Beware. Your tech gear is costing you money while you sleep. Sure, the stuff looks innocent enough: cable box, HDTV, computer monitor, and sundry other electronic gadgets that consume power even when in “sleep” mode. While their energy-sucking ways may seem harmless, they cost you big bucks over time.

How much? U.S. households spend about $100 per year to power devices in low-power mode, around 8 percent of home electricity expenses, according to the government’s Energy Star program. Your water heater, lighting, air conditioner, and heater are the biggest energy hogs. The good news is that you can cut your energy bills without spending a fortune to do it.

First, you need to know which home appliances are the biggest power hogs. The P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt is an inexpensive electricity usage monitor that plugs into a standard wall outlet. Simply connect a suspected energy hog—an old refrigerator, for instance—to the Kill A Watt, which measures the appliance’s power consumption by the kilowatt-hour and shows the results on its LCD display. Priced at just over $17 online, Kill A Watt displays amps, volts, and wattage.

The twilight of the incandescent light bulb is upon us, and most versions of the venerable (and highly inefficient) bulb won’t be available in the U.S. by next year. Fluorescent, LED, and even new “hybrid” incandescent lights save energy and money but are sometimes hard to find for chandeliers, vanity lights, and other unique items. Measurements on bulb packages can be confusing when you’re unsure which size is right for your fixture. Light Bulb Finder is a free mobile app (Apple or Android) that helps you find the right energy-saving bulb. Enter your zip code, and it automatically determines the average electricity rate for your region. Then, scroll through images of lighting fixtures, and choose the type of incandescent bulb you want to replace. The app generates a list of recommended power-efficient bulbs and shows images and tech specs for each product.

Desktop computers and monitors are notorious energy wasters, particularly in home offices where tech gear is often left on 24/7. Many low-cost power-saving devices can stop the power drip and cut your electric bill. The Belkin Conserve Switch Surge Protector with Remote ($40), for instance, is a power strip with six switchable (on/off) outlets, and two additional outlets that are always on. The wall-mountable wireless remote works up to 60 feet from the power strip. To turn off up to six devices—a computer, monitor, printer, speakers, and external hard drive—simply flip the switch. The two always-on outlets are great for gadgets that need power 24/7, such as an Internet router or cordless phone.

And for the technophiles among us, there’s the amazing Nest, a programmable, power-saving thermostat you can install. The $250 Nest Learning Thermostat can cut your heating and cooling bill by up to 20 percent, the company claims. The Nest thermostat studies your heating/cooling habits and adjusts itself accordingly. For instance, if you raise the temperature in your home on a single occasion, Nest will ignore the change. But if you raise it two Mondays mornings in a row at 7 a.m., Nest will learn from your behavior and start making the change automatically. Created by a former Apple executive, Nest is sleek and stylish. And you can control Nest with your smartphone, PC, or tablet via a Wi-Fi connection.

More economical alternatives include the Honeywell Wi-Fi 7 Day Programmable Thermostat, which includes a free app for Apple and Android mobile devices. It’s more affordable at $100 to $120 online.

Of course, you don’t need new energy-saving light bulbs or power-cutting gizmos to reduce your utility bill (although they help). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers some simple suggestions, such as remembering to unplug mobile phones, tablets, and MP3 players once they’re charged. And remember to remove power adapters from wall outlets too. If you don’t, these insidious power drains will continue to cost you money.

Insidious Power Drains The Saturday Evening Post

Is your cellular service contract about to expire? Don’t sign a new wireless contract just yet. Rather than automatically going with one of the big four cellular carriers—AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon Wireless—consider one of the smaller guys instead.

Prepaid mobile phone carriers offer wireless service that can save you hundreds of dollars over the life of a standard two-year cellular plan. Since prepaid plans don’t have contracts, you can walk away without paying an early-termination fee—up to $350 for Verizon Wireless customers and $325 at AT&T.

Prepaid carriers such as Boost Mobile, Cricket, MetroPCS, and Straight Talk have been around for years, but their popularity is growing among U.S. consumers. Sales of smartphones at prepaid carriers rose 23 percent in the third quarter of 2012 over the prior quarter, according to the NPD Group, a consumer research firm. Meanwhile, smartphone sales fell 12 percent at the top-tier carriers during that period.

Why the change? One reason is prepaid carriers today have a much better selection of smartphones, including such favorites as the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S III. While you’ll pay full price for smartphones from prepaid carriers—not the subsidized price that comes with a two-year contract—you’ll also save big on your monthly bill.

MetroPCS, for instance, charges $500 for a Galaxy S III, but AT&T charges $200 for the same phone with a two-year plan. Yes, Metro charges $300 more up-front, but it also saves you big bucks on the back end.

Example: a $50-per-month smartphone plan from MetroPCS includes unlimited nationwide calling, text messaging, and data, the first 2.5 GB of which are at 4G LTE speeds. By comparison, AT&T customers pay $90 a month for 450 phone minutes, unlimited texting, and 3 GB of data. (AT&T charges $10 per additional 1 GB beyond 3 GB.)

Add it all up, and the MetroPCS customer pays $40 less per month for a comparable plan. Over two years—the life of a standard AT&T contract—that’s a savings of $960. Subtract the extra $300 that MetroPCS charges for the Galaxy S III, and you’re still $660 ahead.

Coverage areas do vary, so it’s always a good idea to check a carrier’s website to see if it’s available where you live. MetroPCS says its wireless service covers 90 percent of Americans.

Even Bigger Savings

If you’re not picky about the type of smartphone you use, Republic Wireless has a deal that can’t be beat: $19 per month for unlimited talk, text, and data—with a catch or two. First, Republic uses a technology it calls “hybrid calling,” which means it uses both Wi-Fi and cellular connections to make calls, send texts, or download files. Its first choice is Wi-Fi—whether at home, work, or sipping a latte at Starbucks. If your Republic Wireless phone can’t find an available Wi-Fi link, it uses Sprint’s 3G network instead. The second catch: Republic offers its customers just one smartphone, the Motorola Defy XT, a middling Android handset that costs $259, so Republic isn’t the best choice for users who crave the latest, greatest handsets. But for bargain hunters, $19 a month is hard to beat.

