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I’ve got thirteen channels of sh*t  on the TV to choose from.

-‘Nobody Home’ by Pink Floyd

The above quote is so archaic at this point in time that you want to tousle its hair and tell it how adorable it is. Have you looked at how many channels you have access to recently? The descriptor is still fairly accurate, though it’s through the eyes of the beholder.

There are just way too many channels that I will never watch, and I’d love to not have to pay for them. Sports would be the first set of channels that go away. There have been two occasions where sports have been on in my house – once for HD testing, and once because a couple of friends came over to watch a World Series game last year because their cable hadn’t been hooked up yet. I’d be glad to be rid of them, on general principle. Don’t even get me started on Spanish channels. I don’t speak Spanish, so I’m paying for channels that I cannot even understand.

So, it’s not wonder that I’ve long been a fan of the idea of paying a la carte  for cable TV.  I would love to see a smaller bill from Charter.

This morning though, I found something that actually moved my irritation from passive to active. I found a chart from last year showing the costs to a cable provider per channel. Click here to see the memo. Seriously, go look at it. I’ll wait.

I know that everyone derives entertainment from different things, but I’m going to say, for me, the idea of paying about $6.45 for the top two sporting channels is outrageous. I didn’t even bother adding up the Spanish Channels, because I’d probably pop a blood vessel. And this is on top of the “Well, you can get HBO by itself, but it’s actually cheaper to bundle every channel we offer" scam. I bet that if I could go out to Charter’s web site and put a checkbox by the channels watched in my house, it would end up with under 10 selected, plus one or two premiums (assuming you give me reasonable prices for them – $5 a channel seems about right.)

There’s also a larger issue here – we’re subsidizing channels that otherwise would have no chance of ever making it. What’s the revenue plan here? Just leech off the subscriber fees forever? Seriously, there’s a Wedding Channel on my lineup. If you can show me how that channel would make it in  a world where cable subscribers aren’t forced to pay for it, I’ll eat their CEO’s business card.

I’m done with iTunes and iPods and iWhatever.

Last night, courtesy of the fine folks at Amazon.com’s shipping department, I received a 16GB microsd card for my Nexus One phone. I’ve been really looking forward to moving the rest of my mobile experience to the Android platform, which has really become an integral part of my life over the past couple of months. I use it for virtually everything now, and I’ve finally discovered what people must mean when they talk about a smart phone. Google has come a long way with Android since I wrote this article.

In addition to becoming my main email/news/web surfing platform, I’ve started using some of the media functions of the phone (which, incidentally, are among the weakest of the Android offerings), migrating them off of the iPod. The first thing I did was load up Google Listen for managing podcasts. Then I started using booksshouldbefree.com to fill up my audio book addiction until Audible get’s their act together and releases an Android client. The only two things remaining? A Bluetooth interface for my car stereo (where I do the majority of my listening), and moving my music over.

I’m currently using a 32GB iPod touch, and prior to that, I was using an 8GB Nano. That’s where it gets tricky. My music library is about 60GB, so I had to find some way to pare it down to the essentials. I am NOT a random music listener, so I finally settled on picking the songs I know I want on my music player, no matter what. I added a comment of kris_ipod to each track, and then made a smart playlist inside of iTunes that sync’d that to the player. Add in audio books, podcasts, and a second smart playlist to add some random filler and that took care of things. As I moved forward into larger iPods, I made larger random lists, and the core list grew as I added music from Amazon’s MP3 store (clean, unencumbered, play-it-anywhere music in high quality, fully tagged MP3 goodness), but I made a habit of making sure that all of my music that I wanted available to me on a mobile player had a comment tag.

Meanwhile, last time I reinstalled iTunes and imported my library off the server, it started an annoying process of “normalizing” my volume – essentially trying to make every track on an album the same volume. It’s a process that takes forever, and no matter how many times I cancel it, it just starts back up when I launch iTunes. At some point, I finally decided to just let it run. Since the setting for “Don’t Do That” didn’t work, I figured I’d just cave in and let it go, just like I did with the equally annoying “Downloading Album Artwork” feature.

To shorten the back-story, let’s say that everything worked fine up to a certain point. I copied the existing card’s content over to the new card, booted up and tested a few key apps to make sure everything looked good. The speed was great, and all of my data was there.

That’s when everything went south.

I still don’t have a good solution in place for syncing my music over to the Nexus, so I decided I’d just do a Windows search against my library for everything with my tag, and copy it. When I did the search, I came up with a number of songs that was about 1200 less than what was on my iPod. After about an hour of trying to pin down the problem, I checked a couple of individual files on the server and realized that while iTunes shows the metadata as being correct and what I anticipate it to be, the actual metadata in the files was overwritten with a volume level code in the comments field, completely overwriting my own comments.

