So I picked up one of the new Netflix Instant players for the very pregnant wife on a spur of the moment decision last week. I’m not normally one to rush and get something as soon as it comes out - instead, I carefully consider all the options for weeks, read numerous reviews, and consider whether something provides the best bang for the buck. When I read the news releases and initial reviews for this thing though, it just sounded like they got it right.

So I ordered one for $99 that I had in my Paypal account (which is like free money anyway, right?). After two days, I can tell you they got it right.

The player is about 5 inches on each side and maybe 2 inches tall. It’s light and feels like there is not much to it. You plug it in, connect to one of your TV’s video inputs (it supports old skool composite video, RGB, s-video, and HDMI), and plug the power in. It connects with wired or wireless networks. In my case, I chose wireless.

From the start, it guides you through connecting to your wireless network, asks you for your Netflix account, and then after an easy online activation, it loads your Netflix Instant Queue (the Play It Now movies you’ve selected online). Now, all you do is use the little remote to scroll through whatever movies and choose the one you want to play.

I was most worried about quality or Internet dropping and I have to say, I haven’t encountered an issue with either. Now we don’t have a flat panel super-high resolution TV because but it appears to be DVD quality to me and I’m happy with that. I also have not encountered a single issue with the movie stopping because of the Internet connection. That’s what this device does, by the way, there’s no hard drive or anything. It’s just a conduit to stream movies over the Internet from Netflix to your TV.

Technically, once the unit is activated, you can bring it anywhere there’s a broadband connection and connect it to a TV and you’re off and running.

I suppose the only “flaw” (that really isn’t a flaw because I understand how different studios negotiate deals) is that Netflix doesn’t have lots of new releases as Instant watch movies. Being that Alisa and I watch a lot of independent films and documentaries, along with new releases, it’s the perfect supplement to a Netflix account. Watch the newer movies on DVD still while not “wasting” DVDs on movies available on the Instant queue.

I’m eager to see how the Netflix service evolves as more and more people trust the technology. With the automatic software updates the device receives, I imagine it’s possible they could form deals with other streaming media outlets to provide more content. Certainly it does seem like this would remove the pain-in-the-ass factor out of things like Hulu and abc.com. That’s probably more up to Roku and other device manufacturers.

I’ve read that this is just one of several devices that will support the Netflix Instant play feature. This first Roku player, though, is already all you need.

Lately, the hotness and I have been augmenting our Netflix fix with Amazon Unbox rentals on the Tivo. They have these little weekend mini-sales where they pick a theme and have 6 or more recent movies available for 99-cent rentals (no Uncle Buck or Weekend at Bernies II).

The quality is on par with DVD and it’s cheap. You just make the purchase and they download over your home network. You can buy in advance and keep them on your Tivo for up to a month. I usually come home on Friday and just buy 3 of the latest just to have them around and available.

And that is what we call good ol’ fashioned product endorsement.

So Tivo has all kinds of goodies these days. Follow these steps on your Tivo:

apps.tv

Once you follow those instructions, you’ll have access to some other cool features beyond the nice stuff that Tivo already has by default. Specifically, I’m most in love with the last.fm interface (and you should get yourself one of them fancy accounts anyway) and the Flickr image browser. Kudos to Tivo for letting smart people tinker and kudos to smart, tinkering people for being smart and tinkering.

Google Spreadsheets is nice. All the features you probably use in a spreadsheet. They’re getting good at all this AJAX do-hickery.

Is this the year of Google or what? It’s just a matter of time before they integrate their Writely purchase with this and have a whole online office suite. For someone who deals with a lot of software licensing, this is starting to get interesting.

Google Calendar is live and wonderful. I’ve been using Mozilla Sunbird and calendar files hosted on my own server for the last year and a half, which has worked well, but Google has incorporated everything one needs into their app. A quick import of my existing calendars and I’m off and running. There are some nice sharing features and the ability to display your calendars in existing apps like iCal or Sunbird. Yay Google!

FreeNAS runs on FreeBSD. It sets up in minutes and has a Web interface for all the config. Install it on an old PC with one or more hard drives installed and connect it to your network.

Provide network-based storage for your large audio or video collection on your home network or just give yourself a network-based backup option that you only power-on when you need it. It also allows you to connect external USB drives to it. Good stuff.

So video distribution sites like YouTube and Google Video are becoming the mouth open, drool out of the corner of your mouth, time waster that 70 channels of cable once was. These “you gots to see it” videos are so fleeting - often posted briefly before copyright law has a chance to catch up with cease and desists. This site provides a nice way to save the files to your computer where you can convert and share them on your own later. Nice.

So, I’m pushing winter down the seasonal stairwell by starting my running program up again. I’m looking to blend in some interval training with some increasing mileage and the interval training led me to this.

The guy developed some Windows Visual Basic scripts that will take an iTunes playlist, limit music to playing for a certain time, and add transition sounds in between time intervals. Then, you just need to take that playlist and transfer to your iPod. The effect is that you can run for however long you want and then the music stops, a transition sound is played, and you can slow down for whatever other duration you want and so on.

Since the scripts are Visual Basic, they work only with Windows iTunes. What isn’t obvious from the site is that your time intervals don’t have to be the same thing over and over again. You can put in a string of different length times and the script will do everything. For instance, 3,4,5:30 will make a 3 minute, followed by a 4 minute, followed by a 5 and a half minute interval, and then it will repeat that pattern for as long as there is music on your playlist.

In this way, you don’t need to look at your watch at all which I have always found to be a distraction when I’ve been running. You just keep doing what you’re supposed to until you hear the cue.

If you download the scripts from the guy’s site, make sure you substitute my replacement transition sound file.

The good: I went for a nice, consistent 45 minute run with my interval method this evening. Also, people doing their laundry drying when you’re running is like a little treat.

The bad: Running in the town where I live results in my mouth tasting like succulent arse.

Hamachi is nice software that allows you to set up private peer to peer connections over the Internet - through firewalls, private local IP ranges, etc. It just works.

Hamachi is currently for Windows and Linux systems with a Mac version on the way. You set up a network, password protect it so only the people you want can ever join it, and then share a folder or folders on your machine. The other Hamachi users who join your network will be able to browse the contents of the directories you shared just as if they were part of a local workgroup with you.

You are directly connected to the other Hamachi users in your network after an initial handshake routes you to them via Hamachi. It isn’t just 1-t0-1 either. Your private network can have as many people as you want in it. All sharing files and connected to each other directly and securely.

Traffic is encrypted over the connection and you can then run other traffic over your Hamachi connection if you want. VNC on a machine that uses dial-up or that is behind a firewall? No problem.

There’s my endorsement. Use it.

New server. Yee haw!