Ting is another prepaid carrier with an innovative idea: Rather than choosing an all-you-can-eat plan, or buying more minutes and data than you need, why not build a plan based on your actual usage? Say you use a smartphone infrequently, a few calls, a few texts, and the occasional Web search. Ting’s a la carte menu might be the ticket: 100 phone minutes cost $3; 1,000 text messages is $5; and 500 MB of data is $13. Add a $6 “device fee,” and your total monthly bill comes to $27 (plus regulatory fees and other surcharges). And Ting uses Sprint’s wireless network.

Virgin Mobile, another Sprint-based carrier, also has a variety of affordable prepaid options, including a $35 per month plan with 300 phone minutes, and unlimited text and data. And don’t overlook prepaid plans from larger carriers. T-Mobile, which plans to merge with MetroPCS, offers a $30-per-month, no-contract plan with 100 talk minutes and unlimited text and data.

So go prepaid and save big.

For a chart of prepaid phone suppliers and plan details, go to saturdayeveningpost.com/smartphone-plans.

How to Save a Bundle on Smartphone Service The Saturday Evening Post

Smartphone Plans*

*All prices and fees subject to change
**Prices and fees vary depending on location and availability of service

Your Guide to Low-Cost Smartphone Plans The Saturday Evening Post

Apple iPad Mini. Photo courtesy Apple Computer Inc.

1. Apple iPad mini
The late Steve Jobs once declared 7-inch tablets too tiny to be useful, but the company he cofounded decided otherwise when it saw consumers snapping up smaller slates made by its competitors. The result is the iPad Mini, which does nearly everything its predecessor does, but at a much lower price. The iPad Mini has a 7.9-inch screen that works well for Web browsing and streaming video, although the resolution is surprisingly lower than that of Apple’s 7-inch competitors, which cost $80 to $130 less. The iPad Mini includes optional 4G LTE service, which costs an additional $130 plus a monthly cellular charge. The tablet’s aluminum and glass exterior is sleek and slim—just what you’d expect from Apple. Its front- and rear-facing cameras capture high-definition pictures and video too. Its biggest advantage can be summed up in one word: apps. Apple’s App Store has more than 275,000 programs created for the iPad—a vastly greater selection than what you’ll find in competing app markets from Google, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. Priced from $329 for a Wi-Fi model with 16GB of storage to $659 for a Wi-Fi plus cellular unit with 64GB; the iPad Mini is the upscale option in a crowded market.

Top 4 Tiny Tablets The Saturday Evening Post

Microsoft Surface RT

Microsoft Surface RT. Photo courtesy Microsoft.

While the Apple iPad is the, um, apple of everyone’s eye, the Microsoft Surface RT may be the best iPad challenger to date. Featuring a tablet version of touch-oriented Windows 8 software and an innovative built-in kickstand and a screen cover that doubles as a keyboard, the Surface RT looks like a winner. As of press time, its release was scheduled for October 26. If you can wait a bit, other hardware manufacturers, including Asus,
Dell, Lenovo, and Samsung, plan to sell Windows RT tablets, too.
Price: Microsoft Surface RT $300-$800.

Nintendo 3DS XL and Wii U

Nindento 3DS XL. Photo courtesy Nintendo of America Inc.

Game consoles and games are always welcome gifts, and Nintendo has the novelty edge this season with two new products. Its 3DS XL is a larger version of its 3DS handheld console, and the Wii U console (on sale November 18) has an innovative touch-screen controller called the GamePad that works as a handheld game machine when your TV is off.
Price: 3DS XL $200; Wii U $300 (basic), $350 (deluxe).

Apple MacBook Air

Apple MacBook Air. Photo courtesy Apple Inc.

The ultra-slim Apple MacBook Air is a top tech pick among well-heeled gift-givers, but a new crop of Windows 8 Ultrabooks merit a closer look. Thin and light like the MacBook Air but with a lower price tag, Ultrabooks are easy to carry and turn on instantly like a smartphone or tablet. One notable and affordable example is the Lenovo IdeaPad U310, which is 0.7-inch thick and weighs 3.7 pounds. Future Ultrabooks will feature touchscreens with the touch-and-swipe capabilities of mobile devices. This may raise the question, are such devices more tablet than laptop? (Fortunately that’s not your problem.)
Price: MacBook Air $1,000-$1,500; Windows 8 Ultrabooks $800 (average price); Lenovo IdeaPad U310 $704.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight

Nook Simple Touch GlowLight. Photo Courtesy Barnes & Noble Inc.

Bookworm on your shopping list? Barnes & Noble’s Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight solves a major shortcoming of non-backlit eReaders: Namely that the screen is very difficult to read in a dimly lit environment. As its name suggests, the product has a backlight that you turn on or off, making reading a whole heck of a lot easier in the sun or in the dark.
Price: $140.

LG Mouse Scanner

LG Mouse Scanner. Photo courtesy LG USA.

If you’re shopping for something truly unique, the LG Mouse Scanner is a computer mouse and scanner in one device: Simply click its scan button and roll the mouse across documents, magazine pages, photos, or anything else you’d like to digitize. It converts scanned text into editable Word documents, too.
Price: $130.

Canon EOS M

Canon EOS M. Photo courtesy Canon Inc.

As with all things tech, the camera market is changing rapidly. With the improved quality of smartphone cameras, there’s a drop in demand for basic point-and-shoot cameras, notes Yung Trang, president and editor-in-chief of TechBargains.com. But premium SLR cameras are still in high demand. For example, the Canon EOS M offers super high resolution, better lenses, and it allows even amateurs to take professional quality photos and video.
Price: $800.

Google Nexus 7

Google Nexus 7. Photo courtesy Google Inc.

Shopping for a tablet, but trying to stick to a budget? The Google Nexus 7 is an affordable, high-quality product with a bright 7-inch screen; a 1.2-megapixel, front-facing camera; and Android Beam, an NFC feature that’s handy for exchanging information wirelessly with compatible devices. Other 7-inch tablets to check out include new versions of the popular Amazon Kindle Fire
and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet.
Price: Google Nexus 7 $200-$250; Amazon Kindle Fire $160-$600; Nook Tablet $180-$200.

Samsung Galaxy S III

Samsung Galaxy S III. Photo courtesy Samsung.

Looking for an Android phone? The Samsung Galaxy S III boasts a gorgeous (and ginormous) 4.8-inch display, yet fits comfortably in one’s hand. Slim and stylish, the handset has a slightly curved shape, supports 4G LTE networks, and includes a great 8-megapixel, rear-facing camera.
Price: $200 with a 2-year contract from multiple carriers.

