Benjamin Higginbotham's Posts on Technology Evangelist

Egnyte: Business class file server in the cloud

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:43:05 -0600

Putting your main company file server in the cloud may seem like a strange idea, but stick with me on this one. A small/medium sized business (SMB) may not have the resources to purchase and maintain their own file server. While to us IT geeks a file server is drop dead simple, there are things such as security, backup and sharing outside of the LAN that needs to occur which can be complex and cumbersome to the average SMB.

Enter Egyte.com a file server in the cloud. For $15.00/user/mo you get unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth in the cloud. Let me say that again: $15.00 per user, per month gets you unlimited file storage in the cloud!

There are many advantages of putting the file server in the cloud. Egnyte does a great job of utilizing exactly how you would expect cloud based storage to work as well as expand upon it in unique and new ways. The basics are all there, WebDAV connection so you can have a mounted drive on your Mac, Linux or PC desktop right in your file explorer, web based interface to upload one or multiple files, the ability to link to large files so you can e-mail out items, document revisions, user management and frankly quite a bit more. Heck, you can even customize the interface and add your company logo just to get that added feeling of personalization.

Egnyte has two levels of accounts, power users and standard users. The $15.00/user/mo is for a power user account which gets you the WebDAV access, a backup program so you can backup your computer to the cloud. Power users also get a private folder on the system for their personal stuff that they want in the cloud. Basically power user accounts would be for each employee in the company. The second type of user is a standard user. Standard users can only access the file server via the AJAX web interface and don't have things like computer backup, the personal folder, or WebDAV. Standard users can read, write and delete to folders that you specify. You can have unlimited standard users in your account for no additional cost. Think of standard users as contractors you work with, or people who may need to have access to certain specific folders within your file server, but not access to the whole thing.

Each folder has permissions based on groups or specific users, but at this time you can't go down to the file level. It would be nice if I could share a folder with a contractor and hide certain items from them, or give them read/write access to certain files but read only access to other files in that folder. Hopefully we'll see that in a future version.

Additionally Egnyte has released an iPhone optimized version of the web site. This is not an iPhone app but rather a specially formatted version of the web page that renders very well on the iPhone. This can be extremely useful in scenarios where you may be on-site and need to send a contractor a file. Right from your iPhone you can log in to your Egnyte account, find the file you need, click on the 'Send' button and you'll be prompted to send the file as a link or attachment (in my case a link since the file is 200MB). No need to VPN back to my building, create a reminder note or anything. I can just send the file right then and there. The iPhone web site for Egnyte is a very cool feature, and one of those things that makes having your file server in the cloud all that more powerful.

The biggest drawback to cloud based file servers is speed. You won't be able to emulate a file server sitting on your 100/1000Mbps LAN via your public Internet connection. Files that may have taken only a few seconds to copy over could take several minutes. While Egnyte tries to do their best to keep the system running as fast as they can, the simple fact of the matter is that you're limited to your Internet connection speed. I would love to see a program similar to what GetDropbox.com uses where it automatically downloads/uploads any files or folders created in a specific directory back to the cloud. This would allow me to have my personal directory in sync on all of my computers while the revisions of these files are kept in the cloud to restore at any time. The issue of transfer speed goes away and I get the best of the Egnyte and GetDropbox world all with one product.

One other thing worth mentioning is that it is $15.00/user/mo but you need to have at least 3 users to get the unlimited bandwidth and storage. That means the minimum cost per month is $45.00, but that also means that you have three users with their computers getting backed up to the cloud *and* a company file server for less than $50.00/mo. From my point of view that's an amazing deal.

I like the service so much that I use it for my personal videocast, spacevidcast.com. Since we have huge files that we have to sling between editors scattered across the country, I purchased 5 seats at $75.00/mo and allow advertising firms to upload their material directly via a standard user and my editors (the great group called Max Q) to work on the material, upload revisions, and keep different copies of the media/graphics in sync. There is no way a tradiitonal file server could do this. Hopefully my success will help others in some way as well. Egnyte solved a huge storage problem I had, and is probably one of the best investments I have made in tech thus far. You may think you have your file storgae needs taken care of, but try the free demo of Egnyte and see what you're missing out on!]]> Comment on this post

]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

Showing off Twitter on Twin Cities Live

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:36:17 -0600

I love this show! Not only do we always have a great time, but I get to show off the latest and greatest technology to the masses. In this live episode we cover: TWITTER! Now keep in mind that TE is a bit more of a techie blog, but just the idea that Twitter is now on TV shows such as CNN and even the afternoon talk show tells me that it is either mainstream or very, very close to mainstream now.

Luckily all of the Twitter downtime happened right before the show and they were stable once we went on-air. Was a fun moment watching the hosts play with Twitter and get the 'Something has gone wrong' screen.

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]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

The Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader and iRex Iliad on Twin Cities Live

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:49:25 -0600

I think eReaders are awesome. While Ed and I disagree on the subject quite a bit, I do end up using my eReader every day. I think the technology is so cool that recently I appeared as a guest on Twin Cities Live to talk about eReaders, what they are and why they are way more awesome than Ed lets on.

For those who missed it, on the TE YouTube channel you can see my initial review of the Amazon Kindle when it first came out. I have a Sony Reader, an iRex Iliad and an Amazon Kindle yet I have not done a video review of the three in a shootout. Need some motivation to product that clip, anyone care to see the Kindle vs the Reader vs the Iliad?]]> Comment on this post

]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

iPhone 3G summary and opinions

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:46:02 -0600

This is a summary e-mail I sent yesterday to a few executives and friends who wanted my opinion on the new Apple announcements. I felt that the mobile blogging we did as well as the assessment after the keynote was enough, but after reading this I think there may be a few good tidbits and insight. This isn't just a rehash of what happened, it is also sprinkled with a few of my opinions. Yes, I know it looks like a novel, but it really is a summary. Be glad I didn't go in to detail! Enjoy.

Some cool stuff came out of Apple today.

