Have you checked out the proposed new schedule for the fall? I certainly hope that this is just a beta. If not, service pack 1 for the season better be ready when mid season comes.

Seriously, every new television season we read about how the viewing audience is being eroded by name your reason here. It is no wonder that cable, satellite, and the internet are all taking a huge chunk out of the big 4’s viewing audience.

Over on AOL, a view of the shows that are being postponed for the mid-season are recounted. Many of these are new, and so simply being put off a little is no big deal. The ones like ‘Lost’ and ‘24′ are doing nothing to maintain viewer loyalty - after a while the habit to view is broken. This happens nearly every year when shows are pre-empted for sporting events. The number of shows that have died well before interest lulled, due to extended pre-emption are too numerous to mention. (One that always sticks in my mind is MacGyver, which was nowhere near being burned out, but lost viewers as it was lost to extended ABC coverage of Monday Night Football.)

It also seems that the networks have ceded Saturday nights to anything else, as every one of them have repeats of prior shows in the week. There is no new content planned for any Saturday night of the regular season. Note to networks: This isn’t a good idea, as most of what you offer is not that good the first time, and most who are interested have VCRs, DVRs, or computers that can record the first showing. The repeat view concept only works for the premium cable channels because the content provided sometimes needs to be presented at times when little ones are not in the room.

For me, NBC offers absolutely nothing of interest, again. I find this especially strange, as the NBC sub-networks, USA, SciFi, and Bravo, all offer much I like to watch.

ABC has made an enemy of me, after the summer disappointment of Traveler. It was the last in a long line of series wiped out by stupidity, and apparent lack of respect for the profit motive - many of the series’ I remember being canceled  were high in the ratings. I refuse to watch any episodic show on that network until it makes it through a complete season. 

I find very little new on ABC that demands I give it even a casual perusal. ‘Pushing Daisies’ looks to be a bad retread of ‘6 Feet Under’ and since the latter was possible on HBO, one wonders what could be accomplished, that would be worthwhile, with the constraints of the ABC censors.

Fox suffers the same stupidity as ABC, only on a grander scale. It refuses to give many shows a chance to air the number of shows originally completed.  This makes the sense belonging to those network heads come into question, as time has shown that many shows lasting year after year were slow starters.  On this network, the only thing worth viewing, until the return of ‘24′, is the brilliant ‘House’, which deserves a better network to gain more viewers. (Perhaps this is why USA network has same season re-runs.)

The offerings from the basic cable channels are, once again, outshining the efforts of the ‘big 4′. Shows like ‘Burn Notice’, Monk, Psych, Damages, Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck, The Riches, My Boys, Welcome to the Parker, Blowout, and Army Wives all rise well above the level of quality that shows up on the big networks.

Perhaps we should all stop referring to them as the ‘big’ networks.

I’ve always been a big watcher of PBS, and with ‘regular’ television giving so poor a showing this fall, I’m sure I’ll be watching it more and more. 

(as I look at this after the spell check, I am also reminded that I’m not reading as much as I used to, perhaps a return to more of that would be good)

Tags: network television, abc, nbc, cbs, fox, fall schedules

The vote on the Office Open XML format will probably go a little differently now that the Swedish vote will most likely be one of abstention. Microsoft has gotten caught with its hand in the cookie jar again.

Microsoft was found to have offered ‘incentives’ to companies that voted for the passage of the OOXML format. Swedish voters were found to be among those who accepted. Moreover, in another story, 23 members never before involved joined the Swedish voting body the day before the vote.

A re-vote is expected, but the reason given is claimed  improper procedures.   The Swedish Institute of Standards declared that the original vote was invalid, with the improper procedures difficulty cited, brushing aside any notion that money for votes was exchanged. A new vote in Sweden is unlikely, due to time constraints.

The next vote, one that will involve about 100 countries, is scheduled for September 2. This is where the actual decision will happen, and Microsoft will find out if its push has been effective.

This push has been one more vigorously fought than any in recent memory.

One story here.

Second source here.

Tags: microsoft, graft, improper conduct, ooxml, voting, sweden, disparate stories

Other than the usual variety of strange and devious doings at One Redmond Way, not too much regarding computing has been going on for the past  seven days.

With that in mind, I thought I might make up one of those little lists that get made up giving kudos to the programs and utilities the author uses daily that make things possible, easier, or simply a little more pleasant.

At the start of every day, I’ve found Opera to be my friend, one that doesn’t let me down, even when new things are tried (betas).  It never worries me that some ActiveX control will impart its nastiness on my system while I’m not paying full attention. It offers the possibility for getting crazy with customization, but never gets bloated in the process. If I want to, I can order it vocally, to do my bidding on the internet.

