12.13.11
Posted in Apple, Media, Tech, Uncategorized
at 3 pm
It seems that a lot of people are missing a fundamental aspect of what Apple sells. Simply put, Apple Profits on What Apple Physically Makes.
Anything that Apple licenses to sell through iTunes, or Apps they sell on behalf of third party developers are ancillary to what they manufacture. Apple will be profitable based on what their own physical products are worth in the market. Everything else is a break-even proposition. Look at Mac OS X or iOS and you’ll see that Apple nearly gives them away. The iLife suite is nearly free as is the iWork software. Even the Pro tools like Final Cut and Logic are deeply discounted from just a few years ago, taking down the prices of entire software categories in their wake. Someone call Kevin Kelly.
Apple makes money by selling high-end products. They sustain the rest of their digital ecosystem with just enough to get by, and little more.
Amazon and Netflix are only profiting what other companies own. If and when those companies learn to sell this material themselves, they will go away. Amazon is not just selling media that other people make. Excepting the Kindles, the company re-sells other companies’ products.
Netflix is already on the knife’s edge of failing due to their ‘partners’ pulling out of the licensing contracts. A pure digital play when they don’t own the digits. They may be able to coast along on the back of hardware that has them built-in, but even on those devices (Roku, Apple TV, PlayStation) Netflix is “just another app” that can be turned off at will.
Apple has done a smart thing by making their own destiny. If someone else figures out a better way to sell movies or music or apps, then all the better for Apple since it will allow them to focus on what’s making them money: their hardware. What they make.
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08.25.10
Posted in Apple, Media
at 7 pm
Daring Fireball linked to The Russians Used a Pencil‘s post speculating on the evolution of remotes. I wanted to note two items:
1) Battery life: I love the scroll wheel idea to replace the directional arrow buttons, but touch-based sensors have a serious disadvantage in the fact that they must have power running through them in order to detect the action of the user. That current is a constant drain and constant power drains are deadly for batteries. At best you could have a physical motion sensor (rolling beads?) that could wake up the remote when it’s moved, but touch sensors suck up the juice. No little lithium ion coin-sized battery would suffice.
The alternative is the original iPod’s physical scroll wheel which I adored in the very first iPods. That would be cool, but also an expensive proposition in manufacturing a remote control.
2) Bluetooth connectivity: Unless Apple comes out with a smart, free standard that can be used industry-wide to support multi-device control, Bluetooth in remotes is a myopic view of the real world. Sony has already caused a lot of headaches with having a Bluetooth remote for the PS3. There’s a lot to learn from that.
The reason for having an IR-based remote is all about having multiple devices be able to be controlled as a single entity. The simplest example is controlling the power and volume on the television that the AppleTV is connected to. If the Apple remote doesn’t support IR, you’re stuck with two remotes. Got an amplifier in the mix for surround sound? A DVD or Blu-Ray player? Now you’re talking input switching as well.
Apple’s going to have to come out with something truly interesting and unique and forward leading to stand out. I think they can do it, but I’m certain that these two technologies will not be in the mix unless radically re-thought.
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09.26.09
Posted in Media, Meta, Web
at 6 pm
I’ve been working on getting my WordPress/Twitter/FaceBook spaces working together and I think I’ve hit on a pretty good system.
It comes down to two sides: how do I publish things and how do other people read and stay up with that stream (as underwhelming as it is.)
For the first side of the coin, I like to publish three different types of content: Super short stuff and pithy comments which obviously fit into Twitter’s paradigm quite well. For timely commentary on things and longer thoughts, WordPress is a good choice and is the latest in a long series of journaling and blogging software tools that I’ve either used or built myself. Finally, longer form pieces essays or research or archival stuff seems to make more sense as web pages on my personal site.
For the audience side of things, I’m seeing 4 or 5 different methods that people use to keep up with individuals. Web site reading from bookmarks would be one (Hi Mom and Dad!). People who do a lot of web reading might use an RSS feed reader (Hi Micah!). Others may rely on Twitter to keep up with me and some others may want to keep an eye on things only through FaceBook. There are other channels like MySpace, but the ones I’m listing here seem to be the right ones for my audience.
