Posts Tagged ‘media’
Netflix Goes Above and Beyond
Recently, Netflix was down. It was very down. Their website stopped responding, and an error appeared at times stating their shipping and streaming services were on hold until they could fix the problem.
I wake up this morning to find an email from Netflix. They sincerely apologized and offered an account credit. It looks like this went to all members… here, take a look.
Dear Tyler,
Recently you may have had trouble instantly watching TV episodes or movies due to technical issues.
We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused. If you attempted and were unable to instantly watch TV episodes or movies yesterday, click on this account specific link in the next 7 days to apply a credit to your next billing statement. The credit will be 3% of our $7.99 a month plan that lets our members instantly watch unlimited TV episodes and movies. Credit can only be applied once.
Ready to start watching again? Check out our latest selection.
Again, we apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-866-923-0898.
–The Netflix Team
I find this to be very generous of Netflix. They were very up front with the outage, and are offering customers a little something in return for their downtime. Thank you Netflix. More companies should follow what you did. Think of the people first, money and business later. Kudos.
Roku
Recently, my xBox decided to die. And by that, I mean the three Red Rings of Death appeared. There was no turning back, as it’s hard to repair these and my version of xBox was so out of warranty. Thankfully, I used my xBox for only one thing. Netflix. I have the 1 DVD out at a time service from Netflix, and that includes unlimited streaming of content to almost any device. So, my xBox acted as that middle man between my Netflix account and my TV. With the xBox dead, I was out of a box to play my content. So, I hooked my Mac to my TV, which presented many problems that I won’t get into. But let’s just say it was not easy to watch content on my TV while using my computer.
Credit: Roku.com
That meant I needed to do something, and that something was get a dedicated streaming device. I am not about to dish out $50 a month for cable, when there is such good content already out there and I am already paying for Netflix. So, I needed something. I was caught between a few different devices. I was first thinking of a Dell Zino, which is just a small computer that I can hook up via HDMI to my TV. Using a wireless keyboard and mouse to browse stuff from Hulu and Netflix and everywhere else on the web. But, after reading reviews that said the video card was not up to snuff, I took the Zino off my list. Now I was left with a Boxee or Roku.
I found that while the Boxee and Roku do the exact same thing, I was leaning towards the Roku. The Boxee offers streaming of Netflix and Hulu and some other services and also has an included HDMI cable and remote. But, the price for it was a little steep. The Roku offered all of those features, except for an included HDMI cord. The Roku also had a lot more offerings on channels. And was cheaper! Roku it was! I got the Roku XD and an HDMI cord for it. Within a few days I was all setup and streaming Netflix and Hulu, along with Revision3, TED talks, cNet and more!
All said and done, I love the Roku and it’s quality of service, price, offerings and features. If you’re looking for a box to stream media form the Web, and are torn between a Boxee and Roku…go Roku.
Flash Drives in the Government
This post is based off of this news story: NextGov.com
Flash drives have become a big problem within the government. I have spoke on this before, and cover it heavily in this weeks episode of The Way It Should Be – Episode 6. I am going to turn that rant into written form.
Credit: comparestoreprices.co.uk
Flash media of any kind should be banned in highly sensitive facilities…like the government. Flash drives are smaller versions of hard drives that can contract a virus and obtain damage from outside sources. Flash drives can just as easily get infected with a virus or malware and then when you plug it into multiple computers, that virus is being spread. Some may argue the Auto Run feature on Windows 7, but there are still ways around it. You still open individual files on the flash drive and you still copy and paste files from computer to drive. There are ways around everything to get infected.
That being said, I thought that it was a great idea for the Pentagon to begin bans on flash media…but now the military want’s to reinstate them. Why? There are numerous threats with allowing this again. Not to mention the fact that you can lose the flash drive. They are getting smaller and smaller and people are losing them more often. What’s to say that unencrypted data is going to get stolen or fall into the wrong hands if the drive is lost? Too many variables to account for.
The fix…the government needs to design their own flash media that is encrypted multiple times and has some kind of tracking device inside that allows it to be tracked if lost. This might not be needed in every device, but sensitive information ones should contain some kind of GPS tracking technology. We know it already exists. Just look at GPS units or the future of microchip implants in newborns. (Not in love with that idea).
Right now, the government needs to continue to block flash drives in the workplace. To me, this is just another way to ensure data security and make sure things do not get into the wrong hands.
Your thoughts?