In Case You Missed Them: My Best Articles of 2022

Here are five articles that I spent a lot of time researching and writing in 2022. They are all loaded with links that will take you even deeper into the topics presented. I'm proud of these and I hope you find them informative. Happy New Year! 🎉 🎆 😁

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Replacing Google Play Music: How I Store & Stream 22 GB of My Own Music (MP3s) for a One-Time Cost of $7.99

[excerpt] "Here are the key components of my Google Play Music replacement:

• CloudPlayer Platinum app: $7.99 one-time purchase
• 15 GB Google Drive cloud storage account: Free
• 5 GB Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage account: Free
• 2 GB Dropbox cloud storage account: Free
• [for buying new music] Mp3Caprice.com account: $0.12 - 0.22 (Yes, that's 12 - 22 cents!!) per MP3 song, one-time purchase fee

Using the components above, I am able to do pretty much everything I was able to do with Google Play Music, including casting music to any cast-enabled device...."

[Read the full article here.] 

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Become an armchair expatriate with these 55 video series that'll take you out of the U.S. & around the world!

[excerpt] "Below is a list of 55 fictional series we have seen and recommend, categorized by the part of the world to which they will take you. The majority of these are from two low-cost sources: Acorn TV ($5.99/month) and PBS Passport ($5/month). A few are from Hulu and Netflix. ..." 

[Read the full article here.] 

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Music to Get Lost In: A Brief Introduction to Jam Bands

[excerpt] "I like all kinds of music: blues, rock, psychedelic, R&B, jazz and occasionally even folk/bluegrass and their offshoots. And I especially like long, well-developed performances that I can get lost in -- the kind of music that musicians love playing as they engage a melody and soar side by side like the Blue Angels in tight formation and then diverge into solo musical loops and barrel rolls, eventually converging back at the melody where they started. This kind of musical aerobatics is the domain of the jam band..."  NOTE: Article includes links to 9 full-length pieces of music from my favorite jam bands. 

[Read the full article here.] 

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Secure, Fast & Customizable: Why I Ditched My Windows PC for a Hot Rod Chromebook

[excerpt] "[In this comprehensive article]...you can skim through the stuff in bold to find the big ideas. Or you can just scroll down to one of these main sections:

• After 30 years, enough with Windows, already!
• Chromebooks dominate in education because they're powerful & easy to use.
• Chromebooks are REALLY secure.
• Chromebooks are fast! (Thanks to the ChromeOS.)
• Chromebooks are customizable.
• Buyer beware! It may be cheap, but when does that low-cost Chromebook expire?
• My Chromebook: Part of a Powerful Ecosystem of Google Tools
• Final Thoughts: How 40 Years of Personal Computing Has Led Me to a Chromebook
• Bonus Tip: Don't throw away that old Windows PC or Mac. You might be able to make it a Chromebook!

[FYI: This article contains over 60 links to references for further research. Enjoy!]"

 [Read the full article here.] 

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Stuck waiting? Doing mindless chores? Don't be frustrated or bored: Fire up a podcast & learn or just be entertained.

[excerpt] "... Podcasts are the answer to dealing with mental "downtime." They give you your own custom-tailored content stream which you can access at your own pace and on your own schedule. Specifically: 

• You can pause them when you need to switch your attention to your otherwise boring chore and then pick them up later. 
• If you miss something because your chore needs you for a few minutes, you can easily "rewind" the podcast and go back and repeat what you missed.
• You can listen to them at high speed, without chipmunk voices, but with the pauses and spaces squeezed out. (See the settings in your podcast player or this on Google Podcasts' "Podcast Controls" from PC Mag, for details.)
• You can save them for later and even binge listen to a whole series you may have missed.  
• With today's smart speakers (Google Home, Amazon Echo, etc.) you can do all of the above completely hands free while you move around your house. 
• Using Android Auto or Apple CarPlay you can start or continue listening to your Google Podcasts (and most other podcast apps) while you drive. 

How to Get Started 

Are you new to podcasts? Here's an easy way to get started... "

 [Read the full article here.] 

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See also:

• [from December, 2021] In Case You Missed Them: Some Ideas “Worth Sharing” from the Past Couple of Years

Become an armchair expatriate with these 55 video series that'll take you out of the U.S. & around the world!

