Comcast - I plan to leave you

I have taken enough from Comcast's DVR.

Things about Comcast I hate:
- The remote sucks - see my previous post on this
- Why I do have to pay more on top of an already horrendously high price for HDTV and the DVR
- Poor customer service (I have to drive to get a new set top box that doesn't work - bring it to me)
- 5.99$ to watch a movie OnDemand

The things that Comcast offers me that I like:
- HDTV channels
- DVR capability
- Internet access

I don't mind paying for the Internet, but the TV portion has to go. Even if the price was right, the hardware driving the Comcast solution is buggy and laggy. The user experience of the service drives me insane.

The problem: Find another way to keep watching HDTV (on my big gorgeous TV) and come up with a solution for recording shows.

Once I get a solution that works for me (and probably paying hundreds of dollars in the process) I will post it here :) ... The current plan in my head involves a HDTV antennae, my XBox 360, Netflix Watch Instantly, and an over the air TV Tuner input on my PC.

As Michael Scott would say: "So suck it (Comcast)" ...

Sidewalk Tickets in San Francisco

This is surprisingly not a rant about the DPT - although they are the harbingers of the evil "On Sidewalk" ticket that has been adorning my windshield wiper lately. It is actually a rant on some of the residents of San Francisco. I have lived at my place for about a year. I am not going to say where that is and you will soon learn why.

I am fortunate, or thought I was, to have enough space between the garage door and the adjacent buildings wall to park my car in front of my front door. A spot that does overhang the five concrete tiled sidewalk by about 40-50% depending on how close I park to my front door. Plenty of room for a wheelchair to go through. Glorious I thought - a free parking spot that is not in anyone's way (logically at least). For the most part things have been fine. To this date, during my twelfth month of living here I have received only three "On Sidewalk" tickets.

Each sidewalk violation clocks in at a whopping $100. One hundred dollars. Again, one hundred dollars. Some stats:

• That is two and half times the price of a parking meter violation and street cleaning ticket
• Second highest violation (bus stop violations are $250 - yikes!)

I didn't notice on the first two citations, but on my third it says "Complaint 60% in sidewalk". Regardless of the fact that I was only 50%, I found the part about the complaint very interesting. Someone, some other resident of the city, actually called the DPT complaint number and complained that my car was blocking the sidewalk.

As a happy San Francisco resident who has had his fair share of crap to deal with regarding street cleaning tickets, and parking meters, etc. I would only in extreme circumstances call out another resident, especially when there is five feet or more of room on the sidewalk to walk, bike, hop, skip, whatever. You could park a motorcycle behind my car!

If I am blocking the whole sidewalk, then go ahead, complain.

If I am blocking your driveway then tow my ass.

That's about it though - other than that just let it be. Or at least write a note on my car explaining what the problem is.

Another strange thing about this is that it happened at night. My ticket was written up at 10:12 pm. Thoroughly interested, I called the DPT tonight and spoke to two very friendly ladies about the issue.

The first told me the following interesting tidbit:

If one car on the block gets a complaint than every car that is in violation of the sidewalk law is written up on the block.

This is where the City of San Francisco becomes evil again when it comes to how they fill up their coffers. I also asked if I could have the name and number of the person complaining (not that I expected to get it) and was told that they don't take that down for sidewalk complaints since it is the law (a California one at that). That means I could drive by a street that is not even my own, see a car on the sidewalk (or partially as mine is) and have the whole block written up. That is messed.

Where is your compassion people? Next time you think about filing a complaint about something that is not too severe - like partially overlapping the sidewalk - think twice about how $100 would feel sucked out of your checking account.

Also, these tickets cannot be appealed - I mean they can- but both ladies told me you have a chance in hell at actually getting them dismissed. If anyone has done this successfully please let me know.

