Get Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 for $9.95 Using Facebook

Image: Microsoft Home Use Program

I have found that Microsoft is selling full copies of Office for ten bucks with their Home Use Program. Now, if you are interested, please follow the instructions below. Note: I get no kickbacks or referral fees for this.

1. Go to http://www.microsofthup.com/hupus/home.aspx
2. Click the link on the bottom right side that reads "Don't Know Your Program Code? Click here."
3. If you have one, enter your work email and click "Submit". This may or may not work. If you get a success message, skip to step 11.  If you do not, go to step 4. If you just entered your Facebook email address, go to step 9. If you are reading this sentence, repeat this step and look up "recursion" in the dictionary.
4. If you have a Facebook account, you may have created a Facebook email account. If you have, repeat step 3 using the Facebook email; otherwise, log onto Facebook and click the down arrow to the right of the "Home" link. Click "Account Settings".
5. Click the "Edit" button corresponding to your "Email" entry.
6. Go through the process of creating a Facebook email account. Remember the new Facebook email address.
7. Go back to the website above.
8. Repeat steps 2 and 3 using the Facebook email address.
9. Go back to Facebook and click the "Messages" link on the left side of the screen.
10. Check to see if the program code email is there. If not look at the "Messages" link again and there should be an "Other" link. Click it and check for the message.
11. Copy the program code from the email message.
12. Go back to the website above.
13. Enter the email address and the program code.
14. Purchase the software.

Please use discretion with this software and obey the Terms and Conditions included.

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Stream Your Movies, Home Videos, Music, and Pictures From Your Computer to Your TV (Part 2.5)

This is just a short little announcement of sorts. As you know (or should know if you've been reading these posts... which you should most certainly do for the sake of my gratification), I am posting a how-to on streaming media from my home network to a Roku box I recently purchased.

Photo: Business Wire

Well, I was just minding my own business lazily pondering when I should start back on the guide when I came across an article about Roku. Apparently, they will soon offer the media box without wires or power input. They are manufacturing little Roku players that are the size of your typical flash drive. You presumably would plug it into an HDTV's HDMI slot and ... well, that's it. According to the statement, the TV's remote can be used to control Roku. Additionally, it is supposed to have all of the features that the current box has.

It's scheduled to come out at the end of this year (2012) and be priced essentially the same as the current boxes. Remember what I said in the last post about making something that will let the consumer be more lazy than they already are? This certainly fits the bill. No wires, completely portable, and using the TV remote. Now that's a sentence fragment I like.

Theoretically, you could take this little fella with you to some hotel or B&B, plug it into the TV in your room, access the complimentary wireless network, and watch exactly the same stuff you could at home. This would not apply to your personal media library unless, of course, you brought it with you (a USB drive and a laptop would work). Oh, the possibilities!

Business Wire: Roku Breaks the Smart TV Mold
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Why I Will Not Invest in Blu-ray and Why You Probably Shouldn't Either

Yes, I know. I haven't finished the last series. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, I will include how I ripped my CDs. You probably already know how to do this, but it is a guide so I won't make that assumption.

Moving on.

Beta not invest in Betamax.

If you remember when Blu-ray came out, it was in competition with HD-DVD. The two battled it out for a little while, snagging game consoles. Sony was behind Blu-ray, so PlayStation 3 consoles played Blu-rays while Microsoft invested in HD-DVDs, but the XBOX 360 required an add-on to play them. Medium wars are not new. You may not remember this (I don't; the VCR came out in '71), but VHS tapes were in competition with Betamax tapes. Customers ultimately decided that affordability was more important than quality. Strangely enough, Sony was the backer of Betamax. As you probably know by now, Sony's Blu-ray beat HD-DVDs, which stopped production back in 2008.

Stay classy, Seattle.

Enough with the history lesson. Where am I going with this? I believe that Blu-ray is on the decline and will continue to decline until it is replaced with something else. Blu-ray sales have already peaked; that happened in 2009. To be fair, you could attribute the rapid decline in sales to the state of the economy; but in my opinion, it's inevitable, like the invention of the beer helmet.

This is actually a guide for checking for fleas.

No, seriously. You see, it takes a lot of work to hold that beer can. That's a whole hand that's sacrificed to ensure the continuation of brain-dulling by the urine-colored fizz water. That's a hand that could be used for scratching various body parts or participating in the Macarena.

