Kupitero, Author at Baclaran Parañaque Rizal

June 18, 2020December 26, 2024

Who Needs Netflix When Free Video Streaming Abounds?

After being a Netflix member for 21 years, I finally terminated the service in August 2019. Did I miss it? The answer is 10% YES and 90% NO.

At least, for me, the service is no longer a necessity, so eliminating it from the monthly household bill was an easy decision.

But what were the real reasons why I decided to terminate my Netflix subscription? For one, it was not really the cost. The last monthly bill was only for $15.99 (Premium Plan).

In the U.S., Netflix started in 1998 as a DVD-by-mail service. By late 2006, it began to offer a few movies to stream online but only through the use of PCs. When standalone media streaming devices like Roku, Apple TV and Fire TV proliferated, Netflix started its streaming-only subscriptions in 2010.

My official Netflix cancellation notice in Aug 2019. Looking forward--- what's next after video on demand? — After 21 years of being a Netflix subscriber, l had never looked back since August 1, 2019. Looking forward to something new.

In 2011, Netflix split off its DVD-by-mail service (dvd.netflix.com) and streaming-only service (Netflix.com). While both units are still active and profitable (note: the DVD-by-mail service is available only in the U.S.), its streaming-only business had been the main driver of growth as it was able to offer this service on a global scale.

Netflix started as a DVD-by-Mail service — Netflix through the years. This was the 2011 e-mail when they informed subscribers of the split of the DVD-by-mail and online-streaming business.

This leads again to the question: why did I terminate my Netflix (streaming-only) membership when it such a good deal?

Here are my answers:

#1. Amazon Prime. Yes, membership* ($119 plus tax a year or $10.90 a month, tax inclusive) with the world’s online superstore includes unlimited viewing of Prime Video movies. Their selection had been growing by leaps and bounds despite being a latecomer in the streaming-only business.

When I had both (Netflix & Amazon Prime), I watched more movies that were to my liking with Prime than Netflix. Moreover, most movies that are available on DVD sometimes don’t make it in the streaming-only format in Netflix — but I happen to find them in Amazon Prime.

And. if you love documentaries and other hard to find movies in the streaming-only format, nothing beats Amazon Prime.

#2. Free Streaming Sites (Ads supported or Totally-Free). During the last three (3) years alone, the apps, as well as Internet TV channels that are in my media streamers and Smart TVs, had grown to a gazillion. Although some of them had come and gone, in the U.S., apps like Tubi, Roku, Popcornflix, Pluto, FilmRise, IMDb (acquired by Amazon), YouTube plus tons of others had been offering both totally free or ad-supported movies and TV shows for the last few years now.

You can even have a totally-free (yes, no ads) streaming service by just being a member of your local library. In the U.S., this service is provided by Kanopy.

The apps or websites, as well as content-aggregators mentioned above, may not have the latest offerings or come only in SD (standard definition) format or that they may have viewing caps (like Kanopy, at fifteen (15) movies a month), the tons of choices from all of them are more than enough for the casual viewer.

#3. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Most ISPs in the U.S. today have their own streaming-only portal built-in to the service. They offer both free and paid streaming videos and some – like Comcast/Xfinity- will even give you a free media streamer of their own. Comcast/Xfinity just recently renamed their video streaming portal, Peacock.

Lastly, #4. Netflix itself. A lot of movies released on DVD don’t make to the streaming-only format with Netflix — which was the main reason I joined them in 1998. During their early days, they offered the best selection of movies on DVD from the comforts of your home with free shipping and no late fees.

Their concept was such a huge hit among movie buffs that it forced the big brick and mortar video rental firms like Hollywood Video and Blockbuster out of business.

Netflix actually began their streaming service in 2006 for U.S. subscribers. It now offers this service to several countries in the world — Netflix’s 2007 e-mail to subscribers. Note that online-streaming was available only through the use of computers and was capped for just 14 hours a month.

Netflix's e-mail of 2008 to avoid losing subscribers — Just a year later, in 2008, and with the proliferation of dedicated media streaming devices like the Roku, Netflix members were upgraded to unlimited online streaming.

To keep their streaming-only customers beholden to the service, they had resorted to producing their own films and TV shows. And released they did – all episodes of shows are all in one big bundle that you’ll bound to waste a lot of your precious time on this planet and led to the term, binge-watching.

After 21 years, I missed Netflix only by 10% because I might go back to their DVD-by-mail service only.