Wow, I am generating some traffic

Well it seems as if more people actually read this blog now, at least two that I know of: Shaan Hurley, Between the Lines and Steve Johnson, Blog Nauseam.  As Steve mentions we do tend to agree on disagreeing and this time it is my Mojave Experiment post. But what I don't agree with is Steve's interpretation of my post. I said that the Mojave Experiment is "cool" and "great".  Whether a gimmick or not it is a fun experiment. I don't think this is serious marketing or will be able to make any big waves for Microsoft in ramping up Vista adoption. That said I think the experiment does show how brainwashed the everyday consumer is around Vista. I have friends and relatives when asked about Vista will reply, "Oh, I have heard its bad." From who - someone else who heard it was bad, the Apple commercials (because those aren't biased, right), etc.

The Mojave Experiment will at its best be a small viral addition to what will be their next large scale ad campaign.

Also, the mojaveexperiment site now uses Silverlight (definitely not because of my surprise) ...

Lastly, Steve, those early posts can get a little racy ... I now write all of that kind of stuff to friends only on Facebook :) ... Happy reading ...

Edited

First Photosynth

Here is my first photosynth creation. It is only 88% synthy because I don't have enough pictures but is still fun. Behold Akaka Falls.

Photosynth going public!

I have been waiting for this to be released to the masses since it was originally offered as a limited technology preview last year:

http://photosynth.net/Default.aspx

Edited ...

Internet News Ruins the Olympics

So I am watching the Olympics on NBC and enjoying what had been a fairly close game between China and the USA basketball team. At halftime I think USA was leading by ten or twelve. I then went into my room to check some email and browse the web and this greets me:

Yes, I went to Google News so you could say its my own fault, but come on. Google should throw up a temporary option to delay Olympic news by a day.

Note: I almost posted this during the game but then I would have just been contributing to the problem for the 1 person who reads this blog. That's you Chaffee!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Teaser

I don't know when I became an uber-Harry Potter fan, but I took a month off work (3 weeks actually combined with our week of rest) after completing this and one of the things I did was read the Harry Potter series cover to cover in about a week and half. A week and half well spent. I don't enjoy the first two movies very much but like the last three quite a abit. I may go re-read Half-Blood before this November just to brush up. Enjoy:

 

Why doesn't the Mojave Experiment use Silverlight?

I don't get it. I just posted about how great I thought the Mojave Experiment is - and I still think it is great. But why doesn't the site:

http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/

use Silverlight for its interactive video wall. I am pretty certain Silverlight can do everything going in in the Flash app that is running instead.

The only viable reason I can think of is that the Silverlight market penetration is still too low and that Microsoft really wants people (en masse) to go to the Mojave Experiment site. If they have to install Silverlight and then see the experiment results it will be a barrier to entry.

Still though - makes you wonder.

Windows "Mojave" Experiment

I think this is really cool:

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/07/29/windows-mojave-video-posts.aspx

Microsoft basically disguised Vista as a new OS named "Mojave" and then showed it to users. Before the test users were asked to rate Vista and gave it low scores on a scale of 1-10. Then after being shown Mojave they were asked to evaluate the OS and the scores were much higher. The kicker is that Mojave is Vista.

I have been using Vista Ultimate on my ancient desktop and have been more than pleasantly surprised by mostly the numerous little features here and there in addition to the larger, more prominent features. For example, small changes like this to the volume control allowing for per program volume:

 

or the newly improved Calendar:

 

 

are just tiny of the level of change throughout the whole OS.

Other things I find valuable:

• Start Menu Search is indispensable.
• Sidebar: I use it daily to keep track of stocks and local weather without having to go into IE (lazy I know).
• Speech Recognition: This still has a long way to go, but it is a huge leap in the right direction.
• Windows Explorer "Breadcrumb" Navigation is much more versatile than the simple address bar.
• Built in Windows Media Center (I mean come on, that is sweet)

Going back to XP makes me cringe. What is even better though is there are a bunch of Vista features I haven't even started to play with - like System Restore, the new wireless connection management (I am on a desktop at home), the Photo Gallery (I am still using Picasa, but this looks comparable now), Windows Remote Assistance (to help the parentals), etc.

Anyway, hopefully more people give it a chance and some good vibes about Vista will start forming.

Another Facebook test

Blah ...

Testing out linking my blog to Facebook ...

The new facebook redesign allows for sucking in stories you write on other websites such as Yelp, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. One of the options is to use your blog. Let's see what happens...