Apple should write a thank-you note to Nigel Lythgoe

For the last year, I've been pricing digital TVs, thinking about how much I'd resent paying for cable or Direct TV every month (which I did once 20 years ago), and trying to decide how to get a better computer set up for the various things we do at home: my work, her homework, our social activities, watching DVDs because our 1988 TV is crummy. So when the hand-me-down Mac laptop (a G4) that my daughter has been using for the last year finally gave up the ghost, I finally needed to make some decisions. The wifi antenna hadn't worked for a while; then we discovered the DVD drive wasn't working and we couldn't install new software (Adobe CS4, because she's taking graphic arts, learning how to use Illustrator, Photoshop and iMovie at school). The last gasp was when the hinge of the lid broke, the lid flopped over ("it's neck is broken!") and the monitor would only work if the lid was almost closed. I found her hunched over and craning to peek into the partially opened computer while she backed up all her files to her thumb drive. Luckily, we are able to save all her stuff, but she has a big paper due, and I really do need to use my laptop for working at home and also to teach since I bring it to the classroom and use it with the projector.

Solution that ends up saving me some money: I got a deeply discounted iMac that was last year's model (and apparently has a better video drive than the new one, but shhhh!) a digital TV tuner and an HD antenna. Now we can use it for all our home computing needs, but with the larger monitor we can have lovely DVD viewing, AND we turned it into a digital TV with DVR as well! The antenna needs to be pointed at Shorview where the TV towers are, and now we get 20 channels, including ones we could not get before: all the regular broadcast channels plus the HD public TV channels, weather, etc. I've installed Firefox with Adblocker, Zotero, Download helper, and the Adobe CS4 software that was her Christmas present (Illustrator, Photoshop, etc). It cost me a lot less than full price because of my educator's discount. I also got an external hard drive for back up. We can share the laptop at home if she needs to do homework or wants to look at her email privately. The key to the set-up is a marvelous device called Elgato EyeTV Plus: with the antenna, it delivers the digital TV signal to the Mac, comes with a remote, software for recording, getting a TV schedule, burning DVDs. We can watch anything on hulu, but also broadcast, and record it while we are away, just like Tivo, and after the initial investment in the hardware, it is free, free, free. I don't have to deal with Comcast, chose a plan, read the fine print, let people in to muck around with my wiring, or be tempted by the hundreds of channels with nothing on. Best of all, I can finally watch SYTYCD in high quality, record it and watch it again without trying to find fuzzy YouTube videos. Whoopie!
I can't wait to tranfer all my photos from the laptop to the iMac and learn to use iMovie finally. I have a set of summer plans, and they include plowing through the Adobe tutorials.

I now have a pile of ancient electronic gear: a perfectly working 1988 TV, an ancient VCR, a cheapo DVD player, all the cables, antennae, power sources, an ancient portable CD player, a cheesy portable DVD player someone gave us that works but makes as much noise as an air conditioner...I need to take a load to an electronic recycler, or put up an ad on Freecycle. So much stuff to keep out of the landfill.