NHL Game Center: Cost & Blackout Restrictions

If you are a hockey fan but don't have much love for the cost of NHL Game Center Live or the Blackout restrictions, I've got a couple of tricks to help you see the games you want for much cheaper that the actual publicized cost.

Cheaper Access:
First, NHL Game Center Live allows you to see all of the NHL games during the season, online. This includes: Android, iPhone, Web Browser and many other tools for you viewing pleasure. But for me, paying a hefty cost of $160 for the season or $18.99 a month for 8 months seems like a lot. If you would like to get Game Center for a reduced cost, use a VPN. If you sign up for Game Center from another country except for Canada or the US, you will only pay $99 for the year or $19.99 for 5 payments, a savings of $60 a year.

How to do this:
A VPN allows you to connect through the web and your IP (location) be shown as if you are located somewhere else. I use Strong VPN (see below) and it allows you a secure connection through many different countries for a very low yearly cost. Also with Strong VPN you can set your VPN up on many different platforms and systems. Once you get it installed, you will need to connect and make sure your connection is shown as somewhere else besides Canada or the US, I selected Britain. Once you do this you can now use your browser to connect to NHL Game Center site and the cost will be now be $99.99 for the year or $19.99 for 5 months. Click on the option you prefer and fill in your info. And yes it will accept your Canadian or American credit card with your North American address. 

Stong VPN - Unlimited access $55 / year.

I also use my Strong VPN for many other items as well, including:

• Connecting to the US Netflix;
• Secure Private internet access in the airport and coffee shops;
• To get Hulu in Canada;
• Download apps for my phone that are only available in other countries;
• Ordering items from sites that restrict access based on location.

But it also saved me $60 off of NHL Game Center so that last stuff is just a bonus. See how you can connect Strong to your systems.

Blackout Restrictions:

Second, if you’re like me, you follow the Senators but live in the Senators market; you are subject to Blackout restrictions, meaning games will be blocked if you are in the Senators market area. There are a couple of ways around this:

    VPN: See above on how to connect to a VPN;
    Android 4.3 permissions;

Android Permissions:
In Android 4.3 you can view and change any permissions set on an app. When you install an app it asks for permissions to do different things on your phone in the background. One of these permissions for the NHL Game Center app is to allow your location to be shared with the app. This is used to know where you are located to limit or blackout games in your area that are broadcasted on the TV.

Now since I am paying for a service, I don’t like to be limited to what I can see based on where I am located especially since I want to watch my Senator games in the Ottawa area. So in Android 4.3 you can view each individual app and choose specific permissions of that app and turn them on or off. You can use "App Ops Starter" to get to the permissions. If you edit the NHL Game Center app permissions you can turn off Location Sharing and now you will no longer be blacked out of any games. In older versions of Android you can also accomplish this if your phone is rooted.

Christmas and New Years 2012/2013

I seem to say it every time I post a new post here that I haven't done it in a while and I will try to write more, so here I am saying it again with a new post full of a lot of information.

So where do I begin, December was a busy month with the typical work/personal Christmas parties throughout the month, I was also able to score myself a new phone the much hyped and difficult to get, Google Nexus 4. I was able to get a order placed on Google through much F5ing to get the page to work properly. I think Google will need to get their act together the next time they decide to do a product launch. After waiting two weeks after the order was placed I received my shiny new +Google phone and I must say it rocks and it is quite speedy. I hope* to do a full review of this in the near future but in the mean time do a quick Google Search to find more information on it. 

Christmas & Traveling

Santa has arrived

This Christmas we decided to do a bit of traveling and a short trip to my sisters in Bowmanville. We left on Christmas Eve after leaving work at 11 and made the short trip of three hours. We spent two nights and one day there since we had to be back for work on the 27th. Christmas day was fun to spend time not only with my own family but with my sister, her boyfriend Ken and her kids (my niece and nephew), Hope and Ryan. Christmas is so much more fun where there are kids involved and now that Paige is stating to get to the age where she was having fun opening gifts and playing with all her new toys and did she ever get a lot of toys. As for Jodi and I we mainly got clothes but we also purchased a new Kitchen Aid Mixer, which is awesome.

Paige excited opening her gifts

Boxing day we arose early to hit the road back to Ottawa early. A storm was coming and we didn't want to get stuck or to be driving through it on the 401. We got on the road at about 10 am hoping to make a stop in Trenton and Sterling to visit friends and family. After making the first stop in Trenton and getting back on the 401 we decided to truck on through since the traffic was getting heavy. We made it back to Ottawa safe and sound at 3 pm.

New Years and Resolutions

Now its that time of year again, you know, day 365 the end of our calendar year, time to reflect on what we have all done in 2012 and what we would like to achieve and accomplish in 2013. Every so often at work we will watch a few different Ted Talks and a multitude to topics which are often very interesting and informative. The one below I watched in December and got me thinking about something that I do all too often, but that will change this year, take a look at the video, its only 3-4 minuets long and it may change your outlook on resolutions.


