Overview of WRPL

Recently Sarah and I were trying to each name what we missed most about England (Completely hypothetical of course). I've lived here in California so long that sometimes I forget what I miss, besides a couple of family members and my parents. ;-)

We used to go back just once a year or even once every 18 months, but for the past couple of years it's been about two times per year as our parents are getting older.
I told Sarah newspapers and radio. I miss listening to BBC 4 while I work.

She mentioned was television, she loves some of those trashy shows like Strictly Come Dancing and tries to find them online to watch.
I have to say I agree on the telly part.

And we don't have freeview satellite as my brother has in Spain. A lamentable fact,but that's life. I would never move back just for a bit of telly, but I have to say I would like to see more some of the BBC programmes. More than once a year, certainly.

2. The sceptical solution:

Bbc Iplayer The main thing is that BBC now has a service called IPlayer (and has done for the past couple of years, I just was not aware...)
And they've taken to streaming all their shows online for at least a couple of weeks following their release. What an awesome service I thought and was thinking of giving it a look when I got home. HOWEVER, if you do go to www.BBC.co.uk/Iplayer from OUTSIDE the UK, you'll quickly find it to be blocked. You may already know this. How frustrating.

But David shared with me his trick to get it to work. Now, he is a smart guy and I trust him for this tech stuff more than myself.

Kidding aside, the trick he used is called identity Cloaker. Identity Cloaker is a computer tool that essentially is a server (a computer for websites) located in the UK. When you access their website, they will route your internet connection securely through this server and, like magic, you are given a UK-based computer location and BBC Iplayer, ITV's iplayer etc, work automatically. This is a really nifty trick and I asked him if he would explain the setup... He said "yea, sure" (How very American you've become mate!) and proceeded to run me through the service he uses... Basically all you do is log in to this service online like an email account and it works automatically, you continue to surf as usual. Fantastic.

So I now have a Identity Cloaker account of my own and it is just great. I'm falling in love with BBC again and I'm really liking the new David Attenbourough series, Life, it's great in HD quality on my laptop and some of the panel shows can be very funny, like Have I Got News For You.

Now here is the part that has changed my TV viewing for good: I've never been a TV guy, I prefer the odd dvd and tv once in a while, but I now have an HDMI cable to connect from my laptop straight to my LCD telly and this is just perfection! Great HD Quality in 42 inches and it's like the ultimate remote. No more watching whatever just happens to be on. In fact, I plan on cancelling my tv service next month and staying strictly on Iplayer and Netflix (a US DVD-by-post service)

Here is a link to Identity Cloaker. The cost is about $6 US a month, much more affordable than it used to be. This is the one David has shared with me and it's been working great for me at home. The trick about Identity Cloaker is that many will be good for email, but only a few will be able to stream videos in HD reliably like ours.

Good Luck and Happy Continuance to All My Subscribers!
Mark Andrews

Mark Andrews has worked and lived in California since 1991. He can be reached here

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