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This is the personal blog of John F. Morton. It's where I talk about the stuff that interests me. Primarily technology, marketing and pop culture. If you are looking for my portfolio of work, visit johnfmorton.com. Thanks for stopping by!
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The Latest Object of Desire: Laser Beams.
Watch this video and tell you don’t want one of these.
DRM Can Bite My Butt
I’ve got a problem with DRM, Digital Restrictions Management. My problem is twofold. I dislike DRM and I’ve got an everyday, practical problem.
The image above shows the exact nature of my problem. I’ve got a Slingbox and I’ve also got a new HDTV with an HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) connection. Thanks to that new fancy digital connection, my cable company can put viewing restrictions on my cable signal. If I try to watch my cable service not using my television, but view it on my computer, I am not allowed to. That sucks. I expect more for my $135 a month. My Slingbox problem even made it onto BoingBoing, but I still don’t have a solution to the problem.
Internet Explorer 6 vs. My Site
Microsoft asked my PC, hey, I’m going to install IE7, ok? I said, sure. Then I built this blog, on my Mac. I checked it in Firefox. I checked it in Safari. I checked it in IE 7. It’s got it’s share of bugs, but, heck, this is just my little personal blog. I’ll debug when I get around to it. Then today I saw it in IE 6. What a disaster.
Do you have IE 6? Sorry about that.
Update: I’ve been tinkering with the site. It’s better in IE 6 now. It had something to do with how IE 6 was handling the margins on pictures differently than all other browsers. Ugh. It’s fixed now. Still there are validation errors when I embed YouTube videos, but I’m leaving that battle for another day.
It Doesn’t Matter What They Say, TV Is Here to Stay!
I don’t want to start this with an apology, but I will. I’m sorry, Internet, I really love you. I love interacting, building, sharing, uploading, creating and all that cool stuff that you let me do, but, sometimes, to my personal shame, all that you offer is no replacement for me when I just want to veg out and watch TV and be entertained with no expectation of my involvement other than pressing a few simple buttons on my remote control. Internet, this doesn’t mean I don’t see our relationship growing and becoming stronger. It’s just that we’ll need to make room for TV time, too.
Lest you think I’m just old and that my feelings aren’t relevant to the youth of today, there is new research to back up my love of TV. Media Post, a really great media news site, has Even With Rise of Web, Kids Still Watching Tube, a story by John Consoli. It seems that kids are actually watching more TV now than they did 5 years ago. According to the article, “Even with the newest videogames and online disruptions, younger viewers are still watching television just as they always have been.”
Maybe those kids are simply learning to multitask though. Do you really think they’re giving their full attention to That’s So Raven and Hannah Montana?
A Pro-PC Spoof Ad, That This Mac Geek Really Likes