Tuesday, July 05, 2011

TV Premieres, Finales & Specials This Week 7/5/2011

Independence Day Weekend is over here in the U.S., but there are still a few new premieres and finales this week.  May more in the coming week.

  Torchwood

              Torchwood: Miracle Day premieres this Friday on Starz

 NOTE: All Times are Listed for EST – TV schedules subject to change

  

Tuesday, July 5

Teen Mom (10pm on MTV) Season 3 premiere

Aftermath With William Shatner (10pm on Bio) Season 2 premier

 

Wednesday, July 6

The Lost Kennedy Home Movies (9pm on History) A special that shows us footage of the Kennedy's just weeks before the shooting.

Ace of Cakes (9:30pm on Food) Season 9 finale

Men of a Certain Age (10pm on TNT) Season 2 finale

Flipping Out (9pm on Bravo) Season 3 premiere

Restaurant: Impossible (10pm on Food) Season 2 premiere

 

Thursday, July 7

Big Brother (9pm on CBS) Season 13 premiere

Wicked Attraction (9pm on ID) Season premiere

 

Friday, July 8

Monster Fish (10pm on National Geographic) Season premiere

Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids (10pm on TLC) New spin-off reality series

Torchwood: Miracle Day (10pm on Starz) Season 4 premiere – people stop dying…

FBI: Criminal Pursuit (10pm on ID) Season finale

 

Sunday, July 10

Hoarding: Buried Alive (9pm on TLC) Season 3 premiere

Famous Food (10pm on VH1) New reality series that isn’t really about the food, but about the food.  Heidi Montag, Danielle Staub, Jake Pavelka, DJ Paul, Juicy "J", Ashley Dupre and Vincent Pastore work together to launch a new Hollywood restaurant.

The Indestructibles (10pm on National Geographic) New reality series where scientists look into the act of “defying death” in various situations

Tough Cookies (10pm on Food) New cooking/food reality series follows “Crazy Susan’s” led by sisters Linda and Susan as they sell cookies and take care of their difficult family

Curb Your Enthusiasm (10pm on HBO) Season 8 premiere

 

Monday, July 11

Warehouse 13 (9pm on SyFy) Season 3 premiere

Man vs. Wild (9pm on Discovery) Season 7 premiere

The Closer (9pm on TNT) Season 7 premiere

Design Star (9pm on HGTV) Season 6 premiere

Law & Order: LA (10pm on NBC) Series finale

Alphas (10pm on SyFy) New sci-fi series where a group of everyday people who possess special neurological abilities work for a secret government agency.

Surviving the Cut (10pm on Discovery) Season 2 premiere

Rizzoli & Isles (10pm on TNT) Season 2 premiere

James May Drinks to Britain (10:20pm on BBCA) New travel series

 

Tuesday, July 12

Gordon Ramsay’s Great Escape (9pm on BBCA) Season premiere

Only in America With Larry the Cable Guy (9pm on History) Season 1 finale

Chopped (10pm on Food) Season 8 premiere

How the States Got Their Shapes (10pm on History) Season finale

 

Wednesday, July 13

Iron Man: Armored Adventures (8:30pm on NickToons) Season premiere

Roseanne’s Nuts (9pm on Life) New reality series with Roseanne Barr

Ghost Hunters International (9pm on SyFy) Season premiere

Sons of Guns (9pm on Discovery) Season 2 premiere

Rescue Me (10pm on FX) Season 7 premiere

Dance Moms (10pm on Life) New reality series

Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry? (10pm on ID) Season premiere

Legend Quest (10pm on SyFy) New reality series where a symbologist travels the world to find artifacts & relics.

One Man Army (10pm on Discovery) New reality series where ex-military contestants compete in contests to win a $10,000 prize

The Franchise: A Season With the San Francisco Giants (10pm on Showtime) New reality series

I Married a Mobster (10:30pm on ID) New reality series

 

Thursday, July 14

Texas Women (9pm on CMT) New reality series

The First 48: Missing Persons (10pm on A&E) Season 1 finale

The Green Room With Paul Provenza (11pm on Showtime) Season premiere

 

Friday, July 15

Prank Stars (8:05pm on Disney) New kid-centric hidden camera show.

Haven (10pm on SyFy) Season 2 premiere

 

Saturday, July 16

Pit Boss (10pm on Animal Planet) Season 3 premiere

 

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Is it Time To Leave Dropbox?

Dropbox

I am a long-time user and fan of the popular file sync/backup service known as Dropbox.  Dropbox is a “storage in the cloud” service where you can save your files onto Dropbox and access them from the web onto other computers and mobile devices.  Lately though Dropbox has been getting some negative attention from a security breach and now a change in their terms of service.  Is it time to leave Dropbox?

Over the weekend, Dropbox revised their Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Security Overview. These changes were made in part to “simplify the language” of the policies, but also to respond to a security breach they experienced which allowed all Dropbox accounts to be accessible without passwords for several hours.  Also in the mix of bad news was the discovery that Dropbox employees could access files stored on dropbox as needed.  In total that’s a lot of bad press for Dropbox and it made me consider whether I wanted to continue to store my files with their service.

Last night, Dave Winer posted this article that is getting quite a bit of attention:  I’ve deleted my Dropbox Account   I’ve considered doing the same, but I probably will stick with Dropbox for now and here’s why:

  • I don’t put files “in the cloud” that have personal information on them.  I simply don’t trust any service to protect my data enough to place personal information on there.  This includes work documents, anything with banking-type information, personal data like birthdates etc.  I do think most of these service WANT to protect your stuff, but I don’t believe they can do as good of a job as I want them to.  Photos and files I wouldn’t cry over if they became public are the ones I’ll put “in the cloud”, but not the other stuff.
  • I don’t think the terms of service are as bad as Mr. Winer implied.  Yes there is some talk of giving Dropbox permission to share your documents in there but isn’t that kind of what you are giving up by putting your documents in the cloud with a service anyway?  Read this excellent overview of the new Dropbox Terms by the creator of 1Password (Agile Bits) to get your head around what the changes are and what they mean.
  • Dropbox is still one of the best if not THE best cloud storage service – especially with free storage.  There is plenty of competition in this space and they can’t afford to address users needs especially when it comes to privacy and security.

If you’re still not convinced to stick it out with Dropbox, one interesting alternative is Wuala.  Gadget Wisdom is testing this service out and he authored an excellent guide to Switching From Dropbox to WualaI plan to check this service out this week just in case.

Do you trust cloud storage services with your data?  If you use Dropbox do you plan to stick with them?