HTTPS Everywhere Extension

I read about this on Lifehacker today & decided to try it out. Funny thing is the add-on isn't on Mozilla's add-on page, but rather, you have to go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's homepage.

It makes as many sites as it can secure with HTTPS code. Except sites that have some problems. For instance Netflix isn't secure by the extension, which lists it as "buggy". Hmmm. What does that mean? Maybe it only works part time. Kind of silly since my cc info is on there.

On the other hand Wikipedia is secured. Does this need to be? Some of it seems to be disabling ad sites like Doubleclick. But I block those with AdBlock Plus anyway. When I log in to PG&E or Directv, those are secured, but I can't remember if they would be anyway. So I am still not sure if this extension is that important. I guess it can't hurt.

What's Going On With Internet Speed?

Every once in a while I notice my speed is not what it should be. Then I go on Speedtest to check, & sure enough, it's nowhere near what I'm paying for.

This is the second time in a week I've come across this. I'm paying for 3Mbps, which is weak by world standards, but average in this pathetically regulated country, but guess what? I'm not even getting that.

I check with Speedtest, & I was getting 1.92! So I disconnect everything, shut off the modem for 2 minutes, plug everything back in, & now I'm getting 2.2. Well, that's better, but I should be getting at least 2.5.

This is the dishonesty of the system & the ISP's. They will claim too many people using at a particular hour, but I don't buy that excuse. Does my TV have trouble during primetime? No. The greed of companies in this country is the problem. South Korea has 85 Mbps, the best we can do is 25.

Anti Tech Oscar Favorite Losing At Box Office

The big story on Oscar Sunday is the thought that "The Artist" will win best picture & possibly best actor. Yes a movie that uses 1920's technology: silent & black & white. Supposedly a really good film.

But no one is seeing it. The box office take even after a big weekend is 31.9 million. That's chickenfeed in blockbuster Hollywood. But actually most of the nominees have made around that much including "The Descendants" & "Hugo".

What does this mean for tech lovers? That more & more films will be big, loud CGI movies. Well, except for that navy seals film that made the most money this week. Meanwhile Blockbuster has announced that they will be closing even more locations. Oh well.

Netflix To Stream Oscar Contender/Mozilla To Make Phone?

Today it was announced that Netflix had made a deal with the Weinstein Company to stream Academy Award favorite "The Artist" & other offerings before those films go on pay per view.

This is a major deal. It is meant to compete with cable, & especially with Comcast, which has announced it's own streaming service. Comcast's service will cost $5 as opposed to Netflix's $8 for unlimited. However all the news items fail to point out that Netflix has a lower priced plan. My plan is $5 a month for 2 DVD's plus 2 hours of streaming. Now that's not much, but it works for me, & should for busy people.

Then there's Mozilla. They have announced plans to possibly create their own phone. One that won't be tied to a particular OS (iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7). The reason is that it will use web apps. So you would be using the browser for these things. I don't think even they know exactly what it is going to be. There isn't that much info yet. But I'm sure that Mozilla is feeling the heat from Google. Chrome has been increasing market share, & maybe this is a way to fight back. Check back in 2 years.

iTunes Didn't Recognize My iPod (At First)

Today I bought some music from iTunes. It was the first time in several months I had. Now last week I did import a CD of mine to iTunes & then on to my iPod. Didn't have any problems. Then came today.

Now you would think that Apple would have all their glitches fixed by now, but no. FTR- I don't have my account loaded until I buy something. I never log in except to find album art, & still have problems with that. Namely the CD I imported (Chronicle/Creedence Clearwater Revival) has no album art. Really Apple? Only when I am going to buy something do I log in & ad a credit card. Then after done buying & downloading, I go back into my account & remove the cc#. Then I log out.

What happened today? Well I downloaded the 6 songs I bought (all by the Pretenders), & then hooked up my iPod to my computer. First it said it didn't recognize my iPod. Huh? It said go to the screen for restoring to original factory setting. I was about to do that, but then the iPod started to syncronize, meaning it added the new songs. So I didn't restore the iPod. So now those songs are on it. But what happened? I eventually got an email from iTunes saying someone from a different computer or device bought it with my ID. I wonder about that because the songs are on my computer & iPod, & I don't think a hacker would steal one song. That just doesn't make any sense.

Apple needs to do something about iTunes. It has a history of being hacked. I don't know if I was or not. I know that it first didn't want to sync with my iPod, & at one point I had 2 iPod listings on the device area. I may have to sync it a second time to see what happened.

Proview Sold iMac Copy Until 2009

Proview, the Chinese company suing Apple over the iPad name used to sell an all-in-one computer . On tech site "The Verge", there is an ad from the company about their "IPAD" computer. It looks remarkably like the original G3 iMac. You know, the computer that looked like a little TV, in multiple colors.

They claim that they spent $30 million on R/D before releasing this in 2000. Yeah right. The iMac came out in 1998. Are you telling me they didn't just rip off the design from Apple?

This is disingenuous. The company failed with theirs because they only sold 20,000 in 8 years, & I never heard of the thing until recently. The difference was that the IPAD ran Linux & had a 256 MHZ processor. That's almost the same specs as the Bondi Blue iMac I had a few years ago. It had a 266 MHZ processor. Good when it came out, terrible a few years ago, because of how big websites are now. So now these clowns who ripped off Apple with a copycat iMac, want to sue Apple over the iPad. This is simply an attempt to get money they are not entitled to. The Chinese government will look at how many people work for Apple in Shenzen & other cities, & how much they make off the company & maybe this company (which is on the verge of bankruptcy) will disappear.

