sheldon – Page 13 – youfailed.us

HDTV and Cox

What is HD worth? If you are a Cox customer in Phoenix it depends on what services you already get though Cox. If you go to the Cox website you see that “With Cox, HD is free”.

But then you find out the “free” part is just the stations that you could get for free anyway if you set up an antenna. To get the other stations (Discovery, TNT, ESPN, etc, not to mention HBO and the “pay channels”) you have to have a “minimum service level” of Cox Digital (the most expensive plan) *AND* you have to rent a Cox HD cable box . . . it’s easy to figure out . . . just read all about it on the “Cable Packages” page at http://www.cox.com/arizona/cable_tiers.asp.

So, if you just have regular cable . . . the basics . . . no cable box, just enough so you don’t have to use bunny ears the costs to get HD adds up fast. For me I have to pay $12/month to rent an HD cable box so I can get all the HD channels. I already have a regular cable box I could trade in so that’s *only* $6/month. But it’s too much . . . and it’s certainly not FREE!

I happen to have the most expensive “Cable Package” (Digital Cable – see the link above) just to have HBO. Most of what we watch is from network TV and HBO along with some throw away home improvement shows from HGTV and the like. If I didn’t love HBO I would have the “Expanded Cable” plan at best. Sure, the cost to get “Digital Cable” over “Expanded Cable” is only $5/month but it’s for channels I don’t want. So, that means to get HBO I have to pay for HBO ($14/month) AND I have to pay $5/month for “Digital Cable” (which on your bill is the “Digital Gateway Service”).

Anyway, the point here is the prices don’t seem fair. When will we get a la carte pricing? When will there be true competition in this marketplace (Dish and DirectTV are not competition!)?

Sheldon

Windows 7 Beta

Is it me or can you just follow this URL to get a key and a link to download Windows 7 32 Bit

https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/productkeys/win7-32/enus/default.aspx

Also, here is the link for the 64 bit version:

https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/productkeys/win7-64/enus/default.aspx

I visited the sites in a few different browsers and kept getting different keys and didn’t have to sign in or anything. Strange.

Oh yeah, and the download only works in IE and you have to install some download manager.

Sheldon

XP Activation sucks (and is triggered by simply upgrading RAM)

This has happened a few times but I could never pinpoint exactly what I upgraded to cause activation to get triggered because usually I upgrade the video card AND RAM or some combination of things. Anyway, went from 1GB of RAM to 2 GB of RAM and that triggered activation. Luckily it worked out and I didn’t have to call in but still, it’s annoying.

Sheldon

Upgrading the iPhone and the useless iTunes progress bars!

So it’s about time to upgrade to 2.0.2. I ripped a DVD and put it on the iPhone (thanks to handbrake!) and it was suprizingly easy. But it took a while to encode so I had plenty of time to do an upgrade.

First step was to download the update . . . over 200 MB!!! That’s going to take a while . . . .

Okay, now it has to backup the iPhone. I get a progress bar from hell that just keeps scrolling by. After that’s done, another useless progress bar saying it’s extracting the files or something. Next another annoying progress bar to say that it’s “Prepping the iPhone for an upgrade”. On and on and on. Probably more than 5 different progress bars.

After all that it couldn’t install the software (my USB ports are flaky) so it was in “Restore mode” and I had to do the entire process all over again (well, at least I didn’t have to download the update). Lucky that it backed up the iPhone because everything was wiped out after the restore. But I did get back all the apps I downloaded as well as the addressbook. But I did loose all the music and video so I had to sync all that back up.

Two hours later . . . finally done.

Sheldon

iPhone 3G reception problems are real!!

It’s been a while. I’ve been messing with CakePHP instead of writing . . . but I need to do both. Anyway, an iPhone rant.

The iPhone 3G reception problem is bad news. While we were in DC a few weeks ago I was trying to look up maps and stuff and the iPhone was sucky so I switched off 3G thinking DC just wasn’t a good coverage area. When we got back, I never switched it back (it is Sarah’s phone after all). Then on Monday (several weeks later) I read that “Tris” (the Tetris clone) was being pulled from the App Store on Wednesday. I grabbed up the iPhone and downloaded it. (It’s pretty sweet by the way.) The download took a while and I remembered about how I switched off 3G weeks ago so I switched it back on and put the phone on the dryer (that’s where we put our phones and keys). Later that night Sarah does some laundry and I notice the iPhone is pretty hot sitting on the dryer . . . so I put it on the washer. Next day, all calls are dropped after less than a minute. At first I thought it was the heat from the dryer . . . but then Sarah said “It’s that Tris you installed!” and then it dawned on me . . . it was because of 3G!!! I switched off 3G and all is well . . . sorta, I mean, it’s not “twice as fast” and it certainly wasn’t “half the price”.

That said it’s still a cool phone and I wish I had one. It just sucks that it is advertized as better . . . and it’s certainly one of the most expensive options when it comes to the TCO (total cost of ownership) for a phone.

Sheldon