Saturday, October 18, 2008

Digital TV Converter box installed - Miami, FL

Okay, my mom doesn't get cable TV so I requested and received one of
those $40 coupons. The expiration date was Oct 20, 2008 so today I
bought and installed the Zenith DTT901. It was $59.95 less $40.00.

I was curious to try it out on a small TV in my kitchen that previously only received analog
channel 6 NBC in Miami, Florida. After installing the Digital TV Converter Box, I now I recieve 10 digital stations that are crystal clear including ABC but not NBC. Many of the new
stations are in Spanish but I am shocked by the improved quality. Some other observations:

  • The digital channels have a new numbering scheme. Just what we need, another non-standard numbering scheme for our TV channels.
  • The box came with a remote which you use to change the digital channels. Just what my mom needs, another remote.
  • There is a website that provides more information on the new digital tv channels and provides you information on which direction to point your antenna for the best reception. See www.atennaweb.org

The main problem I see is that there is a delay on some digital tv stations similar to what we see during a rainstorm. If this delay occurs too frequently, it would make digital tv unusable if it cannot be fixed with a better antenna. When my mom asks why we can't go back to her old television without the box, I'll have some explaining to do...just when I got rid of her old telephone, now another change for her. We'll see what happens in February 2009.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

XM Radio Pricing after Merger with Sirius

Several of my friends purchased a Sirius lifetime membership for $499. As a loyal XM radio customer, I don't remember getting any news of that promotion. Here is XM's pricing to get the new Sirius Channels which includes Sirius NFL radio, Howard Stern, Martha Stewart Living and Playboy.

$458.00 - 3 years XM and Sirius
$322.00 - 2 years XM and Sirius
$186.89 - 1 year XM and Sirius
$16.99 per month - XM and Sirius
$50.97 per quarter - XM and Sirius
$12.95 per month - XM only.

I didn't like the idea of a lifetime membership when I first heard about it. That said, it sure sounds like a great offer now.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

AOL Hometown FTP Settings - members.aol.com FTP Setting

To access your AOL FTP site using a FTP Client such as Core FTP LE, here are the steps and the settings that I used.

1. Login to AOL using your AOL Client software.

2. Host /IP / URL: members.aol.com
Username: anonymous
pw: youraolmembername@aol.com

Port: 21
x PASV (this box checked)
_ SSSH/SFTP (this box unchecked)

They are shutting down AOL Hometown or members.aol.com on October 31, 2008. The use of a FTP client is the best method to change and/or retrieve your files off AOL.

Good luck! If you have any questions, please add a comment to my blog.

AOL Hometown - Redirect to WordPress Site

AOL Hometown is closing down on October 31, 2008. I had a site on AOL Hometown from the beginning of the Internet in the late '90s. Here is how I moved my site from AOL Hometown or AOL Member Pages to the free www.Wordpress.com site.




1. Create your free site at http://www.wordpress.com/

2. Create pages in WordPress from your HTML pages in AOL.

3. To redirect your website pages, add the following code. This code uses HTML only and does not use Javascript. This is method is recommended my some Search Engine Optimization pros who do not recommend using Javascript. This is the best method I could find to hopefully preserve my Google page rank, Google search results and Yahoo organic search results.