Category Archives: Tech Tuesday

Tech Tuesday: Original Video Content

So for the last Tech Tuesday I talked about places to get free television content. But there is other stuff out there to watch! Original content is something that is really developing. Right now there are just a few sources that I currently go to.

Revision 3 is a great producer of podcasts! They have podcasts on tech, pop culture, etc.

TWiT (which stands for This Week in Technology) produces shows beyond just TWiT. They cover just about everything in tech.

YouTube is of course a source of tons of original content. I have found great comedy stuff, parodies, you name it. There are some great web series available. The most notable may be The Guild.  Now that YouTube is taking the 15 minute limit off submissions I think we are going to be seeing even more original content with more full series.

I am always looking for good, quality, family friendly content so I will post as I find more! But do you have any great sources? Please share!!!

Tech Tuesday: Free TV

We here at the NerdFamily house have always loved tv! But we realized that we were just watching a few good programs and a lot of filler. And we were paying $45 for the privilege. So as of January 4, 2011 we have been without cable or a satellite dish for 1 year!

So have we given up tv? Never;). There are many free options on the internet that give you many of the hit shows along with all the filler you have time for.

Hulu: They carry the most free tv. Their quality is high and you will find many cable offerings from USA, Bravo, SyFy and ABC Family. There are plenty of classic shows available and the viewer is a good quality. This is my first choice.  I only go to the rest if what I want to watch isn’t being shown on Hulu.

Fancast: This is Comcast’s viewer. I haven’t found much there that isn’t on Hulu but there are a few TLC shows.

SlashControl: is AOL’s tv viewer. They have most of the same main stream shows but they also have some different classic tv shows. This is where I found the whole series of Scarecrow and Mrs. King (one of my favorite shows ever!).

CBS.com: CBS doesn’t play nicely with Hulu. So if you want to watch their shows you have to go to their network site. The viewer isn’t as good as others and they only have 1 episode (occasionally 2) for each show.

CWTV.com: This has a lot of episodes for CW shows. At one point they had Buffy but that was a while ago;).

TNT.com: They have entire seasons of some of their original shows! NerdDad and I just watched entire seasons of the Closer and Leverage!

LifetimeTV.com: In addition to a bunch girlie Lifetime movies they also show a bunch of their original programming. Including…Project Runway!!!!

You will notice that I have only listed legal viewers. There are various illegal sites out there but…. So, it there any other (legal) places that you get your free tv? If so you really need to share;)! Next week we will talk about other types of online entertainment.

Tech Tuesday: Favorite Browser

First off let me admit that I really, really like Google;). I like their products, I like how they treat their engineers (from what I hear), I like Google products.

I, like many people, ran from the Internet Explorer browser as soon as a viable option was available. I have run Netscape (yes I am old) but that didn’t really compete with Internet Explorer in ability so I really consider Firefox the first real post IE browser. And I liked Firefox. It had great extensions, didn’t lock up as much as IR but, there is always a but, it is a memory hog.

Then came along Chrome. It ran faster and more efficiently that Firefox so I tentatively started using it. Then I found it cloud capabilities. I can sync my bookmarks and access them from any computer. So I don’t need to worry about losing them no matter where I am working. They have a bunch of cool extensions that you can use to make bookmarking, blogging, etc easier. We aren’t even talking about how well gmail works with it (and the awesomeness that is all the gmail capabilities). The one drawback is that the coupon sites still haven’t updated all their coupon printing software to work with Chrome. But I am sure that will come and come soon!

Well now there is a Chrome App store!!! This includes both paid and free apps, extensions and themes. I am so stoked! There are games, VNC utilities, I mean all kinds of cool stuff. It just came out yesterday and I can’t wait to get my little fingers into all the fun!!!

Tech Tuesday: Bible Resources

It is time for some free/nearly free tech! This week we look at 3 Bible study resources!

First up is the most commonly known, Bible Gateway. Bible Gateway has a super easy to use interface. You can put passages in and then chose which one of many versions (in many languages) you want so see the passage in. You can also do a topical search for verses based on Nave’s Topical Bible. Bible Gateway also has audio Bibles, commentaries and Bible dictionaries. I find the searches a little hit and miss, personally.

E-Sword is a free downloadable tool. It can compare various versions, had all the Strong’s Greek and Hebrew numbers. It also has some commentaries  and some versions that come with it. You can purchase other translations and commentaries fairly inexpensively, then you are buying the access codes so you can can put them on all your computers. E-Sword also has dictionaries, journaling abilities, scheduling and more included for free.  We really like it and I paid the $20 to NASB so I could be off line. I haven’t been using it all that long so I am still discovering all the hidden features;).

The last tool I have for you today is my personal favorite, Blue Letter Bible. Blue Letter Bible has all the features in the other tools, except the audio reading of the Scripture, and so much more! They have maps, audio commentaries, timelines, introductions to the Books of the Bible and more. This is free, online and my all time favorite!!

So here is a little tech for your Bible study. Is there any other tools that you like to use?

Make sure you come back next Tuesday to see what free (or nearly free) tech resource I am going to blog about on Tech Tuesday!