Downgraded Netflix Account

Netflix recently changed their account pricing for their accounts that include streaming and DVDs. Here is a snippet from the email that I received:

Your current $17.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray access) will be split into 2 distinct plans:

Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray), 2 out at-a-time (no streaming)
for $14.99 a month

Your price for getting both of these plans will be $22.98 a month ($7.99 + $14.99). You don't need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.

This got me thinking about how we have been using the Netflix service.  We love Netflix streaming, especially since we cancelled our cable television service.  Our kids can always find a kids show that they will like, and generally my wife and I can find something that we enjoy.  But we haven't been using the disc part of our service.

We have had the same two Blue-Ray discs sitting in our entertainment center for several months.  Obviously, this is the type of customer that Netflix like, as they don't have to pay for mailing costs, but are still receiving our monthly payment.

Often if we want to watch a recent movie, we will rent a movie through Amazon Video on Demand through our Roku box.  The selection through Amazon is pretty good, especially for newer releases.

With the change in plan, I have taken the opportunity to downgrade our Netflix account to streaming only.  Since we have been using Amazon Video on Demand for recent release, we won't miss the discs.  And in the cases that we want to get a movie on disc, we can always go to our nearest Redbox.

Summify

I have been using my6sense for a while to find content that I am interested in.  my6sense does a very good job ranking content, and it is easily accessible when using the application on my phone or when viewing the Twitter site, with the my6sense extension. One downside is that I need to actively perform steps to view this content.

Summify is a service that will periodically send you an email with a summary of some stories that you are interested in.  When you create an account, you associate your Twitter, Google Reader, and/or your Facebook account.  Summify uses the data from those accounts to determine your interests.

Then periodically Summify sends you an email with articles that you may be interested in.  You have the ability to further refine your interests when you receive the emails.

What is Summify? from Summify on Vimeo.

What is Summify? from Team Summify on Vimeo.

E3 Xbox Announcements

Microsoft announced several things at the opening keynote for the 2011 E3 conference and in a release.  Personally, I am interested in some of the announcements:

1. Xbox Live Cloud Storage


2. Integrated search


3. Live TV features

Xbox Live Cloud Storage

With Xbox Live Cloud Storage, you should be able to keep your profile, and some game saves on the Xbox Live servers.  This should allow you to go to any network connected Xbox, and log into your profile.  This is better than the Gamertag recovery that you have to go through now.  For users that choose to keep their profile online, I wonder what happens if the user tries to use the account when they aren't online.

Integrated Search

I have mentioned before that it is hard to find a particular piece of content that you are interested in, especially with the  various content provider.  For example, if my kids wants to watch a movie, I currently look on Netflix, then Hulu, then in the Zune Marketplace.  The new integrated search should make this easier.

Live TV

Microsoft is supposed to be providing access to live TV content. I don't know which content partner they will be working with, but I am more interested in how open they allow this to be.  For example, I want to be able to plug in the following sources into my Xbox

• UPnP ATSC tuners


• Windows Media Centers

Microsoft was promoting Kinect control of the Live TV experience.  I hope that they also improve the experience when using an Xbox media remote control.  This would reduce the barrier for switching to the Xbox in our house.

L.A. Noire

I just finished the main story in L.A. Noire this week.  This is a great game.  I have liked other Rockstar games like GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption, and L.A. Noire has some of the same qualities.  The main thing that I like about these games is the story in the games.   With each of these games, I want to continue playing to find out what happens in the store.  Also, each of these games have worlds that are great to explore.

L.A. Noire is not as much of an open world game as GTA4 or Red Dead Redemption.  While playing the game, you can either work on the main case, or respond to various street crimes.  You can also find various things hidden around the map.  The fact that L.A. Noire isn't as much of an open world game isn't a negative for the game.  In fact, it works well, as it keep the player more focused on the main story.

Backupify

Backupify is a service that allows you to backup the data in many online services.  A couple of months ago, I tried the 30 day free trial for the service, but I decided not to continue after the free trial.  I figured that I didn't need to backup my data, as the various services back up the data.

About a month later, my wife mentioned that she was missing some contacts from her address book.  This is the perfect situation that Backupify solves.  If I had set up Backupify for our domain, we would have been able to restore the contacts from the backup.

Once I upgraded my account, I was easily able to add my wife's account, and have it backed up. I had more trouble with my account through.  Since there was a period between when I used the free trial, and when I upgraded the account, the authorizatiokn tokens had expired or had been revoked.  Unfortunately, there isn't a way to manually reauthorize access for Backupify.  Working with Backupify's support, I was able to get things working.

There are several things that I would like to see added to Backupify's service:

1. Ability to backup WordPress blogs


2. For the Backupify Pro plans, it would be good to have the option to allow the other Google Apps users to backup their Social Media services


3. When restoring data, it would be nice to be able to search through the archives to find he particular entry that you are looking to restore.

Hands-free call volume with KVT-516

A few months ago, we replaced the head unit in our car with a Kenwood KVT-516.  One problem that we have been having is that the in call volume is too low for phone calls.  We would need to turn up the volume to hear the caller.  Unfortunately, this would affect the volume of music, which would be pretty loud at the end of the call.

It looks like the latest firmware update solves this problem.  Now the KVT-516 has separate volume settings for hands-free calls, and other audio sources.

Squeezebox for Android

I have used several third-party applications for to control my Squeezebox radios from my phones.  They each have varying support for the different Squeezebox applications.

It looks like Logitech released their own controller application for Android.  This is one of the nicest applications for controlling Squeezebox players.  If you have configured applications, you can play content from them.

I do wish that you could add or change alarms from the application.