Thanks iTunes. Thanks Apple. Now I have to go back and redo that entire effort so that I can move my music. I am literally talking about hours of work, unless I can pinpoint where you decided to screw up my files and restore them from the backups.

I’d like to point out that my music library is METICULOUSLY maintained. Every single track has album artwork and correct tags. I did that external to iTunes, and I don’t want it dicked with. If you’re going to do that, do it in your own damn data structure, not in the data structure of the physical files. Also worth noting is that fact that all of the music I bought from Amazon has now had the fingerprint comment overwritten.

Why did Apple feel the need to do that? I’m glad you asked.

It’s because Apple firmly believes they know what’s best for you. They want to tell you how you should listen to your music, how you should organize your music, and how you should access your music. They know best, and that’s how you’re going to do it. You won’t move to another platform ever, so why should you care if your files are damaged? Don’t worry your pretty little head about it – we’ve got it handled and we’ll show you what you need to know.

I won’t lie to you, Marge. I love me some Apple hardware. iTunes, on the other hand, is one of the worst-designed pieces of crap on the market. It constantly adds crap that it decides you need (like, you know, a whole new web browser and an auto update mechanism and a new network protocol), whether you want it or not. Don’t worry, we’ll tell you what you need and you’ll be happy.

Apple builds a really beautiful walled garden. Once you’re there though, good luck getting out with your data intact. They cleverly conceal a number of locks on the gate.

Consider this my “Dear Jobs” letter. In a time where we are overwhelmed with choices in mobile media players and the software to manage them, I don’t have to settle for a significant other that never listens to me, tells me “Pipe down sweetie pie, the men are talking. We’ll tell you what to giggle at”, smacks me on the ass and sends me to the kitchen for pie.

Sorry Apple, it’s not you, it’s me.

Let me start this by saying up front that I have used an iPhone for about 10 minutes, and that was to send someone’s pictures to a website for them. So, I’m not going to get into how great it is. I do own an iPod Touch, and I will state for the record that I think its interface is top notch. I’ve heard from a number of sources, however, that email is problematic on the iPhone, though supposedly the iPhone 3g corrects a lot of the perceived problems. Since I’ve never owned one, I don’t really feel like I should get into the relative merits of the iPhone, other than to say I’ll gnaw off an arm before I’ll go on the AT&T network – which, taken with the fact that it doesn’t work for Exchange in my environment, pretty much nixes my option of ever having an iPhone

I owned a T-Mobile G1 (the Google Android phone) for three days before returning it. I could go on and on about all the positive features that Android brings to the table. It’s a slick phone OS, considering it’s a version 1.0 release. I’m impressed, and you can bet I’ll be following its development.

I currently use a Blackberry Curve 8320 from T-Mobile. It’s my primary phone. I got it as part of a pilot program from work, and decided that since I hate carrying multiple phones, I’d just go ahead and make it my primary. It’s a stubby, not-at-all-elegant piece of hardware. It’s too wide to use comfortably as a phone without a headset (for which I use the incredibly elegant Jawbone gen 2), the screen is too small for video use, the camera is sub-standard, and it’s generally a temperamental piece of crap.

Having said that, why do I continue to use and love my ugly little baby?

Simply put, it just works.

I have some rather specialized needs from a phone if it’s going to give me my email and a pseudo-online experience. I have one Exchange email account, and 4 Gmail accounts. I need to receive email on all of them as near to real-time as possible. I do not want to get an alert 5 minutes after it’s been generated. I need it as soon as possible.

You can imagine that I was really anticipating the Android phone, even more so when I learned that it would be available on T-Mobile’s network first. Lots of people have complained about T-Mobile’s 3G network, but I didn’t encounter a single hitch with it. It was snappy and things loaded quickly for me. It helps that Atlanta is saturated with TMo’s 3G.

My enthusiasm quickly diminished from the point where I actually purchased the phone. First problem is that it’s locked to one Gmail account. From a technical point of view, that’s not entirely true, since you can add up to 5 other email accounts via POP or IMAP. Those four accounts, however, are fetch email, as opposed to push, and the fetch cannot be set lower than 5 minutes. Strike one. I need all of my Gmail to be pushed to my phone.

