I Hate Symantec

Every year it’s a pain.  We have Norton Internet Security installed on Patti’s laptop and I have to jump through the same hoops every year just to get the Norton subscription renewed for another year.  In fact, I have to pay $50 to jump through these hoops every year.  This year, though it hardly seemed possible, the renewal experience got much worse.  I’m glad I don’t have to deal with this on my Apple computers, but Patti has a Sony laptop and I suppose Norton has done its job over the years.  I don’t know that it’s

RTM for iPod/iPhone

Finally, I have found a great task managing app for my iPod Touch.  How convenient that it happens to be the same task manager I’ve been using online, Remember The Milk (RTM).  I started using RTM several months ago when I failed to find any good task managing app for my iPod.  Well, now RTM has created that app and it’s working wonderfully for me.  Yes, I’m still online quite a bit, so I had access to RTM most of the time already.  There are occasions, however, when it’s great to be able to manage tasks on the iPod.  For example, now I can

DTV Arrives

My TiVo has basically been on a long vacation. Since giving up cable, it has had practically nothing to record. I was getting somewhat decent reception on ABC and NBC, but nothing clear enough that I would be happy watching. So, in recent times, the TiVo has mostly been used only to watch that backlog of programming I had saved up. Now, however, it’s time to start creating those Season Passes again. Last week, my digital-to-analog converter box coupon arrived from the government (they’re passing out money left and right these days) and I immediately took that $40 coupon and purchased the converter. After hooking it up, instead of receiving just a handful of fuzzy channels, I now receive

Portable Television

It has only been about a week, but so far, I don’t really miss my cable television at all.  This is true even though the antenna has been practically useless, picking up only ABC and PBS stations reliably.  I wonder how the HD channels will look, but I’m still waiting for my converter coupon.  Still, I haven’t missed my cable because now that I’m forced to watch my favorite shows on my laptop, it’s like having a portable television!  With my wi-fi signal available throughout the house, I can watch streaming shows online on my laptop anywhere I want now.  Patti and I are even

Remembering the Milk

I love making lists.  If a task doesn’t make its way onto a list, it probably won’t get done.  For years, I used the simple to-do app on my various Palm OS PDAs and this app served me very well.  Then I bought an iPod Touch last year and felt silly carrying around both an iPod and a PDA with me everywhere I went, so I abandoned the PDA.  I easily transferred over all my contacts and calendar items to the iPod, but surprisingly, the iPod had no to-do app.  I was very surprised by this and thought, eventually, Apple would release a to-do app for the iPhone/iPod Touch.  Well, I’m still waiting.  In the meantime, I started using this app called