August 2007 Archives
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August 31, 2007
NBC Leaving iTunes?
When I first saw headlines line that, one of my first thoughts was clearly wrong. I had thought maybe they'd just decided to simplify on their own video portal where all of this content is available for free to watch, with ads. You know, perhaps they were making more money on showing the TV shows with ads than through sales with iTunes.
Alas, it seems that they just want more control over pricing, much like Universal and others have wanted over time. I'm sure that means they'd like to charge, for example, five bucks for new episodes and put old episodes on sale for a buck. Which means that people will more likely pirate the episodes until their price drops.
Speaking of piracy, they won't provide movies yet due to piracy concerns. I guess Apples DRM is so open that everyone can easily crack it and copy all the video content they want and give it away for free.
Don't they get it? People like the content. People want digital versions. Digital versions aren't for sale. So people pirate the digital versions others have made.
Read the rest of "NBC Leaving iTunes?"August 30, 2007
Bad FON!
A while back, FON was offering their small WiFi router for free. So, naturally, I signed up and got it. It came rather quickly, which was great. A few months later, I finally got around to actually trying it out. I hadn't tried earlier partly because it only has a single Ethernet port, which means it works as just a WiFi access point.
The idea behind the router is that it serves up two named networks. One is for your use, which isn't limited in bandwidth. This one also is protected with encryption and a password. I don't think you can turn this off, for the very reason that FON exists. The other named network is the public one that doesn't have encryption. However, to use it, you have to provide either a password to a web page much like public access points that require payment, or provide payment to use it.
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August 14, 2007
Mobile Email Clients
So, I've got two phones now with email clients. The first phone is the relatively new LG Muziq from Sprint. The second phone is the Apple iPhone. Neither one of these solutions is even attempting to try to be as good as a Blackberry. The last Blackberry I used was the RIM 950 pager style and sized Blackberry many years ago. I had it for quite a while, running a Microsoft Exchange server at my home to support it. It would be at least a couple of years after I had it before they would start to support anything else.
One might be inclined to ask why I got rid of it and the service. As it turns out, with a Blackberry you can get and send email from anywhere. That is exactly the most annoying feature. Do you really want to be responding to email while out to dinner, in bed, waiting for a movie to start (ok, maybe here), and other unspeakable places (did you wash your hands first? really?). Seriously, though, between that and the constant vibrating on my hip when email would come in, I ultimately decided it wasn't really worth it. It took more than a month for the vibrating feeling to go away.
And yet I now carry two phones with full email abilities. This mini-comparison is decidedly incomplete, but there are a number of interesting features of both clients.
Read the rest of "Mobile Email Clients"August 13, 2007
DHL Really is Bad
I can't even count how many times I've had very bad shipping experiences with DHL. From claims of items being in warehouses and having to wait for them yet the people not being able to find them to many, many late deliveries.
This latest, though, is quite amusing even though my box arrived two days late on two day shipping. It was supposed to arrive last Wednesday. However, I was quite busy last Wednesday so I went home. Then I realized that I didn't get my Amazon prime shipment.
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