No surprise but the iPhone 3G was announced. 8GB for $199 and 16GB for $299. To put that in perspective, the original pricepoint of the 8GB iPhone was $599 which was then very shortly cut to $399. So even the new high-end 3G phone is $100.00 less than the old 8GB iPhone. Awesome except that the price is subsidized. In the end this means that the special treatment that Apple got from AT&T is over. Dead. Gone. Oh Apple is still exclusive to AT&T in the U.S. though, but in part because there is no other good GSM carrier with a 3G network (Verizon and Sprint are CDMA and T-Mobile in the US has no good 3G which leaves AT&T). Apple almost needs AT&T more than AT&T needs Apple. Then again, how hard is it to really build a CDMA version? Sprint could use the help of the iPhone right about now and had better be pounding on Apple's door.

Battery life seems to be OK, 5 hours on a 3G network connection which is a few hours more than what you can get with other devices today, but still no replaceable battery (doubt they will do that any time soon). Devices like the N95 can get better battery life with an extended battery, an option that is not available for the iPhone... yet... 24 hours of music playback, 7 hours of video playback, 10 hours of 2G access (EDGE), 10 hours talk time and 300 hours of standby time. Make sure to have a charger nearby if you're going to be living on 3G. Consider investing in iPhone battery companies who find clever ways to add an additional battery to the iPhone without turning it in to a brick... Assuming we can find such a creature.

The iPhone 3G will be shipping July 11th (whaaaa?????) That means that Apple will have been out of inventory of the iPhone for 3 months before they had a product they can ship. This will hurt their sales over these last 3 months since no one (or at least hardly anyone) has been able to buy an iPhone for 2 months now and we STILL have to wait another month before we can get one.

The new iPhone 3G has an all plastic back which I believe will help with reception. I don't think they talked about that in the keynote, but metal + radio signals = badness. This is actually a good thing and I'm excited that they decided to move to plastics.

There is an actual GPS chipset in there now which will get us much more accurate location information. More importantly it can track with you now, so it could be used for driving directions. When watching all of the 3rd party app demos that were up on stage, a vast majority of them had location awareness built in to their application in some way. Location aware devices and applications are the next big thing here. It's gunna be HUGE! Watch this space closely, I believe this will be the next big leap in social networking and frankly mobile apps in general.

The iPhone 3G will be in 70 countries soon. By July 11th it will be in Canada for both English and French as well as the US. To see a full list of countries that Apple will be selling the iPhone in, go here: http://www.apple.com/iphone/countries/ This is one of the many reasons Apple went with GSM rather than CDMA and I highly doubt we'll see them move any time soon (too bad for Sprint, but keep pounding on that door guys!)

You can watch the new iPhone ad here: http://www.apple.com/iphone/gallery/ads/hallway/

One thing that really sucks is that Apple no longer gets special treatment from AT&T. This means that the completely automated way that one could activate their phone is in essence dead. The iTunes activation feature was brilliant and I think was one of the three most forward looking aspects of the iPhone (the others being visual voicemail and multi-touch itself). One may still be able to activate via iTunes, but unlocking all features and getting the $199 advertised price will almost certainly require an AT&T or Apple rep of sorts. Stupid contract stuff no one likes to do. Imagine what the lines will look like when the iPhone 3G comes out and the headache one will have to go through to activate the iPhone with AT&T. One of things I really liked about the iPhone was the fact that I only had to deal with Apple who I knew would treat me right and I rarely if ever had to touch AT&T who I was pretty sure would do anything they could to screw me over. AT&T had better seriously step up their customer service or they are going to see a backlash and that could harm Apple in the long run as well.

MobileMe was announced. This is the refresh to the aging .Mac system. 20GB of online storage and basically a consumer version of Exchange. MobileMe offers push e-mail, contacts and calendar to all of your Macs, PCs and iPhones. In addition it has a very sexy AJAX powered web interface with e-mail, calendar, contacts, iDisk, etc. Make a change on any device and it will push to the cloud and back to the other devices. Make a change in the cloud and it will go back down to the computers and devices. Same price as the old .Mac system which is $99.00/yr and I assume they will still have a 5 user family pack at $150.00/yr. http://www.apple.com/mobileme/guidedtour/ has a fairly nice walkthrough. Yup, called this one the moment they announced Exchange support for the iPhone... I also predicted they will build many of the push services in to Mac OS X server, atop their own platforms. This has not happened yet but a new OS called Snow Leopard was announced and I assume there is an OS X Server equivalent of that as well. I expect to see push like services in Snow Leopard Server.

What DIDN'T happen today:
- No 32GB iPhone
- No iPhone (PRODUCT)RED
- No videoconferencing on the iPhone (awwww)
- No tablet device

What DID happen today:
- Microsoft wet themselves
- RIM wet themselves... twice...
- Palm just gave up
- Nokia still doesn't care
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]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

Thoughts on the SteveNote and the new 3G iPhone

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:01:24 -0600

We all knew the 3G iPhone was coming. No surprises there. The rumor mill had added video conferencing to the mix, and unfortunately that ended up not being true. I found a few tidbits to be very interesting when listening to the keynote:

- As much as Apple tries to keep live streaming of the conference out, they can't. I saw no fewer than 3 video streams on different social media networks. Like it or not social media is changing how we view the world, everything is real time and Apple needs to get on board. Apple's attitude towards bloggers and new media innovators is far worse than that of even Microsoft, and I think it is time they stop fighting it and just accept it.

- Location services were HUGE. The innovation around the location awareness was amazing to watch. Almost all of the developers they brought on stage had something location based built in to their app. By adding the GPS chipset this will get even better. Once again it comes back to social networking being a big player here. Knowing what is nearby will be key to new location aware apps.

-I didn't hear anything about video recording. While I can take photos on an iPhone I am still surprised that I can't record any video. It might be an internal Apple decision for some future upgrade they want me to pay for, or it could go back to their complete lack of understanding how social media works, or maybe Steve Jobs just hates social video. No idea, but I hope that there is video recording on the 3G iPhone and I just missed it in the announcement.

