Plugging back in...

So some might think I'm a sell-out. But I was contacted by Comcast and offered $29.99/month for a year for their 68 channel package (the one I was paying $56/month). I'm still using Verizon for my DSL, which brings the grand total to $60/month for cable/internet for the next year. I was paying $90/month with Comcast before I canceled.

I must say that I'm glad I went through this experience. This was the first time in many years that I was forced to give up television. I found other things to spend my time on and it was somewhat refreshing. I am going to make an effort to continue spending my time in productive ways. However, it will sure be nice to be able to flip on the TV.

Step 1...

So I am starting to pick this project back up. My first order of business is getting the laptop video to play on my very old television.

My laptop has S-Video out which can be conveniently be turned into RCA through a very cheap adapter. I purchased the adapter from www.newegg.com for around $10.

However, they can't make it that easy. I've been messing around for over an hour trying to figure out how to activate the TV-Out on this stupid laptop. I've downloaded 3rd party drivers for the nVidia card that is in this thing but have had no luck. It doesn't recognized that the TV is connected, and since it doesn't detect the TV, it won't allow me to turn on the TV display.

It's time for bed methinks (it's just like me to start projects as I'm heading to bed) so I will attempt to pick this back up tomorrow.

We shall see where this goes...

Can't resist...

http://www.wimp.com/comcastsleeps/

Update

So it's been a while since I've posted anything but I haven't done anything on my project as anticipated. Life has been very busy and I haven't had the time or funds for the project. I did see that Boxee is going into alpha for Windows later in June. Depending how the rest of this month goes, I might just wait and do alpha testing on the Window version and skip Linux altogether.

More to follow...

The Shakes have Subsided...

This week has been insanely busy. Fortunately, it has allowed me not to miss cable (almost completely!). We have discovered that we severely miss cable at night after we go to bed. Fortunately, season 4 of The Office has helped us get through that rough patch. I also discovered that I miss waking up on Saturday and watching TV in bed for a couple of hours. This morning I just had to get up and mow the lawn.

I am also spending more time (and money) on my aquarium hobby. I am starting to develop it quite well.

I've decided that we're going ride through May without a TV solution (other than keeping up on our shows through streaming them on my laptop). Starting in June, I'm going to build a streaming video PC that will hook up to our television. I've decided I'm going to install Ubuntu on this machine and officially run Boxee.

Please stay tuned... I will continue to update our situation regularly and will definitely post my dive into Boxee...

New Ads

I am continually reminded of how I despise cable every time I look at my blog on the internet. Those ads at the bottom are for nothing but companies that tend to stiff their customers.

I have no idea how many people are reading this, but I hope I start to get a little interaction and people posting their thoughts and comments about what I write. Hopefully, we can water down the weighted ads to something I'd be a little more proud of on this blog.

The Shakes are Constant

We were officially disconnected from cable today. I canceled our service last week but they didn't come to the house until today to disconnect us. No TV the entire night! It made it easier that I got home from work late, we had practice at the church, and then I came home and played around with Linux some more.

However, there's that relentless truth that even if I wanted to watch TV, I wouldn't be able to.

I'm looking into Netflix to help us make the transition. They seem to have some pretty affordable packages (I remember the last time I looked into it being relatively expensive). For around $20 you can get 3 movies at a time, no rental limits. I think we will need something to help wean us off.

A little hair of the dog ought to do the trick...