Apple iPhone 5

Apple iPhone 5. Photo courtesy Apple Inc.

Naturally the new Apple iPhone 5 will be at the top of many “Dear Santa” letters. Its 4-inch, high-resolution display is slightly longer but not wider than the 3.5-inch screens of previous iPhones. This sleek, aluminum-and-glass handset supports speedy 4G LTE cellular connections, has better front- and rear-facing cameras, and adds a few bells and whistles, such as spoken driving directions with turn-by-turn navigation.
Price: $200 with a 2-year contract from multiple carriers.

Apple iPad

Apple iPad. Photo courtesy Apple Inc.

Finally, the third-generation Apple iPad and its predecessor the iPad 2 remain at the head of the tablet pack. The latest model has a dazzling high-res screen, a better rear-facing camera, and the Siri voice assistant popularized by those ubiquitous, and, to some, annoying, TV ads. (Look for Apple to debut a smaller iPad very soon.)
Price: Apple iPad $500-$830; iPad 2 $400-$530.

Your Ultimate Hi-Tech Gift Guide The Saturday Evening Post

From left, Apple MacBook Air, Lenovo IdeaPad U310, and Samsung Series 5 14.0” Ultra.

Laptops today are undergoing a dramatic makeover. These slimmer, sleeker, portable PCs promise longer battery life, faster performance, and (yes!) less back and shoulder strain.

Any discussion of ultra-thins must start with Apple’s MacBook Air (apple.com/macbookair), the iconic, razor-thin portable that famously slides inside a manila envelope. The Air is both durable and light; and since it uses flash memory to store files rather than a spinning hard disk, it’s a lot quieter, too. The Air exemplifies Apple’s attention to detail. Its backlit keyboard, for instance, automatically illuminates in low-light conditions. The 11- and 13-inch models start at $1,000 and $1,200, respectively.

The MacBook Air’s popularity spurred Windows PC makers to create Air-like laptops called “Ultrabooks,” a term coined by chip-maker giant Intel. An Ultrabook shares many of the Air’s most desirable attributes: less than an inch thick; 3- to 4-pound weight; the ability to turn on instantly like a smartphone or tablet; and battery life of 5 to 9 hours. Top-tier laptop makers, including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba, sell Ultrabooks today, and many more models are coming soon.

Most Ultrabooks lack a DVD drive, which isn’t a problem for most users. With the advent of streaming audio and video, as well as cloud services that back up your files online, discs are rapidly going the way of floppies.

“I think eventually all notebooks will become slim,” says Bob O’Donnell, computer analyst for IDC, a technology research firm. He predicts the average selling price for Ultrabooks will be around $800 by the end of 2012.

In fact, many Ultrabooks are already there. Lenovo’s stylish IdeaPad U310 ($800; lenovo.com) has a 13.3-inch display, weighs 3.75 pounds, and is available in a trio of fashion-forward colors, including Cherry Blossom, Aqua Blue, and Graphite Gray. The battery lasts up to 7 hours.

The Samsung Series 5 14.0” Ultra ($800; samsung.com) weighs less than 4 pounds and features a 14-inch display. This sleek notebook somehow manages to squeeze in a DVD drive, too.

The VIZIO Thin + Light ($900 to $1,250; vizio.com) has an aluminum frame and a clean, minimalist look that rivals (some might say copies) the MacBook Air’s sleek aesthetic. Available with a 14- or 15.6-inch screen, the Thin + Light weighs 3.4 or 4 pounds and runs 5.5 to 7 hours between charges, depending on the model.

The newest Ultrabooks add something most laptops don’t have: a touchscreen. Why? Because Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system, which debuts this fall, is built to run on both PCs and touchscreen tablets. New laptops such as the Acer Aspire S7 let you navigate the screen in two ways: using traditional touchpad and keyboard commands or by tapping the screen as you would with a smartphone or tablet. It remains to be seen, however, if touch commands on a laptop make sense, particularly if it means holding your arm in an elevated position for hours on end.

Meet the Ultrabooks The Saturday Evening Post

As we approach the holiday season, many people will begin planning their end-of-year vacations. Perhaps you’re contemplating a trip to somewhere warm or traveling to see your loved ones. Either way, it’s a good time to start thinking about where you want to go—and how much money you have to spend.

Timing is everything when it comes to travel. Everybody knows that buying airfares in advance will save you big bucks—but how far in advance should you make the bookings? Are there any special days or times you should be hitting the airline websites? There are more myths and rumors surrounding this topic than just about anything else to do with travel, but we’ve done the research. When you’re looking to book, keep these tips in mind.

The 21-day advance
If you have the ability to book your flight more than 21 days before your departure, you have a great chance to scoop the biggest savings. Many airlines use a discount cycle that increases incrementally—the closer to the date, the more you’ll pay.

Can’t make 21 days? Obviously, giving the most notice possible is advised, but many airlines use additional discount tiers with intervals of 14 days, seven days, and three days. Booking on the day of your flight can sometimes result in absolute last-minute bargains, but more often, it will leave you waiting for someone else to cancel.

Tuesday and Wednesday
Traditionally, these are the cheapest days to travel by plane. Vacationers have returned from their weekend destinations, and most people who travel for work have headed off on Monday. By Thursday and Friday, people have started taking their long weekends, and the end of the week is the most convenient for most people to travel, which means it’s also the most expensive.

If you have the flexibility to travel on Tuesday or Wednesday, you can save money on flights, as cheaper rates will often still be available right up until a few days before take-off. An added bonus: Because the plane will be less full, the chances of you having an empty seat next to you is higher, and airline staff are often more attentive, as there are fewer people to check on.

The stroke of midnight
A persistent myth suggests that Wednesday at midnight is the golden time to book your flights. If it’s not Wednesday, it’s midnight Thursday or midnight Friday. There are just as many people who swear by these times as there are those who think it’s ridiculous.

However, some airlines do send out fare updates three times per weekday (and once each on Saturday and Sunday). If you’re a believer that the early bird gets the cheap tickets, head to your airline’s website just after 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday. On weekends, the data is updated for each airline at 5 p.m. Eastern but not uploaded to the website until midnight the following day.

Friday’s all right
While the Wednesday night argument has been debunked as often as it has been proven, there is another day to keep an eye on. At the end of each week, airlines often experiment with prices. Some may drop their airfares to see if the others follow suit. That doesn’t automatically make Friday the best day, though—other airfares can experiment the other direction by raising ticket prices to see if its competitors will do the same. Even if one airline drops its prices on Friday, rivals may not drop theirs until Monday or Tuesday.

