HD Format of the Future?
So as we are all aware by now there’s the whole Blu-Ray vs HDDVD debate on which HD movie/video format will win. While it seems to be clearer these days that Blu-Ray is going to be the winner with multiple studios announcing the allegiance to Sony’s Blu-Ray format, I’m not convinced that the future of HD content will even be on Blu-Ray. Why? Keep reading.
As I’ve stated before, I think that the wave of the future is going to be medialess - meaning that there will be no tangible media for movies and content. Look, it’s quite simply the trend that we see now. All your favorite movie rental places are coming out with a download or on-demand video service, such as Blockbuster & Netflix. Even Apple is starting to get in the game with their revamped Apple TV product, which lets you download some movies in HD format.
So how is this going to be accomplished? How are the big ISP’s going to manage that much bandwidth and streaming media over their networks? Well, I guess you could start by saying that they are commiting to better connectivity such as fiber-to-the-curb service by both AT&T and Verizon. But what about all that bandwidth moving through the internet and major backbones? It’s not! And I’ll tell you why. While I think that clearly the future for HD content is in fact medialess and will be streamed over major transit carriers, the way that it has to be done is via set-top boxes in a BitTorent model. About two years ago I wrote an article about ISP v2.0 and streaming media to a set-top box as a media center PC replacement. However, being that I work for an ISP (Speakasy) I don’t think that streaming media in it’s final state is going to go over the net. Rather, it’s got to be localized and supported by BitTorrent set-top boxes so that media can be delivered locally on last mile connections rather than upstream on the major carrier backbones. Here’s a great article over at Wired on Myka’s new BitTorrent set-top-box; it’s a pretty good read.
Watch folks, HD media v2.0, set-top-box v2.0, and ISP v2.0 will be born soon. All your content will go right into your living room without inserting or ejecting a tangible disc.
Holiday Season Shopping: Find a CompUSA… Fast!
Last week CompUSA was bought out by a liquidator and they are officially closing down the stores all over. It’s a mad fire sale with Jenn & I getting in on the action. Our TV has a busted screen due to some extra curricular activities (more to come on that later) and so we are looking at nabbing a new one instead of spending the $1k to fix it.
Need help? Go here to find the nearest store - forget shopping online, shop where the loot is being looted!
Uptime
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Mac Backup Solutions
For those of you looking for a backup solution for your Mac, there’s a great article over at LifeHacker.com.
Hi, My Name is Michael and I’ve Been ‘Windows’ Free for 1 Day
.. ok so it’s not that dramatic, but I’ve finally made the transition from Microsoft’s Windows to Apple’s Mac OSX. After years and years of bondage, I have finally been set free! Now instead of troubleshooting, right-clicking, googling solutions, uninstalling, blue-screening, things just work. It’s true what they say; on a Mac, it just works.
I’ve even got my wife set-up on the Mac now. Hello new hottness!
Uptime
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Mac
Just got a new MacBook Pro today. Amongst other things, I was concerned about the transition from Windows to OS X. I’ll write more later, but this is a great article over at Lifehacker about switching from Windows to the Mac.
Uptime
Finally, the 1-year mark has been passed on the server.
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It’s Mike: 1-Year Anniversary
Well, exactly 1 year ago today I started writing and blogging on my own server! I’ve written 167 articles during that time frame and can say that I’ve really enjoyed keeping up with my blog. It initially started out to simply write about life, technology, and work, but grew to so much more. It ended up being more about articles on items that I’m passionate about (excluding work for obvious reasons) such as Technology, Internet, Athletics, as well as a lot about my family, pictures, and videos. So I guess I would classify my blog as more of a multimedia type experience given the videos, content, and pictures that I have published. I even had fun with some photoshop to spice things up a bit (sorry Ella, I love you though!)
I’m also amazed at all the folks that visit my site as well. While I obviously don’t get many comments (55 to date), I am often told by friends, family members, and colleagues that they visit my blog frequently. So many thanks to all of you that read it and have a glimpse of the different aspects of my life and family. We are truly blessed by it all and love sharing in our experiences.
To my Ella - You are truly a blessing in my life. Watching you grow over the past 14 months has been amazing. Words cannot express the joy that I have when I am around you and when you smile, talk, garble, yack, clap, hug, kiss, slap, and gaze at me. You are an inspiration to your Mother and I and we will always love you, teach you, care for you, be an example of God’s word to you, pray for you, and provide you the best life we are physically able to provide. You love it when I sing to you, play with you, walk and talk with you, kiss and hug on you, and read to you. Your smile, your cute little curls, and your big-blue eyes will always be forever burned in my mind.
To my Wife, Jennifer - Since the day that I met you I have loved you. You constantly amaze me with your patience, gratitude, warmth, desire for Christ, and being the best Mommy in the world. I truly could not succeed at life without you and know with out a doubt that you are in fact my soul mate. Your encouragement and voice are always on my mind, bringing peace to me daily. It’s been a joy and blessing to be married to you for 5 years, 6 months! You are my best friend, my companion, my love, by sweetheart, inspiration, and motivation in Christ. Words can’t begin to express my thanks and all I know to say is “Thank you for loving me”.
