Ever since a friend showcased a plethora of channels she was receiving in her home via a sample rabbit ear setup, I started to consider giving up my cable bill.

We pay around $120 for TV (basic cable) + Internet (8 Mbit) + digital phone.  We use the phone very rarely because we also have the AT&T cell phone plan.  The Internet we use a lot, but we can cut the speed in half and not even notice.  The TV — we watch Jon Stuart, Burn Notice, and Saturday Night Live, but I’m hearing all 3 can be gotten on the Internet.

So it makes more and more sense to give up Time Warner — after all, for the price of 2 months of TW, one could buy an XBox 360 and unlimited streaming movies and shows …

I’ll give it a shot and will let y’all know …

UPDATE: Cancelled Time Warner phone and cable, left only the 8Mbit Internet service.  Got a $20 Philips antenna (UHF/VHF), and receiving all network TV channels in both analog and HD !!! It’s a little weird that the antenna is a little touchy, i.e. if you touch it, the TV signal breaks up.  It makes total sense because analog signal creates “snow” if interrupted, while digital signal is either “there” or “not there”.

Anyway … so far so good … I do miss the DVR though :)

UPDATE: Lame!  The digital reception is starting to break up … so I bought a beefier $50 Philips powered antenna, but the result was even WORSE — some channels (ABC) completely disappeared, although the remaining ones seemed to improve a tad.  Next steps: either mount the antenna outside on a mast, or get some other solution.

Really, you shoud be buying gold.  But since I’m assuming an average Joe don’t got a G to throw around on gizzold … Silver is the next best thing.

You really have a couple of options.  Buy US Mint precious metals if you’re not afraid for G.I. Joe confiscating them at the point of his gun.  Buy some other form of silver if you are afraid of G.I. Joe slash Uncle Sam confiscating it when the time is ripe.

I’m taking my chances amd buying rolls of 10 US Mint Silver Dollar Eagles every paycheck.  Sometimes, when the website advertisement paychecks rolls in, I buy a bar of Swiss Gold.

You’re asking, “why?”

Couple of reasons.  First, I’ve been though currency devaluation before in the USSR.  Not very fun.  I’m talking, “run out and buy up whatever tangible durable goods you can because the paper money ain’t gonna be worth much in a day”.

Second … With the massive amounts (trillions) of dollars of money Federal Reserve is printing to cover the bailouts, I’m predicting massive inflation.

Oince Gold Bar Fine 999.9 Credit Suisse

Seriously … If I’m wrong, you’ll jack the gold and still be allright.  But if I’m right … I hope I’m not right.

Normally, I would wait for the day after Thanksgiving to purchase the big ticket items.  For example, 2 years ago I snagged a Panasonic 42″ plasma TV for around $800 AND they threw in the $300 Tweeter gift card.  Last year, I grabbed some parts for my computer dirt cheap, and some nice jewelry items for my wife.  I’d wake up early, load some tunes on my Sansa, browse through the paper ads, and chill with other thrill-seekers outside some store.

Not this year.

Even though I’ve just read about people being pronounced dead after being trampled at some Wal-Mart, or pregnant women being hospitalized under similar conditions (which tells me that people are still shopping it up regardless of the economic situation), I decided to skip the shopping extravaganzas.

First of, we have everything we need — and the stuff we thought we needed, well, we don’t.  As Peter Schiff said in one of the many YouTube clips (paraphrasing), nothing bad would happen if people didn’t buy a new car and made do with the old one, or didn’t charge that new television set and just watched their 32″ RCA for another year.  We still have nice, fairly new things, and I can’t think of anything we need.

Second, I am stockpiling cash to 1) expand the safety net 2) pay down debt 3) convert cash into silver.  I’ll elaborate — basically, after food/utilities/bills, each dollar we make gets divided into those 3 categories.  We need more cash in case both of us lose our jobs.  We need to aggressively attack our remaining debts.  We need to set aside a portion of our budget that we won’t immediately need so it can be converted into tokens with intrinsic value, i.e. precious metals.

A quick note on precious metals — there’s evidence of big players shorting gold and silver to keep the price down … I believe gold will surpass $2,000/oz within 12 months.  I’ve been incrementally buying Silver Dollar bullion coin from the US Mint, although it takes longer and longer to order and receive (crazy demand).

And finally, this Black Friday bonanza makes me feel like I’ve felt right before quitting smoking — the realization of pointlessness, harm to my body, and waste of money finally helped me quit for good … not only that, I now cringe every time I catch a whiff of someone’s cigarette and run away from it :) Same with shopping — because shopping for the sake of shopping is … sickening in its decadence.

If you’re out shopping, just be careful.  Both with your money, and with not being trampled.

There’s nothing wrong with being frugal.  I believe when one needs something, (s)he should do the research and make the purchase based not only on the price alone, but also on the combination of reliability, aesthetics, ergonomics, appeal, etc.  When one doesn’t need anything now or in the future, one should not buy an item just because that item is cheap. 

Case and point – a friend of mine.  He runs a mediums-size hospitality business with a fairy constant demand for reliable IT solutions.  There are around 10 people performing administrative tasks, along with 10-15 more performing day-to-day tasks on IT-related equipment (scales, keypads, scanners, digital copiers, etc.)

Yesterday I stopped by to see how he was doing.  As we were conversing, he was standing in the pile of printers, cables, Nortel phones, computer parts, monitors, towers, power supplies, and other random crap.

- What’s with all this? – I asked.
- Oh, this … I got a really good deal on all this.  There’s some inkjets here, one little laserjet, about 6-7 telephones and 2 telephone switchboard systems.
- What about those? – I asked and pointed to the misshapen heap of computer towers.
- Those are computers I picked up at the same auction.  The company that sold them went belly up.

