HOUR 1:
Tech News & Commentary
Jack in Los Alamos, New Mexico listening on KTRC asked: “I am really sick of the extortion of my satellite provider and wondering what is needed to start watching television programs over the Internet. In particular, I need a cookbook. What hardware and software do I need. I have a DSL connection which is okay, not fantastic. I’m at least willing to try it.”
You’re not alone. A lot of people are sick and tired of being at the mercy of their satellite or cable company. Of course, a lot more people are perfectly happy with whichever one they’ve chosen. So, we can’t paint with too broad of a brush here, despite the unfortunate circumstances several on our staff have had with CONcast (as Dave calls Comcast). I think what frustrates most people is the feeling of having no choice. You use the cable provider that’s in your area, or you use one of the two big brands in satellite TV, and that’s pretty much it. No consumer appreciates a lack of choice, nor should they.
The problem with providing you a “cookbook” of how to watch TV over the Internet is that the recipes are going out of date faster than they can be cooked. Food isn’t the best analogy, because good food is good food, and nobody has come up with a new version of green peppers that requires an upgrade to your onion and won’t work at all with the chicken broth. The services offering online TV watching are shifting constantly.
Before we discuss anything else, let’s talk about your Internet connection. DSL, at least the standard 1.5 megabit downstream and 256 kilobit upstream version, isn’t going to cut it. A switch to cable Internet, Verizon FIOS, or AT&T U-verse is in your future, I’m afraid. To watch movies and TV online in an enjoyable manner, you’re going to need bandwidth.
Next, software. You already have all the software you’re likely to need, because most of these services operate with your standard web browser (Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer). You’ll face two issues in trying to survive online, three if you like live sporting events. First, you won’t just have one place to go for TV and Movies, you’ll have dozens. Every network or media outlet seems to host their own videos on their own sites, and there’s not a lot of cross-posting. Some brave souls have tried to keep an up to date directory, but they’ve usually thrown in the towel before too long. You can expect that your bookmark list will expand.
Second is immediacy. Shows do not stream online at the same moment they air. It’s usually a day or two later. Some people are fine with this, while it leaves others with nothing to say around the water cooler at work in the morning. You’re going to be living in a constant 24 to 72 hour time warp. Finally, there is an offshoot of that immediacy issue with sporting events. Finding live video of your favorite sports events can been tricky, and often times it only exists as part of a paid online service, or something like ESPN3.com, which is paid for by the Internet providers that make it available.
Third, and last, there’s the combination of free vs. paid services. Media companies are in the business to make money, and they don’t make much money at all when they give their content away for free. Traditional broadcasting relies on commercials, of course. Online broadcasting has commercials also but hasn’t been as successful with them. As a result, some content is protected by membership sites that want to charge you for access, Hulu Plus for example. While none of these charge as much as a satellite subscription package, they will add up.
That’s where things stand today. Like we said at the start, tomorrow the answer will be different. Because the Internet doesn’t require broadcast licenses or impose any regulations on what content is there and how it’s accessed, it’s quite likely that we’re going to have the “do your own thing” a la carte menu for a while yet.
Since you asked about hardware … We recently did a report on “cutting the cable” where we featured two video-streaming set-top devices we love and one you should avoid, unless you’re on a budget. You can watch that ITTV Report on our main page at IntoTomorrow.com.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
“Consumer
Reports” Feature with Donna Tapellini
You can spend a lot of money on antivirus and password-manager software to keep your computer files safe, but Consumer Reports says you don’t have to spend anything! Senior Electronics Editor Donna Tapellini has a bunch of freeware apps that are sure to protect you from hackers and identity thieves.
Apps of the Week
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they
have been playing with recently.
For Android:
• Mark recommends: Google’s new Docs app, Free
“Slick, one button access to your Google Docs storage. View, edit, even print your documents. Much faster and easier than using the browser to access it. As always, 100% free in the Android Market.” – Mark
For iOS:
• Rob recommends: Scrabble for iPad, $9.99
“I’ve raved about Words With Friends on the show before, but I’m very impressed with Scrabble. I recently got the app on sale for $1.99, but it’s back at $9.99. I love how fast it works on my iPad 2. I haven’t found any bugs on it yet. Whereas, with WWF, it’ll take a long time to submit my word. Scrabble has a built-in dictionary where you can check your word before you submit It also has a”Best Word” feature, where it will automatically pick the best possible word using your tiles. It’s a good cheat. You can play against the computer, play with Facebook Friends, Local Network Play, Pass ‘N Play or Party Play. Party Play is interesting because it’s board games 2.0. Players connect to the iPad with their iPhones or iPod Touch with their Scrabble app. Essentially, the iPad because the board. You can try Scrabble for Free with Ads before you buy. I think it’s a really fun app!” – Rob
• Chris recommends: ZombieBooth: 3D Zombifier, $0.99
“ZombieBooth transforms you and your friends into horrific 3D zombies that moan and groan looking for human flesh. From a single portrait photo, you can instantly create an interactive zombie that will react to your tapping and swiping gestures – it might even try to bite off your finger!”
Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.
What are your favorite apps?Let us know!
Guest in this hour:
Greg Ayres, COO – YesVideo
Provides services and programs to families that help protect and share their memories. YesVideo recently unveiled its newest service of converting home movies to high definition Blu-ray discs.
Jay in State College, Pennsylvania listening on WPSC 1390 and asked: “My Compaq PC is starting to shut it self off several times a day. Doesn’t give me any warning. I’m able to turn it on right after it turns off, but it’s doing it multiple times per day and I can’t figure out why.”
Unfortunately there are many, many reasons why this could be happening and tracking down the problem affecting you won’t be easy. First thing we can probably rule out is heat. When a processor overheats, it shuts itself off to prevent suffering irreparable damage. This could be happening to you, but you wouldn’t always be able to turn your PC back on right away.
Another possible culprit is your power source. Sometimes your computer’s components demand more power than the source can give them. That results in certain components being starved and shutting off. Your power source may have developed a problem over the years, but given that this is a Compaq built PC, odds are the power source is not the problem. The power source would be a more likely culprit if this was a custom built PC. Sometimes custom builders don’t do the math right and end up with source that falls short of being able to feed their high powered computers’ components.
Your problem may stem from software issues, so before you take anything apart update Windows to the latest service pack and update your drivers, this may come from a faulty driver mismanaging it’s hardware. Since the problem just started happening to you, try to remember if you installed any drivers recently. If you did, you may have to do the opposite of what we just told you and uninstall any drivers you’ve updated recently and roll them back to a previous version. Sometimes drivers have bugs and you may have encountered a really bad one.
Now, software would pretty much be the best case scenario, but you could also be experiencing problems stemming from anything from a bad cable (which would be fairly easy to find and cheap to fix), to a busted memory module (which would be easy to find with the right software and not too expensive to fix), to a broken motherboard (which would be more difficult to find and not that cheap to fix).
Modern day chips are made up of layers upon layers of microscopic components, so something as small and hard to find as a hairline crack can mean that under the right temperature, when components swell up, a connection may be severed and your computer can shut off.
Unless you’re very tech saavy and comfortable with cracking your computer open, and potentially doing things like inspecting the motherboard and it’s capacitors under a magnifying glass, we’d recommend you take your computer in and have it looked at by a pro. They can run tests on the memory modules, test parts individually and find out if there is a specific part that’s shorting out. Just make sure they can give you a reason before they make you buy an expensive part. If they say: “well, new motherboards won’t work with your processor, so you’ll need a new one of them, too”… find out about getting a new computer, it might be a better deal.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Wireless Update with Chuck Hamby from Verizon Wireless
Are you thinking about cutting the cord? Our wireless wonder Chuck Hamby is here to tell us about a way to save that home phone number and save money.
Anthony in Alberta, Canada listens to our podcast asked: “Hi Rob, I like your new White iPhone! Quick question for you: My friend Nikki has the Samsung Galaxy S (Android Phone). She’s wondering if/how she can access iTunes? I told her throw it away and buy an iPhone! How can she buy thru iTunes, or can she?!”
She won’t be able to access iTunes directly on her phone, but she can use iTunes on her computer. And, as long as she only buys iTunes Plus songs, she can transfer the songs to her Galaxy S and they should play just fine.
iTunes plus songs cost the same as non-plus songs. The “plus” comes from them being DRM-free, meaning that once you buy a song, you can use it however you see fit, even if that means burning it onto 50 CDs, playing it on all your 15 computers or keeping copies of it on your 25 MP3 players.
DRM (or Digital Rights Management) music limits what devices can play the song (basically, for iTunes that means only the iTunes account that bought it, or one of 5 other “authorized” computers can play the song) and how many times the song can be recorded onto disc, this is all in an attempt to discourage piracy. But … here’s a secret: it’s really, really easy to pirate DRM’d songs! You just burn them onto a CD and rip them from it and there you have it: a DRM-free digital copy, and not only that but one that you can make using just iTunes! No special software required.
Luckily, she won’t have to worry about cheating the system like that, DRM-free has been the new standard for iTunes’ music since 2009, so she should be able to find plenty of stuff to download that will play on her Android phone.
Dave prefers carrying Android phones and also likes most of Rob’s tunes. He plays DJ for him whenever we travel. But, he’s also shared his iTunes with him. Dave’s computer is authorized to play Rob’s tunes. He’s also transferred music to Dave’s phones. In a way, Dave’s kinda mooching-off Rob’s iTunes, but Rob mooches-off his DVR. So, he doesn’t mind. They listen to similar music genres. Dave skips the Latin music, though.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
iolo: Several copies of System Mechanic – Fix & speed-up your PC, Automatically
SmartShopper Electronics: Several SmartShoppers — Electronic Grocery List Organizer
ZAGG: A variety of goodies, including: ZAGGsparq battery packs, ZAGGMate iPad cases, dual USB 2.0 in-car chargers & XL gadget wipes