Kill Your TV & Hook Up your Desktop

Just Say NO

Because Cable Companies Suck

Many of you have seen my rant about Comcast.  This is my answer to the crap I get from cable companies.  I’m tired of 5-10 minutes of advertisements I don’t care about and having to schedule my life around the shows I want to watch.  If you too are tired continue reading and/or share your solution.

How to do it

It really depends on your computer.  Go to Fry’s or any other major computer geek like store and they will tell you what components you need.  We just got cords to connect the screen and sound from either our laptops or tower.  If done correctly you have your GAME channel or DVD channel turn your TV into a monitor. 

WARNING

•  Depending on how old your TV is the resolution could be effect
• Age can also mean you could burn your screen AKA don’t leave your TV on a screen for too long because your screen could be messed up. 
• Not all TVs are equal:  You need to talk to a professional (even the professional computer geek near you) to find the components you need.

Sorry I am not the computer geek you need but if you need help feel free to contact me.  I know some great computer geeks that can help me figure out the components you need. 

And Why is it Better?…

Less intrusive advertisement

As you already know, there aren’t as many advertisements by far.  Instead of 15-20 minutes of advertisements an hour you may watch six 30 second advertisement or just two 60 second advertisements.  Plus, if you have open cookies you could have customized advertisements based on your searches and visited websites.  Or on sites like Hulu you can sometimes choose which advertisements you want to see. 

TV on my Schedule

I know this was the tagline of DVR and TiVo but really this is the essence of Internet TV.  I can watch what I want, when I want but the big difference is its FREE!  Well, you do have to pay for the Internet but look you are already multi-tasking one bill. 

I can watch TBS and AMC or A&E programs without having to pay outrageous cost for premium plans that only allow two or three of the channels I want to watch. 

Online News Update

You can watch your news online.  Yes, I wish I could just download the local news @ 6 but I don’t expect my local stations to be that up to date.  Plus, the newspapers need the help with subscriptions being down. 

Anyways, news is free!  You can go on iTunes and check.  I can now watch Keith Olbermann online for free when I use to have to pay extra to have MSNBC in my cable channels.  You can also download CNN news and Nightly News in the Podcast section.  Then there is always visiting the news sites themselves to see “Today’s Headlines.”  You can then leave a comment rather than yelling at your TV screen.  Who knows you might get quoted later. 

Best of ALL!

You don’t have to deal with major events interrupting your view habits.  For instance, many people will not be able to watch their favorite shows because of Winter Olympic coverage.  Another idea is that we missed an hour to two hours of programming because of the State of the Union address last week.  Or even better I don’t have to deal with Miss America Paget any more! 

The only thing you will notice is that your show didn’t have a new episode this week.  If you want to watch these shows as well.  Many of them realize that people may miss the show and want to watch it later AKA live-streaming or the video is uploaded later.  For instance, I can download the State of the Union address from iTunes.  Or watch the bobsled competition through videos on YouTube. 

The Drawback

The only problem is that channels like Discovery (my favorite) don’t stream all of their shows online.  I have to search through YouTube for a five part version of episodes.  This isn’t always a fruitful search either. 

C is for Cookie

(NOTE: Could some one please start a petition to get Discovery to live-stream Mythbusters and Cash Cab online?  I’ll bake you cookies)

Conclusion

While it may be a bit harder to stay in touch with the world when you can’t just flip on the news it means you are more engaged in what you read and watch.  Why?  Because you choose to watch and/or read the content.  You searched for it.  It make you more interested and actually more informed because you look at multiple sources and read the entire story.  Face it you searched for it so you want to read the whole thing.

Oregon Measures 66 & 67: And So They Pass…

I am a girl who grew up in Eastern Oregon who decided to be a Democrat in a staunchly Republican area.  However I, like my generation, vote our concise and not our party line.  I still remember where I grew up and that is why I voted against these measure.  But let me warn you, my explanation why is not a diatribe, it is my experience and a little opinion.  If you feel it is at all mis-informed feel free to comment. 

