Not to brag or anything…..but we have almost every “Backyardigans”, “Dora”, and “Go Diego Go” episode ever made. We also have a complete season of “Wonder Pets”, nearly every “Thomas the Tank Engine” video ever made, and probably hundreds of other kid videos ranging from “Caillou” to “The Wiggles”.

No, we don’t have piles of DVD’s strewn all over our house. In fact, not one of those episodes is even on a DVD! Yet we have unlimited access to all of them, and thousands more titles for Mom and Dad (all the seasons of “Weeds”, for example!) and we pay $9 a month for all of it.

Ok, you probably figured out we have all of this due to our Netflix account, but what you may not know is that we don’t watch a single episode online or receive any DVD’s in the mail.

Huh?

It’s simple, really….we have a Roku HD box! This tiny little box sits next to our TV and is connected wirelessly to our wireless home network. It accesses our Netflix account and pulls literally EVERYTHING from the Netflix Instant catalog and streams it on our HD TV!

We received our Roku HD for Christmas in 2009 and it is easily the best investment that we (er, my parents) ever made in our entertainment spending. We already had a Netflix account, and adding the Roku as a conduit to our “instant queue” was easy and free! Now we can access thousands of shows from Netflix instantly.

How “instant” is INSTANT? It takes about 6-7 seconds for the shows to appear on our TV after we choose it from the menu. If it’s offered in HD, we get it in HD just as quickly. That comes in handy when you have a kiddo who didn’t take a nap and needs some chill out time to something educational. In that case, we access one of about 20 episodes of the Wonder Pets or a series of Caillou epsisodes.

Anything available as an “Instant” selection on Netflix is available on the Roku. In fact, you can search and browse and play items directly from your screen so you don’t even need to login to your Netflix account online to manage them!

In fact, my husband and I will make it part of our in-home “date night” and while one of us finishes making dinner or a snack, the other will browse for a movie or a television series just as if we were standing in a video store on a Saturday night! We can watch entire seasons of lots of television shows (we went back and watched episodes of “Lost” before the last season started), access exercise videos for free (um, that’s for me), tons of kids’ stuff, documentaries and more. We also have a queue of, don’t laugh, 350 different shows on tap ready to access anytime including about 100 different movies and we add more every week.

Actually, one of the few complaints that Netflix or Redbox users have is that they say, “How do I know two days or two hours in advance what I’ll be in the mood to watch?” This solves that problem because it’s all there waiting for you….no DVD’s to return, no running out to the store to find one of the few remaining Redbox rentals on a weekend and no remembering to return free DVD’s to the library before they start to charge a late fee.

I can honestly say, and you can check my earlier tweets (@JenKnox) from December on, that the Roku has been one of the single best investments that we could have made (with help from my parents who bought it for us of course!). Even if we hadn’t received it for Christmas, we would have bought one anyway. The HD version of the Roku is only a one-time cost of $99.00! That’s it! Use it as much as you want!

In fact, I’ve mentioned the Netflix aspect of Roku but there are tons of other channels on it too and more being added every month! Amazon Video on Demand is also on it….don’t get me started on that one! I could go on and on about how you can get first-run videos cheaply and instantly. Like Pandora? All of your Pandora channels are available on the Roku too!

You can even hook up the Roku to your Facebook and Flickr accounts and see your photos on your TV!

Here are some stats:

Roku HD: $99.00

Roku SD: $79.00 (if you don’t need the HD model)

Netflix Account: $8.99 (this is the minimum account you need for unlimited instant streaming)

SPECIAL DISCOUNT: $10 off any Roku player for a limited time! Get the HD and SD players for only $89.00 and $79.00 respectively!

What? You’re still here? Click that link above and watch the “What is Roku” video demo!

Today is Friday! It’s Mega Swag Bucks Friday!!

This the one day of the week when Swagbucks is extra, extra loose with handing out the Swagbucks! If you haven’t joined yet, today would be a great day to do it! You get 30 Swagbucks free just for joining and they add up fast, especially on Fridays!

