Comcast, as badly as they have been behaving.  They don’t deserve my business.

I considered Satellite TV, but found out my apartment complex charges a hefty installation deposit, on top of whatever setup fees are necessary from the provider itself, like DirecTV or Dish.  And it wouldn’t really save me that much money.  I would end up paying two different companies about the same as I was giving Comcast before I switched to DSL.

Another option was to ditch TV entirely.  I could have an antenna for the local news, and major network programming.  I could have sites like hulu.com for shows like The Daily Show, and other cable network television I would want to keep up with. This option seemed extreme.  But it would save a substantial amount of money.

Tempting, but, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go quite that extreme.

Recently, I’ve been reading about the Roku Netflix box.  It seems to sweeten the deal.  In my mind, combining this instant download service with my XBox 360, and broadcast TV just about makes up for the loss.

These instant movies and TV shows through Netflix are unlimited, even with the least plan, a measly $9/month.  So I’ll be saving over $45 per month, over $500 a year, and if I get bored surfing the web or with broadcast TV, I can always watch a random movie off of Netflix instantly.

The device from Roku is actually $99, and I would need to purchase two antennas for my televisions, both $15.  So in order for the savings to actually pay off, I need to switch for at least 3 months.

I’ve made my decision: for the next three months, I’m going to try the Roku box/antenna combo.  If I don’t like it, I can cancel Netflix, sign up for cable again, and sell the roku box on ebay.  Although something tells me I’m going to like it.  There are rumors flying about Roku introducing new content providers with a firmware upgrade.  I hope they’re true, and I hope the content is as good as Netflix’s 10000 on-demand movies.

I would have liked to taste a variation of coke, but instead, it tasted the same as it always does. Once this happened to me, when I bought vanilla coke, thinking it was regular. That was a surprise.