The Next Window

I watched NBC’s new drama Heroes tonight (thank goodness for my home theater pc. I have mixed emotions about the show.

Think “Remake of The 4400″ and you’ve got the idea.

The series may survive if they can pull the threads together quickly enough to capture interest. As it is, although each character introduced had uniqueness (in a dark sort of way, seldomly seen on television), the show was way, way too disjointed.

Fortunately, they also took a lead from some of the other shows today that have good teasers at the end. I’m thinking particularly about the Sci-Fi Channel’s Eureka as a good example. Eureka shows, and apparently the teaser at the end of Heroes’ pilot episode showed, bits and pieces of a lot of future episodes — to try to communicate some quick continuity and sense of purpose to the viewers.

It worked well with Eureka. I’ll give Heroes another chance.

It can’t be worse than The 4400, I hope…

UPDATE — October 3, 2008:

The coupon codes in the original posting are long expired.

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The third season return of the Sci-Fi Channel’s dark, haunting remake of Battlestar Galactica is almost here.

There’s a big time jump between seasons, though.

The SciFi Channel is running a series of mini “webisodes” on their web site so that we can learn what’s happened between seasons and make the transition successfully.

That’s really an interesting development, since last season ended with an apparent cliff-hanger. I guess it wasn’t so much a “hang” as a “fall off” the cliff.

Sci-Fi channel has new episodes at www.scifi.com on Tuesdays and Thursdays, posted at noon Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The new season starts October 6th.

If you’ve missed any webisodes, don’t dismay. They’re all still available, but you’ll have to change the episode number in the URL by hand.

The first is http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/video/webisodes/01/
(well, they also have big links for them, but that’s too easy!).

Watching movies is a neat escape from the stressful lifestyle we live in. Watching movies in a wide screen and surround sound take you far away and into the movie scene you are watching. You watch it as if you were there in the movie scene.

Of late, we can only experience this escape in a cinema. However, modern technology may be able to provide this same sight and sound experience right in your own living room. We will discuss the basic components of a home theater system in this article. Read on to understand how these basic components can deliver the best cinematic experience to a home theater system.

Home theater experts state that the most important consideration in setting up a home theater system is the size of the room where you will set up the home theater system. The most important component of the home theater system, which is the television, is dependent on the size of the room. Generally, a 27 inch television set at a minimum is necessary for your home theater set up. A flat screen television (plasma television or LCD TV) is good for a home theater system because it exhibits fewer glares and produces a crisper image.

Another major component of a home theater system that depends on the size of the room is the speaker. The number of speakers for your home theater system is dependent on the size of the room. You may add up to six speakers from the basic three speakers if you want a more lifelike sound. Adding a subwoofer may also be good to achieve a complete surround sound like in the movie theaters. Three speakers should be the minimum; you may go up to six if the room is big.

Another major for your home theater system is the DVD player. DVD players with progressive scan will be the best choice. This is because progressive scan produces sharp and flicker-free pictures. This however points back to the choice of television unit; you may need to check if the flat television set supports progressive scan signals. You may also want to acquire a five-disk carousel DVD player.

A more minor consideration is the power rating that will determine how loud your speaker can be. Of course, almost all these depend on the size of the room to where the home theater system is going to be set up. Small rooms require little from your equipment, while bigger rooms may require more power and size.

You may also want to add home theater seating to your home theater center. A bigger room thus requires more investments. A smaller room might require fewer pieces of equipment, but you should still make sure you get good quality equipment to avoid a “too basic feel” of your home theater system.

Finally, you may acquire a beautifully designed home theater system if you consider hiring a home theater expert. If you can afford this, it will be best for you because the home theater expert will be able to effectively design and set up your home theater system. Your home theater designer may also add some features like home theater seating and other home theater furniture to be able to give the complete home theater package that closely resembles a real movie theater.

Having the finest and high-quality home theater system will give you the most sought after set up that you could flaunt and enjoy to the max.

Read much more about home theaters and Home Theater PCs (a.k.a. Media Center PC’s) at my Terry’s Home Theater web site.

Technorati Tags: home theater, home theater+pc, media center+pc, plasma tv, projection tv

Ever wonder where political candidates get your addresses? Or what they do with them?

I have received a couple pieces of political “spam” from one of our State’s politicos who is planning to run again for governor.

The name and email address in the “To” address, that he used for me, are what make this interesting.

I’ve long thought that political candidates got their mailing lists from their political parties offices, which would be ok assuming that we had provided those addresses to them.