Any day ending in ‘y’
Unfortunately, there are no hard-and-fast rules about when to snag the best airfares. Cheap tickets can be released at almost any time of day, any day of the week.

Rather than playing the calendar game, it’s often a much better idea to subscribe to your preferred airline’s online mailing list. The airlines send out discount deals, bonus offers, and occasionally package holiday information that isn’t offered to non-subscribers. Sign up for a few mailing lists and potentially a few aggregator websites as well, to keep your bases covered. A cheap flight’s a cheap flight, regardless of which carrier it’s with.

There are plenty of people who will sing the praises of last-minute bookings, and indeed, there are some bargains to be had. However, if you want to minimize your stress (and maximize your savings!), it’s often best to plan ahead.

Travel Mysteries: What’s the best time to book an airline ticket? The Saturday Evening Post

With today’s dependence on electronics for work, play, and just about anything to do with productivity, you may often find yourself staring at screens for more than 10 hours a day. With this in mind, it’s important to protect your eyes by minimizing harsh whites and enlarging text size in common programs, regardless of how old you are or how good your eyesight might be.

To lessen the long-term damage computer screens could cause to your eyes, or if your vision isn’t strong enough to read tiny text on your screen, try these tips for PC or Mac computers to make things easier on your oculars. Most of these tricks are simple enough that you won’t have to reinvent (or buy) the wheel. Running Windows 8? These tips apply as well.

1. Attack the problem at its source—drop your monitor brightness. Your screen is the culprit, so why not adjust it to fit your ergonomic needs? Your monitor should come with a how-to guide that will show you how to adjust brightness, contrast, color, and other features, allowing you to tweak these levels and reduce eyestrain. If you can’t find a guide, a brief search on Google for the screen’s manufacturer manual should prove fruitful. If you’re still unable to find any documentation for your monitor or television, all models come with buttons that allow the user to explore menu options that are often hidden. Experiment with these, and you should be able to reduce your monitor’s brightness levels in no time.

2. Invest in a pair of computer readers. Computer readers are glasses that have protective coatings on their lenses designed to lessen the harsh whites that screens can emit. Most readers have a magnifying effect, so you’re practically getting a two-for-one deal. Some companies such as Foster Grant produce readers as cheap as $30. If you’re looking for something a little more high-end and you’re willing to drop the cash, Gunnar Optiks makes a line of sturdy readers that are not only protective but stylish as well. Gunnar’s prescription program lets you combine vision correction with protection. Be wary, however, as the cheaper models can bite holes in your wallet; non-prescription Gunnar models range from $60 to $100.

3. Use the magnifiers. Microsoft is aware that sometimes computer text isn’t the easiest to read. Found with almost all versions of Windows, Magnifier is a versatile program that can enlarge certain parts of the screen wherever your mouse or keyboard cursor is located. If you have a Mac, use the included Zoom software to make reading text a little easier on the eyes.

4. Increase your browser display size. Most screens nowadays come in wide-screen format, and that doesn’t adapt well for documents. Browsers often display websites in a column fashion as well, leaving wide, empty margins. Remove the margins and zoom in on your page by holding down Control and scrolling up with your mouse until the page fits your monitor nicely. On the Mac side, you can increase most browser window sizes by pressing Command and + a few times.

5. Lower the desktop resolution. Your resolution is what makes up your screen in vertical and horizontal “lines.” The more lines the screen has, the smaller images and text will appear. By right-clicking on your desktop in Windows, you can adjust your screen resolution to a lower setting and make those images and text blocks pop. On a Mac, you can find a list of supported resolutions under the Apple logo, System Preferences, and then Display.

6. Increase the Windows text size. Windows 7 has an option to change the text and other items on-screen under the Display option under the Personalize menu, found by right-clicking on the desktop. This option is just limited to three settings: smaller, medium, and larger. Fortunately, an adjustment here should bode well for anyone trying to save their eyesight.

7. Give your eyes a break. Staring at a screen for too long certainly isn’t healthy and can give you computer vision syndrome, or CVS (not the pharmacy). If you find yourself locked onto a screen for too long, look away from the screen, focus on an item in the distance for approximately 10 to 20 seconds, and then focus on an item closer to you. Repeating this a few times should keep your eyes from getting tired.

8. Go outside! Being inside all day not only messes with your sleeping rhythms, it can also have an effect on your eyes. Expose your eyes to different levels of light. This can also kill the monotony of a day’s work at the office!

Whether you have poor or eagle-eyed eyesight, these steps can certainly help you keep the effects of long-term screen exposure at bay. They won’t prevent eyestrain completely, but combining all these steps will significantly save your eyes so you can keep staring at screens for several years to come.

8 Vision-Saving Tricks for Computer-Related Eyestrain The Saturday Evening Post

Let’s take a trip back to my childhood. The year was 1992, and “Too Legit to Quit” was still my favorite song. I had the stereotypical late ’80s boom box and carried the cassette tape (which I bought with my allowance, of course) around with me like a prized trophy. I even had a little dance to go along with song. I was cool (or at least I tell myself this), and life was good.

One hot summer day, my parents took me and my brothers down to the beach for some fun, and my music had to come along with me, despite my dear mother’s protests. The boom box was set down on the towel, and I ran off to play in the lake, kicking a plume of sand up behind me that went right into the boom box and ruined my precious childhood song.

The moral of this story? “Too Legit to Quit” was a terrible song, and I should have listened to my mother and not brought unprotected electronics to the beach.

Fortunately, there are some things you can do to keep your electronics safe out on the sand.

Ditch your camera

While that fancy $600 DSLR camera sure does take nice pictures, hauling it to the beach probably isn’t the best idea in the world. Besides exposing it to the elements, you never know who or what you’ll come across at the beach—or rather, who or what will come across you. No need to let some random young surfer-wannabe splash water on your camera.

Instead, pick up a relatively inexpensive waterproof camera. A waterproof device will be able to withstand the punishment of a kid-friendly environment, while giving you the peace of mind that your expensive investment isn’t going to get damaged. Check out our advice on waterproof cameras for some ideas.

Think waterproof

It might seem like overkill, but a waterproof case can be indispensible for a day at the beach. Not only is it going to protect your phone against those accidental swims in the ocean friends are often wont to impose, but it’s also going to make sure that no sand gets in your phone.

