I'm using Google Calendar to pay my bills on time.

Here's a quick and dirty tip for those of us who are known to "forget" about bills. I used to be one of these people myself. I literally had a stack of bills piled on my computer desk, and absolutely no organizational system to get them paid on time.

Here is my new system, and since I started it, I have not had one late bill, and I am right on top of what is due, and when it is due. This is one of the most popular "Web 2.0" apps on the planet.

Google Calendar is an absolutely free application, all it requires is an account with Google, which is very simple to setup. If you have a Gmail account, you already have calandar, now put it to work!

Here's what I do..

When bills come in the mail, I open them up, then fire up Google calendar. I setup an event for each bill that is due. If the bill is paid on the same day every month, then I setup a repeat monthly event, and that will save a little time.

I list the event as the companies name, followed by the amount due. For example Geico, $100.

I then set a reminder to email me a week before the bill is due. Google makes it really simple to set this up. You can do whatever a reminder that you require. You can even have Google send you a SMS text message on your mobile phone saying "time to pay your bill".

I then pay the bill, and update calendar's title with the word paid.

It's simple, now you try!

calendar.google.com

So could you get rid of your Cable or Satellite Dish?

Think about what your cable bill costs you on a monthly basis.

It is pretty easy to rack up a bill over $100 per month.

Think about how many crap channels are out there that you are paying for, but never watching.

Personally, I could go mostly without television, but not fully.

I tried this experiment when I first moved into my apartment. I didn't subscribe to cable, but instead just put up an antenna out the window, and was receiving mind blowing HDTV quality.

I could watch all the network television that I wanted, all the PBS, and that was fine and dandy.

After a while, this grew a bit tiresome, and I turned my gaze to my cable modem.

Could you get by with Internet television, in combination with your free over the air signal?

I'm going to try it.

Here are some links to some great free television available on the Internet.

1.) Fancast.com

This could be one of the greatest new sites to hit the web for Internet television. First of all, its ran by Comcast, and its not all screwed up. I'm shocked. The premise is that is asks you what you want to watch, then it shows you where you can watch it. It will also show you listings for your local cable of satellite provider. There are a ton of full episodes of your favorite shows. I just finished watching an episode of NBC's Las Vegas. It came right up over my slow 3 megabit dsl connection, and played great.

2.) Beelinetv.com

Here is another one for those who would like to watch a bit of international television. The quality is much lower than Fancast, but watching something in your home language would be interesting. Not my cup of tea, but worth stumbling upon.

3.) Joost.com

This service is one of my favorites. It does require registration, and the download of a player, but I'm very satisfied with the service. The video quality is excellent, and there is a ton of shows on there. I watched a few PBS documentaries on Joost, and will keep using the service.

4.) Quicksilverscreen.com

This is another service that scours the net looking for divx movies, then it streams directly to your PC. There is a huge selection of movies, videos, and tv shows.

Now I'll have to rig a computer to watch all this content on my bigscreen, and I'll be all set.

Later..

The Spitzer Money Grab.

Here is another money grab from the Albany machine.

Governor Elliott Spitzer is proposing a bill that would result in NYS sales tax being collected on items purchased via the Internet from stores that do not have a presence inside the state.

The key Internet store being singled out is Amazon.com, which is based in the state of Washington. Spitzer claims that the state is losing out in millions in tax dollars from Amazon.com alone.

Surely, the next move would be assigning a tax to every item shipped into the state of New York.

The state currently relies on the honor system, and residents are expected to log what they purchased on the Internet, or brought into the state, and pay taxes on that at the end of the year.

When does it end?

Here are some links to articles discussing the story.

Story from Syracuse.com
Another story from Syracuse.com
Story from DailyGazette.com


And of course, they deserve a raise for all their good work!

Link to NYtimes.