If you’ve never heard of Shoutcast, check it out at http://www.shoutcast.com/. You’ll find thousands of free music broadcasts that you can stream to your PC. I’ve been a fan of it for years!
But in the car? No way. Impossible!
That’s what I thought too until I found Kinoma. (http://kinoma.com/). Not only can you play Shoutcast radio streams, but you have access to dozens of other media feeds as well. The free version includes Shoutcast streams. Of course you also need a good data plan for your phone and a phone capable of 3G or higher speeds. My T-Mobile Dash 3G with the 3G data plan works just fine. And I don’t know about other cell phone companies, but my data plan is unlimited. (Check your plan before you start streaming music!)
OK so this all sounds cool, but in the car while you’re driving? No way? Impossible.
Actually, that’s what I thought as well, but I was surprised to find out today that it is indeed possible. On my drive home there were a few “blips” as, I assume, I was passing from cell tower to cell tower, but aside from the momentary interruptions, the music sounded just as good as if I was sitting at my desk.
OK – but how do you get it to play in the car? Isn’t the phone speaker super small?
Well here’s the other part of the secret: my car stereo has Bluetooth. So all I have to do is sync up the phone with the radio in the car, load up Kinoma and find a good station and there we go: Shoutcast Internet Radio in the car at freeway speeds!
On a side note, I find it ironic that it’s illegal to text and drive, but there’s no law that I’m aware of that says you can’t browse music stations on your cell phone!
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NetFlix + Samsung BlueRay DVD Player = A Winning Combination
0 Comments | Posted by Mark Warrick in Rants
A few months ago, unhappy with my BlockBuster Total Access service, I decided to try NetFlix. I was already happy with the fast shipping, the good selection of new movies, and a pretty good selection of movies that I could watch on demand with a computer. So I decided to go for the full package and get a NetFlix-ready DVD player. Wow! I’m impressed. The image quality is just as good as a DVD and the interface is simple. You just go online to NetFlix.com, add movies you want to watch to your “Instant” queue, and then they show up on the DVD player. Movies automatically pause where you left off for later viewing – something even the best DVD player can’t do if you switch movies.
So I would say, if you’re looking for something cool to buy for yourself or family this year for Christmas that won’t break the budget and will bring countless hours of fun to the home, consider buying a subscription to NetFlix and a NetFlix-ready device to play them on the TV. Of course, if your employer allows it, you can also watch movies at work! With a full subscription, you can check out three DVDs at a time AND watch all of their on demand content. Most importantly, I have not experienced any problems with NetFlix and that’s a lot to be said considering how many problems I had with the BlockBuster Total Access service.
To get started, you’ll need a Samsung BD-P1600 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (or any other NetFlix-ready device) and a Netflix.com account. Of course, you’ll also need high-speed internet access to connect the DVD player. But who doesn’t have that these days?
Oh and P.S. the Samsung BlueRay DVD player also plays content from Pandora.com’s music service, YouTube.com and (I hate to say it) BlockBuster.
Buying a NetFlix.com account for someone else? Get a NetFlix gift subscription here.
Back in December, 2008, I raved about how sweet I thought Blockbuster’s Total Access service was. Well, after 9 months of using their service, I made the switch today to NetFlix. To be fair, I thought I’d post another Love It / Hate it review of their service just like I did for RedBox.
Love(d)
The fact that I could drop off a movie at any local Blockbuster store and get another one (up to 5 per “billing cycle”) was pretty cool, I have to admit. Also cool was the fact that if I dropped off a return at any local post office, Blockbuster would usually receive it the same day and within two days I would have another movie. Those cool things alone kept my interest for 9 months.
Hate
- Blockbuster’s selection of new movies, quite frankly, sucks. Yes they do have most of the “blockbusters” but are lacking when it comes to anything else. A “new release” to Blockbuster could be a ten year old movie.
- Blockbuster doesn’t respond to customer service emails. Not ONCE has Blockbuster EVER responded to an email I sent to them through their customer service site.
- Whenever you order a double-disc title from Blockbuster, they count it as two movies checked out. And when they send it to you, the two discs may or may NOT be delivered at the same time. (In my case, they NEVER delivered double DVD movie sets to me at the same time). This is no big deal if the second disc was a bonus material disc, but quite annoying when it’s an extra long movie divided into two discs.
- If you receive a disc that cannot be played, they will not issue a credit and they don’t care about the quality of the disc. See my previous comment about them not responding to emails. I’ve had at least a couple bad DVDs sent to my home. I have several DVD players at home to use and in each case, none of them worked. But does Blockbuster care? Apparently not!
- Blockbuster waits a while to inform you that your queue is empty. Why not tell me the moment my queue is empty? Oh that’s right because I pay for the service by the month so the longer you wait to tell me, the more inventory you have in your warehouse!
- Blockbuster doesn’t inform you of long wait times. If you have selected some obscure DVD from their inventory, they’ll put it in your top 3 wait queue for sure. But they won’t tell you that the DVD is likely not going to be available for a while. Worse yet, in case where the DVD is completely unavailable, they still leave it in your queue and don’t tell you about it.
So Blockbuster, if you wanted to know why I switched to NetFlix, these were the top reasons. Something tells me though that even if you had responded to any of the emails I sent you, you wouldn’t care. And that’s a shame because just like RedBox who doesn’t listen to their customers, you just lost a customer for not listening as well.
Special thanks to Tara Hizon, one of my new clients, who hired me to produce her website. Her law firm specializes in personal injury, bankruptcy, immigration, and family law.
This website was built on the WordPress platform using a free WordPress template from one of the thousands of WordPress template designers out there. I modified it slightly to include a different header image and better CSS font formatting.
Check out Tara’s new website here:
http://www.hizonlaw.com
The Angels took a much needed rest this week losing 2 games in a row while the Yankees worked their little behinds off sweeping the last 3 games and traveling to California. Both teams are still in 2nd place in their divisions. So Yanks, I hope you got your beauty rest because it’s time for a spanking!
