Applepie

Seattle Skyline

Seattle skyline as seen from Kerry Park in Queen Anne Hill, Seattle.

EOS 1DS II, 15 sec exposure at Aperture 13, ISO 100, EF 100-400mm

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: Kerry Park, Landscape, Moon, Photography, Seattle, Space Needle

TV Shows on iTunes - are networks having second thoughts?

Apple seems to be struggling with TV networks to provide timely release of TV shows on the iTunes store. Various new TV shows this season are not currently offered on iTunes at all - NBC Kidnapped is just one example. While ABC'S Heroes is on iTunes, it is still missing the series opener - episode 1. Battlestar Galactica season 3 took 5 days from original TV showing until it was available for purchase on iTunes. BSG episode 2 is still not listed for download even though the episode aired on TV last night.

It is too bad that TV networks have yet to truly embraced the internet as a viable medium for their programming. ABC's free internet streaming is a far cry from iTunes' commercial free downloads - user experience, quality, and accessibility are just not there with streaming videos. While I have never watched a single streaming show from ABC, I have purchased over 50 different TV shows from iTunes.

Hopefully Apple will be more successful in convincing TV Networks that iTunes provides the networks with an audience that is willing to pay for legal content and an audience that would not be watching TV shows otherwise.

TV Networks should be embracing iTunes as a legal vehicle for commercial distribution of their content instead of driving users to downloading shows from torrent networks.

NBC's Kidnapped was one new show this season that peaked my interest, but its absence from iTunes means that I will not be giving it a chance at all.

At our house, we switched to using iTunes exclusively for watching our TV shows (mostly Lost and BSG, and now 24). TIVo became relegated to simply pausing live sporting events.

BTW - we prefer iTunes over Tivo because iTunes gives us the ability to watch a TV Show remotely - on our laptop, desktop, TV or iPod. What ever happened with the Tivo to Go initiative?

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: Battlestar Galactica, iTunes, TIVO, TV

Nintendo Wii - lesson learned

At our house we currently have "old" generation video game consoles - Nintendo GameCube, Sony Playstation 2, Microsoft Xbox. We have yet to purchase the latest generation consoles.

While I enjoy playing video games, the reality is that I hardly ever get around to doing it. My son is still too young to play too much, but I am slowly introducing him to some games - mostly on Nintendo GameCube (Super Mario Striker, and LEGO Start Wars II).

However, all of this talk on latest generation game console from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo has gotten me interested in upgrading our systems. The first thing you notice while looking at the latest generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony is that they are expensive! XBox 360, when you add a HD and a couple of wireless controllers, costs close to $500. Sony's new PS3 will be around $600. Nintendo's Wii console will retail for $249 with Wii Sports. On price point alone Wii sounds like a winner to me. But what has really gotten me interested on Wii is their new controller with the hand movements for game playback.

I learned yesterday that EBGames would be taking pre-orders for Wii starting this morning. Naively, I arrived to our local EBGames store at 9:58am to reserve a copy. Big mistake - apparently people had been lining up at the store since 6am. Even though it wasn't even 10am yet, the store's official opening time, the store was already sold out.

Bummer. I should have known better. Hopefully I will be able to pick up a Wii once it officially releases in November.

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: game console, Nintendo, Video Game, Wii

Cleaning House - RSS Feeds

Phase 3 of my get organized process and shedding the summer months behind for good is getting a handle on the RSS feeds that I read. I was up to reading nearly 300 feeds a day - over 1200 posts a day. Way too many to be productive and efficient.

My first step in the clean up was to delete any and all RSS feeds that did not include the full article -- any blogs/sites that only post partial RSS feeds have been deleted - period.

Next I organized my feeds into groups, selecting 20 top feeds that go into a "Morning Read" group -- the goal is to read this group first thing in the morning.

I also created a work, technology, VC, and photography groups. Work will get scanned throughout the day - as appropriate, while photography, technology, and VC groups will only be read at night - and then only if time permits.

To further cut down on the number of feeds, I also deleted any feed that did not produce an "interesting" post in the past two week.

I am down to around 100 feeds now - still too much, but much better than what I started with.

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: blog, RSS

Cleaning House - IM, VOIP, and Contacts

Phase 2 of my re-focusing effort is to clean out my IM, VOIP, and Address Book contacts. First, I use 4 different IM accounts and 2 different VOIP accounts -- way too many. Some of my IM accounts have hundreds of contacts in them, some of whom I haven't IMed in months if not years.

It wasn't until I noticed that 3 of my IM contacts had actually died in the past year that I realized that I need to clean out my contacts to a manageable size. I may have gone to the extreme here, but I now have single digit contacts on my personal IM clients, and will expand from there very very carefully.

Yahoo and Microsoft now can IM with each other's contacts - this will enable me to drop one of my IM accounts. Since off-line Hotmail access on Macs is problematic, and Yahoo offers POP access to their email (for a fee), I am retiring my hotmail account. My AOL account is hardly ever used and since iChat can IM with AOL users, I can retire my AOL account completely.

On the VOIP front I currently use Skype and Gizmo. Skype supports video calls, and Gizmo's free calling is temperamental at best. Gizmo is getting the boot, and I will hang on to Skype a little longer.

Not bad, I am down to using two IM accounts and a single VOIP client and my contact list has now dropped to a very manageable size.

I have a feeling I will have a lot more time on my hands now.

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: Blog, Digital, IM, VOIP

Cleaning House - DVDs, LDs, CDs gone.

It is time to re-start, re-focus, and get re-organized.

Phase 1 -- going digital.

First step for me has been to shed unnecessary clutter in my life and convert to digital as much as possible. Last week, I donated over 5,000 DVDs and 2,000 LaserDiscs to my local library. For one, we would never watch most of those movies again (except maybe for the complete Start Trek series in both DVD and LD formats). Second, I actually donated all of my AV equipment as well - LD player, DVD player, DV player, 200 disc CD carousels, HI-8 player, cassette player, VCR player, radio, receiver, power amp, etc -- 3 complete systems. It is all moving digital now or it will not be part of our house. Bulk wise, those DVD's and LD occupied a huge amount of physical space - boxes that moved with us to 3 different house moves now - but no more. If there is a movie we want to watch, I hope it is on iTunes or a similar digital service or it won't be watched.

Our CDs have all been converted to digital files, and the physical media will be donated or recycled - no CDs will be moving around with us anymore either.

Photography wise, all of our photos have been digital since late 1999. Unfortunately, we still have maybe 20 albums full of old photos that must still be converted. This is a slow process that I am hoping to complete within the next 12 months - then the albums will all go - no point in carrying around hundreds of pound of photo albums while digital solutions are so readily available.

Now I better make sure that I have a secure and reliable digital storage solution to ensure that all of this media stays secure.

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: Digital

OS X 10.4.8 Wi-Fi Bug

My Apple iMac Core Duo has been having constant Wi-Fi problems ever since upgrading to Apple's latest OS X 10.4.8. My Wi-Fi connection drops unexpectedly and refuses to come back until the system is rebooted. Even after a reboot, the Wi-Fi only returns after the access-point is manually re-selected.

Needless to say, this makes using the iMac completely unacceptable.

Interestedly, the MacBook Pro does not have the same problem.

Totally unacceptable lack of quality control, and not something I have come to expect from Apple.

Technorati Tags: 80211, Apple, Bug, Software, wi-fi, wireless