The Farm Life

Growing up in Eastern Oregon in a small town you learn about what the farmer has to deal with.  How he may be “in the money” after harvest but that is only until he has to buy: crop to seed, repair equipment/buy new equipment or pay bills and taxes.  I always thought farmers were nice, honest guys because that is what my dad is and will always be. 

You see my Dad is not the cigar-smoking farmer sitting on buckets of cash.  He pours his heart and should into the family farm that has been here since my Great-grandfather bought the land years ago.  It has been his honor and duty to fulfill the promise of taking care of it.  Though, he will not be able to pass it off to either my brother or I as he received it because we both moved away from the farm in pursuit of what makes us happy.  And my Dad supported that fact no matter how much it hurt him. 

Anyways, most of the farmers I know are not upper class or anything.  As my parents say, “We have a lot on paper but it all ends up in the land.”  They have a few investments, loans and equipment that appear on taxes that make the business and personal net worth rather high but in reality they have no control over that money for free time.  At the end of the day they can go on just as many vacations as the middle class and can afford just as much of a college education as the middle class.  I say this because I don’t want you, my reader, to think that I voted against 66 & 67 because it effected my trust fund.  I don’t have anything like that.  I just know what businesses and families will be hurt by this. 

The City Life

So, after growing up on the farm I moved to the Valley for my education.  I found that people believed I was a hick and were rather surprised that I had a rather good knowledge of ‘city ideas’ and the like.  While I may not have experienced everything I knew how to act and respond. 

When I found out that the Valley was the one that would hurt the farmers I was almost insulted to live here or even admit I was from Eastern Oregon.  I began to vote my concise when I had the ability.  I knew how measures and bills would affect my family and how they would help the Valley citizens as well.  It was a rare thing in my area. 

It was rare because the Valley sees the cigar-smoking farmer or they don’t think about him at all.  They believe that Eastern Oregon is caught in the past when they are working as hard as they can with what they know, whether it be new or old.  They would pass bills that would destroy farmland by taking away cattle grazing streams for ‘polution’ reasons.  It creates a great divide in the State starting at the Cascades.  That is probably why people believe that Eastern Oregon starts when the Cascades end.  This isn’t true but that is another blog post all together. 

What will these Measures do to the Farmer?

If you couldn’t figure it out earlier, a farmer appears to be worth a bit on their taxes and so could and probably will be taxed more because of 66.  Also owning a farm is consided a business/corporation so they will also have to pay more taxes for owning a business.  A farmer gets hit from both sides because of these Measures.  It doesn’t seem fair to punish them for working.

What they will do to the Valley?

As it seems the tax will increase programs all over the State but primarily in the Valley because, I admit, there is more need here.  (I now live in Portland.) 

However, 67 will destroy small business.  We are trying to create jobs and be innovative but having a tax increase on businesses does the opposite.  We want them to get help like the tax breaks from the current administration not tax them more because we need to fund out government programs. 

Why I voted No overall

I voted no on 66 & 67 because of my upbringing and what it taught me about city life and country life.  I also voted no because I believe the government needs to learn how to budget better.  I don’t want to give a government more money when they haven’t yet figured out how to make it work or balance their budgets.  It is time to treat the country like a business and make it live within its means

Final Thought

I was talking to my family about this subject and they told me how it would affect them.  Then my Mom made a monumental comment.  She said, “This is could change how Oregon votes on taxes.”  I had forgotten that my State is known for voting down tax Measures.  So, does this mean that we might actually be voting for a sales tax this time next year?

Why I hate Internet Ads

We have all been irritated by that Internet ad that takes over the entire page for a 30 second television ad or just keeps playing annoying music.  Here are the top things that I hate when I see annoying Internet advertisements.  But this isn’t just a rant either.  I also include what I love about Internet advertising. 

1.  Page Takeovers

As I mentioned above, an advertisement will take over a large part of the click-able landing page to either show you some cute/annoying interactive advertisement or (the lazy version) show you a 30-second television advertisement.  This all happens within the first few seconds of visiting the page.  The other problem is if the advertisement doesn’t do this then if you accidentally move your mouse over the advertisement even slightly it will expand and try to show the whole advertisement then or even a second time. 