There are two things that the masses will always be duped into buying: the shiny stuff and anything that lets you be more lazy than you were before. The first one's obvious, and I covered it a little bit in a previous post. The second is based off of something my wife told me: "If you could invent something that would allow people to be more lazy, you'd make a mint." It's true. Just look at some of these finds:

Who needs the chore of sucking on a Cert? Just let a thin sheet dissolve on your tongue.

Ellen DeGeneres: "Was there a big mobility problem with yogurt before?"

Thank you, George Jetson.

For some reason,
I've never heard of this movie.

You could make the argument that these and others make your life more efficient, which awards you more time to do more important things like watching the director's commentary on your Olson twins DVD.

Regardless, the reason Blu-ray is ebbing is because its manufacturers still require you to get out of your bean bag and switch discs when you want to watch a new movie. Those fascists! The next new medium will let you sit on your duff and play a movie, a song, a show, or a game with just a remote.

Total rip-off of Benji 5

Those of you who are Blu-ray enthusiasts will probably argue that Blu-ray has the highest resolution available and that additional features that are available on Blu-ray do not exist anywhere else. You may be right; I haven't investigated those claims, and there's a reason I haven't: I don't care. I'm not going to adopt an entirely new, more expensive medium so that I go into the special features and play the Air Bud 3 memory game. I buy a movie to watch the movie. I don't have time to hear about the little spat the director had with the screenwriter. As far as the resolution is concerned, it's excellent - no arguments there. However, I don't need to see the detail in Chewbacca's fur to enjoy Star Wars.

Besides, if there's anything that Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and Avatar taught us, it's that over-the-top special effects and eye candy distract the viewer from a rotten storyline. Remember what I said about shiny stuff?

Furthermore, while the resolution is higher, that also means that it requires more space. So, if I wanted to rip my Blu-rays (yes, it is possible) and store them on my hard drive, they would take up much more space and the ripping process itself would take much longer. Then, of course, you have the Blu-ray player itself, which requires constant updates. This requires it to be connected to a network, which provides another series of issues with which to contend.

Why, Grandma, what very expensive coasters you have!

In Blu-ray's place will be the ever-expanding library of movies on demand through Netflix, Amazon, downloadable content, and/or your own network of media files.

So, when is it coming? That's the best part. It's already here, and it has been here for some time. In the guide that I am providing (and will finish, I promise), I take DVDs that I already own and convert them into media files that can be read by an inexpensive media box that I own. The media box itself is cheaper than any decent Blu-ray player on the market.

How do I know this is going to happen? Because it has already happened with music. When was the last time you bought a CD from a store? Why would you? You can go to iTunes or Amazon and download the good songs from the CDs while leaving the filler songs. You don't need the retail CD for your car, because you can just burn your own CD or use an MP3 player. CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays all have one large problem: They are all physical media. Physical media can be easily damaged or lost. Have you ever scratched a CD so that it won't play past a certain song? 

Eventually, permanent movie media files (much like iTunes does music) will become mainstream. You will pay for a single movie, download it, and watch it any time you wish. Because there will be no need for disc manufacturing and shipping, prices will decrease. It may take some time for this to happen. Movie studios are, no doubt, fighting this as they do with any new frontier in media distribution, but the laziness of the masses (myself included) will win the day.

Where's my beer helmet?



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Stream Your Movies, Home Videos, Music, and Pictures From Your Computer to Your TV (Part 2)

This guide is not comprehensive. In other words, I will walk you through my process of streaming media to my TV from ripping to organizing to streaming; so, some of the material for this series is exclusive to my method of streaming (the Roku box). However, this post is universal.

This is the most work-intensive part of the entire process. We are going to retrieve the media we want from our CDs and DVDs. This process is called ripping. Don't confuse this with "burning", which means to take digital media and transfer it to a disc. Before we get started, let's do some planning. Say you have a closet full of CDs and/or DVDs. It will take you a very long time to rip all of those songs and movies. You may want to spread out this process over a period of time as opposed to taking the remainder of your sick days to do this. I would start with your favorite movies/songs.

DISCLAIMER: This guide is for ripping movies and music that you own. I don't think you should rip media that you rent; it is illegal. I don't do it, so please, don't use this guide for that purpose.

