WE have upgraded to a digital TV, but we get only the local stations’ analog signals, not their digital broadcasts. In the ads, they make it sound so simple. Am I the only one having this problem?

I told this reader that if he wasn’t getting any digital signals in his Northwest D.C. home, there had to be something else wrong—maybe his TV was not, in fact digital, or perhaps he had a wire or a plug misplaced somewhere.

The latter possibility turned out to be the case. He wrote back that he’d plugged the antenna cable into the wrong input on the back of the set; connecting it to the right one yielded good digital reception.

This sort of “obvious” mistake happens more often than you might think. I can’t tell you (which really means “I don’t want to tell you”) how many times I’ve cursed an uncooperative router when all along I’d simply forgotten to plug in a network cable.

IS there any way to merge two iTunes Store accounts so I can play music bought on both on my iPhone?

If this reader were trying to play these downloads on a regular iPod, he’d be fine—but an iPhone or iPod Touch, each capable of buying directly from the iTunes Store, can accept only one iTunes account at a time. When asked if there was any way to merge two iTunes accounts, Apple spokesman Jason Roth sent back a three-word reply: “There is not.” And this reader had too many songs under the old account to burn to CD, then copy back to the computer.

The best way to avoid this situation is to avoid iTunes songs locked with Apple’s “digital rights management” system in favor of Tunes Plus downloads, which don’t have those usage restrictions and offer better audio quality. If iTunes offers a song only in DRM’d format—let’s call that “iTunes Minus”—buy it from Amazon’s MP3 store (http://mp3.amazon.com) instead. Rob Pegoraro, The Washington Post

Tech Tactics for Hard Times

NEWS flash: The economy stinks. v It’s not a good time to be throwing money at things that don’t rate as necessities—a   description that applies to many of the goods and services reviewed in this space.

Help File: Digital dilemma

WE have upgraded to a digital TV, but we get only the local stations’ analog signals, not their digital broadcasts. In the ads, they make it sound so simple. Am I the only one having this problem?

Angelina Jolie inks in the twins, Knox and Vivienne

AT the New York Film Festival screening of her new film, Changeling, Saturday night, Angelina Jolie talked about being sleep deprived. v “We are a little bit [sleep deprived],” the actress told People. “We have some help a couple of nights a week, so on those nights we catch up on our sleep.”

The View: In the Realm of the Senseless

‘THERE was a time when love was blind/And the world was a song/And the song was exciting/There was a time/When it all went wrong.” v And so sings Fantine, the tragic heroine of the musical Les Misérables after selling her long hair and becoming a streetwalker to be able to continue to care for her much beloved daughter Cossette.

Show &Tell: Big, bigger and biggest news

THE word war involving Gabby Concepcion’s controversial former manager Rose Flaminiano, former actress Nadia Montenegro and, recently joining the arena, TV-radio show host-tabloid scribe Cristy Fermin, has made local show biz an exciting “battle of the bulge.”

When dying is such sweet sorrow

Tenor Rolando Villazon summarizes the plot of Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème in just 12 short words: “They meet, they fall in love, they split, she returns, she dies.”

Sightings: A COLLISION OF CULTURES

FROM his hibernation in Mount Makiling, Junyee (Luis Yee Jr.) has burst into the art scene with a new series of stunning sculptural works that will be on exhibit from November 9 to December 2 at Galleria Duemila in Pasay City.