But, then again, times have changed. Today, for their $7.95 a month subscription (unlimited but only one (1) DVD rented out), I can have more than one (1) DVD — as my very own.

*NOTES: On February 18, 2022, Amazon Prime annual membership increased to $139 (plus tax) while the monthly membership went up to $14.99. In spite of the increase, I continued my Prime membership as, IMHO, the benefits still outweigh the cost.

November 15, 2019December 26, 2024

A Deal Better Than Black Friday – $17 Linksys Router

Once in a rare while, while shopping, you will find an item that is priced so ridiculously low that you’ll have to convince yourself that a). there’s an obvious pricing mistake made by an employee, b). a mischievous person switched price tags, c). there must be something wrong with the item, or, d). you must be just plain lucky to be at the right time and place.

Exactly two weeks before Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) of this year while doing my early morning grocery shopping at the retail chain store that made someone from Oklahoma spectacularly rich and famous, two (2) sealed boxes of Linksys AC1200+ Gigabit Router sat among other gadgets atop one of the shelves in the electronics department.

This $17 Linksys router may not be a top-of-the-line model, but the price tag is simply too good to pass up on

I was there to get some eggs, milk, a few cans of Spam & some other ingredients for a seafood dinner as well as new SkinGuard razor blades. But, definitely, not shopping for any electronics that particular day.

But, for a tech-junkie, how can I pass-up and not buy a brand-new, in still-sealed-box Linksys dual-band router with 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports & a USB 3.0 port — for just $17 ????

It’s an older model alright -after I checked the product specs on my phone- but, nonetheless grabbed a box and headed off to the nearest price scanner to verify the price. It was not a mirage. It was really $17.

Back at home, I pondered what to do with my latest score. I already have two latest model Netgear routers as well as indoor & outdoor Hawking WiFi extenders – already a bit too much for such a small area of about 5K square feet.

Three days after my purchase, I had decided just to store the still-sealed router in the attic –as a backup unit.

It was only after three weeks that I would find out that the $17 Linksys router would serve as my new indoor WiFi extender after I discovered that the Hawking was no longer functioning.

Operating as a WiFi extender, this $17 dual-band Linksys router has 4 gigabit Ethernet ports to hook up even more devices

Tying it up with my other 2 Netgear routers & making it operate as a dedicated WiFi extender -to the 2nd NG router that serves as an access point– was a bit tricky and took a bit of time.

But, the effort was well worth the $17 price tag.

January 24, 2010

There Are Saints…But There is No God???

Every weekday, after arriving from work, I always see my father, in his advanced age of 90, sitting on the La-Z Boy.

That may not seem unusual but for the past 3 years, he had been talking more and more – and, in a very loud voice to almost everyone to who sets foot in the house. Again, talking to someone may not seem unusual but, again, his repetitive harks to attract somebody’s attention – – he will call out one’s name almost ten, if not, twenty times, just to engage that person in his typical convoluted kind of conversation.

The medical student in me, tells me that something wrong is now going on in my father’s brain. Dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, “over-emotional-outburst-of-a-person-in-advanced-age-syndrome”…whatever the medical community may call it, but, the fact that for some people who have the luck to live their lives for that long, will eventually, fade out in time.

Our bodies are not as durable as steel or plastic.

I am sad all about these because I had believed in an omnipotent God for the most part of my life.

…to be continued.

December 19, 2009

Reinventing the ROKU (Streaming Media Player)

Last Thanksgiving Day, I had the opportunity to buy the new ROKU HD-XR Media Player at a deeply discounted price. It was the company’s Black Friday online promo and they

limited the sale to only 500 units of their top-of-the-line streaming media player. In 30 minutes, all 500 units were gone. And, trust me, the online buying experience was extremely slow – and painful – even at my fast 6 Mbps Internet connection.

The ROKU media player is one of those underrated gadgets that will probably become as popular as the iPhone or may become obsolete as the LaserDisc player. It’s one of those electronic gizmos that I found to be as reliable as, say, the microwave oven. Right now, I have a ROKU attached to every TV in the house.

Netflix (the online video rental service) was the driver that brought ROKU into existence. When Netflix began streaming movies in late 2006, it was only via the PC.

But who likes to watch movies on their small PC monitor? So, like most techies, I attached my PC to my then, old 27″ Sony Trinitron via good, old, composite video cables.