The best way to pick up a case is to hit your local sporting goods store for a quick fix, or hop on Amazon if you’ve got a couple days to wait for delivery. Just do an Amazon search for “waterproof cases iPhone” (or whatever your phone is) and you’ll get a bunch of great results.

A couple things to keep in mind though. First, be ready to spend between $35 and $50 for one. Any less and I wouldn’t recommend it, since you might be getting an inferior product (and you don’t want to take that chance with your $600 smartphone). You should also be willing to get a waterproof case that doesn’t exactly match your device, especially if you need to pick one up right now at the sporting goods store. There are cases which are waterproof that work just fine with an iPhone inside them, and generally run a bit cheaper than cases meant specifically for the iPhone.

An added benefit to the waterproof case is that you can—and should!—take your favorite gadgets hiking with you, safe and dry despite the elements.

Get some fresh air

We’ve all been there, out in nature with our cell phones when some dirt or other debris gets on it that we just can’t get off easily. When you’re at the beach, the key danger is sand, which isn’t a friend of any electronic device. It’s hard, coarse, and can easily damage fragile eletronics.

The best way to get sand out of your electronics is to blow your device clean with some compressed air. Don’t hold the air right up against your gadget. Instead, hold it back a foot or so; you want just enough air to be impactful but not so much that you’ll damage any sensitive components. You may have to give your device a couple blasts of air, but eventually, all the sand will make its way out—and onto your floor. (Another great tip: Do this outside in the garage.)

Remember the basics

And yes, the final item on our list is simply an umbrella. Why is such a basic item necessary for the high-tech aficionado? It’s simple, really. If you’re going to be out in the sun, then your devices are going to get hot—really hot. I recently found this out the hard way when spending the day relaxing by the pool with some co-workers. I reached for my iPhone, which despite being protected in a good case was not only burning-hot to the touch but also wouldn’t function. It even popped up an error message letting me know it needed to cool down.

When your phone is telling you to get some shade, it’s probably a good idea! So our last tip to protect your gadgets at the beach: keep ‘em cool and out of the sun!

And in case you you were wondering, my iPhone was so hot that we were able to watch a drop of water quickly evaporate off its screen. Now that’s a sunburn!

How to Keep your Gadgets Safe at the Beach The Saturday Evening Post

Some of these gems, from genre notables like Orwell and Huxley, hearken all the way back to the early 20th century. Others, such as the best of Stephenson and Gibson, offer a contemporary escape from the everyday. These aren’t just beach reads, though, as all of them will challenge the way you view your world and prepare you for what’s coming next.

Dune

Forget that awful David Lynch movie. And forget the SyFy channel miniseries. If you want the full measure of Frank Herbert’s Dune, which is widely considered one of the greatest sci-fi yarns ever written, go directly to the source. The original novel was published in 1965, and it told a tale of young Paul Atreides and his transformation into the prophetic savior of the Fremen known as Muad’dib.

Herbert’s masterwork melded environmentalism, politics, and high adventure into a rousing tale that still resonates decades later. Dune also won the inaugural Nebula Award, which is given annually to sci-fi’s best of the best by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

1984

Regardless of your political persuasion, we can probably all agree on the fact that it’s getting positively Orwellian out there when it comes to American politics. 1984 is thus a timely read and an essential one, both for its harrowing account of protagonist and unwilling propagandist Winston Smith and its frighteningly plausible fictionalizations like Newspeak and Big Brother.

One part science fiction and two parts political satire, George Orwell’s magnum opus magnified popular culture notions of surveillance and state-sponsored encroachment on individual rights—and it did all of this way back in 1949.

It’s double-plus-good.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

You’ve no doubt heard of the movie Blade Runner. You may not have heard of the novel on which it’s based. Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? debuted in 1968, but it wasn’t until Harrison Ford brought main character Rick Deckard to life in director Ridley Scott’s 1982 big-screen classic that Dick and his substantial body of work entered the popular consciousness.

If you’re familiar with the film and you’re expecting a similar, if more detailed experience from the source novel, you’re in for a surprise. Novel Deckard’s motivations are much more complex than those of his film counterpart, and he spends much of the text questioning everything from his orders to “retire” renegade replicants to the ways in which war and extinction have altered humanity’s philosophical and religious views.

Snow Crash

Summing up Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash in a couple of paragraphs is basically impossible, but we’re going to give it a shot. Stephenson is something of a folk hero in the hardcore computer nerd community, and this book is one reason why. It’s also a fun read even if you’re not a super-genius like the author and many of his fans. 

Snow Crash posits that the ancient Sumerian language is in fact a sort of programming language for the human brain stem, which in turn functions much like a BIOS chip for the brain. If you think that sounds wacky, just wait until the goddess Asherah shows up as the personification of a virus, the antidote to which is to make humanity speak different languages.

Stephenson doesn’t stop with this retelling of the Tower of Babel story, though. He also gives us a sword-fighting, pizza-delivering main character named Hiro Protagonist and a wisecracking young street urchin named Y.T. who is fond of “pooning” cars (“poon” being short for the harpoon with which Stephenson’s skateboard couriers attach themselves to moving vehicles to travel across town).

Watchmen

Here’s one for those of you who like pictures more than you like words. Technically, Watchmen is a graphic novel, but that didn’t stop Time Magazine from naming the limited edition comic series to its 100 best English-language novels list.

If you’ve seen director Zack Snyder’s 2009 film adaptation, you have a pretty good idea of what you’re in for should you decide to read the original comic. It’s long, ambitious, and decidedly darker than your average superhero epic. It’s no exaggeration to say that Watchmen is one of those seminal works that transcends the trappings of its genre. Though comics have tackled adult themes and psychological drama in the years following its 1986 publication, Alan Moore’s prose and Dave Gibbons’ illustrations led the way, and Watchmen continues to influence a generation of comic book writers, artists, and filmmakers.

Brave New World

If Orwell’s 1984 was a cautionary tale about totalitarian excess, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was a meditation on the opposite extremes of pleasurable passivity and egotism. The novel is set in the year 2540, but it explores hot-button issues that were foremost on the minds of Huxley’s 20th-century readers and critics.