Mobile computing is just getting started. It is clear that we're at the very beginning of something extremely exciting. Microsoft, RIM and Palm had all better wake up and start competing as Apple seems to be stealing your thunder and soon your business.]]> Comment on this post

]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

WWDC 2008 MoBlogging

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:30:16 -0600

We have a couple developers on the WWDC floor waiting to get in to the SteveNote this morning. These are the live updates they are able to provide.

11:49am PDT
Conference has ended

11:47am PDT
Rollout on July 11th at the same time across all countries they sell in. Will be sold in 70 countries in the next couple of months.

11:45am PDT
iPhone 3G will sell for $199.00 for the 8GB version. $299.00 for the 16GB model.

11:38am PDT
300 hours or standby talk time. 10 hour talk time in 2.5G. 5 hours of 3G talk time as compared to 3 hours for competitors. 7 hours of video playback and 24 hours of audio playback time.
Also includes GPS support. ACTUAL GPS support via built in chipset. Now they can do tracking.

11:36am PDT
3G iPhone is 36% faster than the Nokia N95 and the Treo 750 with better rendering. iPhone WiFi took 17 seconds to load a page and 21 seconds using 3G. 3G is approaching WiFi speeds on mobile devices.

11:33am PDT
All plastic back. Same 3.5" display. Flush headphone jack. 3G support.

11:30am PDT
What is needed to take the iPhone to more countries
1 - 3G
2 - Enterprise support
3 - Third Party Apps
4 - Sell iPhone in more countries
5 - More affordable
iPhone 3G is announced. Taking it to the next level.

11:30am PDT
It is almost the 1yr birthday for the iPhone. 90% customer satisfaction. 98% are mobile browsing. 94% are using e-mail. 90% are using SMS. 80% are using 10 or more features. 6MM iPhones sold in the first year.

11:27am PDT
Mobile Me is $99/yr that includes 20GB of online storage. What about .Mac? Mobile Me replaces .Mac. You can continue to use .Mac services and .Mac address, but will be automatically upgraded to Mobile Me.

11:18am PDT
Drag and drop web based e-mail. Contact search available. Start typing in letters and as you type real-time results appear. Drag and drop calendar to move meetings around. Everything is kept in sync with the iPhone. Create a contact on the iPhone and it synced with Mobile Me in about a second. Works the other way too. Create a calendar event on Mobile Me and it will push down to the phone. Happened in about a second there too.

11:14am PDT
Mobile Me has a set of Web 2.0 tools built on the latest AJAX technology. Me.com is the web front end (not live yet). Keeps everything in sync, pictures, documents, everything.

11:14am PDT
Phil Schiller is coming up to talk about Mobile Me. It's like having Exchange for the rest of us. Not all of us use Exchange server, but we would like to have synced contacts, calendar and e-mail. Updated wherever you are. Mobile Me stores your info in the cloud. You can get to it anywhere: Mac, PC or iPhone. Pushes info up and down keeping everything in sync. Works over-the-air.

11:12am PDT
An enterprise can authorize a set of iPhones and install apps on just those iphones. A way to add custom enterprise grade apps to iPhones without needing to distribute through app store.

11:10am PDT
Developers keep 70% of revenues. Apple verifies the apps to ensure they are secure. If developers want to give them away for free there is no charge whatsoever. Now going to be in 62 countries. If your app is 10MB or less the user can download it over Cellular, WiFi or iTunes. If it is larger than 10MB then it can only be downloaded on WiFi or iTunes.

11:08am PDT
2.0 update will be free for iPhone users and $9.99 to iPod Touch users in early July.

11:05am PDT
Steve is back and talking new features in the SDK
1 - Contact Search
2 - iWork Document Support
3 - Office Document support, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Also added bulk delete and move. Also the ability to save images available in e-mail to your image gallery. Scientific calculator. Added parental controls... Teenagers may not like this :) Added a lot of language support.

11:00am PDT
Scott Forstal is back. 1 feature requested is background notifications. Need to get alerts even when the application is not running. The wrong solution is to allow background processes, or to allow an app to continue to run even after a user thinks they have quit. This is bad due to battery life and performance. They are going to have a push notification service available to all developers. There will be a persisted IP connected maintained between the Phone and 3rd party server. You can push 3 types of notifications: Custom Alert Sounds, Texutal and Badges... It all works over the air WiFi and Cellular. This will be available in September. That's the SDK update.

10:54am PDT
Xavier Carrillo from Digital Legends in Barcelona, Spain only started on the iPhone SDK 2 weeks ago. They are brand new to this platform. Built a 3D adventure game in 4 days from the Mac. Will be fully ready in September.

10:54am PDT
Mark Cain from MIMvista is now showing medical imaging software that a doctor can have on their iPhone. They can analyze and provide opinions from the golf course. Very active use of the touch screen. Full control over the medical images, contract, slice control, etc. They have taken a complex desktop application and placed it in the place of the hand of doctors and patients.

10:51am PDT
Dr. S. Mark Williams from Modality is up next. This is medical learning software. They used the iPhone SDK to create an app that is more portable and powerful than flash cards. Has a quiz mode that prompt the user to find things and gives immediate feedback. Designed for effective learning outside the classroom. They are also announcing that they have have a dozen apps available at the release of the 2.0 software and many more by the end of the year.

10:48am PDT
Jeremy Schoenherr from MLB.com is showing off MLB.com for iPhone... You can see who is on base, who is batting, pitching, etc. They took advantage of the iPhone media player to take advantage of real-time highlights. They create QT Reference movies on the fly to ensure you get the best experience, either on EDGE or WiFi.

10:46am PDT
Mark Terry is a solo developer from England who has written an app called Band. A music creation application. Crowd loved this one! Very fun.

10:42am PDT
Brian Greenstone from Pangea Software. They have ported 2 games from Mac OS X. Showing off CPU intensive games. They like the CPU in the iPhone. First game is Enigmo and the second is Cro-Mag Ralley which is a 3d racing game. They use the accelerometer on the iPhone as the controller.

