Over The Air HDTV, Internet and Children, Working On The Subway, Microsoft and HP.

More People Discovering Free Over The Air HDTV

I’m reading more stories everyday about people discovering the quality of free “Over The Air” HDTV.  The Globe ran this story over the weekend of Eryn Smit of Chatham, who hooked up his TV antenna and was so pleased with the results he canceled his cable service. http://tinyurl.com/2encz2. Likewise the Media Awareness Network on their blog (http://tinyurl.com/38h99p) ran an entry called  “Air For Sale”. Their blog pointed to this story (http://tinyurl.com/2b7xjx) in New York City where Dale Hazelton hooked up a new antenna to his TV and had an experience similar to Eryn Smit of Chatham.

Perhaps what’s been lost after years of over the air analogue television delivery, is that if you get the digital channel, it’s going to be pristine. Digital works that way! ATSC was designed specifically for fixed rooftop antenna’s. And when the a TV channel is received via the antenna it comes without compression distortions that may be added by satellite or cable companies who try to squeeze down the channels signal so they can offer more stations as subscription channels.

From my point of view, I don’t understand how so many people believe that they must subscribe to a cable or satellite service for HDTV. It’s even worse when they pay a monthly premium to get the HDTV channels that they can get for free . To my way of thinking it’s borderline criminal when the company that they purchase it from, compresses the image to the point where they are adding image distortion on high action scenes. I believe most people purchase services from these companies because they believe that they are getting the best images possible for their HDTV television sets… With 52″ LCD sets now hitting mainstream prices, I think the practice of image compression distortion will become a lot more apparent and some of the companies supplying the signals will have to adjust their practices.  

How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children

I read with great interest David Pouge’s the NY Times article How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children. (http://tinyurl.com/38zfk7) I thought it was one of the better articles written on the subject as most of them I’ve read are somewhat alarmist or written from the point of view that the Internet is inherently bad. He notes in his article that despite his editors insistence that the article must have something sensational, Pouge notes that “I could not find a single example of a preteen getting abducted and murdered by an Internet predator.”

The article goes on to talk about all of the things children can do on the net that is considered harmful and the article speculates that at times the parents reactions an actions are potentially more damaging to children than the materials that they come across on-line. The article points to a PBS Frontline documentary on the subject that’s available online to watch. It’s interesting that Pouge and the Frontline Documentary point to Cyber Bullying as the number one issue that parents should be worried about relating to their children. It just so happens that Cyber Bullying is being highlighted on CTV this week as part of their news coverage. http://tinyurl.com/yotpea

My Soapbox – Working On The Subway

I readily admit there are not a lot of reasons to love the subway in Toronto if you have to take it to work every day. Fortunately I’m in a position where I don’t have to take it regularly during peak rush hours so for me it beats driving. One are in which I thing the TTC sadly lacks is cellular and wireless service while riding the train. If you ever have to take the train across the city mid-day it’s crazy how many times during a trip that a train might stop waiting for drivers to come and go from breaks. I’ve experienced as many as three of these five minute intervals on my 22 minute ride into the city which adds 15 minutes to my trip time. It’s actually very annoying.

However my trip would be a lot more productive if they would add cellular service in the tunnels. That travel time would be good for me to catch up on my telephone calls and get some e-mail done. I often wonder if the lack of cellular service is one of the many factors that keep people in their cars as they travel about the city. Of course in the case of the TTC they have a long way to go to modernize. The fact that you have to line up and use cash in most instances to purchase tickets is just so outdated. Even the parking meters in Toronto have gone to credit cards…. It does appear that a train line that serves Boston has caught on to this. http://tinyurl.com/29mosz

What interesting things can one do with cellular service on the subway?

My Gads is something that might be useful. Its a simple way to ping all of that information that one never seems to be able to remember. Collections of information can be built collaboratively. Watch the video at http://www.mygads.com. TeleFlip will automatically forward e-mail from people you specify, as SMS messages to your cell phone. https://www2.teleflip.com.

Once can also retrieve one’s PC’s files using your phone and a service such as WebEx PCNow. It allows you to view and access files residing on your Windows-based PC or Mac via a mobile Web browser such as those on Treos, BlackBerry devices, and iPhones. http://tinyurl.com/2auasn

You can track expenses on the go with Intuit’s new Quicken Online that can be accessed from any mobile Web browser. http://tinyurl.com/ysqykn. A service called myHours.com provides time-tracking tools, that are accessible on any computer via a Web browser. You can define projects, tasks, charge hourly rates, generate reports and export them to Excel. http://myhours.com. So there is a lot I could be doing, if only we had a service on the subway in Toronto. In the meantime I’ll have to keep using the JiWire Wi-Fi finder at http://www.jiwire.com

More On Microsoft E-mails And This Time Its Relates To HP

mercurynews.com has picked up on the story that I noted in my last blog posting relating to lowering Vista’s standards to accommodate Intel. In their story they indicate that the Microsoft e-mail documents that were opened in Seattle show “Microsoft ‘botched’ dealings with Intel, HP”. Apparently there was and is a lot of consumer confusion around “Vista Capable” and “Premium Ready”. Only “Premium Ready” computers contained the Intel 945 chip that could fully operate Vista’s features, such as Aero graphics. The article is not clear on how HP was affected by this but apparently their are some e-mail comments on record that suggest their was a problem of some sort relating to HP. The mercurynews.com article can be found at http://origin.mercurynews.com/businessheadlines/ci_8417811?nclick_check=1. I don’t know if its connected but I understand that Microsoft has dropped the pricing on VISTA. http://tinyurl.com/29d393

More soon….