So what have I connected? 1) I’ve connected FaceBook to Twitter using Twitter’s application. Next I added TwitterTools to my WordPress install and that takes care of cross posting between Twitter and WordPress entries. So now I can post tweets and they show up in my FaceBook status and they show up in WordPress on a once daily basis. (This might be annoying to some, so I’ll have to keep an eye on this and perhaps reduce the re-post rate to once a week or so.)
As for research and essays, I’ll post them to my site and then make an annotation here (as I’ve usually done over the past few years.) So if we follow the chain, 1) a page added to my site leads to 2) an announcement on my WordPress blog, which 3) triggers a Twitter tweet, and then finally 4) updates my FaceBook status.
Hmmm.
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09.13.09
Posted in Media
at 3 pm
So you know all about the Broadcast Digital TV conversion that has happened. The original 2004 deadline was delayed ultimately till June 2009 for mandatory shut off of the analog signals. I had a couple posts about the Set Top “Coupon Eligible Converter Boxes” (aka “CECBs”). These are mandated boxes that allow viewers to convert the over-the-air broadcast signal to a standard-definition analog signal so that it can be fed into analog-based TVs, like every one manufactured since 1928.
(The highest-end versions have two features: analog play thru (APT) and S-Video connections. If you’ve got those, you’ve got the most advanced DTV Converter Box that’s available under the government program.)
However, there’s another transition that is parallel and yet has a completely different set of rules. This is the Cable companies’ transition to Digital Cable. Keep this in mind: Both Broadcast TV and Cable TV are going from All Analog Signals to All Digital Signals, but for totally different reasons. We’re middle of the time where both the analog signals and the digital signals are available. I had wondered when the cable conversion was going to happen since it was basically inevitable. Most digital channels take roughly one-tenth the bandwidth of a single analog channel. That means the cable company can send 10 times more content to the customers.
In Portland, Comcast shut off most of their analog signals in June (except for the most basic channels, 2-31). That means if you want to watch Comedy Central or BET or the History Channel on most TVs you MUST have a converter box. The good news is that the bottom-of-the-line Digital Cable converter box (what Comcast calls the Digital Transport Adapter) is FREE.
In the ’80s and ’90s, the term ‘cable ready’ when applied to TVs meant that the owner no longer had to have a converter box for their analog cable signal. That is now changing again. With the digital conversion, there are no longer any ‘cable-ready’ televisions. At some point I hope this changes, though it may not with a smaller set of cable monopolies with deeper pockets to keep it from happening.
(This post was originally drafted earlier this year. Sorry for any random changes in tense!)
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09.09.09
Posted in Media, Tech
at 11 am
You’ve seen adapters that allow SD cards to fit into CompactFlash slots or even into PC Card/PCMCIA slots. I remember seeing adapters that would play regular cassette tapes in track players and an mp3 player that was shaped like a cassette tape that would play music off of SD cards. Well I want:
An adapter shaped like a vinyl LP that would let you play CDs on a turntable. That would be pretty awesome, me thinks.
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08.22.09
Posted in Life, Media
at 9 am
The simple addition of the directive “Cite your sources!” to a political discussion (whether in person, in a townhall, or in any other medium) would have a profound impact on the quality of the discussion.
That is all.
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03.23.09
Posted in Media, Tech, Web
at 8 pm
It seems that by adding a little extra code to my .htaccess file was all I needed to finally get the WordPress app running on my iPhone. The answer was in a thread on the WordPress support site. This applies to v2.7.1 at least in my case. This thread titled xmlrpc.php 403 Forbidden error noted a (now closed) MSN Groups thread with the answer. Fortunately ‘mkenney’ the OP included the actual code:
[Files xmlrpc.php]
SecFilterInheritance Off
[/Files]
(Just change the square brackets to angle brackets and slip this into your .htaccess file)
My efforts were complicated by my web host who turned off access to the file but made it look like a “404 File not found” error rather than the real error: “403 Forbidden” which sounds far more ominous.
The way to discover this for was to open the URL to the xmlrpc file directly in Safari and then bring up the Activities window which showed the text “forbidden” that was otherwise hidden from view. What tangled webs, indeed.
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03.08.09
Posted in Media, Tech
at 3 am
[Originally posted to the TiVo help forums.]
If you are in Portland Oregon and are missing channels 32-99 of your extended Basic (analog) cable through your TiVo, continue reading below.
