One of the great things about my trip to New York was being able to watch a bunch of programs on Hulu.  Hulu is a great service available in the US that lets you watch current programs over the Internet. There are a bunch of great shows on offer like House, Lost, Dollhouse and other shows not yet shown in Australia like Modern Family.

Unfortunately when I got back to Australia, licensing rules and IP addresses stopped me. When you try to watch anything, you get the Hulu black screen of nada.

How to set up Hulu to watch outside the US

Firstly, do not waste your time with a free service.  I spent numerous hours researching the internet and trying a bunch of different free services.  Hotspot Shield, FoxyProxy and IPHider do not work.  You just cannot get a connection to the US that is fast enough and Hulu is shutting down most of these free services.

Your best bet is to purchase a US Based VPN.  There are numerous VPN providers out there.  Some even give you the ability to switch between the US and the UK, therefore allowing you to watch the BBC iplayer too!

As an added plus, a VPN will also help you get around this ridiculousness Internet filter that is being proposed by Communications Minister Senator Conroy.  According to Adam Turner, writing for PC Authority:

“…the easiest way to access restricted content is to mask your location using a US-based Virtual Private Network. A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel from your computer to the VPN provider, who then connects you to the internet.”

(Thanks to Anthill for this quote)

Steps to watch Hulu in Australia

1. Check your internet connection speed.  I have the Bigpond cable Ultimate and sometimes it still results in stuttery play.  Go to www.speedtest.net and check your download speed to LA.  If you get anything below 0.5Mbps then it’s probably not going to work for you.

2.   Purchase a US VPN from a reputable company. I like VPNAuthority.com because for $63/year, you get the option of using a US or UK based IP address at one time. Another upside, they do not restrict the number of times you switch between them. In the past, I used StrongVPN.com, but the switching restrictions to go between hulu and bbciplayer are prohibitive.

3. Set up your new network (Your VPN provider will have the details) and connect

4. Start watching shows!

Features

• Sync files across your computers effortlessly
• Access files via the Internet
• Dropbox comes with 2GB free storage
• Refer friends for an extra 250MB per referral
• Upgrade to 50GM for only $9.99/month or 100GB for $19.99/month
• Share folders with friends or co-workers
• iPhone App now available
• For the full list of features check the Dropbox website – Dropbox Features

Download

Download Dropbox now and get the new Dropbox iPhone app.

Specs:

• Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor E8400(3GHz, 1333FSB, 6MB)
• Memory 4GB
• Video Card 256MB ATI Radeon
• Hard Drive 500GB SATA
• Dell (TM) S2309WFP 23 ” Widescreen Flat Panel

I also picked up some Logitech Z4 speakers which sound pretty good.

The table looks like a massive iphone stuck onto an bulky office printer.  At a reputed $10,000 each next year, it’s unlikley this will end up in anyones personal home in the near future.  However, hopefully owning one in your own home is not too far off.

Microsoft surface table at Amnesia (Photo courtesty of Amnesia blog)

So I was thinking about what would be the must have apps on my own personal surface table, and I came up with:

• Board games – Monopoly, Pictionary, chess, checkers.  No more lost dice or blunt pencils
• Virtual Fishtank
• Smart home control panel, so you could program the PVR, turn on the oven, control your outdoor speakers
• Fingerpainting
• and of course, Pong!

What would you want your surface table to do?

If you have no idea what I am talking about, watch the following video to the Bill Gates with the Surface table.

From the GetUp! Action for Australia site:

“The Federal Government is planning to force all Australian servers to filter internet traffic and block any material the Government deems ‘inappropriate’. Under the plan, the Government can add any ‘unwanted’ site to a secret blacklist.

Testing has already begun on systems that will slow our internet by up to 87%, make it more expensive, miss the vast majority of inappropriate content and accidentally block up to 1 in 12 legitimate sites. Our children deserve better protection – and that won’t be achieved by wasting millions on this deeply flawed system.”

Desktop – Kristi, originally uploaded by krustyfries.

I recently added my laptop desktop to the Lifehacker Show and Tell Pool. There are some very cool desktops on show and have inspired me into a few ideas on how to improve mine. Lifehacker, one of my favourite blogs, regularly features desktops from around the world, most recentrly in their Lifehacker Faceoff: Battle of the Tricked Out Computer Desktops

I’ve used Rocketdock to create the Mac style launch bar, hidden the Task Bar and deleted everything else off the desktop. I still download stuff to the desktop, but I make sure I clean it up evey night (kind of like I try to remember to clean the kitchen every night!).

My current laptop desktop

• Easy access to frequently used applications: email; google desktop; itunes; ftp; firefox and picasa.
• Also links to my documents, control panel, rocketdock settings, C drive, shutdown and trash.
• I use Ctrl-M to minimise everything to bring up the desktop and I use the windows button to access anything else!

First impressions – I love it!  It is so cute and tiny, and fits in the palm of my hand (kind of like a kitten)!   See the size comparison below with the other Dell notebooks and Mac Book in my house:

From Left to Right: Dell Inspiron 8600 , Macbook, Dell Inspiron 700m, Eee PC 4G

My first task is to remove unwanted software (The Eee PC comes with Microsoft Works and a bunch of other windows apps) and install software to make this the perfect travelling companion for my Mum: Skype; Anti Virus, Microsoft Word & Excel, Picasa and probably a few more.

Then I need to set it up on my Mum’s Wi-Fi network and ensure it works with the printer.

I’ll post when this is done and let you know how easy/hard it was and if my Mum likes her new toy!