TechLore - Mind Over Matt'er

Xbox LIVE Should Never Be "Down" for Maintenance

Matt Whitlock — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:29:59 GMT

A few days ago, Microsoft took the entire Xbox LIVE Service down for around 24 hours to complete scheduled maintenance and perform upgrades. Sounds innocent enough, but for a paid service like LIVE, I'm finding it more and more difficult to accept these scheduled downtimes. Xbox LIVE is no longer a niche service for hardcore gamers to frag each other in HALO 2. Today it's the backbone to an entertainment experience that families, moms, dads, and kids rely on. Now, I'm a reasonable guy. I understand that systems like LIVE, which are always being pushed to their limit, need maintenance, patches, and expansions. However, Microsoft's approach needs to change; they need to ensure a basic level of service for all their paid customers. What do they need to do exactly? 1. Tell Users Xbox LIVE is Down for Maintenance on Their Console I'm not even sure why I have to suggest this. On Tuesday I attempted to connect to the LIVE service, and of course, it failed. My Xbox told me I have a problem with my Internet connection, apparently my router or the gateway has an incorrect MTU setting. I know that's not true, but I did waste 10-15...

Matt's Tech Law #4 - Filter Your Own Spam Without Punishing Others

Matt Whitlock — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:10:02 GMT

Spam. It's the e-mail you don't want, but is sent to you anyway. In fact, Spam has been around since before the Internet and e-mail became mainstream. They even celebrated the 30th birthday of the first known Spam message last year. I've been able to watch the evolution of Spam fighting techniques over the years, and while I understand the need for inbox protection from nefarious spammers, I'm fed up with the laziness of e-mail users. More and more I find myself being challenged to send someone an e-mail. I fire off an e-mail, and you send be back something automated that makes click through to a website and pass a Captcha (the box with a picture of letters, words or numbers that look scrambled where you have to recognize it and enter it into a box), fill out a form, or reply to some automated e-mail by sending you another e-mail. The latter I find hilarious I have to send two e-mails to get one through? Actually, what I really want to do is have my spam filter send a challenge to their spam filter to prove that it's a real spam filter before my spam filter lets me...

See Ya Firefox, I'm Switching Back to Internet Explorer

Matt Whitlock — Fri, 01 May 2009 22:50:41 GMT

Yep. You read that right. I know, everywhere else you're reading that Firefox is soooo much better, and that people are switching to it in droves. For me that was three years ago, but now I'm going back. I'll admit that I don't rag on Microsoft anywhere near as much as other people do. I just don't hate them merely because they're big and control the majority marketshare of desktop and notebooks PCs worldwide, nor do I despise them because Mac people say I should. That doesn't mean I "love" everything Microsoft does or every product they make. For example, one thing I idn't like was Internet Explorer, which (at the time I originally switched to Firefox) had stagnated at version 6 for quite some time. And I didn't look back... even when Microsoft (finally) added things like tabbed browsing in IE 7. I was happy with Firefox, and though I've used IE for various things over the past few years, it's never been my browser of choice... until today. I'm doing something I never thought I'd do.... I'm switching back to Internet Explorer. More specifically, Internet Explorer 8. I'm doing it for one reason, crash recovery . Not 30...

Apple: 'A PC is no bargain when it doesn't do what you want.' Huh?

Matt Whitlock — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:56:25 GMT

Apple finally responded to Microsoft's latest ad campaign for Windows, which shows various fake shoppers walk through the computer buying process, and finally settling on Windows PCs made by HP. I don't want to get too off topic here, but while the MS ads are obviously scripted and fake, I do think they are accurately highlighting the computer shopping experience for many consumers. Macs are expensive, and if the OS isn't what you're shopping for, you'll definitely get a much wider variety of hardware and price points to choose from on the PC side. Apple's comment took me back a bit. "A PC is no bargain when it doesn't do what you want." It's a pretty stupid comment if you ask me. Other than run OS X, name one thing a Mac can do that a PC can't . Go ahead. Hit me in the comments area...

Build a 'Watch Anywhere' Baby Monitor Using Slingbox or Skype

Matt Whitlock — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:20:49 GMT

Those who know me or follow my blog here at TechLore.com will attest, I have a fair amount of older gadgets and gizmos I've collected over the years. Some sit on shelves behind a glass door museum-style, but most would be surprised by the sheer number of old devices I've found new uses for. So, when the need arose to put together a nursery for my up-and-coming newborn, I went to work putting a few of my older gadgets back into service. One of our goals was to have the option to monitor the baby visually, and after pricing out some $200+ baby video monitors, I decided to slap something together from several devices I already own that are no longer in use. I actually came up with two different solutions, but ended up settling on using an old Slingbox Classic I had tucked away in a closet. I've posted instructions on how to set this up over at the Sling Community website . The other alternative I came up with was using a older notebook PC, a webcam, and Skype. At first, I was actually leaning toward this solution at first; the camera is much smaller and easier to...

FCC Goes Soft on DTV Transition, Won't Accomplish Anything

Matt Whitlock — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:24:26 GMT

Since digital TV broadcasting began back in the late 1990s, the path to analog's inevitable extinction has been a long and rocky one. Did I say inevitable? Perhaps the word "impossible" may be more accurate. After several delays in the announced date for the end of analog broadcasting, Congress eventually settled on February 17th, 2009 as the "firm" deadline for turning off analog broadcasts in the United States. Now, about 12 days before that date, Congress has passed a bill to delay the DTV transition yet again, this time to June 12, 2009. The problem, though, is Congress has gone soft on the date, meaning that broadcasters are now allowed to transition to all digital broadcasts anytime they choose between now and June 12th. It is believed this new "phased" approach be better for those not prepared for the DTV switch, since some, if not all of their analog stations will be available for another four months. However, I believe this will inevitably cause greater consumer confusion and, most likely, additional delays in the future. I'm not saying I don't feel for the roughly 6.5 million unprepared individuals across this country, and I also will admit that some small percentage...