On Friday March 6th, your TiVo’s guide was told that Comcast’s Analog Channels had been reduced to channels 2-31. You may have gotten a TiVo message saying that ‘Channel 32 (Versus) has been dropped’.
This schedule change has happened about 4 months too early. Comcast is planning on removing the 32-99 channels from analog and broadcasting them ONLY in digital. (Note: this is a different transition from the one that is going on with BROADCAST channels.) Most all of the cable companies are going to digital transmission on their own networks. Comcast in Portland is planning on doing this during the summer of 2009. Comcast is offering two free DTAs (Digital Transport Adapters) to every subscriber. I picked up one at the office on NE Sandy.
Because the guide information’s publisher jumped the gun, you are now stuck with a TiVo that thinks it only has channels 2 – 31. In order to get this fixed, you will need to do one of the following:
A) Wait until the guide is fixed. (TiVo and Tribune Media have been notified, though adding your voice may speed up the process.) I was told the updates to the guide data only happen after 4 to 5 business days. Considering the issue was reported on Friday, I’m guessing that the earliest we would see this fixed in Thursday, March 12th or as late as Monday, March 16.
B) Get the DTA converter box. This box is meant to provide the digital equivalent of extended basic service to your television. You don’t get the On Demand stuff or the music channels, but you do get your full channels 2 – 99 back. You can re-run the Guided Setup to get this box configured. (Takes about 40 minutes if you do everything right the first time. A lot of that is waiting for the guide data to come down.)
If you get the DTA from Comcast and try to set it up, be sure to select “Comcast Digital Converter” as the name of the box. NOTE: In other threads you may see this referred to as manufactured by Pace. While this is correct, you cannot use Pace as the Set-Top Box manufacturer in the guided setup. Read the TiVo’s screen very closely: “What is the name of the company on the front of the Set Top Box?” That name is Comcast, not Pace. I thought I was being smart by using Pace, but that’s exactly wrong. You must use the “Comcast Digital Converter” as the name/manufacturer of the converter box. I spent the better portion of 6 hours trying to get the (****) thing to work before realizing my error.
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02.21.09
Posted in Media
at 1 pm
In January, we ordered and installed Digital Cable, in order to get Fox Soccer Channel. The installer guy just used whatever cable box was in his van. Turns out it was one of the oldest models of converter boxes out there (General Instruments DCT-2244). It never worked well with our TiVo.
Today I walked into a service center to talk to Comcast about the flakey channel changing that I was experiencing with my TiVo trying to control this ancient digital box. (They misunderstood my original complaint and thought I was saying that the DCT2244 was not getting the right channel from Comcast, when in fact it was that the TiVo wasn’t able to exactly replicate the Remote Control signals the DCT2244 was expecting.) I thought they were going to say “Well tough luck. We have a TiVo-like box that you should use pay for instead.” But actually the customer service person was actively trying to figure out what Comcast could do to fix things. Actual customer service… can you believe it?
Right then and there she offered me a much newer digital cable box (Motorola DCT-2524) which is an updated box in the same series. I took it home and plugged it in, reconnecting each of the wires and connectors from the old box to the very similar new box, and voila, the TiVo is once again changing channels like a champ. Yay.
(They said to bring back the old one when I get the chance. “In the next week would be great”. Wow, that’s… laid back. That’s also not normally the phrase I would use with monopolies.)
Bottom line: our Series 2 TiVo was not working well with the old DCT2244 box, mostly because the Tivo was using “IR Blasters” to pretend it was a remote control but was failing. However, with the new DCT2524 there is a direct serial port connection which works perfectly. Comcast had the serial port enabled (it seems that the cable company can turn it off or on at will and some cable companies refuse to turn it on) and didn’t charge me for exchanging the box, or even ask for a deposit while I’m in possession of both boxes. Again, yay.
So Portland Comcast gets points for 1) being laid back, 2) being helpful, and 3) giving me a full-featured, upgraded box with no hassle.
However, on the way out of the service center I saw a flyer about Comcast’s own Digital TV Cutover. Oh boy, that’s a whole ‘nother entry.
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11.02.08
Posted in Life, Media
at 12 am
All I’m asking is that if you’re going to vote, don’t vote based on the amount of melanin a candidate has. That’s not a very good method of predicting leadership ability.
Please Vote. Please Vote based on issues.
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