San Jose To Provide Free WiFi?

An article in the free Metro paper says that San Jose has plans for a free WiFi service downtown. Meanwhile 20 miles up the freeway, Mountain View has a state of the art free service courtesy of Google, which has it's headquarters there.

The system will be built by SmartWAVE of Suwanee, GA, which built a WiFi network in Austin, TX, a major tech center with it's SXSW show. Ruckus Wireless of Sunnyvale will provide the equipment. They supplied Seoul, Korea with their system. So this sounds plausible.

The deal is supposedly being negotiated. My question is, if this is in the works, why did I have to read about it in a free paper that I picked up at Quiznos, rather than in the San Jose Mercury News? And how come it took this many years to do it?

Lots of businesses have free WiFi. Starbucks, the city libraries, my local mall (Oakridge). But available over the city's core? No. Of course, let's point out that it's probably not a good idea to do sensitive, company work on your lunch break at McDonald's, although I always see at least one person doing exactly that. Still, this is something that should be done. I'm just not holding my breath.

Firefox To Have Separate Browser for Metro

Mozilla has announced that it intends to develop a special browser for the Metro interface on Windows 8. Not sure how this will work. Will Microsoft actually make it available so development can be done, or will they try to insure that only IE will be usable on the new OS?

Remember, Metro is going to be designed to be a touch screen interface. So one can see where Microsoft will try to do what Apple did with the iPad, & only allow their own browser. Of course, this could possibly cause the European Union to get involved like they did with Windows 7. But why then didn't they go after Apple? Yes, the iMac supports Firefox & Chrome, but the iPad has a much larger inprint as far as sales, & the EU did nothing to them.

Mozilla needs to do something. Their market share has stagnated at around 20-25%. Chrome will pass Firefox within a year if it hasn't already. This despite the fox still being superior as far as extensions & memory usage.

Netflix Streams Lillyhammer

In an attempt to compete with television, Netflix has released to streaming an original production. It's called Lillyhammer & was filmed in Norway. 

The show is a humorous look at a gangster played by Steven Van Zandt who turns against an enemy & goes into witness protection in Lillehamer, Norway. At current it is only being streamed, with DVD's to come later. There are 8 45 minute episodes, all available on Netflix.

The show is a "fish out of water" comedy, with the majority of the cast being Norwegian actors speaking the language with subtitles. It flows quite well & kept my interest throughout. It's original & as one reviewer said is a cross between The Sopranos & Fargo.

Now comes the question. Is this the future of programming? Can Netflix & Hulu (which also has an original production coming) compete with the networks & cable? Is the audience going to be big enough to make this a profitable or at least a break even idea? I'm sure the media outlets will be looking to see what happens. If enough people watch this show, it is conceivable that this could become a new business model. The networks won't go away, but doing it this way means an extra competitor. Plus the fact that this is not a Hollywood production, but rather a Norwegian one should worry the big boys.

Bandwith Meter Fails

Out of curiousity I installed a bandwith data meter yesterday. This is a software program that monitors how much data you use. The reason is that some ISP's are setting caps on computer usage, much like wireless companies charge you for going over the caps.

The problem is that the meters appear to be fairly useless. The one I installed was supposed to have an icon on my taskbar, so I could open it when I wanted to check it. Well, it did no such thing. I ended up re-installing it more than once. Then I shut off my computer for the night. When I started up my computer this morning, guess what? Answer: the meter wasn't active. How silly.

Had it worked properly I would have kept it. After all, I do watch a fair amount of video. Last night I watched "Who do you think you are?", a geneaology show that follows celebrities on NBC. This afternoon I watched an episode of "The Wire" on HBO GO. So that's 2 hours of video right there. It would be nice to know how much bandwith I was using. Maybe in the future someone will come up with a plugin that does the job.

DVD's Remove Menu Option

Here's something that I'm coming across more & more. Certain DVD's no longer give you the option of clicking menu on your remote & going directly to the film options. This is clearly an attempt to make you endure the multiple trailers & ads for upcoming DVD's.

This happened today on a Netflix rental. It's not the first time, & clearly won't be the last. I was forced to hit fast forward at 20X to get to the movie. Again Hollywood does what they want to do instead of what the consumer wants. And they wonder while sales are down & people pirate.

Let us watch what we paid for. I'm not interested in an ad for something I'm never going to watch. This isn't network television. What's next: not letting me skip to whatever song I want to hear on a CD?

Neil Young Complains About MP3 Quality

This happened recently in an interview. Young stated that Steve Jobs preferred to listen to records for sound quality. Ironic isn't it?

The problem is that we like our iPods because they are portable. I like mine because I have songs from probably 50 or more different CD's in one place.

Now one can import them in a large format like lossless, but if your iPod doesn't have the capacity, you are restricted in how much you can put on it. Mine, for instance, is 8 GB. This means 2000 songs at 128 Mbps & 4 minutes per song. Well, I import at 128, but I have a number of songs at 7, 8, even 10 minutes long. I currently have 670 songs on mine. My iPod is about half full. If I doubled the rate to 256, my iPod would be full. Go to Apple Lossless (CD size file), great sound, but guess what? I would lose half my songs.

I understand what Young is saying, but I'm not an audiophile, & the songs sound good to me, even with my upgraded Sennheiser headphones. A professional would hear defects. I don't have the ear or background for that. Eventually the cost of flash memory is going to go down. This means no more 8 GB nano's for $150. Instead, you will be able to buy an iPod with 64 GB for the same price. Think of it, that's 16,000 128 Mbps songs, 8,000 at 256, & probably around  1,000 in lossless. That would be fine. But who knows when that will be?