A Series of Tubes

In which our consumption of TV programming is rendered more efficient (Good Thing or Bad? You decide.) by various websites that let us watch our favorite shows online. Some legal, some… not as definitively legal. In any case, they’re a great way to watch shows on your own schedule, as well as rediscover shows that are no longer broadcast. On some such sites, the same goes for movies. In case you didn’t catch them, here are a few pertinent links:

http://www.abc.com
http://www.nbc.com

http://www.tv-links.co.uk
http://www.peekvid.com
http://www.veoh.com
http://www.quicksilverscreen.com
http://www.flickpeek.com

Also, for those students interested in extra credit, here’s one we forgot to mention:
http://www.asemblr.com

In which we broadcast our musical tastes to the world at large with the help of Last.fm, which keeps track of our musical listening habits, recommends new music, tells us about upcoming concerts, and more. Check it out at http://www.last.fm/.

Once you’ve given it a look, check out our profiles and be friends us. Oh, please be friends with us.

Matt’s profile
Rafi’s profile

In which we quit working for the internet and make the internet start working for us by subscribing to RSS feeds, which deliver up content from all our favorite sites to one convenient place without us having to go out to each of those sites and get it. To get started with RSS feeds, check out Google Reader.

In which we reclaim control of the news media on behalf of the common man with the help of sites like Digg and Reddit.

In which we make further attempts to get our affairs in order using Remember the Milk, an online to-do list with a lot of convenient features.

In which we compare three different personalized start page services, which serve as a desktop for your online activities.

In case you didn’t catch the URLs, here are links to each of those services:

1. Protopage
2. YourMinis
3. Google Homepage

In which we get our lives organized with the help of Google Calendar, an online calendar software that is brilliant in its simplicity.

Later this week I hope to post a short video or “screencast” demo-ing the use of Google Calendar. Check back for that.

Episode the first, in which we introduce ourselves and discuss the basics of podcast listening, the merits of various podcast directories, and some of our own favorite podcasts.

Show Notes Courtesy of Rafi:

Hey there folks, I know we covered a lot of different sites in the show, and a lot of the websites sound pretty much like the same thing, so just to clear things up- if you’re looking for one of the many programs to download a podcast, check out www.apple.com/itunes/download for the iTunes media player, or take a look at www.podcatchermatrix.org to compare other “podcatchers” out there. If you’ve already got a program to play a podcast, and are itchin’ to find a podcast that’s right for you try podcast.net, or podcast.com, or even podcastalley.com. And, at risk of being Apple-centric, the iTunes store is a pretty great place to begin sampling the podcasts out there. And, don’t forget- check your favorite websites and see if they’ve got their own podcasts (NPR.org is a great place to start).