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Freebie Website: Hoopladigital.com

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Cord cutting is becoming more and more mainstream as consumers get fed up with the high cost of cable tv and incessant, interruptive advertising.

If you have been looking to cut the cable cord, or if you already have and are looking for some more sources of media, then your local library may have you covered!

Our library began advertising their partnership with Hoopla.Hoopla is an add-on service that your library may offer to you for free.  Here is a bit more about Hoopla from their About page:

hoopla digital builds on that passion by providing public libraries of all sizes the ability to offer patrons an enormous selection of digital video (movies and TV shows), music, audiobooks, ebooks and comics to their patrons. For these libraries, we’ve pioneered a unique model that allows patrons to borrow content immediately, removing artificial availability constraints and maximizing the power of digital content and Internet distribution. Technologically, we focus on the latest browser, phone, tablet, and TV products to deliver the best possible experience to our user – our passion – the public library patron.

There are currently over 1,200 libraries in the USA and Canada that have partnered with them.The signup process took less than 2 minutes.

Each library sets its own Hoopla borrowing limit.  For me, that means that I can borrow a total of five (5) items per month.  I had to dig around the help quite a bit to find out that returning an item early does not increment your borrow quota for the month.  So if I borrow five digital items today, I have to wait until the start of the next month before I can borrow anything else.  Obviously this kind of stinks, but for the price (FREE) how picky can you be?

There does seem to be wide support for devices.  It looks like both TV and chrome cast are both supported via mirroring from a phone or tablet.

Ok, what about the actual content available?  It looks like they have Audiobooks, Movies, Music, Comics, Ebooks, and Television.While there are some bigger well known titles in the catalogue, there is also quite a bit of B and C roll material.  You might get lucky and find just what you are looking for however to scratch that ear worm.

A thorough review is available here if you want to read more.

The Yearly Internet Bill Reset

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Every year our internet bill goes up when we roll off the promotional rate, so every year I call Comcast, our service provider, and find what new promo rate I can get us on.  See last year’s discussion here.

This year, we rolled off the 25 Mbps for $30/mo and went up to $50/mo.  I called in, and the only cheaper plan was a 3Mbps for $40.  I could however triple our speed for the same price.  So that’s what I did.  For the next 12 months, we’ll be paying $50/mo for 75Mbps.  We won’t come close to using that kind of bandwidth, but we might as well get more for the same amount of money.

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Call to Comcast, 15 minutes.

Next year, things should get more interesting because we’ll be going from two choices, Comcast and Frontier, to three.  Metronet, a fiber optic company, will start laying line this year.  While I don’t know their prices, I do suspect that the added competition will be good for consumers.

3 Free Web Series To Start Watching

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Shae and I have never paid for cable tv.  We are part of the growing segment of cord cutters who forgo the pricey cable/dish bills, endless ads, and channel flicking for entertainment.

If you haven’t cut the cord yet and moved on to Netflix, OTA (Over the Air), Youtube, Hulu, or any of the bazillion other cheap/free services, here are three shows you can watch right now for free on the internet.

Video Game High School (VGHS)

While this made for Youtube series can be found on Netflix, it is still available on Youtube (link here).

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The show centers around Brian D. an average teenager who through a near miraculous coincidence becomes enrolled at the prestigious Video Game High School.  Set in the not too distant future where video game players are reveled as celebrities, Brian’s luck and resulting pressure to perform are ginormous.

Over the course of the 3 seasons, the writers poke fun at games like FarmVille, Tamagotchi, Mario Kart, Tetris, Call of Duty (er “Field of Fire”) and many more.  If you have ever picked up a game, you will probably get at least some of the references made.

Season 2’s production value and storyline improves immensely as the success of the first season pays off.

S.O.S (Save Our Skins)

Another “Made for the Internet” show, SOS episodes (link here) are only 5 minutes long, but boy do they leave you scrambling to click on the next episode link.

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Two rather moronic British men on Holiday, find that they are all alone in NYC after waking up from a jet lagged evening.  Was it zombies, aliens, or gryphons that made everyone vanish.  Watch it to the end to discover if these two blokes are all that remain of humanity.

H+

I haven’t watched this series yet, but it comes highly reviewed and had a much larger budget than the previous two.  Set in the not too distant future, 1/3 of humanity has a computer implanted in their brain.

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Things start to get dicey when an epidemic breaks out.  A computer virus epidemic.  Watch it on Youtube (link here).

 

What web series do you like?  Leave a comment so we can check it out!

The Old Song and Dance

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I’ve been periodically checking Comcast’s website for internet service deals and today I found out that they were running one of their better offers.

For those of you just tuning in, I’ve played this game many times (here and here).  The last time I wasn’t able to get a very good deal and we were paying $55 a month for 25 Mpbs internet and digital phone.  We never used the phone but it was cheaper to have it than to pay for just internet.  Yay bundles </sarcasm>.

Anyway, after a frustrating phone call of repeatedly saying “no, I don’t want phone service.  no I don’t want cable tv.” I got the new deal for $30/mo for 25 Mbps internet only.  This will be good for 12 months, so I am pretty happy that I won’t have to bother with this again for another year.

Putting up with sales agents working on commission is worth saving $300!

Searching for Savings

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Over six months have gone by since I last negotiated our internet rates with Comcast (see here).  Our 25 Mbps (mega bit per second) connection went from the promo price of $35/month to $67.  I tried calling in late December to get rolled over to a new promotion.  Like always, I call in and navigate the voice menu to canceling all services.  That lands you into their customer retention department and the best possible deals.

The rep offered $50/mo for internet and phone service.  I really didn’t want to add a service that we are not going to use and the price is still about $10 more than what I want to pay so I declined.

Comcast runs new promos every 30 or so days, so I gave them a call back at the start of January to see if they had anything new.  This rep offered $55 for internet and basic cable.  An even worse deal in my opinion.  She also offered a $40/mo for internet only, but it was a meager 6mbps.  The only competitor in town has that same level of service for $30.

Again I declined, and figured I would call back in a day or two (the second rep was not very friendly).

This afternoon, I called for a third time, persistence is key!  I got the first offer again, phone + internet for $50.  I agreed, and have set a reminder on my calendar to try again in February.

The new deal is good for 12 months and will save us $204 over what we have now for the same level of service.  It is not a particularly great deal, but it beats the standard rate and matches the competitors price without the hassle of moving accounts. Sometimes we just have to take the small wins.  :-\