White Friday

[kinzel]

Well, it is a White Friday -- it is snowing and sleeting here, with the ground, roads, and cars covered and a current temp reasonably below freezing, and with threats of accumulations of ice and sleet, and eventual rain and snow turning back to snow.

My participation in sales today will likely be limited to what i can do from here, I think.

If I didn't mention it here, we've had an interesting week, with the Ghost Ship cover coming in from the Framemakers, the on acceptance checks from Ghost Ship arriving, Ghost Ship (are you sensing a theme?) showing up on amazon.com for an August 2 release (so it should be available for us to sign at Reno for WorldCon) ....

Meanwhile, perhaps an overseas nibble, and we must be working on the writing becasue *other story ideas* keep wanting to talk to us, which is exactly what happens when we're getting under way on novel(s) ....

My first job, after making breakfast (I already made the coffee) will be to bring the snow shovels up.

Also, we still haven't solved the non-responsive DVD player -- so tell me what's a reasonable home theatre solution what with Netflix
charging more for plastic and less fro streaming. Let me tell you, I DO NOT want to have to depend on  my cable company for all my entertainment!

Comments

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

If you have any of the gaming systems they will stream Netflix along with some of the Blu Ray players. I am having some problems with my Wii and streaming where it stops after 30 minutes. This is using the new download program they have. They are working on a solution for me hopefully. LOL

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

The problem is, you have to have an Internet service provider to stream over anything - Wii, XBox, whatever. If Steve's ISP is the cable company, he's still tied to them when he streams content; the hardware just changes.

Alternatively, he might have an ISP who doesn't offer the real broadband speeds needed for good streaming, or who charges too much for them.

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

All very true. How is your area for aircard service? A nice backup plan and makes for easy internet access on the road. Granted it is a bit to pay every month if you are not always traveling.

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

Our area offers it, but it's kind of slow and expensive. We don't have it. One of our cell phones is on an unlimited (albeit slow at 2.5G) data plan. With good broadband at home, slow data when traveling, and free wireless access at our friends' and family's homes once we arrive, we're covered.

I really do need to sit down and look at all of our connectivity costs and figure out the best use of resources...

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

For a long time we did enough travel that involved hotels that did not give free wireless and that pushed us to get the wireless card for the business. The real plus was having it to use with the laptop while someone else was driving for hours on end.

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

That WOULD be a plus :o)

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

We're on the Netflix 1 DVD + streaming subscription, and we plan to accept the price increase and remain on it. It's $1 a month increase for the 1+ and 2+ plans, and a dollar per DVD per month on the bigger plans.

Cable service has been reliable in our area, and is the fastest option (up to 20 Mbps, versus DSL's local max of 3 Mbps), so our landline, Internet and TV are all bundled onto our cable subscription.

Like most Netflix customers, we stream most of our content; however, we watch very little TV. We might realize some savings if we drop or decrease that part of our cable subscription. We're not going to drop the landline until cell phone comms are more secure.

If you're on the 1+ or 2+, I don't see a simple solution, other than to accept the price increase or rent DVDs locally. If you're on one of the other plans, perhaps you could drop back by one DVD?

[(Anonymous)]

Burton from Montreal

If the DVD player is off to the great beyond. Then a cheap 1080P upconverting DVD player or progressive scan DVD player from eBay seller might be an option. There is lots of brand new machines left over from the manufacturer's rush to the higher margin Blu-Ray machines.

Unless you have unlimited download from your cable/ISP provider, you will exceed your monthly download limit very quickly downloading movies. Also there is the funny business of throttling dataflow by various ISP providers which will result in a jerky strutting video.

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh... I was just scouting the NetFlix forum, and amidst the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, one intrepid soul posted links to alternatives. I haven't checked these out, and I don't know (in some cases) which are DVD and which are streaming, or even if they're all legal, but here ya' go:

Dvdsbymail.com
Fastpasstv.com
Sidereel.com
Isohunt.com
Blockbuster subscription
Redbox
Graboid.com
Xfinity streaming
Crackle.com