10:39am PDT
Benjamin Mosse from AP is demoing Mobile News Net. Location based news. Location based services seem to be huge here! Get your local news based on your location. You can also watch breaking video from their news network. Community contributed news now available from the iPhone. All developed in a "few weeks". They are already working on more exciting ideas.

10:36am PDT
Michael Sippey from TypePad is up next. Mobile Blogging on the iPhone. Upload pictures or add to your blog posts.

10:34am PDT
Sam Altman from Loopt is a location-aware social networking app that is working with Virtual Earth for mapping. Interesting since Google Maps are what is built in to the device naively. This app will be free on the iPhone.

10:30am PDT
Ken Sun from eBay is up next. Showing off auctions from the iPhone via a native eBay app. They decided to create the app 5 weeks ago. Has easy access to search, summary of activities and watching items. Buyers and sellers can easily see who is winning or losing. Bidding is of course available as well. App will be free.

10:27am PDT
Developers invited up to stage to show off the apps they have created. Sega is up first with Super Monkey Ball. Created 110 stages in 8 weeks as well as all 4 of the classic monkeys. App will be $9.99.

10:21am PDT
Scott Forstal is showing how to build an application called Nearby Friends. It will use the location APIs and AddressBook APIs to find all of your friends that are within a 10 mile radius.

10:15am PDT
SDK presentation from Scott Forstal
Rehashing what we learned at the iPhone SDK event... iPhone is based on OS X, share APIs, etc., etc., etc.

10:10am PDT
There have been 250k downloads of the SDK so far
There are 25k paid developers
Snow Leopard
iPhone 2.0
35% of fortune 500 companies participated in beta of iPhone 2.0
Top 5 banks as well

Video Stream Available
And because you simply can't stop social media, we now have a live video stream available from inside the hall, brought to us by Yahoo! Live.

Audio Stream Available
Our engineers have lost Internet connection, but the wonderful people behind Ustream.tv and iPhone Alley have made an audio stream of the keynote available. Enjoy!

9:36am CDT Question of the day: what's faster EDGE or WWDC WiFi?

8:55am PDT
WWDC swag: laptop bag and a t-shirt. Come on Apple, you can do better! (I have no doubt this engineer wants a free iPhone, HA!)

8:34am PDT
MacBook pro $2,000... iPhone $400... WWDC pass $1300. Standing in line for 4 hours to see Steve - priceless.

8:30am PDT
Lose badge, go home. Attendee badges are not replacable. All information (with the exception of the Keynote) is confidential. Apparently we agreed to an NDA when we signed up.

8:28am PDT
First windows notebook spotted.

8:26am PDT Live from Apple's WWDC 2008. Waiting in line for the keynote. The line that spanned 3 city blocks started forming some time around 12am of this morning. Overall everyone is very civilized. Very little line cutting so far, but we have seen some sprinters on open spaces.

7:10am PDT The line to enter the keynote started in the wee hours of the morning and is now over 3 city blocks long!
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]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

My adventures in setting up a Slingbox Solo with a Traxis Satellite box

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:09:55 -0600

I'm going to hardcore geek out on you here, so be prepared!

I have a live videocast called SpaceVidcast which aims to educate the planet on why manned flights to other planets are necessary for the survival of the human race. There's a weekly show element (9pm CDT every Thursday and I expect to see you there) as well as a live 24x7 stream of NASA TV and the ESA (or whatever space news I can legally get my hands on).

I had been pulling the Windows Media stream from NASA but like all things Windows Media based the stream was not that stable, didn't look that great and was in general a pain in the butt to work with. The stream would die at least once a day. I needed a stable solution.

I found a local satellite expert who knew how to do high-quality Free-To-Air (FTA) reception, PSB Satellite. FTA satellite is a legal method of scanning a bunch of satellites for open and unencrypted channels to see what is available. We set up two dishes, one is a fixed dish with NASA TV on Ku band and the other is a motorized dish to grab all other Ku band signals (C band requires at least a 6' dish which I don't want to deal with). After 7 hours we get everything installed, configured and working correctly. I have HD video of the event which I'll be posting to TE some time soon as well as the unedited live version on my personal blog.

Now I have two dishes, one SpaceVidcast stream and no easy way to control any of it. How am I going to keep the SpaceVidcasters happy with the latest and greatest space news? I can't always be at home controlling the dish, so what can I do to remotely control the video stream and switch between them?

The answer is Slingbox Solo.

Actually, the real answer is the new Slingbox Pro HD that has the h.264 CODEC as I'm not a fan of VC1/WM9, but that's not available yet. So for now I use the Slingbox Solo, but there's a problem. I can get audio and video to stream but the Slingbox needs to be able to control the satellite receiver we're using, the Traxis DBS-3500 and there are no IR commands for the Traxis in the Slingbox IR command library. I searched the Sling forum, Google and countless other forums with no luck. I found others asking for remote codes for Traxis boxes dating back to 2006, so I knew this wasn't going to be easy. Now I have solution that I can see anywhere in the world, but not control. Drats!

With a little (actually a lot) of help from the VisionPlus.us FTA satellite forum I was able to generate an IR mapping command for the Slingbox that works with the Traxis DBS-3500 and get a remote control running for the Slingbox (that post is here if you need to do it yourself). Now I have the ability to scan thousands of available channels live from space and look for space related content for SpaceVicast.com. No need to be home, I can scan from my office, from my phone (and hopefully soon my iPhone), from my laptop or even my local Apple store. So long as I have Internet access I have the ability to control the content on SpaceVidcast.com by simply logging in to my Slingbox and looking for new channels.

The only problem remaining is the switching between the NASA TV feed and all other feeds. I'll be searching for an IR controllable S-Video/Audio switcher so I can just hit a button on the Slingbox remote and change to the other feed. Or maybe I'll grab a second DV bridge and bring that in to the computer (but then I have an audio issue). No matter, I'll get that worked out and then I'll have the coolest, most awesomest, remotely controlled Internet television studio ever!

Hey, I told you I was going to geek out!

