Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

Hulu – Good Seed Gone Bad.

When Hulu began it was a great idea.  It was the first sign that someone, somewhere, was starting to “get it” when it came to watching media content.  Hulu freed television from the model we have become familiar with.  Where once a show would come on at a certain time on a certain day, broadcast to your TV screen, Hulu gave you the ability to watch the shows when you wanted, how you wanted.  You were no longer tied to the television.  You could watch TV on your desktop computer, your laptop, and several portable computing devices.  All it took was a web browser and an internet connection.  Digital media was honestly coming our way.  Sure, it was ad supported and you had to watch a couple of commercials(far fewer than one has to sit through via traditional media models), but it allowed you a liberty of both time, and how you wanted to view your programming.

Boxee took this one step further.  Boxee is an application that streams media content, bypassing the web browser.  It still had all the same ads when it streamed its programming via Hulu, but it allowed you to enjoy those shows on your television.  It completed the circle allowing the freedom of watching programming at your own leisure, with the ability to watch it on your TV as well as any other media capable device.  For people who have been finding cable companies to be more and more draconian in terms of both service and pricing it allowed us to cut our bonds with our cable provider.  Now that I could stream this legal TV content through my AppleTV it made cable, for me, obsolete (in terms of television – I still use them for internet access).

Things seemed fine and dandy until the powers that be suddenly realized that Boxee found a way to bypass a traditional media outlet.  Big business, slow to catch on, or understand new potential business models, did what it always does and pressured Hulu in to ordering Boxee to cease streaming of their service.  Perhaps if Boxee had provided viewers with a way to skip the advertising I could sympathize with this decision, but that’s not the case.  This is another instance of big media trying to dictate to the end user how they must view their programming.  It’s about control.  With Boxee someone else got to put those shows on the TV in homes across the country; that was no longer the domain of cable and satellite companies.  Not even understanding why big business had to send orders from on high to eliminate this new model.  It’s proof that the existence of Hulu was mostly just a fluke as the big business clung tight to their control.

Hulu, of course, was more than happy to point out that this decision came due to pressure from their content providers.  That this providers would have pulled their shows from Hulu, and that by ordering that Boxee quit streaming the service they were actually protecting their users access to content.  Hulu, in fact, is more than just in bed with big content providers.  Their parent corporations are big content – News Corporation and NBC.  Access for their users wasn’t what Hulu was thinking when they made the decision, they were thinking that to stand up for their users would likely cost them a large amount of revenue.  While I understand this is how the business world works, I just wish Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, hadn’t lied about his motivations when he claimed “ Please know that we take very seriously our role of representing users such that we are able to provide more and more content in more and more ways over time.”  While I do believe a part of him truly is sympathetic to the people affected his actions certainly make these claims hard to believe.  Nowhere is it evident that he made any type of attempt to represent these users, instead capitulating at the drop of the hat(though I will admit this may not be true we don’t have all the information of what took place behind closed doors – it’s just hard to imagine that the user was actually advocated during any discussions).

The reality of what Hulu did is two-fold.  First the alienated their user base in order to save face with big business.  They proved that instead of being revolutionary they were no more than another outlet for the control over content and big media’s desire to control how users have access to that content.  Secondly, and more importantly from a business stand point, they reduced the overall viewership on their ad supported media.  Take note advertisers, Hulu effectively cut the number of eyeballs watching yours ads.  Is it effective to do advertising with a business who is willing to reduce their overall viewing base?  You might want to think about that one before you spend any advertising dollars on the Hulu media outlet.

In the end I guess I’m not surprised.  Big media has always been slow to adapt, more willing to fight losing control over an old business model than crafting a way in which to profit off a new one before others can do the same.  It’s a pattern that continues to repeat itself, and it is something that the industry as a whole constantly forgets.  It was nice having Hulu on Boxee, but at the end of the day I’ll carry on.  I won’t be rushing back to cable as my content provider.  I’ll seek alternative forms of entertainment, and continue to enjoy the programming that is still available via Boxee from providers who just may actually “get it”.

A Windows 7 Follow-up.