My favorite rewards are the $5 Amazon gift codes for just 450 Swagbucks! They add up fast!

Here’s my review of Swagbucks……

Or, just click here to join Swagbucks now! Happy Friday!

Today is Friday! It’s Mega Swag Bucks Friday!!

This the one day of the week when Swagbucks is extra, extra generous with handing out the Swagbucks! If you haven’t joined yet, today would be a great day to do it! You get 30 Swagbucks free just for joining and they add up fast, especially on Fridays!

I’m well on my way to accumulating LOTS of free $5 Amazon gift codes for my holiday shopping! I think my Christmas gifts may just be on Swagbucks’ dime this year!

Here’s my review of Swagbucks……

Or, just click here to join Swagbucks now! Happy Friday!

This is the first of what I hope will be an ongoing series here at AutomaticMoms. I’m calling this series, “Performance Reviews” and putting some products and services of interest to the work at home parent and parent-in-general to the test!

This “performance review” is for the voicemail and fax service that I personally use. It’s Kall8 and is extremely popular with the work at home crowd for it’s simplicity, ease of use and affordability.

I’ve been a customer of Kall8 since March 2008, or over two years at the time of this review. I joined because I was looking for a reliable voicemail service that would make financial sense for someone like me who receives very few calls yet needs to have voicemail regardless for those occasional calls. I also wanted to be able to accept faxes at the same number, and have the number be toll-free as a service to those who used it to contact me.

Features:

* Voice mail and fax mailbox (both with personalized greetings if desired)
* Call tracking tools
* Call blocking
* Custom call blocking
* Conference calling
* Virtual calling card
* Web call button (receive calls directly from a button on your website)
* Call notification emails (emails alert you to messages and send your faxes directly)
* Caller ID
* Online account management (access everything from one dashboard)

Additional Features (additional fees apply)

* Call recording
* PBX integration
* Payphone blocking
* Call announcement (plays a short message to you before you’re connected to let you know which phone number was called and/or which ad the caller is responding to! Great for conversion tracking!)

You can also transfer your existing toll-free numbers to Kall8 if you already have one!

Costs:

Standard toll-free numbers (888, 877, 866) with the above features are only $2 per month.
1-800 numbers and local numbers are also available for $5 per month.
Vanity numbers, international numbers and premium numbers are also available for an additional fee.

Per-minute rate for standard toll-free numbers: 6.9 cents/minute
Per-minute rate for local numbers: 5.9 cents/minute

International rates are available on their site.

My review:

I’ve been very pleased with the Kall8 service in the two years I’ve been using it. Admittedly, I don’t get many calls because the bulk of my business occurs online and via email, but I’ve been very happy with the reliability. I love that I get an email notification each time I receive a call or a fax. I personally don’t use the service which transfers my voicemail calls to a regular phone so each time someone calls I get an email notifying me to listen to the message or download the fax.

Faxes arrive as PDF attachments in my email and are very clear. Any distortion on the faxes is usually the result of the sender’s fax machine’s limitations. There is a setting which allows you to alter the quality of the fax if you notice some issues.

Voice mail notifications are very fast, and happen in near real-time. I tested the service by leaving myself a short voicemail and received an email notification in less than 45 seconds from when I ended the call.

Retrieval of voice messages is easy from any phone with a pin number. You can also opt to have voice messages sent to you in an email as an attachment which comes in .wav format. You can also access your messages in the Kall8 dashboard, but I personally find that a redundant feature unless for some reason you don’t have access to your email for some reason. Although I can see that as a nice backup in case of an email outage.

I have not used the web call button, but it sounds like a great feature for a salesperson. When a visitor to your site clicks on the button, the button transforms and allows the visitor to enter their phone number. Kall8 instantly initiates a call to the visitor and to you where you can talk live. Pretty cool! I can see this as being really useful to anyone who is in direct sales!