Back then, a TV (and/or, a PC video card) with an HDMI connector was still a “video-interface-media-content-delivery-format” that was being fine-tuned by multimedia hardware makers and the big media studios like Sony, Viacom, Universal Pictures, etc.

So, it’s either you turn on the computer to do some work and be on the Internet or, do I watch a Netflix movie? The luxury of being able to do both is OK, but, the guilt that came from burning all those wattage by just watching an old movie was just too much. My old PC has a 600-watt power supply while the Sony TV consumed about 120 watts.

I was also via Netflix’s web site that I learned about ROKU streaming devices’ availability on May 2008. I immediately got one – the ROKU HD – and I was so impressed with the unit that I excitedly recommended them to my brother & sister who also have Netflix subscriptions!

All ROKU models -SD, HD & the HD-XR – have similar 5″ x 5″ x 1.75″ dimensions and consume a mere 5 to 6 watts at peak operation. All have built-in WiFi & 100 Mbps Ethernet.

The main difference between the HD and the HD-XR model is that the latter has faster WIFI N and a USB port for future use. Both has composite, component, S-video and HDMI video outputs. I would say that you avoid getting the cheap, low-end SD model since it only has a composite video output. The SD is sufficient if you only have an old model TV with A/V jacks.

ROKU had also provided more content by adding more channels (Pandora, BlipTV, MediaFly, etc) and would probably become a full-pledged media server come 2010 by making use of the USB port on the HD-XR model via a firmware update!

—links:

www.roku.com
www.netflix.com

July 26, 2009

The Palm Pre via the Sprint Network – a Month Later

My trusty Nokia 6230 was badly bruised after almost 4 years of use. It had endured numerous drops & bangs, numerous cellophane tapes at the back cover because of the oversized battery I installed and dust had perennially gathered on its minuscule but colored screen.

During this period, Apple Computer had already become Apple, Inc due to the huge success of the iPhone (released June 29, 2007) and had, in fact, a second version already out in the market in the iPhone 3GS while Microsoft had released Windows Vista and is almost about to release its latest Windows 7 OS this October.

I am a Mac fanatic but not an iPhone fan. In my opinion, Nokia is a way, way better cell phone maker than Apple, Inc. They had been making phones for the Finnish military way before there was even a company called, Apple Computer, Inc.

Nokia’s drawback is that it’s not a computer company like Apple, Inc. Nokia’s vision got blurred when it was a bit late to see the integration of cell phone and computer technologies. It pays to have a company located in Silicon Valley where all these related technologies come into play: WiFi, video, flash memory, radio transmitter, Internet, etcetera, plus, of course, a brilliant user-interface…the elegant Mac OS X.

Palm, Inc is another story. It was one of the very first tech firms that tried to use a handheld device and to adopt it to the new Internet technologies that arrived in the early 90s. Hence, it has the Palm Pilot PDAs (basically organizers with capabilities to connect to the Web via modems), the Treos (phone/PDAs) and now, the Palm Pre.

Many tech “wannabes” (or, people who had been using a computer only after the web browser came out in the early 90s) had been ringing the death knell on Palm as a company after Apple’s iPhone came out in the market.

This almost came true until an investment group linked with U2’s lead singer, Bono, stepped up to the plate and invested big time ($325 million) in Palm in Oct 2007. The group was Elevation Partners.

The new group rolled the dice and on Dec 2008 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, they announced the impending release of a new Palm phone with an entirely new user interface called WebOS.

Creating an entirely new interface was not only a technological necessity for Palm to survive the brutal smart phone market but was also a sound financial move. The current Palm Treos are still running on the old Palm OS (renamed, Garnet OS) which Palm had sold-out to ACCESS software of Japan. This meant that Palm was actually paying ACCESS a royalty for every Palm Treo phone it had rolled-out since that software spin-off of 2006.

So, in June 5 of this year, Palm rolled-out the glorious Palm Pre with the Sprint Network as the sole U.S. carrier. But, why the exclusivity to Sprint? Palm had all the right reasons to go with Sprint. The biggest carrier, AT&T, is not only the slowest of all U.S. carriers, but also their customer service is among the worst in a survey taken from all of the top corporations in the U.S considered. Second, the iPhone is already tethered to AT&T. AT&T’s signal is so poor (they had sold most of their bandwidth to other smaller GSM providers like T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, etc) that I really believe that the iPhone would be faster running with the Sprint Network. And lastly, Sprint is bound to become the first to have the next generation 4G signal nationwide in the U.S.