While my first look at Windows 7 has been pretty positive I’ve found a couple issues not only in my own use of it, but in reading some experiences of others.  It really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Microsoft is forcing some seriously restricting DRM with Windows 7.  With a lot of media making a slow, but inevitable, transition to digital, media groups are lobbying hard to protect their interests.  As always those media groups use lawyers, political pressure, and scare tactics rather than finding a new way to work with the new technology.  This is nothing new at all.  As such it’s not surprising the number one operating system vendor would incorporate technology favorable to those groups.  Microsoft is part of that community, they have a lot to gain by falling in line with the various media industries.

Still their level of locking a computer so that a user doesn’t have the final control over their own system is going too far.  With Microsoft slowly losing market share such actions certainly aren’t going to endear them in the ears of the tech-savvy public.  Fortunately for Microsoft the vast portion of their public market won’t notice any of these problems.  It certainly won’t drive throngs of people looking for alternate operating systems.  With Mac’s costing a premium, and Linux still having too steep a learning curve for the average user most people will simply accept the DRM, if they notice at all.

It’s sad though, as this would be a time for someone to step up and offer a legitimate and affordable option to Windows.  I’m not looking to see the Microsoft empire crumble.  Another valid option would force them to innovate to compete – it would force them to also evaluate and challenge outside industry influence over the level of control a user has over their own system.  It shouldn’t be Microsoft’s place to enforce whether people are compliant to applicable laws.  Microsoft should not claim ownership of the computer in your home, they should help you make things just work – that’s what you’re paying them for after all.

Edit: After doing a little more research on the issue it seems like a lot of the initial posts about this were all based off the same article created by a serious Microsoft hater who also apparently has limited understanding of how a computer actually works.  A good rebuttal to it over at Ars.

The Windows Experience

As I mentioned earlier I’ve began using a Windows machine for some day to day stuff as well as my trusty MacBook.  I’ve been a Mac user for a great many years, and have also worked doing extensive support for them back when I was a professional geek.  I’ve used Windows off and on that time and have even done some first level support for it.  Still, it’s never been my operating system of choice.

While doing a little research on To Do programs and other organizational utilities I kept running across articles talking about Windows 7  beta - so my research changed direction as I began to read more and more about the Windows 7 beta.  I was intrigued by a lot of what I was reading, especially how Microsoft with this release seemed to be focusing on stability and usability.  Or in simpler terms, they were striving to  just make things work.  As that has often been an area where I’ve been less than enamoured by Windows I decided maybe I’d give this beta a shot.  After all, nothing important was on my Windows machine, it would be no problem to simply wipe it clean and see what makes Windows 7 tick.

The installation screen was very clean and straight forward.  There was very little in the way of clutter, it’s obvious that  they really are working hard to make it so that just about anyone can install a working OS with only very limited computer knowledge.  For me the only obstacle I had to face was one that I had been expecting since my hard drive is plugged in to a PCI IDE card.  However it was nice to see that, unlike with Windows XP, 7 was willing to look at more than just the floppy drive for device drivers so that I could install the OS on the hard drive.  It’s good to see the major OS vendor has finally begun to accept that the floppy drive is dead and that many systems now ship without one.  Progress!

After a simple and straightforward install I found myself looking at a fairly alien OS.  Having not ever used Vista, I found many immediate diferences from Windows XP and had to go searching for a few things.  Fortunately most things were roughly where you expected them to be so it didn’t take long to begin to be able to customize all my settings.  In fact I found some things seemed quite natural simply because they had things in common with Mac OS X.  After poking around a bit a lot of it seemed quite familar to me and I was able to dive right in.

With XP I  had two main issues with this computer.  The first was that no matter what I did it did not want to print to my printer.  My printer is connected to a wireless Linksys print server which both my Mac, and my former Linux box were able to print to without a hitch.  Windows XP, however, wanted nothing at all to do with the printer.  In Windows 7 the printer worked.  Though it did give me a bit of a scare because at one point it seemed as if it was hung up.  There was no progress bar or any other type of indicator letting me know it was doing anything.  After about 10 minutes a screen of printer driver choices finally popped up and everything just worked.  The second XP issue I had was frequent signal drops from the wireless card.  This was most evident when playing World of Warcraft as I would get disconnected around once or so an hour.  I had always chalked it up to the dirt cheap wireless network card that I had in my PC.  I had accepted the “you get what you pay for” scenario.  Since installing Windows 7 I haven’t had a single disconnect.  In fact my transfer rates have more than tripled.  Apparently there was a big focus in the OS on network management.  I can’t tell you how impressed I’ve been by this.