Comcast Speed Test for DOCSIS 3.0

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:02:08 -0600

Today I had Comcast's new DOCSIS 3.0 Business Class service installed at a home with 5 static IPs. The install went fairly smoothly (we had a bit of a scare in thinking we couldn't get over 2Mbps but it all worked out in the end.) The nice thing about Business Class is that you get a Cisco 1800 series router, but the strange thing is that they still use the Scientific Atlanta router too (why not just use the 1800?)

One of the problems with Comcast's new DOCSIS 3.0 service is that it is simply too fast. At 50Mbps download speed (and 5Mbps upload speed) your service will be going faster than most web sites can deal with. This means it is very hard to do a proper test to see if you're actually getting the 50/5 service that you paid for. Think the SpeakEasy.net speedtest can help? Depends on how close you are to a node.

The solution is simple. If Comcast had some sort of super-secret internal speed test page that would allow you to see the speed that the Comcast network is sending you before it hits the public Internet, that sure would be helpful, wouldn't it?

Take your new DOCSIS 3.0 connected computer, open a web browser and point it to http://68.87.178.6 to get the Comcast internal speed test page. This will test the speed of your cable router inside of the Comcast network allowing you to see the raw speed as it goes to your house. While this may not be a local node near you, it is on the Comcast network and should give you better results than any external test would give you. I know that this address is what they are using in Minneapolis, MN and your area may have a different page. Now don't sit on your computer and keep refreshing that page. Every time you use the test you are trying to max out your router, and as such you are putting additional strain on the Comcast network (which in the end could make it SLOWER). Don't come crying to me if you keep hitting the page over and over again then get a nasty call from Comcast. Use it to see if you're getting your advertised speed from Comcast, or at least something close to that (it may be a bit under still, but it should be close).

Of course it is worth mentioning that fundamentally all speed tests are flawed and will never be able to give you a 100% accurate rating of your actual Internet speed, but this is at least a better option than trying to guess at which node is closest to you or has the least amount of traffic/latency/issues.
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]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

Why I like the Google Video Player

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:43:37 -0600

As a videocaster I try to keep up on the latest and greatest video players out there. From YouTube to Blip.tv to Revver to Google Video and many, many, many others. It seems that time and time again I end up using the Google Video player to embed video on my web site, and I would like to share with you why.

There are several things that Google does right when it comes to their player.

First, they understand that some videocasters may be looking to legitimately create longer form content. Sites such as YouTube (ironically also owned by Google) limit new accounts to 10 minutes of upload time only in an attempt to stop copyright infringement. All this really does is break the illegal clip up in to 4 segments, annoys users and stops nothing.

Second, Google understands that the Internet is a worldwide distribution medium. While I produce my new videocast SpaceVidcast in English, I have many episodes translated to as many languages as possible. Using the Google Video tools I'm able to upload a transcript and translation of the video to the service giving everyone a chance to view the material in their native language. Google has the ability to have multiple closed caption streams added to a single video. Check out the sample below from my Epsiode 002 SpaceVidcast (we run about 3 weeks behind in transcoding, although the larger the community gets the more we catch up).

Third, I can start playing from anywhere in the clip, but it doesn't appear to be streaming. What the heck do I mean by this? Google Video uses an advanced form of progressive download which means that no matter your bandwidth you'll be able to watch the video (it may take a while to download enough of the clip if your connection is slow). The problem with progressive download is that if you have a 2 hour clip and want to jump 90 minutes in you have to wait until that part has downloaded. Streaming video allows me to jump anywhere in the video but if I don't have enough bandwidth between the server and the client they won't be able to watch the clip. Google Video has a combination of both. I can jump anywhere in the clip even if it has not downloaded that part yet and watch from that moment in time even if I don't have enough bandwidth for a real-time stream. It is the best of all worlds.

Finally, I think the biggest and coolest feature of Google Video is the ability to send a link that allows me to start at any time in the video. I have the ability to copy the video's URL and add a time marker at the end to jump to that exact moment in time. If I want to share a part of the video that is 9 minutes in with a friend, just add a #13m32s to the end of the Google Video URL. While this feature was introduced back in 2006 it seems that most other video sharing sites didn't see the power in that feature which is really too bad.

There are disadvantages of Google Video too. The encode quality just has not kept up with the rest of the industry. The audience base simply isn't at Google Video, frankly they are at YouTube. Google seems to have mostly abandoned the Google Video project in favor of YouTube (which they purchased for a kabillion, zillion dollars). Tracking videos and plays on Google Video is abysmal (which is a big deal too). And the list goes on.

In the end I know that I have a worldwide community of people who want to see and understand my content. By using DotSub and a lot of community help I am able to make this happen with Google Video but not YouTube, Blip.tv, Brightcove, Revver, etc.

Do you have a favorite videocasting service? Do you know of a better service that allows for multiple languages, long form content and the ability to link to any moment in time for the video clip? Or do you completely disagree with my assessment of how the 2006 Google Video player trumps most 2008 players on the market today? Leave your insight in our comments!]]> Comment on this post

]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

A bit about how Skype works

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:56:10 -0600

On Twin Cities Live I'll be chatting about Skype and how to use it as a free videophone solution as well as a way to use it as a house, baby or babysitter monitor. I won't be getting in to the deep dark secrets of what is going on behind the scenes on that show, but I will here!

Skype is an interesting creature. Unlike other VVoIP applications like iChat AV, SightSpeed, MSN, AIM, etc., etc. this application uses peer to peer technology to make and place calls. Unlike many of the other VVoIP applications, Skype is one of the very few that seems to work without issue behind both a firewall and NAT, even at the corporate level.

With the exception of logon servers, Skype has no central server to maintain the network. Instead, Skype uses peer to peer technology to decentralize the network and to help ensure a very high uptime percentage. Once you log in to Skype, your system becomes part of the network itself helping to decentralize the load of routing phone calls. This also means that your computer will be used as a node so a bit of your bandwidth and CPU will be borrowed to help the rest of the Skype network, even if you're not in a phone call. I think of it as giving back to the community, but others may not like this so much. Although you're helping to relieve load, a good chunk of the Skype traffic goes through super nodes.