My verdict? Apple’s iPhone is more popular but the Palm Pre is way better smart phone. Mobile OSX (later renamed as iOS) simply is just too bland as a phone interface. It’s clunky and all too familiar. I would like all the features of Snow Leopard on the iPhone but no..this is only a cell phone. I have all the Macs Apple had created so far, but no more OS X on a phone, please. Palm’s WebOS is like the 1984 Macintosh when PCs were still running DOS 5.0 or even 6.22. It’s always the thrill of something new we tech lovers always look forward to or long for — something different.

But what else is new? People has the herd-mentality. While the rest of the world are using PCs, I’m was using the Mac. While almost all people are using Facebook, I’m on LinkedIn. Blue-Ray? No, thanks, I’ve got HD OnDemand.

So, while others are pecking the on-screen keyboards on their iPhones, I’m simply sliding out a small, actual keyboard on my Palm Pre, sliding and flicking ‘card’ apps, faster and simpler. Another bonus is the free, built-in GPS with Sprint Navigation as well as the Sprint TV. Sprint’s signal is way,way better in most of the surrounding areas where I live than AT&T’s (my old Nokia’s previous mobile carrier).

With the Palm Pre and Sprint, I made the unpopular but sensible choice.

March 22, 2009

Added Twitter Feeds to This Blog

Woke up early to smell the breeze on the rain-drenched backyard which I cleaned-up a week ago. The flowers are starting to bloom and the grass are very green! Also, I have to clean the small hot-tub/spa that we have on the patio — ready for spring…after that very long winter!

It had been raining on the weekends which limited my yard-cleaning chores. I need to do some minor work on the bricks that overlay the patio. Some of them have to be cemented back to the base to prevent them from cracking. Most of the gaps between bricks need to be filled-up with cement as well.

On the serious side of things…California’s economy is in the doldrums these days. More than 10% of the labor force is unemployed. You’ll notice that quickly when you’re driving along the major freeways in the Bay Area. Traffic is very, very light on weekends while the rush hour seems to have disappeared on workdays.

Even though gas prices – around, $2.10 per gallon today…it was as high as $4.50 per gallon – have gone down dramatically during the last 3 quarters, fewer people seems to be driving these days. Which is good. California is probably the most wasteful gas consumer on this planet. I hope this state could be like Japan which is crisscrossed by commuter trains all throughout the islands to encourage more people to take public transportation!

On the tech side of things… with the economy down, I’m buying less gadgets and making full use of my current computers. No more every-quarter-CPU- updates for my PCs. I still have my Phenom X4 8650-based PC as the workhorse. My web server remains the PowerMac G5 that I had put into action more than 2 yrs ago – – it replaced the ancient PowerMac G4 which I kept in the attic to serve as a back-up.

What’s really new? The ROKU attached to the Sony HDTV that streams Netflix’s Watch Instantly movies now also streams Amazon.com’s latest Movie-On-Demand flicks – for a fee! I had to wire a separate gigabit Ethernet cable to the ROKU box – although, it only has a 100Mbps Ethernet port – to get the most out of these video streams.

The other gigabit Ethernet cable I had running to the HDTV was usurped by the DirectTV HD-DVR after I had configured the OnDemand feature a few months back. The catch with DirectTV’s OnDemand is that it will only stream unprotected .WMV files – aside from their default library of movies – to your HDTV. You could get a media server like Netgear’s Digital Entertainer series to stream almost every media format available on the Internet.

A cheaper but time-consuming fix would be to “un-DRM” any protected movies while converting them to .WMV files using software like Daniusoft’s Media Converter Pro. Once unprotected and converted to a .WMV file, any movie will now play back via the OnDemand – under Movies, Photos & More – feature of DirectTV. However, you can’t fast-forward nor rewind the movie via the remote control. Bummer… but it saves you, at least, $200 to $500 by getting that media server box.

What else? I dropped-by the Apple Store along Powell in SFO to get the 16GB iPod Nano after my version 3 Nano dried-up its 8GB space. I love the iPod Nanos because they are so unobtrusive, convenient and cute. The new iPod Nano (v4) has the same screen size as the v3s but comes with new firmware that includes the Genius feature.