The novel, published in 1932, was seen as Huxley’s reaction to an America that was literally changing the world following the Industrial Revolution. He made no attempt to hide the sources of inspiration for many of the novel’s characters, and fictional individuals such as Henry Foster (modeled after assembly line pioneer Henry Ford) and Bernard Marx (a hybrid of George Bernard Shaw and Karl Marx) served as avenues to explore Huxley’s views on Americanization and social upheaval.

In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, critic Neil Postman contrasts Huxley and Orwell and arrives at what we feel is a pretty succinct summary of Brave New World as a whole. “Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us,” Postman wrote.

Pattern Recognition

Yes, William Gibson is most famous for Neuromancer and for coining the term “cyberspace.” His works have influenced thousands of artists and engineers, and some critics have even gone as far as to credit him with inspiring the iconography of the world wide web and the internet itself. That said, one of his best novels is 2003′s Pattern Recognition, which is also the first of his books to be set in the contemporary world.

Pattern Recognition, as its title implies, is largely concerned with the human desire to derive meaning from bits of data. This desire is given physical form in the character of Cayce Pollard, a 30-something marketing consultant who is tasked with finding and hiring the creators of a film clip that has gone viral on the internet. The novel is part detective story and part postmodern pop culture meditation. It’s also Gibson’s most affecting and humanistic work to date.

7 Classic Sci-Fi Novels for your Summer Reading List The Saturday Evening Post

While Yelp’s a handy little thing, claiming the broadest range of restaurants in its database, sometimes it’s refreshing to try something a little different. We’ve rounded up six of the best food-spotters, including a couple you might not have heard of.

1. Urbanspoon

Admittedly, this app is almost as well-known as Yelp, but it comes with such a great gimmick that we couldn’t leave it out. If you don’t know quite what you want to eat, Urbanspoon’s “shake” feature makes the decision for you by randomly picking a restaurant from the area to match your criteria.

In addition to that handy feature, the database itself is well stocked with information on all sorts of local eateries, including reviews from fellow diners and professional critics. Urbanspoon is really the granddaddy of dining apps—it has been around since the iPhone App Store launched in 2008.

Download: Urbanspoon for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Kindle Fire
Price: Free

2. Zagat to Go

This is the most pricey app on the list, coming in at $10 for iPhone and iPad users and $25 for Android users. It’s important to realize just what you get for your money—this isn’t just another variation of the same features offered by everything else.

Based on the best-selling Zagat books (which retail for about $15), this app compiles the same amount of information that you would find in 45 individual city guides. That includes detailed info on each of Zagat’s rated restaurants, of course!

It also features one very, very handy feature that makes it well worth the price of admission: offline mode. When you’re traveling overseas or somewhere without access to 3G service or Wi-Fi, offline mode is invaluable. All of the information you need is stored directly on your phone, so you can search, browse, and choose to your heart’s content.

Download: Zagat to Go for iPhone, iPad, and Android
Price: $9.99 for iOS; free for Android (but $24.95/year after a six-month free trial)

3. Eat St.

Taking a slightly different approach to searching for eateries, Eat St. comes courtesy of Food Network, which has created a searchable database to help you find the best food trucks and street food in your city. Perfect for your inner foodie hipster, the GPS-enabled app shows map locations for stationary food carts plus any mobile trucks that pop up from time to time. (It’s worth noting that the accuracy may vary for mobile units.)

Where possible, detailed vendor information is provided, including menus and even Twitter contact details, plus the ever-helpful specials and deals on offer.

Download: Eat St. for iPhone and iPad
Price: Free

4. LocalEats

If you’re not a fan of big-name, multinational corporations’ sticking their fingers into your burgers, then this is the app for you. LocalEats only provides information about dining locations that are truly local—not a national chain to be found.

In addition to searching by price range and operating hours, you can even get really crunchy and look for the best local vegetarian eateries. With this in mind, LocalEats is ideal for people who like to try new things, find unique places, and get to know a city’s hidden highlights. If you just want a Big Mac, you’re going to have to keep looking.

Download: LocalEats for iPhone or iPad
Price: 99 cents for iPhone; free for iPad

5. OpenTable

One of the more practical apps on this list, OpenTable helps you find restaurants that have tables available at your chosen time. Enter the restaurant name to find out when tables are available, or enter a date and time to find places nearby that have a spot for you.

Well-suited to spontaneous types commonly in a “What’s for dinner?” quandary, OpenTable does have the ability to search in the future, but it’s better suited to people looking for somewhere to eat right now.

Download: OpenTable for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Windows Phone
Price: Free

6. Foodspotting

For fans of Pinterest, Flickr, and food porn in general, Foodspotting is a heavenly combination of social networking and photography, with a handy restaurant-finding app thrown in as well. When you load it up, you’re treated to images of dishes other people have submitted. If you’re in the mood for eye candy, you can simply browse the pretty pictures. Otherwise, filter things to show only the latest uploads, the nearest geotagged spots, or the “best” pictures as voted by the community.

It’s a twist on the traditional food finder, as you’re looking for specific dishes rather than restaurants—but sometimes you don’t realize you’re craving a slice of pie until you see it in front of you.

Download: Foodspotting for iPhone and iPad, Android, and Windows Phone
Price: Free

Looking to go off the beaten path?

After all that, if you’d like to find something a little more unusual for your next meal, turn to the masters of the Travel Channel, Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern, and your trusty iOS device. Regardless of which chef you’re more fond of, both Layover and The Bizarre Foods Locator will help you find tasty treats around the world.

Bourdain’s app, inspired by his hit show The Layover, shares his personal favorite hotels, bars, restaurants, and hot spots from 10 major cities. The Bizarre Foods Locator, on the other hand, has presented fans with a list of more than 700 restaurants that Zimmern has eaten at, complete with GPS locations, contact details, and menu suggestions.

Six Apps for Dining on Vacation The Saturday Evening Post

Couple taking pictures of themselves with mobile phone. Courtesy of Shutterstock.

1. Kayak

Kayak makes it easy to search for flights, hotels, and car rentals. And features a packing list maker. Track your flight, convert currency, and check out tours or attractions around your destination all in one app.

Download: Kayak for iPhone and iPad, Android, or Windows Phone.
Price: Free

2. TripAdvisor

Find travel information, customer reviews, and travel forums at TripAdvisor. You may find a bunch of Facebook friends are already on TripAdvisor writing reviews! Know before you go which restaurants and hotels are worth visiting. TripAdvisor posted reviews are delayed for verification, to minimize suspicious content and keep everyone honest. TripAdvisor also alerts the owner or manager of any establishment that receives a negative review.