Super nodes are Skype nodes that are on huge pipes such as Universities and ISPs. When a supernode goes down the whole Skype network feels the pain but it won't take everything offline. That's the beauty of the Skype network, so long as a few nodes are still online, the network will self heal to a point. This all means that your call can be routed to any computer on the Skype network to reach its final destination. A computer you can't control. And that brings us to security. Skype uses a 256-bit encryption AES which is also used by U.S. Government Organizations to protect their own data. In other words, very secure.

So basically Skype is a giant peer to peer network with super good encryption that makes your phone system almost or just as reliable as your local Telco but without the ability for the government to listen in on your conversation. But instead of only being able to use voice you also get video, chat, SMS and presence awareness all in one application.

Of course those super nodes could end up being an issue some day, but until then in my opinion Skype has the highest call quality, best NAT/Firewall traversal and largest feature list. Oh, and the basics are free too! And that's why we covered Skype on Twin Cities Live today!

Want to add me to your Skype contact list? My username is benjaminhigginbotham Want a really in-depth technical analysis of how skype works? Check out this PDF which explains exactly how it all works.

Update: This is the segment that aired on Twin Cities Live

The revolution of live video - CamTwist Studio 1.7

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:10:00 -0600

The first revolution in live television came in 1956 when Ampex introduced the first practical videotape system for television. The long-to-develop film was no longer required and speed to market was greatly increased. From this innovation the ENG news team was born bringing us real-time news.

The second revolution came in 1990 when Newtek introduced the Video Toaster bringing the cost of several hundred thousand dollar studios into the reach of mere mortals. This was a truly revolutionary machine that ran atop the Amiga platform. Simply insert a card into your Amiga, add a few genlocked sources and WHAM you have a TV studio! Never before had creating live content or even adding effects to your edited content been so easy or affordable. An entire market of low-end professionals and professional consumers (prosumers) was born from this innovation. Heck, even the pros used this tool.

While 2007 was the year of live flash broadcasting it wouldn't be until March 4th, 2008 that the third revolution in live video came to be -- CamTwist Studio.

Many who do live broadcasting on sites like UStream.tv already know of CamTwist which at the time of this writing is sitting at version 1.6. For those who don't know, CamTwist is a way to add special effects to your live video stream as well as a way to show your desktop, movies or still pictures. CamTwist was not a video switcher or live production tool.

Until now.

Later tonight Steve Green will release a free upgrade to CamTwist bringing the version number to 1.7. While this may seem like a minor point update it is actually a huge revolution of not only the application itself but also all live online video production. CamTwist 1.7 features a new studio function that will allow multi-camera switching, layering of effects and graphics in real time, and full program/preview functions for live broadcasting. Steve has built a television studio in a box.

There have been other solutions that allow for live switching of cameras, DDRs, stills and external sources. Newtek Video Toaster [5], Newtek Tricaster, Sony Anycast Station, Varasoft Wirecast and a few others are available but none offer a virtual video driver and certainly none of these are free. While CamTwist Studio is in its early stages and still has some optimization to go it is the only product I know of that offers not only full switching but also a virtualized device driver to allow me to directly stream that video to sites such as Ustream.tv. CamTwist Studio 1.7 is the only product that does everything you need for a full broadcast from top to bottom.

CamTwist builds upon the foundation of Mac OS X and as such there is no Windows or Linux version available. At this time there are no plans to port the software to any other platform, so if you want to be a part of the revolution you will need a Mac. The faster the better.

Plans can change but at this time CamTwist is scheduled for launch later tonight. Check the CamTwist page for further download details and to tide you over while you wait for the release you can watch the quick start videos.

UPDATE: CamTwist 1.7 has been officially released.]]> Comment on this post

]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

Live Streaming Trick for OS X

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:06:00 -0600

When it comes to live streaming on sites such as UStream.tv they make it super simple. Open your browser, point to the camera you want to use and hit start. The problem is that if your browser stalls or if you accidentally command-Q the whole stream is lost. I can not tell you how many stream were either accidentally closed or simply stalled out because I had too much going on in the browser.

NEVER AGAIN! There's a new-ish app that has taken care of all of my woes: Fluid for OS X.

Fluid is a way to run a browser in its own instance. If Safari, Firefox, Flock, etc. lock up your Fluid session remains open. If you close your browser, fluid remains open. It is an incredibly simple solution to a very common problem.

Here's how to make it work:
1 - Download Fluid and drag it to your Applications folder
2 - Launch Fluid
3 - Enter in the URL of the site you want to create your own instance of. I entered in 'www.ustream.tv'
4 - Enter in the name of this new application
5 - Hit create
You'll end up with a new application in your applications directory. In my case it was called 'Ustream'. Double click and a while new app opens with UStream (or your site of choice) in the window.

This was perfect for me. How I have a dock icon for my stream. Once click and I can open up my live stream. I can command-tab to the stream like it was any regular application. In my case I simply put the live stream on a different space along with CamTwist and stream away. No mater what I do in my browser my live stream continues.

Fluid is not limited to just streaming. Create entire apps around GMail, Yahoo! or whatever web site you want. Very cool stuff.

The ultimate e-mail client

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:21:18 -0600

Yesterday I wrote about how no one can seem to get IMAP right when it comes to e-mail clients. Today I thought I would list the features I think would make a freaking amazing system. If you have items you would like to add to the list or if you know of a client that does a good chunk of this today, please contribute in the comments!

Cross platform. I don't use only Windows or only Macintosh. I use Windows, Mac, Linux as well as a Windows Mobile device and an iPhone. The client should run on all of these and be extremely similar yet utilize the core OS navigation/UI design for functions.

Global inbox as well as individual inboxes. Look at how Apple did this in Mail.app. By far the most powerful feature I have seen in IMAP is being able to look at all accounts or break them out.

Plugin architecture. Thunderbird and Firefox do this right. For any functions that are not included in the base package, allow other developers to add on to it.

IMAP Idle support. Why schedule a send/recieve? Allow IMAP Idle to push the messages to the inbox.

