Payton Place

Crap, I Missed It! sends email notifications before a new episode of your favorite show comes back on TV, or when your favorite artist releases a new CD.

Using the web application is easy?just pick one of the topic areas and either drill down or use the search box until you get to the subscribe page, enter in your email address and click Subscribe. After confirming your subscriptions, you will receive emails each time there are updates (with all updates for a single day combined into a single email). The site has quite a few topics to choose from, including Amazon bestsellers, top YouTube videos, new music albums or concerts, movies, TV shows, and even sports scores?but the navigation could be improved if they had a site-wide search or RSS support.

Crap, I Missed It is a free service, and could come in handy whenever your favorite TV show comes back from the holiday hiatus.

Courtesy of Lifehacker

If the upcoming switch to HD digital broadcasting has you considering dropping cable for the free stuff, the AntennaWeb site can help find the receiver that will net the most channels at your address.

The free-to-use site only requires your street address or ZIP code and asks whether you’ve got any tall buildings or trees nearby. Based on your location (which it sometimes details down to the street level), it lays out how far each local broadcaster is from your house, what channel and signal type they’re offering, and what kind of antenna will net you the best reception for the most digital channels. You can even get a map showing which direction each station will come to your house from, for those who need to point a directional unit (or plan to stick with a strategically-placed indoor antenna).

AntennaWeb leaves the purchasing of your outdoor model to your own preference and Google abilities, but the site does explain the whys and hows of antennas pretty decently for those who haven’t worked at a RadioShack. Confused in a more general sense about the Feb. 17 transition and what it means? Try the official DTV 2009 site.