The Olympics Online

As a certifiable Olympics nut, I am watching as much as I possibly can. Most of that is online. Why? Because NBC in it's infinite wisdom is only showing about 4 sports.

During the day, NBC seems to show mostly swimming heats & quarterfinals, beach volleyball & some rowing. NBC Sports Network showed equestrian one day. Another day both NBC SN & MSNBC were showing women's soccer at the same time! Different games, but still.

So on to the web! Forget live action, I like the full event replays. So I've seen several hours of White Water Canoeing/Kayaking. Yesterday I watched an hour of Weightlifting. Today an hour and a half. Yeah, they're probably all roided up, although these were a lower weight class, but it's still fun to watch. Archery. Now that's interesting to watch. The lowest score I've seen in 3 or 4 days is a 7. I probably wouldn't be able to hit the target. Again because the stuff online is a full competition, I have probably watched 3 hours of archery. I doubt if all the NBC channels combined have shown 1 hour.

This is why I like the ability to watch whatever I want. I still think it's unfair to require a cable or satellite subscription to watch. Old people & college students might have computers but not cable. But Comcast doesn't care.  TV is useless. Primetime is nothing but 8 hour old swim finals & 2-3 hours of Gymnastics. I like the swimming but little girls on Gym equipment? No thank you.

And as a huge Beatle fan I finally saw Paul McCartney's performance at the opening ceremonies thanks to YouTube. Sorry, but it's time to retire Sir Paul. That was awful.

The Olympics Online

Watching the Olympics from the West Coast can be taxing. the time difference between here & London is 8 hours, so most stuff is over by the time we wake up. Plus network television tape delays the best stuff till night.

This time around the decision was made to live stream everything. Plus NBC is using it's cable partners to show as much as possible. Although there are still tape delays, even during the day. For instance the women's cycling road race started at 3:30 AM west coast time, but NBC showed it live to the East Coast but here it started at & 7, meaning taped for us.

As for streaming: everything live & then the video replay is available soon afterwards. One slight issue is that like in Beijing, the full replays have no announcers. These are what is referred to as a "raw feed". What this means is that each country's broadcaster takes the feed & inserts there own broadcast. I wish NBC did this to the feed, because some sports need announcers. I tried to watch the men's road race yesterday, but there just was no way to know what was going on.

But everything is there. Not being interested in Gymnastics, last night I was online watching first Women's Fencing (Foil), & then Men's Team Archery. Now that was interesting & quite entertaining. This morning after watching the conclusion of the cycling on NBC, I went online & watched the White Water Slalom (Canoe). There are several of these, canoe & kayak. Again, fun to watch.

I'll probably be watching a lot of stuff online. I don't need wall-to-wall Gymnastics. That's just an attempt to make sure women tune in. I'm a guy, so no thanks. But I do like to watch sports I never see any other time.

Redbox To Do Streaming

Yet another player in the streaming content biz. But will they be any better than Netflix or Amazon? I doubt it. I spent almost an hour on Netflix this afternoon trying to find something worthwhile to stream. I failed.

Until Netflix & Amazon & anyone else get rights to recent content, I'm not going to care. Half the movies on Netflix streaming I've never heard of. The other half are 20 years old or more. Bruce Lee movies? Arnold as Conan? Paper Moon, Chinatown? What is this: TCM? AMC?

Until the studios stop blocking the streaming of movies less than 10 years old, this will remain a secondary service. I know lots of people stream, but I can't figure out why. The selection is pathetic. I guess people just don't like to deal with physical media aka DVD's. The public won't be served until they let the studios know that this is not acceptable.

Directv & Viacom Settle Over Channels No One Watches

After two weeks the national nap is over: Viacom is back on Directv. I say the national nap because it was no nightmare. I looked at the list of channels Viacom owns & was underwhelmed. The only one I watch is Comedy Central & only for Jon Stewart. Nice job idiots.

So they wanted a 30% increase & got 20%. They shouldn't even get that. They're not Disney(ESPN), nor are they Time Warner(TCM,TNT,HBO). They are a small timer as far as viewership. So this was a slight glitch that will maybe cause a slight increase in the monthly cost of my service. Nothing new there.

Hulu To Demand Cable Access

Add Hulu to the list of outfits demanding authentification of cable subscriptions to view content. This adds to the list. NBC is going to require it to watch Olympic video this year, which it didn't 2 or 4 years ago. HBO Go does, but that's understandable since it's a premium network.

This is the corporations sticking their noses in where it doesn't belong. The "TV Everywhere" app model, which is a Comcast creation, is showing up everywhere. Up till now you could watch anything on Hulu without having to sign in. The same goes for ESPN 3. How long before that changes?

NBC/Comcast Verification For Olympic Video

One of the biggest changes to Olympic coverage has been the deal where Comcast bought NBC. Two years ago you could just go on NBCOlympics.com & choose whatever video you wanted to watch & that was it. Just like ESPN 3.

But this year there has been a major change. Comcast now owns NBC, & because they will be doing live streaming, which wasn't the case in Beijing or Vancouver, you have to sign in.