These video series shown above will take you on regular trips to South Africa, Australia, England, Greek island of Corfu and India!

Armchair Expats

My wife and I have spent nearly every evening for the past decade or so as armchair expatriates, leaving America behind and spending hours in other parts of the English-speaking world. We travel by video streaming services to cities, villages and rural areas of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada and pretty much anywhere that English speaking folks have established themselves. We leave behind the bulletproof vests, serial killers, SWAT teams, predator-driven, high-intensity thrillers and cheesy "reality" shows that make up a typical evening of American television. 

Our Viewing Criteria

We have this test question for any new TV series: "Would we want to have dinner with these characters?" If so, we watch a few episodes and ask another question: "Do I feel better after spending time in this series?" As long as we can answer both of these questions in the affirmative, we keep watching the series. But if the episodes start going dark, nasty or generally emulating the "edgy" dreck served up by most American media we instantly drop them and move on.

Looking back over our nightly travels "abroad," we see that the series we spend the most time with share many of these qualities: 

• There are no commercials or ads breaking up the flow (at least there are none after each episode begins).

• The characters are generally good people with reasonably good intentions.

• The characters are pursuing laudable goals and encountering plausible obstacles that they eventually overcome.

• There is little or no violence or gore.

• There is beautiful scenery.

• Our characters are not constantly battling a life-threatening evil or slogging through a dark, dystopian world.

• When the series is over we feel better, rather than worse, at having spent time with these characters. In particular, we don't feel ashamed or voyeuristic at having been sucked into something that was mostly negative or merely sensationalistic.

Our Recommended Series

Below is a list of 55 fictional series we have seen and recommend, categorized by the part of the world to which they will take you. The majority of these are from two low-cost sources: Acorn TV ($5.99/month) and PBS Passport ($5/month). A few are from Hulu and Netflix. 

[Dec 6, '22 Update: We're currently exploring & enjoying Britbox (from BBC & ITV). So far we can recommend these full original series set in England: Cold Feet, As Time Goes By and All Creatures Great & Small (1978 version, 90 episodes!). But you'll find many more contemporary series from BBC and ITV there as well.]

Is your video streaming tap leaking money? Here's a 4-step strategy for taking control.

It's money down the drain!

A leaky faucet can be insidious thing. A barely noticeable drip, drip, drip easily falls below our awareness. Yet running hour after hour, day after day, it can siphon away a huge amount of water and lead to a massive surprise water bill. And worse, the water is pointlessly gone without ever being used!

Monthly payments can be like that dripping faucet. Seemingly insignificant expenses can easily fall below the radar as we automatically pay them and go about our busy lives. And when these expenses are for stuff we don't really use, well... that's just a stupid waste!

In this article I'm going to challenge you to think about one category of monthly expenses that can easily get out of control if you don't consciously manage it. I'm talking about streaming services. And like the water from that dripping faucet, the dollars spent on that unused (or underused) streaming service is gone forever, leaving you with nothing to show for having spent them! Consider this from Lifewire.com:

"The average person who uses streaming services subscribes to between five and seven services. You know the ones: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Discovery+, Paramount+, Peacock, HBO Max, and others."

So let's say you are limiting yourself to five of these. The basic, ad-free versions of five of the services above could get you a monthly bill of around $65. Subscribe to all nine of the services listed and you'll be paying well over $100/month with fees. Add this to your cable bill (Why are you still buying cable!?! Can't you use an antenna?? That's a topic for another day...) and your internet bill and WOW -- that can add up to some very big bucks spent on content!  

Seriously: Step back and ask yourself: Do you actually use every one of your streaming services every day? ... every week? Do your payments stop when you're not using a service? Have you really "dug deep" into the catalogs of any of your services to see what shows you're paying for, but not watching?  If any of these questions make you uncomfortable, then you're ready for a more disciplined, strategic approach to your streaming. 

A Four-Step Strategy for Taking Control of Your Media Streaming

Bored passively consuming content? Feeling anxious? Maybe it's time to create something!

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“Get busy. Keep busy… Your blood will start circulating; your mind will start ticking, and pretty soon this whole positive upsurge of life in your body will drive worry from your mind.”  - Dale Carnegie

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How much Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram & news can you consume?!