I use Windows XP most of the time, and other than Windows Genuine Disadvantage, I find it to be very easy to use, for the most part. One thing I have never liked about Windows is the Explorer file manager. It is only barely better than FileMan from Windows 3. Microsoft has never gotten the idea that two pane file management is what most people prefer, or perhaps it has never cared. A better file manager is what is needed for just about everyone. I’ve found, lately, that Explorer² is the best currently available for what I do. I have wished for many years that the makers of XTree would renew efforts to make a comeback in Windows, but it has not happened.  I know that there is ZTree, but it omits the best parts of XTree, so I have never done more than look at it for a short while. Explorer² is available as a free product, and does so much I really did not need to register it. I did, however, to allow continued work on this fine product. As I’ve said before, when a product is that good, it can ‘guilt’ its users to pay, no form of time out or other trickery is needed.

For dealing with archives, I have 3 programs, because not one of them will do all that I need it to. Perhaps PowerArchiver would do the trick, by itself, but I have an older version, and paying for the upgrade doesn’t get my vote as I have the other 2 programs to fill out the needs. ExtractNow is an unarchiving utility, free, and very good. It will also open the occasional Mac StuffIt archive I run across. The third product I didn’t pay for, as I somehow obtained a free copy of the program, and as with PowerArchiver, the version I have does what I need without having to pay for the upgrades. That third program, WinRAR 3.51, is useful when I have an RAR archive that my version of PowerArchiver will not work with.  If I were starting out again, or needed to have only one product for reasons of disk space, I would pay for PowerArchiver, as its interface I find to be the best of any. (One small note, I find that the newest revision 10.x.x, substitutes a very cartoon-like set of icons, and a very ‘angry fruit salad’ colors scheme, so that too, keeps me from upgrading. Others may like the cartoonish look, I do not.)

Playing multimedia files is always a pain, or so I thought until I downloaded GOM Player. It makes things easy. I like it a lot, and it works every time, unlike Windows Media Player, regardless of version.

I like to listen to internet radio and while I like WinAmp, for most things I find it too unwieldy for my use. I do have it, and at times will use it to find specific music or stations, but I have found I use a small, free program, Screamer, much more often. It uses presets and makes what I want to listen to much easier to access.

I have always been kind of a utility junkie, and still use many on my machine. I pine for the days when PC Magazine had free utilities, as many of the ones I still use are from that time. I haven’t found a single one during the pay-era that calls to out, saying ‘buy me, you really need me’.  I use Tray Manager 2 to control the clutter in my task bar area. I use MultiREN to rename files, which has a better interface than any other program of its type.  I use DisplaySet and Theme Manager when I want to make my desktop look different. Just recently, PC Magazine decided to shame the devil and release Surf Speed gratis, and I picked that up, using it in my ongoing battle with the ups and downs in speed of my Verizon DSL.

To help with some hotkey sequences, I use Winkey, which is no longer available from Copernic, but it can be found on certain sites. I do find this to be a very annoying behavior, as many authors will remove products that are no longer being developed, but they were free, and no new competing product is being put forth, free or paid.

I tend to be very meticulous about the files on my machine, but I can’t always remember where each and every file, ISO, or archive is located. Instead of using a Microsoft offering, or Google Desktop Search, I use X1, which is free, fast, keeps being improved, and has gotten an Editor’s Choice award from PC Magazine.

As with archives, graphics files are not all handled by one program. I have both XnView and IrfanView installed, which seem to take care of all my needs. When I need to edit a graphic, or make one up, I use Paint.NET, which gets better with each iteration.

Although Outlook Express, and the new Windows Desktop Mail will both do newsgroups, I prefer to use Agent, which I have used for over ten years. Detractors will say it doesn’t have this or that, but the developers get around to adding features on a regular basis.  The only sad part here is that there is no free version anymore. For anyone who seriously checks in to newsgroups, $29 is not too much to pay for a great reader.

Microsoft has been doing some good lately, with the upgrades to Messenger and Outlook Express, and the upgrades are truly good. (Shock and Awe, indeed!) I use these daily (Live Messenger, Windows Desktop Mail), and have discontinued using Thunderbird until the problems are fixed,

A couple of utilities I have started using this year are StartRight, which controls the start up behavior of Windows, and TeraCopy, a great little copy utility that is what the copy an move utilities built into Windows should have been all along. There are a couple of small annoyances with TeraCopy, which have stayed with it for 3 iterations, so perhaps the author can’t replicate the problem, but it is minor, and has no effect on data integrity, so I recommend it heartily.