Oh and its also time to party and celebrate with friends and family to enjoy all we have and love around us. It is different this year for us, we have yet to make plans due to the lack of a babysitter and wanting to spend time with the family, so this year may be a quiet one where we will sit home order in some Chinese or Indian, and watch a few movies together.

Since I have been slow in actually finishing up this post, New Years has now passed and we managed to get out for a few hours and to see some friends, Paige was all dressed up for the occasion and here she is below ready to party.

New Years day was spent relaxing and taking down the Christmas decoration and preparing a Turkey with all the fixings and having a few friends over for a nice supper. After taking down the tree and seeing a neat idea on the internet, I have decided to start a new tradition for us. To cut a small 1 cm piece from the bottom of our tree each year and make an ornament for the tree the following year with the date burned into it. I'll post pictures in another blog when this is done.

QSSDJMRME

First training run complete

Tonight I went out for a run. The start of many over the next few months to gain the stamina and strength to compete in the Sears Great Canadian Run to End Kids Cancers on October 13, 2012.

What I looked like not long into my first run

Since knowing my area where I live, I had a good idea of the route that I would take and a semi-rough estimate of the distance. I thought this would be a good start to see how I can do. I have done this same type of route many times before but only walking with the dog. The route works out to be 2.65KM's, I know this does not sound like much, but for someone who has never done this before, it feels like death.

After this first run though, I have quickly learned a few different things:

1. Do not go for a run shortly after eating dinner. It causes food bouncing around your stomach and causing you to nearly barf multiple times;
2. Bring water. I did not and I really could have used some shortly into the run. It felt like I was breathing fire;
3. I will need to get a new good pair of running sneakers sometime soon, my older daily use ones are not the greatest.

I am using an Android app called Endomondo to track my training to give me route stats, time among other things. It seems to work fine and I love how it talks to you during your run to give you updates. On the right side of this page you can see my past runs and how I have been doing in my training. Click on any of the runs to see a map and more details of the run.

Remember I am doing this to raise money for kids cancer research and you can always donate. The more donations the better to keep me motivated. Read more about the run and visit the Sears page to sponsor me!

My new motto

Android app Review #2: Google Currents

Google Currents is a news reader with a twist. News organizations or anyone for that matter can create their own customized Currents portal that users can add to the Currents app, but users can also add their own RSS feeds. I have been using the Currents app for about 4 months now. It was first only available to the US but in recent weeks has opened up to a whole new list of countries including Canada. It is available on Android and Apple devices.

I am a news junkie and have been looking for a good useful news app for some time now. I have tried Pulse, News Republic and a few others but they all have been off the mark.

• Pulse seems to be pre-installed on a lot of devices but its layout is a bit lacking when trying to view the news you want.
• News Republic allows you to select topics and it will provide you with news results, not allowing you to add your own sources. 

 

Google Currents has mainly US news sources right now for you to pre-select, I think this is mainly that it has not been available in other countries for too long. But don’t fret, it is as easy as adding a RSS feed and the Currents app will create a nice looking edition for you. News, Sports and everyday users can just visit the Google Publisher and create their own custom Google Currents edition to publish on Google and their website. It took me 15 minutes to create a Google Currents edition for myself. You can use the Currents publisher and add different elements to it and it will all get updated when anything changes on your sites. I have added my blog, Google+ Feed, Twitter Feed, Picasa Photos and a few other things. Anytime the Adam Sooley Current edition is opened it syncs for the newest information. Since Google Currents is linked to your Google account, all devices you have will be synced with the same sources.

Add my Google Currents Edition or browse some editions online.

Overall the Google Currents app does everything I need it to do for a news app and in a clean, intuitive way. Download it now from Google Play for Android or iPad and iPhone.

Visit the Google Currents homepage.

Android App Review #1 - Instagram vs. Camera Zoom FX

Many months ago I purchased the Android app Camera Zoom FX when it went on sale. One of the selling points for me of camera zoom was the ability to download plugins for the app to do different effects with your images. Once you place the effects on your images you can save them and share the image on mutiple social media sites with ease. I had heard about Instagram but to my dismay it was only available on iOS so Android users were SOL for trying Instagram. That was up until two weeks ago when Instagram released a Android version of their popular app. So we Android users finally have had a chance to see what all the hype was about.

Ease of Use

Instagram has this hands down. Once you take a picture, you are shown a preview and you can select the different filters or none that you like and hit go to have it uploaded to the web. While with Camera Zoom FX you will have to take extra steps to apply the filters.

Cost

 Instagram also has this one won hands down since it is free, while Camera Zoom FX will cost you $2.79.

Conclusion

Over all I like the ease of use of Instagram, but Camera Zoom FX has many more features and abilities overall. If you are looking for a camera app to share all of your photos use Instagram but if sharing is not your main deciding point go Camera Zoom FX. While writing this post, news just broke that Facebook has bought Instagram for 1 billion dollars. So I don't know if this information will change anyone's view. For me I am not a big fan of Facebook so I may stop using Instagram in the future if Facebook messes with the quality of the product but for now I will continue to use both.

Downloads

Camera Zoom FX
Instagram