tzikeh

If you have answers, or partial answers, for ANY of these, comments are desperately appreciated.

Question #1: I would like to buy a Blu-Ray player. It has been on my to-do list for some time. Here are the various problems associated with this plan:

1) I am poor.
2) In order for the Blu-Ray player to serve its purpose, I would need an HDTV, which I don't have. I have a 1993 35" Toshiba CRT television that continues to work like a dream, and have seen no reason to replace it until now. (BTW Toshiba RULES.)
3) I use DirecTV, and I do not have an HD DirecTV receiver disc.
4) I own a DirecTiVo. For a while, DirecTV and TiVo parted ways, but they are coming back together in 2010 to create a DirecTiVo HD receiver. I feel there is no need to upgrade to HD until that is on the market.
5) There may be other barriers that I'm not even aware of, since there's so much to take into account that I might not know that I'm not looking for something important.

Question #2: I would like to make my Amazon.com wishlist available to fannish friends, but I do not want to post my RL-name wishlist link. Is there a way to duplicate my Amazon.com wishlist under another name?

Question #3: I want to buy a treadmill (I was gifted with the $ for this on my 40th birthday in May, but have yet to make a single move towards the goal). I'm overwhelmed by choice, and lack ALL knowledge. I walk hard and, back when I was in shape, I ran around 5.5 - 6 mph. I have room for it, but know nothing. I do *not* want to assemble it myself, and if I should ever (eventually, probably) move, I do not want to have to disassemble it on my own. We have a Sears and a Sports Authority nearby; are those the two main places to check out treadmills (I won't buy anything I can't try first)? If you have one, what are the features you can't do without? Which brands have good warranties/customer service? Which brands should I avoid?

Question #4: I have an iPod Touch. I love what I can do with it, but criminy are the options confusing.

1) How the frak do you navigate the App Store? It's completely lacking in any organization, as far as I can tell. Unless you know the name of the app you're looking for (I usually know what *function* I want an app to have, and then have to go searching for it) it's a nightmare. If you go to the App Store via iTunes, using the search field searches ALL OF ITUNES. This is not helpful.

2) My eyes are crossing when it comes to programs that allow you to read downloaded books (free or otherwise). There appear to be a gazillion of them, each with their own functions and lack of functions. Some can read some downloaded ebooks, but not others? Some can read free e-books, and some can't? Some allow for iTouch functions (using pinch to make text bigger/smaller, rotating text) and some don't? Some are linked to a single site for download, and some aren't? Some allow for converted documents, and some don't? Some have books in list format, some have "archives," some have graphics of bookshelves with the books clickable from there... OH MY GOD I JUST WANT TO READ SOME FUCKING BOOKS. Can anyone clarify anything here?

And finally, The More You Know:

If you upload photos on your lj (or flickr or photobucket or whatever) to share with others, please, please, please learn that image size and file size are not the same. In other words, if an 800x600 photo takes a long time to load so that people can see it, making it 400x300 *will not change the speed at which the photo loads*. Image size is simply the size at which the picture will appear on the screen. File size is resolution, or dpi. There is absolutely no reason to upload a photo to share with people at a file size larger than 72 dpi, because monitors don't display anything higher than that. (There are exceptions, of course, hi-res photos are useful when making wallpapers, printing them out, etc.). If you need further help understanding this, or learning how to fix this w/r/t whatever photo program you use, please comment, and I will help you out.