The downside is that, you can’t use your old FireWire-based power adapter with these v4 Nanos. I had to go back to the store to get me the Component AV Cable kit – also includes the new Apple USB power adapter – to not only, juice-up my v4 Nano but also to connect my older v3 Nano to the HDTV. Very cool specially if you travel a lot.

iTunes in now on its 8.1 incarnation while the IE browser also sports version 8. But, I’m not very thrilled with the new features I saw on Windows 7 beta.

From here, I’m holding on the few dollars I had saved to buy the upcoming Palm Pre phone. I think it’s time for me to replace my trusty Nokia phone….Twitter.

February 3, 2008February 4, 2020

Do You Really Trust Your GPS???

During our recent visit to Puerto Rico early this year, I brought along my Garmin NUVI 660 to test its accuracy as well as its dependability. Since we bought the unit about middle of 2007, it had been our constant travel companion for much of our trips around California and had been quite dependable on most occasions.

The Garmin NUVI 660 is the company’s best-selling unit for a quite a number of reasons. Its 4.3″ color screen seems to be the right size for any automobile without a built-in GPS navigation system. The included windshield attachment is not only durable but also well-designed.

Other features like hands-free calling via Bluetooth-compatible phones, MP3 player, FM transmitter, travel kit, picture viewer as well as storage expansion via the SD card slot makes it the hands-down choice among first-time automobile GPS buyers.

But it is the simple yet very functional user-interface that made Garmin’s NUVI series a winner. A few taps on the display screen and you’re ready to navigate. And, if your Bluetooth-compatible phone rings while navigating around, simply tap the phone icon and you’re ready to answer the call via the built-in microphone & speaker!

Except for new constructions and a few interior roads, the built-in North American map had been generally accurate. I updated -via DVD software – it only to the latest 2008 North American map when I discovered that our car was literally running through the waters of the Benicia Strait as we passed through the newly constructed Benicia-Martinez Toll Bridge – the gateway that connects I-680N to I-80N.

We had booked our rental car with Hertz weeks ahead for a six-day tour of this U.S. territory in the Caribbean. Puerto Rico’s main airport is in San Juan while our hotel was booked in the second-largest city in the islands – Ponce – which was a good 65 miles away. This would be a good initial test for the GPS unit in beautiful Puerto Rico.

I had already saved some of our intended destinations in the Favorites folder of the GPS unit. So, after getting our rental car – a mint-green 2008 Toyota Yaris – from the Hertz compound 2 hours after we landed in the Luis Munoz Marin Airport in San Juan, I hooked-up the unit unto the car’s windshield (unlike in CA – where I had to use a friction-mount –, attaching it on the windshield in PR is not illegal), tapped on a few icons as soon as it powered-up and on we headed to our hotel in Ponce!

The Garmin NUVI 660

It passed the initial test with only a minor quirk. While it guided us correctly to up to the main city, it failed to recognize the mostly one-way and narrow streets where our hotel was situated in downtown Ponce. I had to park the car a few blocks away and looked for our hotel…yes, with the GPS on my hands!

The following day, on our trip to the Arecibo Observatory, the GPS unit’s accuracy was at its lowest point. While it can accurately track the main highways, it kept telling us ‘to turn left -or, right- along Highway 111’ while we’re already traversing the steep, twisting ascents of the same highway!

We also had a lot of ‘dead-spots’ while cruising along a few mountain stretches. I thought that as long a you have a view of the open sky, your GPS unit can pick-up the satellite signals quite easily. Of course, just like in most densely populated cities like San Francisco it takes a while for the unit to pick-up the satellite signals, I was surprised that it could easily get a reading in the metropolis of San Juan.

One very useful feature of this gadget is the ability to track you where you are and from your location, get all the useful information – auto services, hotel, gas stations, food, etc – that you may need.

A good example would the time when we were in Plaza del Mercado (a public market) in Santurce, San Juan, PR and it was raining a lot. Looking for a taxi was extremely difficult as the place was a little off the beaten path.

Garmin NUVI 660 to the rescue. I simply raised the unit’s antenna, tap the ‘Food, Lodging’, then, ‘Spell Name’ icon, entered, “Taxi” and voila…I got the names as well as phone numbers of the available taxicab companies in the nearby area. A quick call to the taxicab company of our choice and in a few minutes, a taxi appeared from nowhere to get us back to our hotel!

Overall, I was quite satisfied with the performance of the NUVI 660. It not only gave us peace of mind that we will get to where we want to go to but also for the other little things the device can offer you.

