Culture box

I've been using the Internet as a culture box. I am referring to that part of TV that is supposed to enrich our personal and collective culture, rather than dumb us down by lowering our standards as consumers of media. That's what the Net can provide and in increasing quantities.

Here are the tools I am using so far in no specific order:

01 A computer hooked to the TV and to the sound system. In my case, I am running a Neuros LINK which is an Ubuntu box configured for HDMI TV and Surround audio output. In the version I got, the hardware is well integrated but the desktop is plain old Ubuntu-flavored Gnome. I had to change many theme settings (notably font sizes and desktop icons) to make it TV-ready - it's an ongoing process. One great feature it has is the wireless keyboard equipped with gamepad-like controls and a rollerball - great substitute for a mouse. Another good feature is the large number of USB slots. It is interesting to note that this appliance has *no* DVD player. It is a bit of an extreme position to take because I wouldn't mind ditching the Sony DVD player if I could. In general, I recommend using a decent machine because some media center applications can be heavy on resources. For example, the LINK (CPU 2.8 GHz Athlon) frequently hangs when running Firefox and some system updates take upwards of 15 minutes to install.

02 Firefox as the browser. Even though it's heeeaaavvvvyyy, its extensions make up for it and I use Speed Dial as a homepage with my most-used sites.

03 YouTube for (unsatisfactory) video content. Many things are missing from it from a TV point of view, from usability to selection of content. More on this later. But today I can find out about many interesting topics (to me obviously) that would be really difficult to find on TV: origami how-tos, guitar tunes how-tos, etc.

04 Last.fm for a greatly satisfying music experience. By just entering all my favorite artists and albums, I now have what seems to be an infinite stream of music that is highly relevant to me.

05 Flickr for nice visual excursions. Check out Cairo or Corsica!

06 MAME for my retro geek gaming pleasure (I use pre-made Ubuntu binaries). ROMS can be downloaded (illegally) from Torrent-space.

07 Boxee which is a great-looking and ambitious media center. It is still immature however and suffers from many functional shortcomings.

08 I sometimes use Rhythmbox to listen to Web radios.

09 VLC for local media playback. It has great support for many formats, including different subtitles and ISO DVD images. Its media organizer, however, is by far the worst.

10 XScreenSaver for great visual backgrounds while the music is playing. The Really Slick Screensavers (available as add-on to the main package) are especially well-produced.

11 A few external hard drives to hold my own media files and that I connect via USB. Can't wait for a 2TB NAS!

With this setup, I am slowly stepping towards getting rid of cable/satellite TV, DVD players, radio, and other obsolete media technologies. The Internet will subsume them all :-)