Apple’s October 16th product announcement begins at 10am PST; 1pm EST. My guesses? Definitely: OS X Yosemite, iTunes 12, and the next-gen iPad Air and iPad mini. Maybe: Updated Thunderbolt 2 + Retina display (I’d guessed at this last year and was wrong), iMac with Retina display, updates to the MacBook Pro line, Apple TV 4 with support for third-party apps. Not a chance: An HDTV, more info about Apple Watch, a mega-sized iPad, or a pull-string-to-talk Steve Jobs doll.

Apple’s fall product announcement begins at 10am PST; 1pm EST. My guesses? Definitely: Next-gen iPhone 5S, iOS 7, OS X Mavericks, iTunes 11 (with iTunes Radio), updated MacBook Pro. Maybe: New iPads (though I’d bet on spring instead), lower unsubsidized-cost iPhone for other (non-American) countries, updated iMac, updated Thunderbolt 2 display (with USB 3.0). Not a chance: An HDTV, a wrist-watch, a pull-string-to-talk Steve Jobs doll. How’d I do? How good were my predictions?

Nearly 2 years ago, I became a Cord-Cutter. I couldn’t see the sense in paying a ton of money every month for 500 channels that I didn’t watch, just so that I could catch the occasional show. I invested in Netflix and Hulu Plus accounts so that I could watch most of my shows, and for the shows that haven’t made their way into the 21 century yet, there are plenty of places online where you can acquire the latest episodes.

I often find myself wanting to watch my movies when I’m on-the-go, or sitting at work writing code. I also have one Blu-ray player in the house, and hate having to sit through one unskippable warning or commercial after another. Because of this, I choose to exercise my fair-use right to format-shift my movies into something more convenient. Making a personal backup of movies you own is in a legal gray-area in the U.S. Historically, this sort of thing fell under fair use law, but the DMCA (1998) makes it illegal to crack the encryption.