FeedFlix Gets Your Money's Worth from Netflix [NetFlix]
Netflix's subscription rental service makes it easy to get nearly any DVD delivered to your doorstep, but have you ever wondered how much you're actually paying per movie or whether you're getting your money's worth?
Web site FeedFlix aims to answer that question. It does so by tapping into Netflix's API and analyzing your usage habits. Once it does so, you can see how much each rental costs you and keep track of the average time you keep your DVDs. If you don't like what you see, FeedFlix can create alerts that will send reminder emails when you've kept a movie for too long. FeedFlix even takes Watch Instantly movies into account to give you a more accurate picture of your viewing habits.
FeedFlix is a great tool to help determine if your Netflix subscription is worth the money you're paying. If it's not, you can save the cash by canceling your account or let FeedFlix help you stay on top of your rentals so you're making the most of your account.
FeedMyTorrents Offers TV Torrent Feeds without Duplicates [BitTorrent]
Web site FeedMyTorrents publishes RSS feeds of torrents for popular TV shows. Just subscribe to your favorite show and let your BitTorrent client automatically download new episodes as soon as they're available.
FeedMyTorrents isn't the only web site of this kind—perhaps the most notable alternative being tvRSS—but it's a good deal more simple to understand and use than tvRSS. Where tvRSS has an undeniably larger collection of shows, FeedMyTorrents is strict about a duplication-free feed, meaning you don't have to tweak the feed or weed out downloads you don't want. Just pick the show you want to subscribe to, set it up in your BitTorrent client of choice, and you'll always have the latest and greatest episodes of your favorite shows as soon as they're available. Thanks Jason!
Ask MetaFilter Roundup [Hive Mind]
- What crazy (legal) ways can I make more money in the recession?
- What can I do to sanely maintain my weight now that I've reached my goal weight?
- What are your favorite premium online services?
- Which CFL bulbs last longest and are cheapest to buy?
AccuWeather.com App Tells You If You'll Have a White Christmas [Featured IPhone Download]
iPhone and iPod touch only: While AccuWeather.com has a decent mobile web site for getting the forecast, their native iPhone application is pretty sweet when you're a power weather watcher.
The free iPhone download has an easy-to-use interface with current conditions, the five day or hourly forecast, alerts, and indexes. You can tell it to give you the weather for your current condition, or add multiple favorite locations. Check out a couple of screenshots.
Brooklyn is sunny but freezing today.
On the other side of the country, San Diego is rainy and gray.
Here's the five-day forecast view.
Tap the Risks button to see "severe weather potential over the next 8 hours"—risk of thunderstorms, snow, rain, ice, fog, etc.
See moving radar imagery as well (hit the Play button on the upper left to watch storms moving across the map).
The AccuWeather.com app is a free download from the iTunes Store, iPhone and iPod touch only.
Start Your IM App without Logging In with a Simple Shortcut [Instant Messaging]
You probably have your IM application set to automatically login to your different accounts as soon as it starts up, but what about when you want to chat without announcing your presence to the world.
Macworld details a simple keyboard shortcut that will launch iChat or Adium without logging into any accounts. The trick: Just hold down the shift key when you launch your respective IM app. Doing so will start the app offline. From there you can log into whichever individual account you want and control your status ahead of time. I tried this trick on Pidgin and Digsby to no avail and searched for similar shortcuts without luck. (If you know the proper shortcut, let's hear it!) It's such a smart and simple shortcut, and having been exposed to it, you can't help but wonder why all IM apps don't have this option.
Ditch Satellite TV for Online Alternatives and Save [Saving Money]
The James family canceled their Dish satellite TV package and replaced it with a media center PC, faster broadband connection, and Netflix account—and now save $93 a month.
CNET reports:
James said she and her husband were spending $115 a month for their Dish satellite service, which gave them about 250 channels of programming. But when she sat down and listed what she and her husband actually watched, she discovered that they only viewed about 25 of those channels."I just couldn't justify watching only 10 percent of the channels I was paying for," she said. "I would have felt a lot better about keeping the satellite service if I could have thrown out the extra channels and only paid for the channels we watched. It's just like buying a whole loaf of bread and only eating two slices—such a waste."
The James' say they love their new setup—which involves a wireless keyboard and mouse to find video from sites like Hulu—and actually prefer it to their old package.
Instead of feeling deprived, James said getting rid of the satellite TV service has been a huge improvement."We definitely watch more TV now than we did with Dish," she said. "And because most of the shows online through services like Hulu.com don't have commercials, I can watch them much quicker too."
And because some TV channels actually offer additional video content online than they do on regular TV, James said she and her husband are able to get more variety and choice than they were getting with their Dish package. For example, AT&T, her broadband provider, offers a special broadband channel called ESPN360.com.The site offers a wide variety of sports programming from college football to international soccer matches to Nascar, which aren't always shown on the cable or satellite ESPN channels. The events are often aired live and replayed at a later time. And it's all free.
Have you ditched cable or satellite to watch video exclusively online? How did you do it? Post up your setup in the comments.
Mac Giving Tree Hands Out Premium Mac Software for Free [Deals]
Semi-controversial Mac software bundle site MacHeist has gone the free route this holiday season, offering up to six different shareware Mac apps for the price of a free registration with MacHeist through the Mac Giving Tree. As soon as you sign up you can download iTunes remote Synergy and video game Enigmo 2, while you've got to wait until Christmas day to open two others. Yet two other free but undisclosed options are unwrappable if you refer a friend. In the past we've suggested free alternatives to MacHeist bundles, but since this one's free to begin with that's not really necessary.
ShareTabs Opens Multiple Links in Tabs [URL Hacks]
Web site ShareTabs is sort of like TinyURL when you want to share several links, allowing you to send one link that will open a number of links in separate tabs with one click.
Here's an example:
If I wanted to share all of the non-Lifehacker Gawker Media sites with someone, I could simply send the following ShareTabs link: http://www.sharetabs.com/?gawker
When you follow that link, you'll see the page below.
The thumbnails display each site, and clicking a thumbnail will open that site in one of the faux tabs you see at the top of the screenshot (they may look like Firefox tabs, but they're actually just a graphical element inside the ShareTabs site). You can either navigate the sites by clicking around the faux tabs, or you can click the Open all links link at the top of the page to actually open each link in a separate tab. If you're looking to share a lot of links without taking a lot of space to do it, ShareTabs is a great tool.
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