Knowing my friend, I recognized that he got excited about picking up “all those computers” for just a couple of hundred bucks.  However, I knew for a fact that his computer network a) was not going to expand b) was up-to-par with the tasks at hand.  I knew that because I set it up for him.  All machines were at least 1GHz Athlons with 256Mb of RAM.  The all ran Terminal Services, so it really didn’t matter how fast they were – the server did all the stepping.

- So what are you going to do with all this?
- Upgrade! – was his answer.

I tore into the first tower.  AMD chip, 512Mb of RAM, everything small profile, the tower was actually a little cube.  I plugged it in – not a peep.  I measured output voltage from the power supply – steady 5.03V.  Voltage from the motherboard – anywhere from 3V to 6 V.

- Your motherboard is shot, – I said authoritatively. – I’d pull out the memory and the drives, and throw the unit away.
- No, I can’t throw it away.  They’ve only used this computer for a year.
- Well, you can hire a repair guy at $50 per hour to take a look at this, but there goes your “good deal”.
- I’ll look at it later. – he said.  The tower started a new pile.

After examining 4 towers, 3 inkjets, 6 phones, and a box of keyboards and mice, I recovered 2 decent computers, 2 phones, 1.5 printers, 2 sticks of 256Mb RAM, 2 CD-RW drives, 4 optical mice, and 4 keyboards.  The rest was junk – though probably fixable, it was not worth anyone’s time.  His total bill was around $700.

Would I do something like that?  Hell no. 

I would never in a million years buy more crap while my systems are perfectly operational and do not need any upgrades.  I revel in the fact that all of my machines would be identical, with identical settings, peripherals, wallpapers, and screensavers.  They would be easy to upgrade and maintain.  I will never have to remember which machine has what type of RAM and hard drive because, that’s right, they would all be the same.

You will not “always get a good deal” because “you just know how to shop”.  If you go for a misshapen pile of computer crap, you are going to end up with a smaller pile of computer crap.  Even if “this one thing alone is worth, like, seven hundred when bought new”.  Wanna guess why it’s not worth that much NOW when you bought it from the back of a truck? 

The big picture is always this – you get what you pay for.  Exceptions don’t count – they are like winning a lottery.

Over the years, I’ve amassed a collection of computer programs I cannot do without. I’m not talking little tools that make your computer-related tasks easier. I’m talking top-notch productivity boosters from hell.

Total Commander

If you learn how to use it on keyboard, you will be an unstoppable file-managing machine. This little app features two side-by-side panels and an awesome array of useful tools.

For example, how would you copy all *.jpeg pictures from C:\PICS/ALL/UNPROCESSED to D:\PICS/PICNIC? That’s right, you would go to My Computer, double-click C: drive, double-click folder PICS, double-click folder ALL, double-click folder UNPROCESSED, control-click all *.jpeg’s, right-click, choose COPY, then drill up, repeat for the destination drive, right-click, choose PASTE …

I got fed up with that method about the second time I had to do something like that. In Total Commander, you have two panels, source and destination. You TAB to select source. With UP, DOWN, and ENTER quickly find your source folder. Highlight with INSERT. TAB to destination folder. Hit F5 and you’re done.

Pretty soon, you’ll be able to wake up from dead sleep and still remember that F5 is copy, F6 is rename, F4 is edit file, F3 is view file, ALT+F7 is search, and so on … This is the best thing you can ever do for your computer-related tasks both at home and work. Trust me, if you are thinking productivity, in two weeks you’ll wonder how you ever got along without Total Commander. I haven’t even begun describing the multi-rename tool, the built-in FTP client, quick occupied space calculations, “compare directories” tool, view inside ISO and BIN images tool, quick-creating a file with SHIFT+F4, and a ton more …

Download for free here.

Acronis True Image

I’ve tried Norton Ghost and a few other backup solutions, but this one takes the cake. Fast, stable, reliable … awesome.

A while ago I installed Windows just the way I liked it, complete with programs, shortcuts, toolbars, etc. I then created a backup image of the entire hard drive with Acronis from DOS and saved it to Acronis Secure Zone, an invisible to Windows partition of the hard drive. If I feel my computer is getting bogged down with crap, I reboot, hit F11, point Acronis Startup Manager to Acronis Secure Zone, and in ten minutes my computer is spyware-malware-cookie-crap free. I highly recommend new Acronis version 9.0, which recognizes external USB drives from DOS. Best forty bucks you’ll ever spend on a backup solution.

AutoIt

AutoIt is HiddenSoft’s solution to repetitive task management through keystroke automation. The Basic-like scripting language will allow you to completely automate any program, including legacy. Always push the same combination of annoying buttons and menus to print 7 reports for your boss? Write a little code, and the same annoying combination turns into a click of one shortcut.

At work, I’ve created custom shortcut toolbars for colleagues, and they can’t live without them now. Seriously, why would you repeat the same annoying thing day after day when you can have AutoIt do it for you? New version supports GUI interface creation.

Download for free here.

IrfanView

If you are working with images and not using this app heavily, you are living in the past (probably still with your parents). IrfanView will turn the most ferociously loyal Picasa or ACDSee user into a sobbing little schoolgirl. Example? PRINT SCREEN, CTRL+V, select a rectangle, CTRL+Y, CTRL+S, bam! you got yourself a kick-ass cropped-out screenshot.

How about taking your huge digital picture files and turning them into renamed, sharpened, brightened, overlayed thumbnails? A few clicks of your fancy wireless mouse. Try it, it’s worth your time.

Download for free here.