I thought about trying to work around it by setting all of my ancillary Gmail accounts to forward into my primary, but that’s where the Android hit strike two. Despite being an OS from Google, there is no provision for doing a send-as in the main Google account. So, I can’t even do a half-assed workaround to get past the problem. That’s just plain inexcusable. Google controls the OS, Google controls GMail – Google should be mimicking every function on the web interface. If they can code in the keyboard shortcuts, they can code in the send-as. I can only assume that this is a feature that will be forthcoming in a service release.

The next strike was when I realized that, since the phone is tied to one GMail account, I wasn’t going to be able to use the Google Apps (spreadsheet and writer) from multiple accounts. That’s a big problem, as was the realization that I’d only be able to use one of my Google Talk accounts (A problem for me since I chat on one, and do ping.fm updates from the other). Strike three, and the G1 is OUT!

My Blackberry is ugly, but it works. It has neither an interface as pretty as a G1 or an iPhone, nor any kind of rich ecosystem of apps like those phones. Really though, how many tip calculators or flashlights do I need? I can calculate a tip in my head, and the bright white screen on my Blackberry lights up enough of the room so that I don’t stub my toe in the dark.

In exchange for those minor issues, I get my Exchange email, and all of my additional GMail/Pop inboxes pushing email to me as soon as it hits my mailbox. I have apps for Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. I have a couple of neat games, and some decent themes. I can’t really say I need anything more than that from a handheld device.

I went into the purchase of the G1 knowing that it would not do Exchange in my environment without going through OWA. My criteria for keeping the phone was simple – if I’m going to have to work around not getting my corporate email (which is important, since I use it for monitoring servers and environmental at work, for which they pay me), then everything else was going to have to work perfectly out of the box.

I’m not the only one grousing about this, either. Google’s lack of understanding about how a lot of people manage their email will harm them in the near-term, I think. Until they get with it and add support for multiple accounts which can interface with multiple services, and figure out a way to get Exchange email, the Android will remain an enthusiast platform, with no real chance of invading RIM’s turf in the Enterprise.

Pictured right is the screen I ran into on my system this morning after a couple of strange reboots and errors. "Odd", thought I. Since I’ve just gone through a case migration, so I ran through the usual checks – cable secured, proper port, etc.

Vista rolled through a consistency check, and "sorted" a bunch of files (which is never good), and we wound up here after the reboot. Well crap. This is just not good. What you’re seeing in that screenshot is the Intel RAID manager saying "I can’t see the volume anymore – you’re hosed."

This is a catastrophe. Well, sort-of.

I’m lucky in that I actually did a backup of my critical data prior to the case swap, and unlucky in that I now have to go through the gyrations of troubleshooting the disk problem and reinstalling the OS and Apps. I’ve been on 64bit Vista for a month or so now, and I haven’t done my usual job of creating an unattended, so if I go back to Vista, I have to do a full-on manual install.

I’m actually considering going back to XP, for a variety of reasons that I’ll get into in a later post. Suffice to say that I’m really not seeing enough of a compelling reason to stick with Vista. It’s just so…yawn.

As a side note, my first thought was "Oh my god – I’ve lost all of the 1000+ pictures I just scanned in". I then realized that I had uploaded all of them to flickr, which was a relief even after I remembered that I had a full backup of them on a local drive.

Further updates as events warrant.

Wow – this should pretty well be the nail in Twitter’s coffin. Google announces that they’ve acquired Jaiku (the web presence that I use). I’m curious to see if they have a direction, or it this is a portfolio pickup.

Google’s Blog

*Editor’s note: The reason I have never been on TWiT is because I make completely wrong statements like "this should pretty well be the nail in Twitter’s coffin".

Apparently, the MPAA has “taken into account” the exact flaw that I described in my earlier post. They specifically asked study respondents how many of the movies they pirated would have been purchased (or viewed in theaters) if they could not have pirated them.

Fear not, though…they’re still a bunch of booger-heads.

According to ArsTechnica, nobody has seen the survey. The press release was merely a collection of talking points, with none of the data revealed.

Ars brings up two good points:

1. You can’t apply the same criteria to domestic and foreign populations. Piracy is a much deeper cultural norm in some societies.
2. They regard copying for personal use, as well as decoding for use on portable video platforms, as piracy. In other words, they consider “Fair Use” to be whatever they think is fair – not what the law says is fair use.

Remember kids – if you own a video iPod or a PSP, and you want to put a DVD that you purchased on it , that’s considered copyright infringement by Big Content*.

Screw you, booger-heads. Nowhere in the law does it say that am I obligated to prop up your failing business model.

Ars Article here

*Actually, it isn’t. It is actually a violation of the DMCA, since you must circumvent the DRM to put the video in another location.