The Garmin NUVI 660 is a must-have device for travelers. Highly recommended.

November 18, 2007June 23, 2022

SFO: So Many Things to Do…So Little Time!

The heart of San Francisco — The State of California building as seen from the park across SFO City Hall

Since I moved working environs from Fairfield to SFO in late August this year, I hardly had the time to update this site. San Francisco is such a bustling city that getting used to this new lifestyle will take me some time.

Fairfield was really so boring, after all!

What’s coming up? I have on tap, more new computers & gadgets, new software (including Apple’s latest OS X Leopard), more world music, news and more importantly, will upgrade the webserver to a massive two (2) terabytes of storage space!

Happy Thanksgiving and happy holidays to all!

November 9, 2007

Why I am an iPhone Holdout

I love new techs & gadgets. The iPhone craze died-out immediately after its initial release last June 29, 2007. There was

Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc... — Image via CrunchBase

ample supply (hey, it’s only a cell phone) of this new gadget from Apple that prevented ‘scalpers’ (eBay or CL) from wreaking further havoc out of the pocketbooks of ‘techno-lusters‘.

But, no – no matter how compelling this gadget might be – I wasn’t among the folks who lined-up at an Apple Store to be the first one to have the iPhone…which I did with the original iPod release.

I’m waiting for the next release of the iPhone, and I’ll get one, if and only if the ff. requirements are present:

1. Faster data access (the current EDGE/GPRS service sucks).
2. VoIP apps will be available (Skype, would be really nice).
3. An ‘open’ version will be available. No more 3rd-party hacks.

That’s it. Until then, I still view the iPhone as a mishmash of the Blackberry, Palm T|X & Sony’s PSP.

Period.

February 18, 2007

Palm and the Rise of the Small Machines

Since the Palm Pilot debuted in the 1996 and established the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) market, many had no doubts that, one day, PDAs will approximate the power of a personal computer.

That time is here – thanks to rapid advances in flat-screen & wireless technologies, as well as in flash memory – and there’s no company that understands it better than the original creator, Palm, Inc.

Just put your hands in one of their newer models – be it the Treo 680 (or, its Windows Mobile counterpart, the Treo 750), the Palm T|X or, their only model in the “mobile manager” category, the LifeDrive – and you’ll be amazed at the things these little devices can do. These devices had come a long, long way from being the simple electronic organizers that keep your notes, addresses, memos and loaded with simple apps like date book, calculator, note taker and an expense tracker.

I was surprised at the wireless capabilities of these handhelds today. Using Hands High Software’s WiFile Pro (WiFile LT is bundled free in the Palm software CD), I was able to access either Mac or Windows networked files so easily (wow!…really, hassle-free), via the built-in WiFi capabilities of the T|X or the LifeDrive.

With their Treo series, Palm was able to address the needs of users who like to have a phone integrated with their PDAs. And with the LifeDrive, Palm is still trying its hardest to assuage notebook computer users to swap them out with this pocketable device instead.

How about in its core business segment – the handheld or, the original PDA market? Palm realized that slowly and surely, the PDA market is undergoing convergence with telephony/wireless and that PDAs will soon integrate all the features of these mix. The Palm T|X is a case in point.

Except for a phone feature, the $299 Palm T|X packs in its 3.08″ x 4.76″ x .61″ shell, all the features of a decent Internet-capable home computer. Load it with the appropriate software & you’ll be surprised how easy it is to access your home (even your company’s) networked files, copy DVD movies (thanks to its SD/SDIO/MMC-capable slot as well as the fantastic storage capabilities of these stamp-sized memory devices) for viewing on your long commute or, simply browse the Web (WiFi’s built-in) for any information of your liking.

PQ Computing Inc’s $35 application, Pocket DVD Studio (for Palm/Pocket PC) can compress a 3-hour DVD movie into, approximately, a 368 MB .avi file – or, .wmv if you want . So, if you have a 2GB SD card in your Palm T|X, you can easily fit about 4 to 5 full-featured movies!

Some would say that for $299, you could buy a used, middle-end notebook & have much use for it than these “overpriced gadgets”. True. But, the last time I checked, these notebooks are still put into carrying bags & slung on shoulders. They still don’t fit inside my favorite shirt’s pocket.

Palm – and all handhelds in general – had indeed come a long way from being a nerd’s show-off gadget to an alternative device for people on the go who hates carrying that hefty notebook.