Make the First One Useful

So I have to admit, I've starred at this empty blog for quite a long time. I've always thought that I have so many ridiculous thoughts, opinions, and ideas upstairs; that having a medium to get them all out would be both theraputic to me, and possibly even useful to other. The problem was, where do you start what do you talk about? There's so much leading up to this that I could barely make sense of it when I decided I wanted to write. So its time to just write, and let everything else take care of itself.

I decided the first thing I wanted to do was introduce my fellow Canadian's to a few really interesting and useful websites that are currently blocked in Canada due to Copywrite Laws and Restrictions. The good news is there is a really easy way to get around this and trust me, it's worth it:)

Read This If: You are from Canada and want to learn about and access three amazing sites for TV Shows, Predictive Radio, and Music Videos that are only available to Americans.

Site #1: Hulu (http://www.hulu.com)
What is it?: Quite simply, Hulu is the future of online television. Watch full streaming shows from Fox, the Comedy Network, Bravo, and NBC from your computer in excellent quality. The best part of Hulu is that all video is rated according to episode and clip, so you can check out the highest rated episode of the Daily Show for the last week, or the top 5 clips from Saturday Night Live over the last month. Awesome stuff.

Site #2: Pandora (http://www.pandora.com)
What is it?: Pandora is the Hulu for music. The concept is simple, yet unbelievably powerful. Create a radio station by picking your favourite artist or song and Pandora will start playing songs that match your tastes. This is one of those things that has to be seen to be understood, but for example a recent radio station creation using the Foo Fighters, White Stripes, and Weezer produced the songs Dumb by Nirvana, Daughter by Pearl Jam, Stellar by Incubus, Cold Hard Bitch by Jet, and The Middle by Jimmy Eat World, not too shabby eh?. If you've ever used the Genius feature in iTunes, this is similar but without the limitation of only using music you own.

Site #3: MTV Music (http://www.mtvmusic.com)
What is it?: Just launched this week, the new MTV Music site contains just about every music video created, ever. Again, only available in the United States you can search for videos by artist, by rating, view and make comments, etc. Very simple inteface that looks and feels alot like Hulu. In case you were wonding the top video right now is Once in a Lifetime by the Talking Heads, but Rick Astley isn't too far behind;)

So how do you access these from Canada? Its actually pretty simple. Go here and a download should start. Its an application called Hot Spot Shield which is meant to keep your laptop secure when loggin into public hotspots such as Starbucks or a Hotel, but it also does a great job of tricking these sites into thinking your from the United Stated. If you need some more detailed instructions feel to post a comment or send me an email. The program will run in your status bar on a PC, or in your Menu Bar on a Mac. It does create a small banner at the top of most websites you visit, but you can disconnect when your not using one of the three websites mentioned. This will also let you watch video on other sites such as ABC.com and MTV.com for shows such as the Amazing Race, Real World, etc.

Hope everyone enjoys. Good luck!