Why it doesn’t work

This doesn’t make you gain click for your ad.  It irritates the user because they came to this site for information and not for your advertisement.  You are taking their valuable time in a fashion that they will not appreciate.  They will not remember your ad many times because they are too worried about how to make it stop so they can get back to their browsing in peace.

Solution

So you don’t have angry potential customers remember to always have an opt-out available for them.  If you HAVE to make a huge advertisement that takes an entire webpage to view make sure there is an “X” or “Close” option up in the right-hand corner.  Your customers will appreciate it after running into so many annoying ads. 

Also disable anything that will make your advertisement pop up a second time when the cursor moves over it.  The person already had to deal with your ad once don’t make them deal with it again.  Make it require a click to view the ad or a button that floats over the box that says “View” or “Play.”  If your customer is curious they will play it. 

2.  Auto-play advertisements

What I mean by this is when you arrive at the website this advertisement starts to play immediately no matter how you reload the page.  The includes the page takeovers and the TV commercials.  It is especially annoying on video websites because I didn’t come to hear this audio, I came to watch my show.  Sometimes they are even on loop so you can’t just wait for the commercial to be over either.  But that is for a later time.

Why is it annoying?

The viewer maybe curious about your advertisement to begin with so yes the auto-play does work.  However, some viewers are at work and didn’t know their speakers were on so then your advertisement is all over the office and could get someone fired.  It is also irritating because the customer came to the site for information/entertainment and not for your advertisement.  Don’t intrude on their time. 

Solution

So you don’t intrude on their time and still get a view of the advertisement allow the viewer to choose whether they want to see your ad.  You can do this by having a button that says “Play” floating over the advertisement box.  Another option is to have the advertisement playing in the box with a shade over it and the button that says “Play with sound” on it.  If the visual is exciting enough the customer will choose to view it freely. 

3. Repetitive advertisements

 We are all use to the advertisement or graphic that won’t stop flashing at us while we are trying to read text on a page.  I remember one page with a hummingbird, it was a beautiful graphic but it wouldn’t stop moving and I couldn’t scroll down away from it.  IT MOVED WITH THE PAGE!  I had to leave the website because it was so irritating.  Most of the time when I have a repetitive advertisement on the page I either move my page so it is out of view (warping my viewing window) or refresh the page till there are only stationary advertisements. 

 Why is it so irritating?

I am distracted by the movement.  I know that is the intention of the advertisement but it is annoying because I am trying to read an email/research for a report/bid on eBay/etc.  I am trying to concentrate on my task and not your advertisement. 

Solution

If your advertisement is a video then have a “Pause” button so the customer may pause the advertisement and if they are curious can play it. 

If your advertisement is just repetitive for the sake of being seen later in a page view, STOP IT!  Seriously, some people scroll down their anyways so you don’t need to have it play over and over.  Just play the advertisement once.  Then give the person the option to play it a second time if they are curious.  If you still feel the need to replay your advertisement without prompting from the viewer, maybe for pages with long visit times, play it every 3,5 or 10 minutes so that the viewer will have time to see what they came to see without being distracted by you. 

Conclusion

Don’t intrude on your potential customer.  Their time is just as valuable (if not more valuable) then yours.  If you intrude on what the customer is doing they do not appriceate it and will give you bad brand awareness rather than a click-through rate. 

Also TRUST your customer.  If they are interested by your creative then they will click on the ad to view it or go to the site directly when reminded of your company by the advertisement. 

Always give us the option or you will never get positive engagement. 

NOTE: I will update this post as more advertisements get it wrong in my life.

Computer reacts to ‘the finger’?

  

Yep, soon you can flip off your computer and it will understand your are mad at it now.  However, that is a long time off yet.  This is actually for TV currently but I can see it being used for computers soon enough. (I know a horrible hook for an article but you won’t regret reading the rest)

Read my Movements?

So at the Consumer Electronics Conference in Las Vegas last week many companies launched new technology that could read a TV viewer’s hand motions to: turn up the volume, change the channel and even turn on the TV itself with a little punch in the air!