I’ve also believed that they got them from voters registration and other public records.

Of course, those thoughts are about the physical addresses for real, put-your-hands-on it and it-costs-money-to-mail mail.

Now, though, one of our local gubernatorial candidates (unfortunately, the one for whom I would otherwise have voted), has sunk to a new low.

I’m getting unsolicited campaign email from Bobby Jindal. But, not on my regular email address that is fairly easy to obtain.

I’m getting emails on an email address at a domain name that I let my son use for spam control. In this case, he provided an email address to a web site about a computer game called Dante’s Awakening. Funny thing — I get a lot of spam on that address.

But, back to the case at hand…

While this political spam uses the email address that’s getting way too much commercial spam, his campaign workers took another step — one that was stupid.

They apparently matched the domain registration name to voter registration records.

That’s right, the “To:” name is my full name, complete with full middle name — which has never before been associated with that domain — and certainly was not the name provided to the Dante’s Awakening site, or all the other spam on that unique address would have that name, too.

Political candidates — be careful with your emails. Think twice about buying email address lists — even if the seller claims it is a “Safe List” — after all, the individuals did not agree to get spam from you.

Think again about deriving true names for the email “To:” fields.

Those of us who have domain names know exactly who you are — because we often register software and register at web sites with unique email addresses, just so we can see who is participating in spamming or selling our addresses.

By the way, I guess political spam must be exempted from the CAN-SPAM requirements, since this political spam had no provision for unsubscribing!

Thanks a lot, Bobby Jindal! Who’s running against you?

If you’re using Google’s Adwords pay-per-click ads to advertise products or services (or your web site!), there’s a great tool to help you in figuring out the right prices for your ads.

It’s AdwordAccelerator and I’m using it with my Adwords campaigns. It’s been closed to new memberships for a while, though.

This Wednesday, September 13th, they are opening the doors to allow 50 new members into AdwordAccelerator

Based on recent experience with its sister product AdsenseAccelerator, AdwordAccelerator should sell out on these memberships in a very few days (AdsenseAccelerator opened up for 75 mew members on a Friday and sold out on Monday).

I have found that Adwords is a very easy way to spend money on advertising. AdwordAccelerator helps me spend it more effectively!

AdwordAccelerator is a desktop program that runs on Windows and that has access to an online database of Adwords keywords, bids, and competing ads. Without signing up, you can watch the video tutorials on the website. You can also sign up for their free “AdWords Power User” tutorial.

AdwordAccelerator gives me a great keyword tool to find alternative keywords for your product — and to figure out which keywords are worth my time and money. I can see the numbers of clicks and prices for various keywords. Also, I can even see the ads from the competition and estimates of how much they’re paying per click.

Read my review of Adword Accelerator.

Then, if you’re advertising (or ready to advertise) with Google Adwords ads,
Sign Up Here.

Technorati Tags: Adword Accelerator, AdwordAccelerator, Adwords, Google, advertising

I got some exciting news from Sunbelt Software this week — Computer Shopper and Windows IP Pro magazine agree with me!

Sunbelt Software’s antispyware product CounterSpy won Computer Shopper magazine’s Best Buy award for antispyware this month. Not only that, but Sunbelt’s having a Labor Day sale to make it an even better deal!

To celebrate, they start a 4-day sale today, Friday, September 1st,2006.

The Labor Day sale runs from September 1 to September 4,2006 (Friday to Monday). Use the coupon code LABORDAY06 to get $5 off the regular price of $19.95. The coupon can also be used to get $5 off your order if you buy one of the discounted multi-computer licenses for CounterSpy.

As I’ve written a number of times, I believe that all computer users should have an anti-spyware/anti-adware program that runs all the time. Periodic scans are not a precaution — they are an attempt to identify a problem after it already exists and then to try to cure it!

Prevention is the key. Why let your computer get infected and then try to clean it? An always-running program can prevent many spyware/adware infections from occurring. CounterSpy also has a deep-scanning program to periodically scan your hard drive to see if anything got through. CounterSpy checks for program and signature updates every time you reboot, too.

CounterSpy is my #1 recommendation for anti-spyware. CounterSpy is also my personal choice for anti-spyware for my family’s computers and mine. We’ve been using CounterSpy since August 2005 and I have no intention of changing to something else.

Get CounterSpy Now – and save $5 with Coupon Code LABORDAY06

Technorati Tags: CounterSpy coupon, antispyware, spyware, CounterSpy, anti-spyware