Download: TripAdvisor for iPhone and iPad, Android, or Windows Phone.
Price: Free 

3. TripIt Travel Organizer

TripIt organizes your itineraries so there is no need to print them out. Just link your email account to TripIt, and TripIt will pick up every confirmation number you receive into your inbox. Whether it is a flight, hotel, or dinner reservation, as long as it contains a confirmation number, TripIt will organize everything into one easy-to-access itinerary. If there are any flight delays or last-minute changes sent to your email account, they will also be updated automatically.

Download: TripIt for iPhone and iPad, Android, or Windows Phone.
Price: Free 

4. Where

Eat. Drink. Play. There’s an app for that. Where uses the GPS chip inside your smartphone to create an all-purpose tool to take with you when you travel. Walk, drive, or fly, and Where will find your location and give you on-the-spot information on where to get cheap gas, what the weather will be like, movie showtimes, the best places to eat, traffic conditions, or news headlines. Browse the Yellow Pages or the Yelp directory.

Download: Where for iPhone, Android , or Windows Phone.
Price: Free 

5. MapQuest

Even if you’re not venturing far from home, it’s always good to have a GPS system with you just in case, and MapQuest is the best free app for that. MapQuest makes it easy to find hotels, restaurants, gas stations with prices, and coffee shops at your fingertips. Use the text search option to find less popular locations such as campsites. All locations are labelled along your route to make pit stops easier on the go.

Download: MapQuest for iPhone or Android.
Price: Free 

6. Google Translate

Google Translate saves you from not only buying a library of language books but carrying them around, as well. Google Translate offers over 50 languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish. Type in a phrase or a word, and have it translated on the spot. Google Translate will give you the written translation and the option to hear the phrase spoken. Newer versions of Google Translator Toolkit use human translators to translate entire documents.

Download: Google Translate for iPhone and iPad  or Android.
Price: Free

7. XE Currency

XE Currency calculates the conversions between more than 180 worldwide currencies. Access live foreign exchange rates, up-to-date currency news, and historical rates. You can also choose to receive email updates with currency rates and news or follow the economic indicators calendar. Use XE Currency to create and track comparison charts and to calculate prices even in remote areas.

Download: XE Currency for iPhone and iPad, Android, or Windows Phone.
Price: Free

8. Urbanspoon

Shake up your next great meal, literally. Just give your mobile device a shake and watch nearby restaurants fill your screen like a slot machine. Urbanspoon uses the GPS on your smartphone to pick popular local restaurants throughout the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia.

Download: Urbanspoon for iPhone, iPad, or Android.
Price: Free

9. Wikitude

Wikitude turns your smartphone into a virtual tour guide. Point your smartphone camera at a monument, landmark, or street view, and the augmented reality guide overlays user-contributed content onto the image, putting a wealth of information about the view at your fingertips. Wikitude matches your position to the landmarks you point the camera at and tells you about them.

Download: Wikitude for iPhone and iPad  or Android.
Price: Free

10. Postagram

Postcards for a new generation, Postagram turns sending touristy postcards with clichéd phrases into a cool piece of mail for your family and friends to receive while you’re gone. Just take a photo using your smartphone, and the Postagram app does the rest. Postagram prints your photo onto a postcard along with the mailing address and message you provide from your device, then sends it through the mail. Without even doing so much as buying a stamp, you can send Postcards from all over the world.

Download: Postagram for iPhone  or Android.
Price: Free plus 99 cents per postcard

Ten Handy Vacation Apps The Saturday Evening Post

Landscaper’s Companion

With 15,000-plus pictures and information on more than 25,000 plants, this app is a virtual encyclopedia of gardening. Want the specifics on a plant’s sun exposure, water usage, growth rate, and bloom times? Comprehensive search tools make these facts easy to find. The app currently lacks information on tropicals and orchids, but we expect this to be remedied soon, as the developer periodically adds additional plants and images for free.
Price: $2.99 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch and $4.99 for Android devices.

Grow Your Own

How do I know when my blueberries are going to be ripe? How can I keep aphids away from my roses? This handy app from the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) provides essential advice for part-time farmers. Grow Your Own steps you through the growing process month-by-month, recommending the best times to plant, prune, weed, mulch, and harvest, depending on the crop. And if you need to buy seeds and supplies, the app’s “Buy Now” button links directly to the RHS Online Plant Shop. Hey, the app is free, and they’ve got to earn a living somehow.
Price: Free for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

Bugs in the Garden

Blast those infernal bugs! If you need help ID’ing the creepy crawlies devouring your daffodils, Bugs in the Garden can help. With more than 40 photos and illustrations of beetles, moths, aphids, caterpillars, grubs, and other common bugs, this app helps you spot troublesome and beneficial insects alike. It also includes tips on how to attract helpful bugs (like ladybugs) and send the bad ones packing.
Price: Free for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch and Android devices.

FlowerPedia

If you’re a flower person, this app’s for you. There are three versions of FlowerPedia. The free “lite” version has 100 high-resolution flower photos and limited information on flowering plant families from around the globe. The iPhone edition is far more comprehensive: 2,800 flower images; a search tool for finding flowers by common name, Latin name, and country and state/province; and the ability to identify flowers by their anatomy. The $9.99 iPad version is the most beautiful of the trio, with larger, dazzling photos that turn your tablet into a coffee-table flower book.
Price: Free “lite” version; $4.99 for iPhone; $9.99 for iPad.

Moon Gardening

This visually appealing app is useful if you want our nearest celestial neighbor (i.e., the Moon) to guide your gardening practices. Lifeware Solutions’ Moon Gardening brings this ancient practice to modern times by offering time-tested growing tips, such as the best times to plant, prune, weed, and harvest crops based on the current Moon phase in your area. It’s a bit scant on details, though. For instance, Moon Gardening has too many links to outside sources on the topic, rather than providing the information itself. It’s fun to use, however, particularly if you’re curious about the Moon’s phases.
Price: $1.99 for iPad.

Garden Plan Pro

As gardening apps go, Growing Interactive’s Garden Plan Pro is a tad pricey, but its planting toolkit is much more comprehensive than most garden-variety guides. The app’s extensive design tools let you create a simple garden with single plants—or far more sophisticated projects with fruits and vegetables planted in multiple rows and/or squares. Garden Plan Pro has detailed growing information for more than 140 plants, and offers sage advice on how to rotate crops. The app takes a bit of practice to master, however, so be sure to watch the tutorial video before getting your hands dirty.
Price: $19.99 for iPad.