It's similar to HBO Go. You have to choose your service provider (Comcast, Directv, Time Warner, etc.), & then log in through that website. The site verifies that you are a customer & then OK's your ability to watch. I did it this afternoon so I don't have to do it later. Now since the games haven't started, I don't know if I will have to log in everytime, like I have to to use HBO Go.

My issue with this is that I understand logging in to use HBO Go. It's a premium channel, & they don't want non-subscribers watching their shows for free. But why do this for NBC programming? Yes, it's the Olympics, but so what. I didn't have to do this two years ago for the Winter Olympics or four years ago for the last summer games. There was over a thousand hours of video on line & I watched a lot of stuff not on TV.

The other issue is this means cord cutters won't be allowed to watch at all because you need a cable or satellite account to watch online.  Again I wonder if this would be the case if Comcast hadn't been allowed to buy NBC. Remember that the government put a lot of rules on Comcast to allow the deal. This was to avoid Comcast from say preventing Directv from having access to NBC programming.

So while I have the access, I wonder what will happen in the future.

Viacom To Cut Directv Access

Another month, another broadcaster/provider fight. This one is Viacom battling Directv over a 30% fee increase. 30%? Really?

Here's the worst part. I looked at the list of channels I will be losing. Uh, I only watch Comedy Central. And only for Jon Stewart, & he's on vacation this week. And I can watch his show on Hulu.

MTV? I haven't watched that since Clinton was President. Nick-no kids. BET? Don't think so. In other words, if Viacom was to be dropped permanently, I wouldn't care. Sorry Viacom. You screwed up. Very few people care. Even Nickelodeon's viewership has gone down recently. So they don't even have that hammer to use.  This may turn out to be an embarassing  mistake for Viacom.

DNS Changer Flops

After several months of horror stories, today went by without a hitch. The feds stopped protecting infected computers with re-directs, meaning supposedly thousands of computers lost access to the internet as of 12m e/t.

Well it's 7:45 ET/4:45 PT & nothing happened. Once again the media overblew something. What a surprise! This would be 2012's version of Y2K. OMG, the world will end for tech users! Well, nothing of the sort happened. As USA Today said. DNS Changer was last years malware. There's something worse out there now.

Possibly. But if you use the latest browser, with all security updates, all plug-ins up-to-date, updated & running anti-virus software & anti-malware software, & don't do dumb things like clicking on unknown attachments, you are probably going to be OK.

Mozilla Stops Development Of Thunderbird

An internal e-mail from Mozilla states that tomorrow there will be an announcement as to the future of the open source e-mail client. Already people on the project have been moved to other projects. The line is "continued innovation of Thunderbird is not the best use of our resources given our ambitious organizational goals".

Not what exactly does that mean? Is Mozilla going to save the world? Not likely. It's a software company, nothing more, nothing less. While the argument is that people are moving to mobile or web-based clients (Gmail, I guess, although I've never used it that way), the fact remains that if you want a real e-mail client that collects all your mail from multiple addresses, you need a desktop client.

I use it because although my main e-mail is Gmail, I also have an e-mail address that my ISP gives me. So instead of logging in & out of those two, I let Thunderbird handle it. I have no desire to spend $150 on Office so I can use Outlook, or register with Microsoft so I can use Windows Live. Plus I don't know if that is any good.

Mozilla is saying, at least as of Friday, that it's not going away, they will still do security updates, but how long will that last? And will anyone out there in the open source community take over development or make a fork like Libre Office forked off of Open Office? Only time will tell.

iGoogle To Be Discontinued

If iGoogle is your homepage (like it is mine), it was announced today that it will end in November of next year. Supposedly this is because of all the apps that do the same thing.

The main problem with this is that I'm not using a smartphone or an iPad. This is on my desktop. Once again, a software company forgets that not everyone uses a smartphone. Some of us actually have real computers.

Now yes, this is a year and a half down the road. But still, why do this? This is once again this mistaken notion that the desktop will cease to exist. This is a mistaken notion. Why go this route?

There are other desktop programs like iGoogle. Netvibes comes to mind. The reason I use it is because I can have all these sites that I use on a regular basis without having to create a huge number of bookmarks. Plus all these sites are on my home page & I can click on a gadget instead of having to go through a bunch of menus to access them.

Again this is explained by apps on Android. But I don't have a smartphone. This is my computer. But Google doesn't understand that. they simply want to make everyone get a smartphone I guess. I'm guessing there will be a backlash. But there are still those that think the future is smartphones. Sorry, I like my 18" monitor. I have no intention of going to a 3" screen.

Mac Users Offered Expensive Hotels By Travel Site

This story appeared today in the paper. Travel site Orbitz checks what OS their customers are using & suggests hotels based on that.

In other words, if you log on using a Mac, you will be offered more expensive flights & hotels than if you are using Windows. Now while it would be easy to make fun of Apple fanboys, the fact is this is discrimination. Orbitz has figured out how to make a killing. "Hey, you're using OSX. You can afford the $300 a night room. That guy using XP? Well, we're offering him the $100 a night hotel down the block. So even though I'm a Windows user, I think this is wrong.