If you try any of these great programs or utilities, you’ll be a happy camper, and well ahead of the pack.

Tags: opera, explorer², powerarchiver, extractnow, winrar, gom player, screamer, pc magazine utilities, xnview, irfanview, x1, winkey, paint.net, agent, startright, teracopy, windows live messenger, windows desktop mail

While perusing the net, I came across a tool that, while its intrinsic value might be questionable, its ‘cool factor’ makes it something I must have. Perhaps you, too, will want one.

Everyone knows that there are literally hundreds of Swiss Army knives, and many more knockoffs, catering to almost every taste in cutlery and tools. The one for computer users, techs, and pretenders is the Victorinox Cyber 41.

from Victorinox:

The CyberTool is here and especially developed for our times when computers and electronics rule the day. Thanks to 13 different screwdrivers, cleverly housed in the smallest space, the tool is in a class of its own in the fields of electronics, household, hobbies and toys. The handy bit key and bit holder can be opened speedily in the same uncomplicated way as any other tool. And another novelty: the new transparent look of the handle gives the CyberTool extra style.

The CyberTool, like the other pocket tools developed by VICTORINOX, is elegant and compact, contains a number of tools and offers a wide variety of functions. Thanks to these features the already legendary “Swiss Army Knives” have become a daily companion, just like a wristwatch, for millions of people. They are part of the official equipment for the NASA space-shuttle crews.

So, just like Tang, the Cyber 41 is part of the astronauts ‘utility belt’. Holy space shot, Batman!

Serious utility and cool for about $85.

Tags: victorinox, swiss army knife, tools, cyber 41, nasa issue

Over the years I’ve been involved with any form of technology, one thing I can say is that most prediction of trends in any of the sectors of tech are wrong. Either the idea never takes off or the time frame is all wrong in the prediction.

Very early this morning, I happened to read a review of three 802.11n routers. The routers were all well-known brands, and for the purpose of this review, it doesn’t matter which was the best. What is important is that the products were either barely better than 802.11g pieces or worse. These are not beta products - they are already selling. In each case, the performance was compared by using an ethernet card adapter from the same maker. This puts each company on an even footing, and chipset differences are eliminated.

Now for the point of this article - later I read an article concerning an idea put forth by the Burton Group (Does everyone have a group? And why do we rarely hear of a group more than once in our lives?)

The idea put forth is that wired ethernet  is on the way out. Perhaps. The outlandish part of the claim is that 802.11n is what is going to supplant it.

If that is the case, I certainly hope everyone plans to move closer together than they are now. You see the 802.11n routers that were faster than the 11g control units were only faster at distances of 2 feet or less. When I read this part of the report I almost fell down. Who networks things, other than printers, wirelessly at distances of 2 feet or less?

Given that no reviews of any wireless product have significantly bested fast ethernet, at any distance, or through walls, and that no one wants backwards progress - we all are accustomed to things becoming faster - why should computer to computer communications get slower?

Are buildings for business suddenly going to be made completely open inside, with absolutely no walls? Although that might be a possibility, the problems don’t stop there. All the 802.11n subjects degraded significantly in open settings at distances of 35 ft. Wired ethernet doesn’t have this problem. Wired ethernet can be easily put into neat ’sections’  which limits traffic on the network in general. With 802.11n there are only a few channels, and adjacent channel usage causes slowing due to overlap interference.

This does not yet address the benefits of gigabit networking compared to fast ethernet. This puts even greater distance between the mean speed of wired and wireless networks.

Yes, every century has its own version of Nostradamus. Few seem to realize how wide the field must be in order to render any of his prognostications as true. When you pin things down to something specific, like, the removal of wired ethernet from our lives … well…

Tags: nostradamus, burton group, ethernet, 802.11n, progress

Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, today, forced the Autopatcher.com site to discontinue its downloads area. For those who don’t know, this was a site meticulously cared for by a team of people whose only desire was to make the update of Windows 2000 and XP an easier task than using any Microsoft provided methods.

Instead of simply allowing the site to post a notice saying that the software as not endorsed by Microsoft, and that any use absolves Microsoft of any fault, it was necessary to bully the site into submission, with threats of legal action. A simple ‘caveat emptor’ would have sufficed.

For Windows users, this is truly a dark day.

As someone who has been accused of feeding the Microsoft conspiracy theories, I wish to state today, that I do think this is a part of a larger ‘big brother’ plan by Microsoft. It comes at a time when Vista is being attacked from all sides, and Microsoft when not criticized for Vista, is being tormented for not releasing Service Pack 3 for XP. (The amount of circulating FUD is phenomenal, just as Microsoft likes it.)