Full contacts and calendar support. Not only should the system have a best-of-class calendar and contact architecture, it should also be able to tie in to mobile devices and sync with other objects. Maybe this could all be done via that plugin architecture listed above

Simple account setup. Why do I have to go from computer to computer entering the same data. Offer a service where all of my account settings (maybe not passwords, need to figure that out) are stored online in an encrypted file. When I open the app for the first time it can ask if I want to retrieve my e-mail settings. Enter my username and password then all of my IMAP accounts, calendars and contacts begin to download to the machine. Set it all up once, deploy anywhere.

SyncML support for calendar and contacts. I should be able to not only keep my e-mail in the cloud but also my calendar and contact data. All devices should keep all calendar and contact data in sync. Think Exchange but either open source or open standards that works on anything, not just Microsoft approved devices.

Snapshot support. IMAP can be deadly if you have a POP3 client connect and delete all the messages from the server. WHAM, suddenly you have no messages in any inbox anymore on any system! Allowing the system to take daily snapshots (think SAN snapshots but on your local computer) that allow me to revert to yesterdays mailbox and re-upload all items to the server could save someone's butt some day. I should be able to turn this on or off and it needs to have server re-sync capability. This isn't just an IMAP problem by the way, it could happen in POP too.

Beautiful UI. The user interface needs to be simple, clean and elegant. Combine Mail.app with Outlook 2007 and I think you will have a winner. Or maybe think outside the box and re-invent the inbox UI.

Skype and IM/Presence Awareness integration. Both Outlook and Mail.app do this to a point, but take this to the next level. Let me know when someone o my Skype, AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, SightSpeed, or whatever contact list is online. Integrate this directly in to the address book.

Intelligent functions in the address book. Not only should I be able to add a picture of the person and see that in ever e-mail they send me, but when I select their contact in my address book I should be able to see all conversations I have had with that person as well as appointments. A person is not just a name, number and address. A person is a relationship, show me all the elements that link to that relationship on one screen.

Allow for shared calendars. I should be able to read and write to other calendars that I have permission for. See gCal for a good example of this.

Be intelligent with attachments. If the attachment is over 2MB (for example) split the e-mail in to two sections. FTP the attachment to a server and place a link to the file in the e-mail itself. Make the process completely automated so the end user doesn't have to think about it. Don't attach the whole document to the e-mail as many inboxes, spam filters and frankly the Internet in general just don't like it.

Don't be dumb about mail flags. When a message is marked for deletion don't just have a line though it, place it in the trash can. When the 'Purge' button is pressed then you can delete the message. Microsoft got this very wrong, most everyone else got it right.

In my opinion, don't even deal with POP3. This client should be focused on being the best client at IMAP and allowing for collaboration between multiple devices. POP3 does not offer this so don't even touch it.

Fast. The whole application needs to be fast. Many people live their lives in e-mail and waiting even for a couple seconds can be super annoying. Snappy factor 10.]]> Comment on this post

]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

Why can't anyone get IMAP right?

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:20:53 -0600

I'm extremely flustered with e-mail right now. When it comes to options for retrieving e-mail we have POP3 protocol or IMAP4 protocol. POP3 is basically one way and only works with the inbox and only the inbox. You can grab the messages from the inbox but if you have 4 computers you can't keep them in sync. Read a message on computer 1 and computer 2 has no idea if you have read the message. IMAP aims to fix this by keeping all messages not only on the server but also keeps the flags for each of these messages in sync. Computer 1 reads a message and computer 2, 3 and 4 all show that message as read. Reply to a message and all computers show that the message was replied to and have a copy of the reply so you can access it anywhere. Sounds great, right?

WRONG!

The IMAP protocol itself is pretty good although it is missing commands like 'move' but these problems are easily overcome. The biggest problem with IMAP are the clients available. Finding a good e-mail client that not only supports mail but also calendar and contacts is darned near impossible for Windows and while easier for the Mac it is still missing features. Frankly whatever client I go with should be cross-platform so I can use whatever computer I want.

Lets look at Windows first. I have a couple of options here for e-mail but as soon as I want to organize my life it becomes much more difficult. Outlook 2003/2007 has all the features I want but Microsoft has severely crippled IMAP. If I want a global inbox of my mail messages which also has my calendar and contact data I can't do it. I have to have a completely different PST file for those objects and they show in 'Personal Folders' while my IMAP data is in a completely different area. While PSTs offer more than 2GB now they only do so for POP3 and MAPI, not for IMAP. When you want to delete or move a message it won't actually process the commands on the server like you would expect, instead it merely changes the flag and copies the message. You have to purge the mailbox if you want to get rid of the messages with lines through them or hide messages marked for deletion. All in all it is possible to get a system moderately working, but in the end it is a royal pain that only a true techie would endure. Clearly Microsoft wants to sell more Exchange servers (MAPI) and does not care about IMAP at all. End result: I won't be buying MS Office any time soon.

Thunderbird is another option although the future of the project is a bit unknown. The problem with Thunderbird is that the UI is a bit unpolished, still no global inbox, and the calendar plugin Lightning which is based on Sunbird is really not ready for release. While there is contact support it is really, really weak. Want to sync your Thunderbird contacts to your iPhone? I have yet to find a good way though there are posts that try and outline methods that may help. Thunderbird is a good work in progress, assuming it will still move forward, but still nowhere near a good polished e-mail client. Sunbird and Lightning are even further off in terms of a complete project and it is just not ready for prime time yet. My calendar, contacts and e-mail should be seamlessly linked (not necessarily one application but definitely linked together) with a well polished, consumer friendly interface. Thunderbird/Lightning/Sunbird are great for the uber techies but don't help push IMAP forward. I am being a bit harsh when it comes to the UI, but I guess my biggest gripe here comes in the form of the calender and contacts which simply don't sync anywhere. I know, I know, this post is about IMAP but lets be real. The total package matters.