I know that Windows 7 is only in beta at the moment, but in my use of it over the past several days it has been as stable, if not more stable than my Windows XP install.  In fact several things that didn’t work in XP are now working just fine.  I’ve installed several third party applications that I use daily and so far I haven’t had any issues with them.  In fact, the only negative experience that I’ve had so far is Internet Explorer.  Version 8 isn’t any more useful than previous version.  I tried writing this post with it, but everytime it saved a draft the screen would improperly redraw with various elements overlapping one another.  It seems that web standards compliance still isn’t a high priority in Redmond.  That’s okay though, because Firefox works like a charm.  Overall I’m very impressed with Windows 7 and I see a lot of potential for it.  In fact, because I’m already enjoying it on this machine so much I have a filling that when it’s finally release I’m going to have to plunk down some cash and pick up  my copy of Windows 7, which for me is just about the best endorsement I can give.

Apple TV: The Follow Up.

A while ago I did a post when we got our AppleTV.  I promised a followup after I had played around with it for a bit, but fell out of the habit of updating this blog.  Well I’ve certainly had plenty of time to play with the AppleTV and I thought now that I was trying to update this a little more frequently I’d follow up on some posts of the past, and this one seemed like a good one to start with.

After playing with the AppleTV for a little bit it was time to get down to the business of hacking it so that it could play a multitude of video formats as well as allow the attachment of an external storage device.  There are lots of instructions online for rolling your own hacks on to a USB key, but out of laziness, and the fact I’m willing to let better qualified people do the work for me, I went with the guys at aTV Flash.  They frequently update the software which is especially helpful as some of Apple’s updates to the units firmware can tend to break the things you so meticulously went about hacking.

The 160GB internal storage of the AppleTV wasn’t going to cut it once I started making digital copies of my DVD’s to transfer to the device.  We ended up hooking up a 1TB external USB drive to it, which was a snap.  I formatted it as HFS+ Journaled, plugged it in to the AppleTV, and it was immediately recognized.  I was able to FTP in to the unit and copy files over to the external HD.  After the finished copying the were accessible through the AppleTV’s menu – specifically in the “DVD” section of the expanded menu that appears after initially hacking the unit.  For ripping the video I find that Handbrake’s default settings work quite well – a great compromise between file size and quality of both picture and sound.

One of the other benefits that came from hacking the device is access to Hulu (along with other services)through Boxee.  I’ve watched some old episodes of ALF for nostalgic purposes as well as a few other gems (Airwolf and Knight Rider in particular).  It’s hit or miss with newer episodes of some shows through Hulu, but I use it more when I don’t know what I want to watch as opposed to stay current with series I follow.  More recent series I’ve slowly been acquiring from the Apple Store.  Following the series that I do as well as purchasing a couple I haven’t seen in awhile works out to the same, if not a little cheaper than the cable bill had been.  Boxee has also enabled me to have access to every episode of South Park that has been made thus far – something I take frequent advantage of.

The AppleTV has been working great as a replacement for live TV.  Yes, I do miss popping on the occasional football or hockey game, but I can always go to a friends house or one of the sports bars in town to see those.  I certainly haven’t felt any less transitioning to this digital centered, cable tv free lifestyles.

Online Backups

I used to have an offsite machine where I could easily sync backups off my laptop to (I like to have both local and offsite backups), but since that server is no longer in play I had been going for awhile without offsite backups.  While poking through some home inventory forms (you know, in case there is some home disaster), I realized that I no longer had any of my data offsite so I began looking at some various options for backing up data to an offsite location.  Right now I am playing around with Mozy.  It’s been one of the most reccomended services that I could find.  I’m playing with their free account which allows me to backup 2GB’s of files.  It runs in the background on my machine and backups up files from selected folders when any changes to them are made.  Eventually I want to backup all my photos as well but that will require something more than 2GB’s.  Fortunately I can upgrade the Mozy account to one with unlimited storage for only $4.95 a month.  Tht’s pretty hard to beat.  I’ll play around with the free account for awhile to see if this is the service I want to go with.  Feel free to comment with your Mozy experiences or any other backup service I should take a good hard look at.