Yesterday, one of the agents of “Big Content” (the MPAA) released the news that they had lost over six billion dollars in 2005, due to piracy worldwide. Yet again, they seem to be failing to take a number of factors into consideration.

Let me say upfront that piracy is a real issue. I do not dispute that. I think Big Content is losing some real money here. But I also believe that they are overstating their case in an effort to make it easy for the politicians they’ve bought to get whatever shenanigan-laden copyright legislation they think up made into law.

I’d like to draw your attention to one paragraph in particular:

“Bootlegging,” which the study defines as buying illegally copied movies, DVDS or Video CDs, accounted for $2.4 billion. “Illegal copying,” making copies for yourself or getting them from friends, made up $1.4 billion. Finally, illegal downloads cost the studios $2.3 billion in lost revenues.

There is a fundamental problem with that line of reasoning, namely that they are assuming that every download/copy/whatever directly translates to a lost sale.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Internet doesn’t exist and there is no easy mechanism for downloading or copying movies. Now, take a pool of one hundred people, chosen at random, and see how many people are going to buy “Cabin Fever” (in my opinion, the worst movie ever made) at $19.95. You might get 2-3 people willing to buy it, for a total gross of $59.85. Come back to reality now, and ask the same group of people who would be willing to make a copy of it. Even if 100% of the group is willing to make a copy of the movie, you’ve only lost $59.85. Big Content, on the other hand, would seem to have you believe that they’ve lost $1995. Big difference.

Truth number one – Just because someone pirates a movie, it does not directly correlate to a lost sale. It’s an opportunity cost, at worst.

More likely, it’s revenue you would never have seen anyway.

Original Link:

Film piracy costs Hollywood $6.1 bln: study – Yahoo! News

One of the neater functions of Wordpress (the software I run khaosx on) is the ability to set the system up to recieve posts via email. Anything you see in the category “moblog” is something I posted via email.

It’s really easy:

1. Setup a mailbox
2. Set Wordpress to look for email in the box.
3. Setup a cron job to run the page that looks for email.

My cron job runs every 5 minutes, and uses a command line broswer (CURL) to process a script file that dumps the email into a post.

Here’s where the train started to leave the track:

>/dev/null

The UNIX folks know where I’m headed now. For the rest of you, here’s the thing. The cron job takes any output from the job itself and emails it to the default system email account.

UNLESS YOU REDIRECT THAT OUTPUT TO /DEV/NULL

(/dev/null is the ether, the void, the place where all things go, the universal trashcan).

This site has been online and checking for mail posts since April. The default system account is NEVER checked by yours truly. Until today, that is.

When I found 69,490 emails in the system account. I suspect that about 69,200 of them are emails from cron.

What a doofus.

Netbank SUCKS. If you are even remotely contemplating opening an account with them – DON’T!!!!!!!!!!

As previously mentioned here, in the past year they’ve managed to lose $4000 in deposits (yes, they managed to find them a few days later, but it cost me 12 hours of my life), and now this:

I put in a wire transfer request yesterday morning at 07:44. At 15:00 yesterday, I called to see why it hadn’t gone through. I was told “Yeah, we haven’t worked on that yet. You need to verify the information.”

From Netbank’s Website:

Note: For security purposes, NetBank practices random telephone verifications for wire requests. Successful verification of these selected requests must be completed prior to processing. Therefore, it is important that your contact information on file with us is correct.

That says “You don’t need to worry about a thing. We’ll handle it. If your number comes up, we’ll call you for security verification”.

So, at 15:00 yesterday I verified the info, and was told “It doesn’t matter what’s on the website. Common sense should tell you to call us.”

The problem with common sense is that it’s just not that common.

If there is a procedure I should follow, then put it on your damn website. I shouldn’t have to be a mind reader.

So, I checked this morning at 07:30. Nope…still nothing. Then I finally got an email from Netbank:

This bank mail serves as confirmation that your wire is being processed and will be sent by 5PM (EST) today. Please note that it is up to the receiving institution to post the credit. If further assistance is required, please contact us via bank mail. We value your business and hope that you will consider NetBank to be the primary provider for all of your financial needs.

WTF?

So, I call back and work my way up the chain. Sure enough, nobody there gives a damn about my business. The last supervisor I spoke with asked me what the wire was for, since they might be able to do something. I flew off the handle at that point and replied “It’s for getting MY money somewhere that it needs to be. What does it matter what it’s for? If I say it’s for little Suzie’s Iron Lung, will it get processed before noon?”

I’ve been a customer for 5 years. That will be ending in less than a month.