On the Macintosh there is Mail.app linked to Address Book linked to iCal. iCal leaves a lot to be desired but the UI is nice and it is a lot closer to a real product than Sunbird/Lightning. While I wish iCal had more power, it is a releaseable product. Mail.app is by far the best IMAP client I have seen and with Leopard it seems to work really nice with my IMAP Idle system. I can't seem to unsubscribe from my 'All Mail' in my GMail inbox which means that I end up with a bunch of dupes since I use my GMail Apps account to backup my mail. A lot of Outlook attachments won't come though correctly but all in all those are my only two huge complaints. I do have a global inbox or a separate inbox for each account depending on how I want to view my mail. This means I can look at all of the mail across all of my accounts at the same time to get a eagle eye view of my messages, or I can click on the specific inbox and see only messages sent to that specific account. Really simple concept that Microsoft, Mozilla and others do not seem to understand. I can set any mailbox as any object that I want such as junk mail, sent items, drafts and have these be local to my computer or on the server so that all clients can access them. Again, really simple concept but something that Mozilla makes more painful than it need to be and something Microsoft just refuses to implement. All in all Mail.app is the best e-mail client I have ever used, even with its quirks. There are add-ons that extend functionality and help fix a few things which are nice. This is nice if you have a Macintosh, but I also have a Windows system or two. What do I use for them?

The iPhone is a different story. What should be a painfully simple thing is much too hard to do, actually impossible. Things like subscribing to folders is simply not possible. If you have a server side rule that places all mail from your parents into an associated folder it is not possible to see those messages unless you first click on the folder on the iPhone. Then and only then will the iPhone connect to the server and attempt to actually retrieve any new messages. If you have an e-mail organization system that does anything other than grabbing items from the inbox it will fail with IMAP on the iPhone. Want to BCC someone? Nope. Want to attach more than 1 picture? Nope. The benefit of the iPhone e-mail is that I can actually read and fully reply to the messages unlike other devices like Windows Mobile or Palm where I can barely read the messages that come through unless that are plain text with no attachments or anything.

So here we have a protocol with great potential and everyone seems to be screwing it up. If Mozilla really wanted to steal marketshare from Microsoft they would throw some great UI designers and new developers at the Thunderbird and Sunbird projects to give them a swift kick in the pants. Don't just accept that what we have today is good enough, push for a system that is usable and allows me to check for mail on any device and keep them all in sync. Why limit this to e-mail? I should be able to keep my e-mail, calendar and contacts in sync all via the cloud. Exchange does this but only if you stay inside of a Microsoft certified environment. That is silly. I don't want to run Exchange. I don't want to be tied to Microsoft. I don't hate them but I also don't like their clients. Entourage for Mac is pretty nasty, Outlook for PC is nice unless I want to use it on anything other than Windows. I don't understand why this is so hard for anyone to do. Where is my IMAP client that is easy and sexy enough for consumers to use with calendar, contacts and e-mail sync?

If you're running IMAP on Windows or simply using IMAP to share your mail across multiple platforms and multiple devices with calendar and contact support, what are you using? How do you make it work? Is there a client I should be looking at that I'm missing?

EDIT: Fixed PSD to PST. No more Photoshop work while typing :)]]> Comment on this post

]]> Book of the Month: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Gadget of the Month: Apple MacBook Pro
Web Site of the Month: Dabble Video Search Engine

A couple days ago

noemail@noemail.org (Benjamin J. Higginbotham) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:11:20 -0600

A couple days ago I wrote about Apple TV Take 2 and how it might very well kill BluRay (in my world HD-DVD is all but dead due to recent announcements). Alex wrote in the comments that we won't see anything take over the HD market until broadband speeds up quite a bit. As I thought about it Alex was both right and wrong.

Depending on who you listen to US broadband has an average speed of 1.9Mbps to 4.8Mbps. The 720p videos on Technology Evangelist are encoded between 1Mbps and 2Mbps which means that many US households should be able to view our videos in real-time or faster. The problem is that our videos are very highly compressed with only 2 channels of very highly compressed audio. For our content this is OK as we're way, way, way better than the typical YouTube video. Movies are a completely different story.

Hollywood movies would need to be compressed at a higher bitrate to get better quality, something closer to DVD or BluRay as that is what we are used to. These videos will probably be encoded at or around 4Mbps which is nearing the cap of what the Apple TV can do. Even at 4Mbps the video won't be nearly as high of quality as a BluRay disc, but as long as it's easier to get the content on Apple TV and the quality is close enough we're still OK. It's that easier part that we start to get hung up on when looking at broadband speeds.

Assuming 90 minutes at 4Mbps we're looking at a 2.5GB file. Can you imagine moving 2.5GB down your current broadband connection and not pulling out your hair? I can't. The servers on Apple's side (Akamai I assume) need to be able to take a great deal of load if the service gets popular with little to no slowdowns on their side. My local ISP has to be able to take the traffic and not slow down at all (which is doubtful since I have a feeling that my local Comcast over subscribed their network). There are a lot of pieces controlled by a lot of people that have to fall in to place just to get a video that will start quickly and not stutter if it's in a progressive download mode. And even then we're looking at a much lower quality video than what I can get on BluRay.

I own a 1080p HDTV and the best Apple TV can output is 720p (for those who argue 1080i is better please see here). I accept that in favor of not having to drive in the -40 degree weather here in Minnesota. You know, the kind of cold that seeps through windows, causes cars to not start and is deadly if you're out in it to long. I want to be able to download movies, podcasts and television shows right then and there in the comfort of my 72 degree home. Why do I need a round shiny disc to play video? That's so 90's! The answer may be as simple and bandwidth. If I don't have enough bandwidth for a smooth experience, I'll end right back up on discs.

We won't know for sure how Apple TV Take 2 performs until Apple releases the software update in the wild. I hope it works well with quick access to video start times, easy skipping around the media and decent file management. I also hope that telcos start realizing that investing in their Internet infrastructure will help them in the long run, not hurt them. Bandwidth rich applications push people to order more bandwidth, not QoS enabled bandwidth. Maybe someday they will understand this. Maybe the Apple TV will work as expected. Maybe it will all miserably fail. The future of Apple TV is, unfortunately, in the hands of the ISPs. I eagerly await my Apple TV update and hope that in it I see the death of BluRay.