I was supposed to post this yesterday.
The obvious irony of this fact when combined with my resolution for the coming year isn't lost, even on a bonehead like me. In 2011, I finally got around to making my way through David Allen's Getting Things Done, a resource many consider to be the Bible (or other Holy Scripture of your choice) of productivity. I won't recap the entire GTD system here (though this page does a pretty good job of cutting it down to its base elements), but at its core it's a system that revolves around dumping everything out of your brain into a trusted system, reducing stress while maximizing productivity by breaking down tasks and projects into manageable chunks that are either immediately actionable, deferrable, or intangible at the current time. If that sounds like a bunch of business mumbo-jumbo to you, then you're not alone; however, it's a system that's been proven to work, so who am I to knock it?
I've spent some time looking at the tools available to implement this specific program of productivity. GTD users are wildly divided in their usually fanatical devotion to one option or the other; however, which route you take seems to depend more on your personal digital lifestyle than any sort of clear merit. Popular programs among GTD devotees include well-known heavy-hitters like OneNoteand Evernote, as well as slightly less popular options such as Remember The Milk and the new-ish Workflowy. For now, I've settled on a web app called Springpad, which you can check out here. It seems to hit a nice sweet spot between usefulness and feature overload, and the companion Android app means it'll be ubiquitous within my personal tech ecosystem. Of course, if I bumble across a better option, I won't hesitate to switch.
I will keep a Springpad tab open in my browser at all times, right next to Gmail and Twitter. I will check it first thing in the morning right after e-mail, before I even pour my first cup of coffee (and mind you, not many things in my life get that sort of priority). When I get more settled into the GTD lifestyle, I'll post a follow-up showing how I use Springpad to organize my life for those interested in doing the same. I will become more organized, more efficient, less stressed, and better-looking through the power of free software and a little effort.
Now if you'll excuse me, I was supposed to start getting lunch ready ten minutes ago.
Read the whole series! Also check out our resolutions on Password Management, Productivity and Security and Safety Policies for your Digital Life. One blog will be posted for each day remaining in 2011.
Hello all, and welcome to the first and possibly only episode of the official unofficial Tested community podcast, This Is Not A Test. A few of the forum members and I banded together and recorded what might in some circles be considered a podcast (in other times, it might have caused us to be burned at the stake). We blatantly rip off pay loving homage to some of our favorite bits of This Is Only A Test, talk tech and double reverse dragons, and even make a joke or two that could make the whole thing worth listening to. Download and listen if your interest is piqued. Big thanks to LtSquigs, Conmused, Cripplecaptain, and Signsmith for joining me in this dumb-ass journey. Hope you enjoy.
A word about legality:
Downloading TV shows you have free or paid access to is mostly within the "illegal but idiotic" category in the US (Canada and a lot of the rest of the world are basically in the clear, from what I understand). There hasn't been a real challenge to downloading unencrypted over-the-air content, so precedence hasn't really been set in that context yet. Regardless, the major issue has always been sharing rather than simply downloading, and using this guide won't net you any DMCA notices. That being said, you have to decide for yourself if you feel ethically correct downloading content you're already able to access by other means. Please don't use these methods to download things not included in your cable/satellite package or that you couldn't view OTA on your local stations. As for myself, I choose to use this method over the DVR in the living room because it's much easier to add shows to the media server my ripped DVDs sit on and have one central video repository in my house for all my devices, and because half the time I forget to set the damn thing. I don't feel any worse about doing so than I did breaking the encryption on my DVDs in order to watch them the way I want. If you feel the same way, read on.
What you'll need:
- A Usenet subscription. This will run you $5-$10 a month or a flat fee for a block of data. I use Astraweb's $25/180GB pay-as-you-go plan and have to top it off about once a year. When shopping for a Usenet plan, the two most important factors are retention (the length of time files are stored on your provider's servers) and SSL encryption, which just about every provider offers these days. NOTE: This method also apparently works with torrents, though I can't speak for how well it works since I don't use them. See this page for more on why Usenet is the superior option.
- A Usenet indexing service. There are plenty of free ones such as NZBsRUs and NZBs.org, but Newzbin is far and away the best and most powerful option. It's extremely cheap - you buy a stack of credits that are consumed over time, and you can freeze your account if you don't plan on using the site for a while. Again, this usually only needs to be topped off once a year or so, which usually costs about three bucks.
- SABnzbd+. This is your Usenet download manager, akin to uTorrent and the like for torrents. Your indexing service will provide you with .nzb files, which contain the information SABnzbd+ needs to find and download the appropriate files from your Usenet provider's servers. However, you don't really need to worry about all the details, since the process will be entirely transparent by the time you're done.
- Sick Beard. This is the program that makes the magic happen. More on that in a moment. For now, just go ahead and download it.
- OPTIONAL: An account with Notifo. This is a free service that provides a push notification API for apps to hook into. Installing the app on your phone will allow Sick Beard to notify you when you have new shows ready to watch.
