Cable television used to be one of the most important utilities I'd set up when moving to a new home. Over the last couple of years, that has changed significantly.

If you're not already familiar with all the content you can download for free, I'd suggest you check out nbc.com, or any of the television channel websites. You can also, if you really hate commercials and are willing to pay to avoid them, get a lot of the content directly from iTunes or from your Netflix account for a minimum fee, though with Netflix you have to wait for the show to be available on DVD).

But I'm pretty impressed with Hulu.com, which opened it's private beta today. Like YouTube, it allows you to share videos on the web--or even one step further--to imbed only a limited selection (a scene or particular clip) directly to your website.

Like this:

Ain't technology great?

Joseph Haines, signing off from The Edge of the Abyss.