It was shown using and Xbox (this tech will defiantly compete with the Wii but I can see Nintendo catching up fast).  There would be people playing dodge ball with no controller!  Or people would have to contort their bodies to fit through holes in an obstacle course.  Not far from the Wii but when done without a balance board or controller of any kind is pretty amazing.

How does it work?

The technology uses a very sensitive 3-D camera.  It sounds more like a sensor but they call it a camera because of its build I guess.  I can see why the AP article sites that this sensor had to go through excruciating testing to distinguish a person changing the volume from a person scratching their nose.

A new Movement not a Revolution

Then you also have to know learn new movements to make the TV, Computer, Xbox do what  you want.  Many of them are not different from what you would expect.  AKA you kick the air and your avatar kicks the ball.  Others might be different for instance, do you punch your TV or computer to turn it on?  Nope? Don’t want to hurt your screen right?

The Future is here

This technology is similar (if not exactly the same) to the SixthSense product from MIT that previewed at the TED conferences a few years ago.  (I have a previous post about it.) Because of that I know it can take picture with photo gestures and use simple motions to type or rewind if necessary.

Conclusion

To think, my kids may never have to learn the shortcuts for a Screen Shot.  They will just learn the picture gesture.  That gesture will be picked up by the 3-D camera/sensor and he or she will have a new picture on the screen.  These movements to turn on the TV or turn up the sound will be second nature to them as programing a VCR or DVD was for me.

I can’t wait to see what comes next.  Years ago we were talking about virtual reality, maybe that is in the works right now with movies like Avatar out there.

What do you think?

Why the Oregonian & OregonLive need help

To preface

I love the Oregonian. I grew up with it and the Eastern Oregonian as the main papers with more info than the local papers. I don’t mind Oregon Live because it gives me local and national info that I want.

The problem

The major issue I have is combining the two. The issue is this:

I found an article I wanted to use for this blog and to Tweet about. So I searched for the Oregoonian online. What pops up? OregonLive. ‘Oh yeah this is there online persona,’ I remember. But then I search for the keywords in the article I had read and nothing. I search for the last 24 hours, diddly! I have to look at a pdf of the front page to find my article.  So I cut and paste the title into the search for Oregon Live. Still nothing. I want to read it in its entirety online for bookmarking and highlighting (Since the office paper isn’t my own I don’t want to write on it.)

I still can’t find the Oregonian article on the website at all.  I finally, after 5 minutes or more of searching, (An enternity when  you have all your keywords already), I find the original AP article on the subject.  But it doesn’t have the voice I liked in the Oregonian article.  The voice of a Cascadian. 

So what do I do as a productive Gen-Y social networker? 

I come here to my blog with little connections to write about a horrible experience.  OregonLive and the Oregonian better get the idea that they need to share their articles before publish.  I want both the original AP article and the Oregonian article because it gives it all crediblity in my mind.  I want to move seemlessly from paper to computer and visa versa. 

HELP please?

This situation was in no way seemless.  Does anyone else have a similar experience or am I just looking on the wrong website for my infomation?

Teaching Baby Boomers to use SoMe

I have been working for about 2 weeks to create a class on how to teach Baby Boomers how to use Facebook and possible any other Social Media (SoMe) site they would be interested in using.  So I created my lesson plan and showed it to my pastor because the only place I can think to get a good audience and space with little proven experience and faith is church.  They have helped me get my feet on the ground in the past why not again?

So I start to plan and realize I could have done this months ago and now I should really wait unti

l after Christmas to start.  Mostly because everyone is worried about Holiday Bazar and making preparations.  I might offer my

personal services earlier to teach people how to use Ebay for Christmas or send out family newsletters and such but otherwise I don’t want to interrupt the season.

After thinking all of this through and creating a basic lesson plan my mom found a great article in the Eastern Oregonian called Baby boomers invade the web about a man named John Fisher who is working off a grant in the Pendleton Public Library for their Information Literacy Project.  I wish I could find something like that here in the Metro area.  It sounds really fun.

So I am just going to keep this clipping for now to show proof of my theory to teach my parents and grandparents how to use this technology.  Because admit it, we will all reach a time when something new comes along that we will need to be taught.  I want to be that teacher.  I want to know what the new thing is and teach people how to use it for their own connections.