Getting it all set up:
Install SABnzbd+ first. Once it runs through its installation routine, it'll launch a wizard to help you get it configured. The interface is entirely web-based, and if you want to be able to access it from any PC on your network you can set up a username/password during this part. Next, it'll ask you for your Usenet credentials. You'll have gotten these when you signed up with your Usenet provider, so just plug everything in the appropriate boxes. After that, you'll be able to enter your Newzbin credentials to enable some additional functionality. This part isn't necessary, but it's highly recommended. Once you've done that, you just need to make a couple of changes. Head to Config | Folders and set the download folders to the location of your choosing (I have a catch-all file on my second hard drive called "Unsorted," so I use "E:\Unsorted\Usenet" as the place for incomplete and unprocessed files). Also, select a location for your "Post-Processing Scripts Folder." (I use "E:\Unsorted\Usenet\Scripts"). Save your changes, and you're done.Next, extract Sick Beard to the location of your choosing. Since it's a stand-alone application that doesn't need installing, you can place it wherever you like. Once it's extracted, run it. Like SABnzbd+, Sick Beard is browser-based and can be accessed from other machines. To set it up, first go to Config | Search Settings. Check the "Search NZBs" box, then select "SABnzbd" from the "NZB Method" drop-down box. Enter the SABnzbd+ URL (http://localhost:8081 by default) as well as the rest of the information it asks for and then hit "Save Changes." Next go to Config | Search Providers. Check the box next to your preferred indexing service and fill in your login information under the "Configure Providers" heading. Save your changes. If you signed up for Notifo, go to Config | Notifications and enter your credentials. There are lots of other notification options such as Twitter, Growl, and XMBC as well, so poke around if you like. The last thing to do is to set up Sick Beard's post-processing routine, which keeps your files nice and orderly. Copy the contents of the AutoProcessTV directory from your Sick Beard folder into the scripts folder you set up earlier. Then, in SABnzbd+, click Config | Categories and select "sabToSickBeard.exe" from the "Scripts" dropdown under "TV."
You're now ready to rock and roll. Head back to the main page of Sick Beard and click "Add Shows." Select "Add New Show," then enter the name of the show you'd like to start grabbing. Sick Beard will query TheTVDB.com and return a list of shows matching your search.
Click "Next" to choose where the show will be stored. Sick Beard will automatically create a folder for the show, so you only need to specify a top-level folder (E:\TV for me). This can be set to default so you don't have to do this step again. By default, Sick Beard will only grab new SD episodes of the show. To download the backlog or to specify HD content, click "Step 3" and make your changes. Otherwise, click "Add Show." The show will now be added to the home screen. Clicking on it will take you to a detailed episode list, where you can see information about each one, download backlog episodes you missed, and do lots of other cool stuff.
From here on out, the whole shebang is on autopilot. New episodes will be downloaded as soon as they hit Usenet, and you'll get whatever notifications you enabled as soon as they're downloaded. The "Coming Episodes" tab will also give you a nice summary of what's coming up.
Repeat the "Add New Show" process for anything else you want to watch, and then sit back and enjoy never having to fuss with the DVR again.
This TorrentFreak article covers the whole situation nicely, but the ten cent summary is this: before the site was taken down, a group of hackers called Team R Dogs, led by a guy calling himself Mr. White, broke into Newzbin and downloaded the site's source code. Once it was clear that Newzbin was going to be shut down, Chris Elsworth, Newzbin's former owner, exploited a loophole in his domain registrar's terms of service that allowed him to sell the newzbin.com domain to Team R Dogs. With a full copy of the site and the domain in hand, all that was left for Team R Dogs to do was rehost Newzbin in their native Sweden (which is also home to The Pirate Bay, for those keeping score) and the deed was done. When I found out last night, I logged right in with my old credentials and even still had all my premium credits from before the site was taken down. It's literally as if Newzbin were never gone.
All this is just one more prominent example of anti-piracy initiatives being a huge waste of everyone's time. I really don't even do all that much downloading anymore - I've pirated three games in the past year, each one because they were sequels of games I didn't care for and I was hesitant to spend money on them without playing them. I ended up buying one of them and deleting the other two after an hour or two of gameplay. I haven't pirated any music in a very long time because Amazon has figured out how to price music sanely and distribute it DRM-free. I exhaust every legal online option with movies and TV shows (Netflix, Hulu, network sites, Amazon VOD) before I download, but it still ends up happening sometimes because there are no video rental stores left standing in my town since Blockbuster closed six months ago and "wait 30 days for Netflix to get the disc" is not an acceptable answer. There are ways for the content companies to monetize each and every reason I still occasionally pirate content, and I'd be glad to let them do it if they'd focus their efforts on that instead of futilely trying to chop the head off of every perceived hydra they can find only to have three more heads grow back.
Looking back, the number of things you couldn't do over 3G on an iPhone was insane. I always thought the fact that I had to be connected to wifi to download a podcast was an AT&T limitation until I installed Doggcatcher on my Captivate and watched it start magically pulling them down from the ether. (To be fair, it could still be a carrier restriction, since the iPhone comprises the vast majority of data traffic on their network.) Either way, I'm still pleased as punch, even if I did get my unlimited data plan yanked just as I'm finally able to fully utilize it.
