Other Tech

• Part One Are Discs Obsolete?

• Part Two The Artists' Perspective

• Part Three Gluttons for Punishment: How the Music Industry Continues to Sabotage Its Own Future

For every job, there is the "right" tool. Just as you wouldn't grab a hammer to open a bottle of champagne, you wouldn't install a front projection system in a sunny room. DirecTV subscribers, unfortunately, have always needed an extra, often unwanted, "tool" in the form of a standalone satellite receiver.

Jeremy Levee of Houston, Texas, wrote to say that he enjoyed my "Step by Step" column on how to mount a flat-panel TV. But he realized that a TV on the wall is just artwork until you've fed it the proper cabling and asked if I might shed some light on wiring behind walls. Jeremy, your wish is my command!

Buffalo's favorite sons the Goo Goo Dolls are at it again, this time barnstorming on a cross-country shed tour to support the ever-catchy Let Love In (Warner Bros.) while teamed up with the Counting Crows. Singer/songwriter and all-around nice Goo guy Johnny Rzeznik recently took some time out from the road to chat Web-exclusively with S&V.

After it was introduced in the middle of the last century, the TV set remained basically unchanged for decades.

While there were minor design variations along the way, it wasn't until flat-panel plasma and LCD sets arrived that manufacturers finally gave us a new take on the tired old tube.