As I write this, the vast majority of my fellow Americans -- indeed, people from all over the world -- have been stopped in their tracks by the COVID-19 pandemic. We've been asked to stay home from our jobs and schools, stop eating in restaurants or bars and generally avoid participating in any kind of real-world groups in order to help stop the spread of this horrible and deadly disease. We're asked to maintain "social distancing" on our essential trips out for supplies and to practice "self-isolation" at home.

Fortunately, in our internet connected world, we can stay safely in touch with each other online. And, what's more, we can pass hours and hours every day consuming unlimited stuff from 24/7 news outlets, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Facebook, Instagram, etc.  But there is a limit to how much time you can spend zoned out on media and messages created by other people! Eventually you'll experience the mental equivalent of eating 10 bags of potato chips in one sitting. At first it seems fun to indulge, but you soon hit a wall when you realize that stuffing yourself isn't all that satisfying! (In fact, too much passive media watching has been associated with depression!)

Maybe it's time to create something.

Human beings are naturally creative. Give a kid a box of crayons and she'll create a picture. Give another kid a kazoo and he'll invent a song. We tell stories, we invent solutions to problems that are bothering us, we explore and learn new things so we can create more stuff. Some mystics and philophers go so far as to say that the act of creation taps into a universal Source energy which then flows through us, putting us in touch with the infinite. Whatever the roots of our creative experience, there's something deeply satisfying about bringing forth something that did not exist before. And that satisfaction is WAY deeper than anything we can experience binge-watching melodramas and cat videos!

So if you find yourself on lockdown at home, why not call on your inherent creativity (yes... it's really there whether you are using it or not...) and create something new?

Just do it!

Here are some examples of home-based projects that could get your creative juices flowing and result in something that would bring you satisfaction and other people enjoyment:

Bonus Materials: A Couple of Pep Talks for the Creatively Challenged

If you feel a bit hesitant to jump right into that creative project, maybe a quick pep talk (in essay form) might help.  In my book, Worth Sharing: Essays & Tools to Help Project Managers and Their Teams, I include a couple that might help you get unstuck. You can download them via the links below as PDFs.  Or you can read them here, in the free online version of the book.  Enjoy!

Why You Should Trust Your Judgment (Your Inner "Wisdom Filter)

Are you afraid that your creative output won't matter? ... that it's not really worth anything? This essay will prove to you that you have much wisdom and that you can trust that wisdom to be valuable, grasshopper!

PDF:  Why You Should Trust Your Judgment (Your Inner "Wisdom Filter)

Leveraging Inspiration: 10 Simple Practices to Keep Your Creative Output Flowing

This practical essay will show you 10 specific things you can do to catch all those flashes of inspiration before they get away so you can pull them together later into something wonderful.  Get the PDF here. Or simply read the chapter in my Worth Sharing book online.

Video Bonus

Finally, consider this little video: Time & Space to Blossom. I created it a few years ago for absolutely no reason. It was fun to build and it makes me happy when I watch it. Enjoy!

Related Articles from the Archives

• Two to Inspire: Find Your Mission & Start Creating!
• Overwhelmed by Angst? “Spit on Your Hands & Get Busy!” (Including a Quick Start Guide to Banishing Angst)
• How to Be a Gardener or Urban Farmer: Three Excellent (& Free) Resources
• Exercise Your Right Brain & Improve Your Life with Art Lessons from Artyfactory.com [Video Tour Included]  
• Searching for a Picture: How a Camera in Your Hands Can Improve Your Vision
• How to Get Comfortable Doing Nothing: 3 Simple Strategies
• Quick-Reference PDF: A Dozen Free Google Apps to Keep Your Family or Team Organized
• Got Thinkus Interruptus? Here are 5 specific actions to clean up your cluttered consciousness.
• Inspirations: An Archived Collection to Motivate & Bring Peace of Mind 

Acorn TV: Netflix for Grownups!

If you like the kind of smart, articulate dramas, mysteries, comedies and documentaries that we typically find on America's PBS stations, you'll love Acorn TV!  For just $4.99 a month (You can quit anytime...) Acorn TV will let you stream and binge-watch some of the best British, Australian, Canadian and Irish TV series and stand-alone films!  

Acorn by the Numbers

Here's a quick count of what's available on Acorn TV as of this date: