Category Archives: Tech
NBC Gave Me the Finger
Ever have one of those nights when you are sitting in front of the computer and do not know how to put what you want to write about to words? It is even more difficult when you have two great blogs going and just still are not comfortable posting them. Looking at them, the one about the Olympics is more pressing… even though I have blogged about the Olympics for almost a week now.
What I do not understand is why I am unable to watch them. For those of you who follow my twitter feed you see my frustration during the week. I missed a multitude of exciting events from basketball games to soccer/football games and I bet there was a great water polo game in there somewhere. NBC has told me that I am unable to watch them because I do not have a cable subscription that includes MSNBC and CNBC. Well I do not have a cable subscription at all and for the first time since making the decision to no longer have cable, I feel left out. That is why I am frustrated. These are the Olympic games, the worlds games! Why am I unable to stream it?
NBC totally missed the mark on this. There is a whole movement out there of people who are cutting the cord and going to a streaming only household. What NBC probably has forgotten (but according to ratings have not) is that many of us still tune in to their over-the-air signal, because we are just that interested in the games. NBC claims that they do not broadcast events live on their main channel because it hurts the prime-time ratings. Well to be honest many of the people who want to stream the events, whether they have cable or not, stream events that NBC neglects to show on their main channel. Those of us who are streaming the events are watching the events that NBC does not show during Prime-Time but then will still tune in and watch their horribly edited prime-time coverage.
Here is my solution to this dilemma, NBC could charge for non-cable subscribers say a fee of $29.95 for unlimited streaming of the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Many of us who have gone to a streaming-only household know that there will be times that we have to pay to watch things that are normally on cable, lets call it an occasional convenience fee. CBS did that during NCAA March Madness. One could pay $5, whether you have cable or not, to watch all the games during the tournament. I gladly paid that fee as I am sure so did everyone who is into the tournament. ESPN has WatchESPN which allows anyone with internet/cable service through certain providers to watch the games that they produce. NBC counters the fee idea with saying that ad revenue would be drastically down if they went this route. So again charge the fee and still put on ads. You still making the money either way. In fact, you are probably making even more money because you are getting people to pay for the service even if it is only a few hundred thousand and charging for the ads.
I do not like being stiffed, and now I feel like NBC has given me the finger to watching any of the Olympic events. Am I boycotting NBC because of it, no because I am just that type of sports enthusiast who wants to watch a great competition, but let’s make it fair for all viewers.
The Clicker
Imagine this, your sitting down at the couch in your man cave. You’ve brought your favorite brewsky with you and you turn the big game on. Suddenly you realize that you have to take the cap off the beer but dont’ have anything to do it with. What do you do? Do you get up from the couch find the bottle opener and miss the first part of the game? Do you use your remote control to open the beer?
Yes, that’s right I said remote control! That is what The Clicker is all about. It is a universal remote, but not just your ordinary remote. The Clicker has a bottle opener built into the remote so that you don’t even have to leave the couch to open your beer. Ingenious!
My Take
This thing is incredible! Once I complete my man cave down in our basement I am going to have to make sure that I have one of these to put down there. Granted, I realize that I could just get up to open my beer and that more then likely I am going to have to get my butt off the couch anyway to get the beer, unless I get a couch with a cooler built in! Opening a bottle of beer with this was alittle tough on the first one but the second time I used it, I was able to open the beers no problem.
Downside
The only problem I have had with this is that programming it was kind of difficult. This could have been because of me being a man and not fully reading the instructions however. I was able to get it programmed after alittle trial and error. I was also not able to program it for the DirecTV receiver but I didn’t put much effort into it since we are now a cable less house.
End All
This would make a great addition to any man cave. Once you have it programmed you’ll never have to leave your seat to open a beer. You could even open a beer and change the channel at the same time. If you are looking for a great gift to give your man this would be it!
This product receives The Rookie Dad seal of approval.
The Clicker was provided for me to review.
No More Cable
Well the time has come. This upcoming week I will be making phone call to DirecTV and cancelling our service.
We have had to invest more then we initially thought to prepare ourselves for this event. Living where we live we tried multiple antennas to be able to pick up over the air signals so we aren’t completely in the dark once we pull the plug. After trying 3 different antennas we ended up going with an outdoor one and are able to pick up 21 channels all in beautiful HD! After seeing how well we pick all the networks up and their sister stations, I am completely sold. I almost made the phone call as soon as I had the TV programmed and saw what all we got.
As I have mentioned before we will be going with a ROKU box to be streaming our Netflix along with a few other “channels” Plus being a guy I can’t live without my sports I’ll be able to stream my baseball games through the ROKU or be able to watch it on the computer along with ESPN3. We were going to do Hulu however when we signed up for the service, we quickly realized that it was not for us as it did not have as many shows on it that we wanted. That was the reason we decided to go with an antenna that could pick up more channels because we decided against HULU.
I dread making this phone call to DirecTV this upcoming week. I know that they are going to do everything they can to keep me as a customer. They will try and lower our rate I’m sure or offer us some movie channels that we will never watch. But I am going to stand my ground since we have never been happy when they raised our rate after a year into our two year contract.
With the growth of streaming entertainment I wonder how much the cable and satellite companies are losing to companies like ROKU, Sony, LG, and Western Digital (yes they all have a streaming box)?
Photo Organization?
© The Rookie Dad
I am seeking suggestions on how to organize our photo’s on our computer.
I used to organize them according to how old the Kid is and now that he has reached a year… the monthly birthday’s don’t seem to be that big of a deal anymore. Now that the Kid is getting more and more expressive and active in his life, the pictures are so much fun to take because he isn’t camera shy anymore. Either that or he has realize that the camera is not going to hurt him anymore.
I like to take alot of pictures and really need a good way to keep them organized so that I can go back and find them easily. I use Picasa right now and have it automatically set up to find the photo’s within a certain folder but beyond that I don’t know how I should organize them within that folder. How do you guys handle your photo organization?
Oh What A Change
I was speaking with my Father in Law over Thanksgiving and we got to talking about my Operation: Moderate Technology. He made one point that really stuck out to me, what kind of technology will our children have in 5 years or even 10 years.
I remember learning how to type on a keyboard, use a mouse, and a computer in Junior High. Now if you don’t know how to use a computer by elementary school you are well behind the times. Hot Mama told me that one of her teacher friends have said that computer teachers are having to teach student how to use a mouse again since everything is going to the touch screen route. That just boggles my mind, I can’t even imagine using a touch screen to type out my blog or an email. There are plenty of people who do that with an iPad, but I have a hard enough time getting a tweet or email typed up on my iPhone.
© The Rookie Dad
I remember getting my first cell, at that time the flip phones were the latest and greatest. Smart phones were just coming into fruition. Now you can surf the web and be making a phone call all on the same device. The Internet when I was in junior high and high school had not become a major player in everyone’s lives. Now it is every where, TVs, DVD players, phones, refrigerators, and now our cars.
This only makes me wonder what our kids will grow up with. Will they look back at how Internet driven this society is and laugh because of the newest form of “cyberspace?”
