Tuesday, May 5, 2009

My Killa App

I find it so difficult today to keep up with my schedule of television shows that missing an episode has become second nature to me. I decided I wanted to have more control over the addiction I have with my television shows to know when they will be airing new or repeated episodes since the networks change their line up of shows and airing of new episodes constantly. I searched around in need to find something that will help me organize my television-watching schedule and found a widget called TV Forecast. This application is a product of Apple and developed by Big Bucket.

This widget is simple and easy to manage; by downloading this, it becomes a tool easily accessible to you in your Mac OS X Dashboard. Not only does this widget allow you to keep track of all of your favorite television shows, but it allows you to see the next air date for each show, which is extremely helpful for the shows that are not aired every week. It also provides a countdown until the next time the show airs, and a link to either watch the episode from TVRage or purchase it from the iTunes store. But don’t worry you PC lovers because this application is not only created for Mac’s but for Intel, and PowerPC based Mac’s as well. Computer users are not the only ones who get to experience the TV Forecast those with the iPhone do as well, for a small fee of $2.99.

After first downloading this widget it appears in your dashboard to allow you to add all of the television shows that you want it to keep track of. They appear as a list with count down days until the next airing of the show. By clicking on the television show on the dashboard widget it leads you to TVRage.com; here you can explore the episode list, guide, forum, stats, quizzes, tidbits, cast, crew, pictures, and reviews related to each episode. Here on TVRage you can also sign up for free to be a member which allows you to have access to everything that is available to those without a member account except for the ability to create a personal blog and profile to voice your opinion about the different episodes.

The way that this widget functions is you have to type in the television show that you are looking for, and choose your time zone. Then you have the ability to choose from a list of functions for your TV Forecast; they include TV shows that are TBA, perform time zone correction, refresh forecast automatically, and link to the iTunes Store.

I have even downloaded this widget to be on my dashboard so whenever I want to find out what shows are new or on that week I just click F12 and I am immediately able to have that information given to me.

Jason Clarke wrote up a review for the Download Squad website and stated that,

“this interface is simple, clean and uses minimum space while it gives you maximum application”



This widget has been around since October 2005, but constantly found itself in trouble while it was linked to TV.com. Apple continuously found themselves to be in trouble with their viewers since the TV.com site would constantly be down and not allow for any access to the television shows. It was not until April 1, 2009 when Apple and Big Bucket decided to change forces and join up with TVRage. Here they have not experienced half as much trouble that they did with TV.com. According to Big Bucket,

“TVRage is much faster. The reason: No more screen scraping. No more modifying the widget every time there is a markup change. That’s a huge relief.”

Many viewers have also voiced their opinion of how happy they are to have TV Forecast be switched to TVRage by leaving comments on the Big Bucket site.

One of TVRage’s main competitors is Hulu.com, here on Hulu they provide their viewers with the opportunity to choose through a larger variety of television shows, but are not provided with the ability to learn more about the shows through other links. Some of the shows on TVRage do not let you view any episodes and only provide the ability to read about them or watch the trailers. Although Hulu may have some shows that TVRage does not, those with the TV Forecast widget will check their dashboard first since it is easily available for them to access.

A review titled Track Your TV Shows lists the Pro’s and Con’s for this widget. It lists the Pro’s as being,

“an attractive interface, easy to use, and iTunes store links to past episodes”

Some of the Con’s are,

“frequently breaks, limited features in iPhone application for the price, it does not intergrate with iCal”


Most of the time I think what is the purpose of some of these widgets but this one makes perfect sense why it was created, and provides a type of organization for their users. The iTunes store also is able to make money by having the ability to easily access the television show through the click of the mouse to their store online.

Now you are probably all wondering why I picked a widget like this to persuade you into downloading. Well my reasons are simple, for one I think that this widget is a great organization tool to stay on top of all of your shows. I also wanted to share another way that television viewers are accessing their shows in places other than on the television.

Now I know that I have convinced all of you to try out this widget so I have created a simple step-by-step process, on Prezi, of how this TV Forecast works just by clicking on the link provided, http://prezi.com/31857/. Here you will see visualize images of how to set up this widget to be on your dashboard, and take full advantages of its uses. The self-explanatory screen shots allow for a quick and easy understanding of why this widget is so useful, and how it can become part of your life. The first screen shot image is of the Apple download page, here you can see all of the Apple widgets that are available to download, but by typing “TV Forecast” into the search engine in leads you to a page that provides information about the widget and all of the perks it has to offer for its users. After downloading this application it immediately becomes added onto your dashboard for Mac users. There you create a list of all of your favorite television shows that you want to keep track of, simply by typing in the name of the show and selecting done. By clicking on the title of the show it takes you to TVRage’s page with information about that show. Some of the sites where you cannot watch the episode provide you with written up analysis and reviews of each episode. Instead of this you can also click on “buy” to have it redirect you to iTunes page where you can buy the episode to watch at your leasiure. An example of Desperate Housewives is then shown as an example of an episode being purchased and then watched from iTunes.

Go ahead and check out my presentation and have this widget be apart of your television viewing life too!

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