Grow 2.0 The Saturday Evening Post

Photo by Tyler Olson via Shutterstock.

Due to rapid advances in technology over the last few years, maintaining a broadband connection has become essential for many of us in our daily lives. Streaming more HD movies, downloading music, and using data-heavy video chat services like Skype and FaceTime can make basic broadband speeds seem a bit sluggish.

Luckily, you do have some options to choose from. We’ve taken a look at three of the larger broadband providers in the country—Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon—to show you some options if you would like to dramatically increase your internet speeds.

How fast is my broadband now?

The average speed that Americans get from their home internet service is 5.8 megabits per second (Mbps). Those numbers may seem decent, but those speeds place the United States in 13th place worldwide, behind countries like Latvia, the Czech Republic, and Romania. Even the city with the fastest internet service in America, Boston, Massachusetts, only averages 8.4Mbps—a speed that wouldn’t place it in the top 50 cities worldwide.

America’s slow broadband speeds aren’t due to lack of availability but a lack of knowledge among cable companies’ customers. Cable companies push low-end broadband packages, because they are usually cheaper—and much slower. For instance, most Verizon customers don’t have a clue that Verizon offers broadband with speeds of 300Mbps on June 17—the fastest broadband connection in the country, fast enough to download a two-hour HD movie in under two minutes.

What are my high-speed options?

Photo by Tyler Olson via Shutterstock.

Aside from Verizon’s world-class offering (which costs $204 a month), there are other extremely fast options from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.

Coming in right behind Verizon’s highest broadband package is a 150Mbps offering that costs $94 a month. Another option is an $84-a-month plan that will get you speeds of 75Mbps. Be aware of the hidden costs with Verizon; all of these prices are contingent upon a two-year contract (if you don’t sign, the price goes up $5 a month, plus you have to pay a $100 equipment fee) as well as Verizon’s home phone service (another $5-a-month surcharge if you don’t have it).

Time Warner Cable also has faster options for you, but they are nowhere near what Verizon is offering. Time Warner’s highest offering is $79 a month, which gets you speeds of 50Mbps for your home internet needs. For $49 and $39 a month, you can get speeds of 30Mbps and 20Mbps, respectively. All of these prices are promotional and will rise after the first year.

Comcast does offer higher speeds than Time Warner Cable, but it comes at a premium. At 105Mbps, Comcast’s fastest option comes in at $199 a month, $5 cheaper than Verizon’s highest option, which offers speeds nearly three times as fast. For $115 a month with Comcast, you will get speeds of 50Mbps, while $72 a month will bring you speeds of 30Mbps.

Is it worth it?

If you live by yourself and are not an avid internet user, you may not need this kind of speed. But if you live with techies or have teenagers who are constantly on the internet, it will definitely come in handy.

Even with all of the advances in technology, your broadband connection shares a trait with your water heater—if everyone uses the hot water at the same time, the water will lose heat more quickly than it would otherwise. The same is true with broadband. If you are streaming Netflix and surfing the web on your iPad, your 5Mbps internet connection will take much longer to download that large file than it usually does.

If you are experiencing slow speeds or just want a faster connection, a super-fast internet connection is definitely worth paying for. If you do choose to upgrade, you will miss out on all the fun of buffering Netflix shows, slow-loading YouTube clips, and long waits for file downloads—but we’re sure you’ll find something to do with all that free time.

Is It Worth Paying For Super-Fast Internet In Your Home? The Saturday Evening Post

Of course you don’t need cable or satellite to get basic network channels. When the U.S. transitioned to digital TV in 2009, broadcast channels got a major makeover with dramatically better picture resolution, color, and clarity. Today’s over-the-air TV is a different animal from the bygone days of fuzzy signals sent to rabbit ears that your grandfather had to hold onto to keep any picture at all. Digital TV is very good—if you can get it. To find out what your digital TV reception is like, go to the FCC’s DTV Reception Map at fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps and enter your zip code.

Cord-cutting is an easy way to save money, but it’s not for everyone. Without cable, you’ll have to work a little harder—or wait a little longer—to watch certain shows. First, you’ll need the right equipment, including a home broadband Internet connection, a Wi-Fi router—both of which you probably already have—and a video-streaming box such as Roku ($50 to $100), which wirelessly sends HD-quality video and audio from the Internet to your TV. You may already have a media streamer in your home and not know it. Many Blu-ray players, game consoles, and other Internet-connected TV peripherals have Wi-Fi streaming built in. Other streaming options include Apple TV ($100), a hockey puck-sized device handy for renting movies and TV shows from iTunes, Netflix, YouTube, and other online services. Apple TV works much like Roku but has fewer channels. For dedicated iTunes users, Apple’s set-top box is handy because it streams your iTunes music, movies, and TV shows to an HDTV.
Google TV is another option. Unlike Apple TV and Roku, Google TV isn’t a set-top box but software that brings online content including Netflix, Hulu Plus,and even full websites (which you navigate with a wireless keyboard, tablet, or other mobile device) to your television. A handful of TVs and peripherals including the Sony Internet TV (starting at around $900) and Sony Internet TV 3D Blu-ray player ($230) have Google TV built-in.

Watching Internet TV is much the same as the cable/broadcast experience, with a few differences. Say you have a Roku box and a Netflix subscription ($8 per month for unlimited movies and TV shows) and want to watch Mad Men. Using your included Roku remote you launch Netflix and select Mad Men from a drop down menu. The catch with Netflix is that it offers only past seasons of shows. The service has seasons 1 through 4 of Mad Men but not the current season 5. And Netflix typically doesn’t have theatrical films just out on DVD. What to do? Using your Roku remote, change the channel to Amazon Instant Video, which rents individual episodes of TV shows and just-released movies at prices ranging from $1 to $5. These costs are an annoyance, for sure, but for most viewers they’ll add up to a lot less than the monthly cable bill.

Caveats? None of these approaches match the convenience of live cable TV. You’ll be relying on a smorgasbord of programming from different sources, which takes planning and thought. If you like to sit back and flip through channels, cutting the cord is not for you. But if you’re willing to take a more active role in searching for programs, you may be ready to take the leap.

Get tips on how to buy a TV today at saturdayeveningpost.com/television.

Save $1,000 Per Year on Cable The Saturday Evening Post