Service Pack 3 is supposed to be nothing more than all the fixes to date after the release of Service Pack 2 - nothing more. Why then, is it necessary to wait for release, or beta test, software that has been on so many machines for so long? Now we are told by ostensibly reputable sources (writers for major computer magazines) that Service Pack 3 will be a roll-up for XP. That is FUD-speak for ‘That’s all, Folks. There is no more”. It was less than 3 weeks ago I read in another of those ostensibly reputable computer magazines that there was support for XP through 2014, and that a possible Service Pack 4 was already penned into the books.

As for Service Pack 1 for Vista, first we (the public who cares) are led to believe that many changes were ready to be put into the Vista release but simply missed the due date by a short time - kind of like those kids who could never finish their book reports on time, back in grade school. Now we see only tiny fragments of possible fixes, and are told that not much will change with Service Pack 1, and it won’t be coming for a while.

I believe that this is part of a concerted effort to force more people into Vista adoption, and by way of its forced fall into disuse, discontinuation of support for XP before the stated date of 2014.

Microsoft, as an entity, needs a course in ethics as well as a Gantt chart.

Tags: ethics, microsoft, vista, service packs, gantt chart, autopatcher, fud

While I have read 11 different takes on the 19 hour disaster that was the Windows Genuine Advantage server outage, it was not until the very last one I read, this morning, that I got an opinion that agreed with what I had been thinking since I heard about the problem.

In an article titled “Don’t Trust the Servers”, John C. Dvorak writes about the long term disadvantages to Microsoft from the fiasco. You may have heard that Microsoft has started selling subscription based software in Africa. It is true and merely a ‘pilot’ to a much bigger idea.

Microsoft wants to fully expound on the concept put forth in every one of its EULAs (End User License Agreement). For those who have merely clicked on the button, rather than fully reading all the particulars - which is what Microsoft, and any other software company desires - the agreement requirements that you have acceded to are 1) the software is not yours, you are merely using something that belongs to Microsoft - in effect, merely renting for an unspecified term 2) you cannot modify the software in any way whatsoever, and 3) although you have paid for a working product, with reasonable expectations of efficacy, you cannot hold Microsoft responsible for any problems incurred by the use of said software.

Where else in life are such limitations imposed? None, as far as I am aware. When one pays for something, even a rental, one has the reasonable right to believe that the product will work as designed, and can hold the one who rents the product liable for the product not working properly.

How this deniability of liability for anything has come about with software is anybody’s guess - but in the world of paid software, it is so.

Now what Microsoft wishes to do in the very near future is put all that EULA ‘goodness’  together with a specific end date to the rental agreement. This is what the euphemism ’software-as-a-service’ means.

Now what happens when the Microsoft servers are down for an unspecified time, and the software is due for renewal? What happens, unless a very creative and flexible verification program is put into place, is that your hardware, that machinery in front of you (that you cherish, secretly, more than you should) becomes almost useless.

Microsoft will tell the users that this will not happen. This will have been accounted for in necessary redundant systems.  This is where you, as the one affected, had better step in and say “Wait a minute. What are you talking about here? You could not take care of simple validation for XP and Vista in August of 2007. Why are things different now?” 

And you had better wait for a reasonable answer before acceding to ’software-as-a-service’.

Mr. Dvorak’s article

Tags:  windows genuine advantage, microsoft, validation servers, software-as-a-service, eula, specific rights

This morning, the new editor of PC Magazine, Lance Ulanoff, put forth the idea that, technology is always good, and RFID is something we should embrace whole-heartedly, to the point that we should have the chips implanted in our children at birth.

In just the first minutes after the entry was written the amount of vitriol from  readers was a quick report on the possible number of readers. To say there was an outcry was somewhat of an understatement.

Mr. Ulanoff wrote the article to stir debate, it is clear - to me. Apparently other readers don’t have a clue what the word satire means, or possibly since one usually sees so little well written satire, when a piece comes along that is well written it is impossible for them to distinguish the difference from ordinary discourse.

In the era of the undeclared Iraq war, the Patriot Act, federal wiretapping of nearly everyone, and monumental governmental idiocy, how may sane people would cede further control over their lives to a nebulous, malevolent “Big Brother”?

Just because Aldous Huxley was a little overbearing in his predictions, and George Orwell was off on the date, does not mean that they were wrong.

Oh -  I’m sure Mr. Ulanoff has his tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Tags: pc magazine, lance ulanoff, aldous huxley, george orwell, 1984, big brother