You'll still have internet I'm assuming. Since you aren't looking for illegal advice (*cough*downloadthread*cough), can you stream the shows you want to watch from either the network website or something like hulu? You might not be able to watch them real-time, but it will be close enough. Or are you just wanting channels or something to flip through?
Yes, I'll still have the internet, but my television is not hooked up to it. I was looking for a way to keep the television useful.
Is it an HDTV? If so, Netflix is now available in Canada... Why not buy a Blu-Ray player that has Netflix built in to it like this Samsung model. Netflix has a streaming only plan now for something like $8 a month. That Blu-Ray player also has wireless built in, and the setup is a breeze.
Are there any Canadians who subscribe to Netflix? I checked it out a few weeks ago, and the movie selection seemed terribly limited. Every movie I searched for said, "We don't carry that, but try [retarded teen comedy/bad knockoff/whatever]." I'm thinking that the US Netflix content must be vastly different from the Canadian one. For example, a cursory quick search: - Lord of the Rings; not available - The Exorcist; not available - Saving Private Ryan; not available - Avatar; not available - Titanic; not available These are uber big movies, Oscar winners, and off the top of my head every. Single. Movie. I type in is not open to me.
We don't get any of the big name movies either if you're talking about watch instantly ones. We have to order them by mail like everyone else.
Canadian netflix does not offer the mail service at all, and its streaming support is way lower than the American one - avoid it like the plague I'd reccoment getting a media device (playstation 3, bluray player, second computer etc) that lets you stream content from your other machines to your TV.
I've had Netflix for 3 months now in Canada. The only thing I use it for is the Discovery Channel content. For movies it's just garbage. Avoid it and spend the money on a better internet connection and a Hotfile, Rapidshare, Fileserve, or similar account. Then figure out what to do from there with google.
Why bother buying a Rapidshit et al? Getting on a big private tracker (Demonoid) will be get you 90% of the things you need, and for the rest Piratebay+ Peerguardian/ Google.
Alot of ISPs in Canada throttle Bittorrent traffic and make it really slow. I can understand why you'd do that, but for the less technically inclined buying an account and joining a forum is alot easier than trying to get on a private tracker. I'm technically inclined, and not that I've even bothered to try, but from what I know getting on a private tracker can be a bitch. Then tunnelling the traffic to avoid the throttling is a hassle too. If you can explain the private tracker stuff to me that'd be wicked though, I'd love to know how to get one, as my understanding was you had to know somebody who knew somebody who blew somebody.
I know more about the workings of an internal combustion engine than I do a computer. What should I buy and plug into my television to make it kind of like cable TV? And how do I make it work?
Lithium batteries puff up like that when a cell is damaged. Hopefully you dont have to pay out your ass for a new battery, but it should definitely be replaced. Running a damaged lithium battery can lead to some fairly spectacular fires.
If you've figured out downloading stuff from the internet (with the previous advice) - Western Digital make some very well priced, very easy to use products that you plug into your TV like you would a DVD player or something - and then plug into a USB harddrive with your videos on them and it's good to go. for example. These aren't the best devices in the world. But they're cheap, incredibly easy to use, and they pretty much work straight out of the box. Great solution for non geeks. If you can copy files onto a thumb drive, and use a DVD player - you'll be able to figure one of these out without any help. You can get the standard definition ones for $50 here in most electronics stores. If you get the network ready one like the above - get a geek friend to come over and show you how to copy stuff from your computer to the harddrive in the media player over the network. If you don't have a geek friend or if you get a cheaper one that isn't network attached - just plug your USB harddrive into your computer to copy new stuff onto it, then plug it back into the media player.
Yeah, I was being a little tongue-in-cheek. It's from an older 17" Mac PowerBook that was just sitting on my desk. I came into the home office this morning only to find that the battery had expanded like that far enough that it raised the whole laptop a couple of inches off the desk and popped the battery right out of the base. I've had some batteries go bad on me before, but I've never had a battery expand and open up like that. Took it to the Apple Store guys and their eyes bugged out of their heads. Even though the battery was a year out of warranty, they still replaced it.
So I just had the best tech support chat with Bell that could ever happen. /sarcasm. I run a 2009 iMac, use a 2Wire Bell Modem/Router combo and based on the speed check test, I am downloading at ~3500 kbps, which is near the maximum for what I should be able to download based on the distance I am from the central hub (as told by the rep I spoke with) Now, I use Vuze to download most torrents, and when downloading, even with max seeds and peers, I am only able to download at about 50 kbps. So it makes getting files and videos more than a pain in the ass. Does anyone have any tips on fixing this issue?
It's called traffic shaping. They're seeing you're bit torrenting and are killing the performance for that traffic. Only solution is to get a new ISP.
You could arrange to host a seed box somewhere and then use a VPN tunnel from your home machine to the seed box to retrieve material that you've downloaded. Or you could use a service like IPredator or TorrentFreedom to obtain a VPN tunnel out of your home network to avoid being tracked/shaped by your isp. It's a reasonably complex solution though and one of those things where if you need to ask how to do it (rather than say for a provider recommendation, or on specific settings) - it's probably beyond your practical implementation scenario and you'd be better off just changing ISP.
I understand your Aspergers and general love for all things bondage more than I understand what you said. I'm still leeching off the parental teat for the time being, and changing ISP's is not something they are willing to do. Looks like I am stuck downloading videos for 5 days. Yay me.