In short, Kall8 can be as much as you want it to be or as little as you want it to be. The options are very flexible and you can change them anytime. I’ve been very pleased at the reliability of the service, but this frugal business owner has also been thrilled with the price! Most months, my bill is no more than $4!

Try Kall8 now!

My Swagbucks Review

I’ve been a Swagbucks member for a few months and must say that it’s pretty fun! I’m a member of some other points programs such as Mypoints and My CokeRewards, but Swagbucks is the one that keeps me coming back day after day to earn points fast!

Swagbucks is free to join and the points add up fairly fast, which was a surprise to me when I first joined. There are several ways to win “Swagbucks” ranging from the 1 Swagbuck you earn each day for answering a fun poll to the many hundreds of Swagbucks you can earn by doing searches, shopping through the Swagbucks site or answering surveys and offers.

I personally do the poll every day as well as funnel my searches through the Swagbucks search engine. Swagbucks earned from searching can range from a very small amount (6 or 7 Swagbucks) to as many as 50 Swagbucks for a single search. From what I can see, the Swagbucks awarded are random and you don’t earn Swagbucks for every single search. But if I can earn 20-40 Swagbucks a day from doing something I normally do anyway (search!) then, well why not?

Swagbucks members can also earn additional matching Swagbucks when people they refer earn them. Considering that everyone does searches, usually several times a day anyway, it’s easy to see how these can add up fast!

Swagbucks can be redeemed for sweepstakes entries, prizes or, my favorite: gift cards!! The gift cards range in value from very small ($5) to very high depending on the store chosen. I personally like the Amazon gift cards because they can be selected at a very low $5 amount which is a nice little bonus when shopping online. I imagine there are people who hoard their Swagbucks and save up for something really cool, but I’m just not patient enough to do that! After just 450 Swagbucks you can get a $5 Amazon card and for only 700 Swagbucks you can get a $5 PayPal reward.

More Swagbucks Tips:

1. Try to do some of your searches in the morning for maximum chance of winning. Some Swagbucks experts believe that the SB reward system is a little more loose in the morning.

2. Do the Daily Poll every day if nothing else. It may only be 1 Swagbuck, but after a month you have 30 of them for doing nothing more than a 2 second click.

3. Funnel all of your searches through Swagbucks! Use it for everything and anything!

4. If you’re planning to buy something online, visit Swagbucks first and click through to the merchant. You’ll earn 2 Swagbucks for every dollar you spend!

5. Check the Swagbucks blog for secret codes that can be entered for additional Swagbucks. These pop up pretty frequently so keep checking!

6. Consider downloading the Swagbucks toolbar which has instant access to the search feature for easy searching.

7. Tweet your wins! Swagbucks offers you the option of telling your Twitter followers about your wins! Each tweet generated by this has your referral link embedded too!

8. Tell your friends and family about Swagbucks! It’s a great way to earn some extra holiday cash too! Why not do points programs all year and save up for your holiday shopping at the end of the year?

9. Be sure to go Swagging on Fridays! Friday is Mega Swagbucks Friday where even MORE Swagbucks are given out!

10. Have fun with it! Brag about your wins!

All in all, I’d say Swagbucks is my favorite points program right now! I plan to save up these points for Amazon gift codes ($5 in Amazon credit for only 450 Swagbucks!) to help with this year’s Christmas shopping!

Join Swagbucks!

Sirius Satellite Radio is offering a free 30-day trial for a limited time!

You’ll get access to 120 different channels on the Sirius network for a full 30 days! You do not need a Sirius radio to access the content….you can listen online! You can also download the app for your iPhone or Android phone and listen that way too!

Some great Sirius talk channels that might interest you: Oprah, Martha Stewart, and Radio Disney!

Looks like a great deal for anyone who’s wanted to test Sirius before buying a Sirius device!

It’s a new month, you know what that means….new coupons!

If you haven’t taken the opportunity to print your new coupons for August, now is the time while they’re still available! Many have limited prints that run out quickly! Print Now!