In the article it talks about how being on the internet helps seniors beat depression.  The study from Phoenix Center found that “seniors who spend time online can reduce the blues by about 20 percent.”  I think that is because they don’t feel forgotten, they feel like they understand the world that has grown up around them.  We all need that connection to the modern and to feel like we matter in the world.  For many of us it is the chance to be heard, even for a second, on social media outlets.

If anyone knows a way that I can get my classes started in the Library or at a college please let me know.  This is something I know I can do and would love to help out anyone I can to make it possible.

Comcast Sucks, So let’s change it

I am tired of dealing with Comcast and their horrible Internet billing and ridiculous prices for cable packages that include channels I never watch.

Phone

I thought I had changed my package to a basic cable package recently. I got my bill and it was still over $100! I was then told I get over 100 channels. I only want 2-71 which is what I know as basic cable with local channels and TBS, TNT and SYFY (formally Scifi). I got so angry I didn’t want to take it out on the snappy operator (though I didn’t like the way she dealt with me). I decided to write an email.

Billing Email

I started with the billing issues. Considering my local energy company has a better Internet billing process than a national cable company is crazy. I would expect a local company to be behind and not a national one.

Here is the email I sent to Comcast about Billing:

“I am upset with many things in Comcast.  Your bill pay area on your website is slow and inaccurate!  I have paid my bill and it doesn’t refresh to say that I have paid my bill.  So I think that the payment didn’t go through so I pay it again.  I ended up paying my bill 7 times last month because the website said that my bill wasn’t paid.  I almost bounced my rent check because of you website’s mistake.  I have other bills I pay online for local companies and their page refreshes immediately that I have paid my bill.  I would expect a nation company to do at least as well, if not better, than a local company on technology advances.”

So as you can see above I told them as much and while venting that part I came upon an idea for Cable. One that only makes since in this new century where companies want to make life easier for customers not make them fit into a mold.

Cable TV for the 21st century?

I told them I am tired of trying to fit in their “packages” I want them to fit into my life. Isn’t that why I pay them? To make my life easier and more connected? Maybe I should just get rid of my TV and just use hulu or Fancast to watch the shows I love? Maybe TV is become a bad habit like picking your nose at new technology.

I think that our cable should be a U-Pick system.  There should be a way for a customer preview all the channels a cable provider has for a week or a month.  Then at that end of that time they fill out a form on the TV menu or online that has check box that say Yes or No, beside each channel.  So you only get the channels you want.  And pay for the number of channels you have or maybe more for specialty channels like HBO.  This would mean that TV would fit into my life, my mold and not the other way around.  It is like a new form of TiVo maybe?

Below is the email I sent to Comcast about Cable Packages:

“I am also upset because I only want a basic plan for my TV but that doesn’t include what I have always know as local/average channels.  Like TNT, TBS and SYFY.  These are in a higher plan that includes Sports channels I don’t want or need.  I never use channels above 71 aka, AMC.  I would like a plan that only includes 2-71.  Or a U-Pick program.  You can have a fill plan for a month and then choose your 50-100 channels.  It should be easy!  You already deny channels for packages this would just be a simple changes.  Hell, you can have it only the home owner’s box that they have a yes/no menu that chooses their channels once a month.  I am tired of fitting in your plans.  It is a new century!  You should fit in to my plans!  Look at social media and see that your customers know what they want and I can now go online and just get rid of my TV altogether, which means you loose money.  Plus I can find cheaper Internet elsewhere.If you want to talk to me about how to make these plans work feel free to contact me.  I know this is something cable will need to figure if it wants to survive.”

I don’t watch Sports?  Why should you have to watch Discovery?

I want U-Pick TV because I don’t want Sport Channels but I always want Science and History channels.  And there are many people who are the complete opposite of me.  Yet we have to have the same package…why?  We are loosing money on channels we never watch.  The advertiser are loosing money because Comcast will say that X amount of people are watching the channels because of these stupid packages.  Being an advertiser I don’t want false info.  And being a customer I don’t want needless channels that eat my money!
Like My idea?

If anyone, any cable, entrepreneur, etc…likes this idea help me bring it to fruition.  I want to have cable that works for me and everyone else.  I want what I pay for to be worth my time.  I know what I want and I don’t need a company to tell me what I should want.  What do you think?

Yeah! Thanks Kent for telling me about Ping!

Small Town gets lots of Attention

This is an aerial view of Heppner, Oregon

I grew up in a little town called Heppner, Oregon. Now when I say little I don’t mean a suburb of Salem or Eugene, Oregon I mean the population is less than 1,400 people. My graduating class was 33 people.  I didn’t know we had a Wikipedia site until I looked up the populations today.

Looking For Meaning in TED

TED has once again helped me on my journey.  I started by looking for something to write about but I had found that there was nothing I could think of.

Art
So I started with looking at and artist named Tom Shannon who created free form art.  It was things that stood on their own and would float on magnetic fields.
Sounds awesome right?  It was but it wasn’t what I was looking for.  I still would love to play with the pieces and do the magician thing of putting my hand between the pieces.  So I moved on to the LHC.

LHC
The LHC is the largest experiment in the world.  It is the ginormus machine in Geneva created to figure out what existed just after the Big Bang.  It throws electron/neutrons at each other to see what happens.  It got started finally last year and was even given a Google image.
Geek greatness eh?  Well it is but still not what I imagined writing a whole blog about.  I wanted something more, well, substantial than electrons.  (they aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy)

Digression
So I move to John Hodgman, a comedian I recognized and have always been curious about.  Plus his title was about digression, which is something I always love.  I find that in huge digression you find your ultimate meaning.
I digress.
John Hodgman spoke of aliens and his encounters with them in life.  To the point that he thought he wonderful wife was replaced with an alien by the end.  He used his geekiness as a defense that things like the illogical idea that a girl wanted to talk to him, to prove that the aliens were contacting him.  Saying basically that a girl wouldn’t talk to him so obviously she was an alien.
I’ll admit this was cute and I loved the way he ended his speech by talking about how he always looks for his wife when she isn’t in the room.  However cute it was though, I couldn’t get excited about it.

Will it ever end?
I found that I was looking for someone to talk about creativity.  I finally found a person that was but when I did.  I notice when I finally found what I was looking for I was more interested in what I wanted.

Lexicography-philia
I ended up falling in love with a talk about the dictionary.  One of the youngest editors of one of the “Big Five” dictionaries Erin McKean talked about her job and how people misunderstand her and her passion.  She was a cute geek that was proud of her geekdom.  Erin talked about the static abilities of a paper dictionary.  One of her best metaphors for her work were a traffic cop vs. a fisherman.
Erin says that people think she is a traffic cop of words entering the dictionary.  Telling the world what words are ‘worthy’ and what words are bad and should not be included.  She would rather be a fisherman of words.  “Throwing my net in to the sea of the English language,” Erin explains.  She would like to take words from the English language rather than determine which are worthy.  Erin knows so many words that she made the entire presentation to say some of them in context.
The part of McKean’s presentation that stuck with me is that she not only wants an interactive dictionary but she wants people to use words.  She wants people to create words and not be afraid of how to use them because when you use a word in a new context it gains a new meaning.  Erin made me feel better about my own writing because I don’t need to worry about the words I use as much if I can give it a source/definition.

Inspiration

I was always told not to verbalize or create words in my journalism classes.  The only problem with this is technology and business.  There are new words and acronyms created everyday when there are new products and committees.  As I have grown the idea of “only use real words” doesn’t make since because my friends and I are always creating new words and phrases.  I know I have a phrase of the month or word of the week all the time.  It could simply be the way I way ‘awesome’ or a new way to say big.  This is how the Urban Dictionary was created.  Each generation creates new words and grammar rules.  That is why AP comes out with a new style guide every year.  So why are I afraid of grammar and spelling?

I say we take hold of our writing and write unabashedly about whatever we feel.  I don’t care if it is something I don’t like because the Internet and World is big enough that someone will write about it eventually.