Organizing the Media

Before we start ripping, let me tell you about the organization methods you should use to accommodate your media. I would recommend creating a folder for all media that you want to access. I would recommend "C:\Users\Public\Media\". With this, you will not only be able to access the files on Roku, but also on other computers on your network. So, create folders for your different types of media:

•  C:\Users\Public\Media\Movies
•  C:\Users\Public\Media\Music
•  C:\Users\Public\Media\Pictures
•  C:\Users\Public\Media\Home Movies
•  C:\Users\Public\Media\TV Shows

It doesn't have to be like this, but if you expect your collection to vastly grow, it would be a good idea to plan ahead this way.

Ripping Movies - Intro

 

Ripping movies is easier than ever. DVDs are encrypted, meaning that you can rip a DVD simply by dragging a file from your disc drive to your hard drive. A decrypter is required. This is partly why DVDs entered the market with such success. VHS tapes were extremely easy to copy for anyone that had two VCRs. The new encryption feature was a big selling point for DVDs to movie studios. Ironically, ripping DVDs is now even easier than ripping VHS tapes. Blu-rays are more difficult to rip, but it is far more time consuming and space heavy.

My ripper of choice is Handbrake. Now, Handbrake's one weakness is that it does not decrypt many DVDs. Therefore, you will also need a decryptor. If you have a 32-bit operating system, I would recommend DVD34. However, if you have a 64-bit OS, I would go with DVDShrink. If you don't know whether you have a 32 or 64-bit OS, click your Start button in the bottom left corner of your screen, look for "Computer" or "My Computer" on the Start menu, right-click it, then select Properties. Look for the "System Type:" label and it will tell you what you need to know.

Ripping Movies - Decryption

 

32-bit (DVD34)

If I remember correctly, all you have to do is run DVD34 while using Handbrake. The decryption happens magically.

64-bit (DVDShrink)

There are other options than DVD Shrink, but for the sake of brevity, we'll stick with it. The main function of DVD Shrink is to allow you to "shrink" the media of a DVD so that you can burn it to a DVD-Writable disc. That's great; but it's not what we're doing.

Let 'er Rip

 

Let's get started. I'll assume you have already downloaded and installed DVD Shrink. Put your DVD of "Hello Kitty Does Bangladesh" in your computer's DVD-ROM drive. Click "Open Disc". By default, your DVD-ROM drive is selected. Click OK. The program will run an analysis of the disc and give you an outline of its contents.

Remember, that we only want the movie. If you want to add the special features or director's commentary about the intolerable vanity of J-Lo, be my guest. Click the "Re-Author" button. Select the file on the right side under the "Main Movie" heading.

Double-click it (or right-click and select "Add"). Click the "Compression Settings" tab. This will allow you to shrink the media as you see fit as well as adding audio channels and subtitles. Personally, I love subktitles. I wish life had subtitles. So, I check the checkbox under the "Audio" heading that gives me the English audio (this is typically the first one). I also check the checkbox under the "Subpicture" heading that gives me the English subtitles (you can skip this last part if you don't want subtitles in your movies). Finally, I select "No Compression" from the Video header drop-down box.

Apparently, English is now called "Unspecified".

Now click "Backup!" You will probably get a warning message stating that the file is too large to fit on a disc. We're not concerned with that, so click "Yes" to continue. A new window will display giving you some options. Find a place to store the files. I recommend an empty folder. Make sure that the checkbox "Create VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subfolders." is checked. Click OK. The process begins. This will take several minutes.

When it's done, you can start up Handbrake. Once again, I'll assume you've downloaded and installed it.

Click the "Source" button at the top. Select "Folder", then browse to the folder that you selected with DVD Shrink. Click the "Browse" button and go to the folder where you want the file. I recommend keeping the default settings unless you want to add subtitles. To do that, click the Subtitles tab, select (presumably) English or Closed Captioning from the list. If you want the subtitles to show by default (like me), check the Default checkbox. Then, click Add.

For the Destination, click the "Browse" button and select where you want the file to go. I would recommend each movie file to have its own folder. So, if you are placing your movies in the directory "C:\Users\Public\Media\Movies" and you are ripping Casablanca, make the destination "C:\Users\Public\Media\Movies\Casablanca\Casablanca.m4v". You should be good to go. If you're not sure, click the "Preview" button and watch a short clip of the movie. This may require you to download VLC, which is an excellent video player.

When you're ready, click the "Start" button and the conversion to a movie file will begin. This will usually take about 30 minutes or so. After it is complete, open the file on the computer first to see if it worked. If it did not, visit Handbrake's website to find out why.

Music will be covered in the next post.