Uptime
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My Wife, The Engineer
Yes, my lovely wife took it upon herself to to play Mr. Handy-man and try and fix our bedroom fan. You see, this fan has been a nuisance for a long time in that the light fixtures have been rattling. So we discussed getting a new light set to go with the fan, although Jennifer took it upon herself to accelerate the disassembly process. Well, she got stuck and had to improvise until I got home from work.
Behold!
Apple’s iTV & iPhone
With Macworld happening this week (not to mention CES), I was actually impressed with Apple’s latest offerings coming about. As most of you are aware, I’ve been looking to build a media center PC or Home Theater PC (HTPC) within the past couple of months. I was actually fixing to pull the trigger on either the VoodooPC Aria or Niveus Rainier Media PC. However, lately I’ve run into a couple of set-top box solutions, such as an amazing Helios X3000 product, that stream your media from a storage server (which I already have) and play it in high-definition over your TV. Considering that I want to mainly stream music, photos, and movies from the file server - this is looking more like the traditional path I should take. However, I decided to wait until Apple came out with their stuff as there was a rumor about the iTV coming out.
Uptime
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Monday Night Howdy
Here’s some recent news that’s exciting to me:
Verizon introduces multi-room DVR. Nice product made by motorola, but doesn’t allow for play-back of digital media such as movies. However, I’m sure that’s soon to change.
Good video talking about WiMax for you new.b’s. Sprint also announced a $4 MM investment into WiMax. A few weeks back we spoke about how that I believe WiMax will power the next generation ISP, which could very well be a media based firm like News Corp.
HP Comes out with Streaming media TV. Uses WiFi or ethernet from your media center PC. Not bad.
Team USA is romping again. Two words: Coach K.
Thursday Night News Round-up
What’s Hot:
Pics of MP3.com liquidation. Say good-bye to the dotcom erra.
Golden Nintendo w/ Zelda. Oh the days.
MyKey is out. Only thing is if the batteries run out, you’re toast.
Finally more iPod car integrations. About time!
Remind me, what’s YouTube’s biz strategy again? Exit, Exit, Exit…
Pretty good iPhone design. Only it will never happen.
Treo 700w
Welp, I’ve had the Treo 700w for a while and I’ve got to say I like it. Kudos to Verizon for really good service as well - much better than I expected. After being a Sprint guy for such a long time I was weary of switching, but the phone is simply amazing. Syncs with Outlook completely, which is great, along with a lot of the great Treo features that users have become accustomed to. I thought about getting the Motorola Q, which Ross got a while back, but I’m glad I stuck with it. The Windows version is the full mobile version where as the Q is a little watered down for what I need. Plus it doesn’t have touch screen, which I must say is a feature that’s required for my personal use. Overall, it’s not bad and I’m glad I did it.
Ok, so on to Verizon. I like the service, it’s not too shabby. However, I totally got the run-around with their sales rep and customer service. You see, you have to pay a $45/month “data” fee for internet access, etc. Only to find out there is no “etc.” as part of that fee. It’s only internet access. Internet access that’s broadband like? Laf. Not hardly. It’s like dial-up, only slower. What I mainly use the Treo for is the paging and alerts because we are constantly monitoring our network and gear. So when I call in about being charged for 400 or so text messages, they say it’s not included as part of the $45 plan. “Are you kidding me?” I say. Nope, the guy that sold the plan had no clue about what he was talking about. So I told the other sales guy - listen, I need a text messaging plan that’s not deceptive, I monitor network gear, etc. He goes, “Well we can give you unlimited Verizon-to-Verizon text messaging.” Hrm there big-guy, I don’t think you heard me. I’m monitoring gear - not yours on your network. Long story short I dropped the internet access, which charges you as if it was your minutes, and got some text messaging plan instead. So Verizon folks, be weary. All in all, I’m very satisfied with the call quality, which in my opinion is second to none (Sorry Jaime!).
Encrypted Drive: Follow-up
About 2 weeks ago I wrote an article on TrueCrypt. Now that I’ve used it much more on a consistent basis, I’m really liking it alot. There are two main features that I like with TrueCrypt:
1. It’s encryption technique and set-up process
2. The fact that you can mount it as a drive, just like you would with Daemon tools, but as an actual partition.
For those of you that carry laptops, which is most of us these days, I highly recommend that you consider rethinking how you secure your data on your machine. At some point in time some of us may have our laptops stolen, lost, or compromised and at that very moment you need to know your files are safe. For instance, for those of you that file your income taxes digitally this would be an applicable scenario for you. Additionally, for those of you that use your laptop primarily for work and do not want non-disclosed documents ‘disclosed’ by some catastrophic event as described above, then this would even pose as a greater solution for you. I already use it on my laptop for all of my documents and even at home for the documents that people do not need to see.
Get $230 pair of shades for $19
Thanks to my subscription to Men’s Health, I saw an ad in my magazine about Vanquish Eyewear offering free sunglasses. You just have to pay for the shipping. Cool thing about this is if you order 4 or more you can get a free high-end watch from them as well that is valued at ~$250. Not bad, eh? No limits on ordering, so order away. There’s no gimick or anything, Vanquish is just trying to capture market share with its new product line.
I went ahead and got 3 of them and it’s really good quality. Then Ross comes over and between the two of us we got 5 pair with the free watch. It’s a great way to stock yourself full of quality shades while also getting some b-day & Christmas shopping done (if that’s your bag). Check it out at Vanquish and let me know!