Technology – Page 5 – Mile High Soapbox

January 31, 2008

I love V for VPN

I just want to say that I really like V for VPN as a VPN provider. I travel for work and have a VPN for that, but I wanted a VPN for non-work stuff.
I have found V for VPN to be incredibly fast and it does not slow down my system. That doesn’t mean the hotel Internet connections are great.

I used Hot Spot VPN for a while and it did not work all the time and it constantly slowed down my system. Hot Spot VPN was $8.88 a month also, about twice as much as V for VPN is for it top notch service at $4.95 a month.

What make this worthwhile and amazing is that V for VPN was started and is run by a high school student who will graduate a year early this May. I think this is a worthwhile business to support.

January 31, 2008

Apple TV Updates

Has anyone heard when the Apple TV updates are going to be available?
It was supposed to be two weeks after the Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld, but nothing has come across yet.

Just checking.

January 19, 2008

VideoEgg Not Worth It

I had just listened to Leo Laporte’s radio show from September, show #385 (I know I am behind), and he spoke about VideoEgg. He said that it would allow you to control which pages or sites that it could play on. So I tried it out.
It just didn’t cut it. This service was no different than any of the others and it doesn’t come close to Vimeo.

VideoEgg limits your upload to 5 minutes or 100 mb. At least YouTube allows you go up to 10 minutes. Also, if you mark your video as private, people still can copy and embed your video on their site. It doesn’t limit which site can play your video.

I was trying to find a service so I can post family videos and have them show up on my blog, but not allow people to copy the embed code and play it on other sites. Well VideoEgg allows you to make a video private, but then it allows people to copy the embed code and put it on their site.

I use Vimeo now and really like it. It has a lot more functionality than VideoEgg and I think a bigger network. There are several levels of privacy and you can prevent people from downloading the original format if you want.

Vimeo provides a great way to share original videos or just videos amongst family and friends. Vimeo also allows for the uploading of HD Content, allows for albums, and even has channels. It is a great service.

YouTube is YouTube and I probably won’t be putting anything else up on that site.

What I am looking for in a online video player is a player that does what Vimeo does and a just one thing more. I would like it to restrict what pages a video can play on. For example, I upload a video to Vimeo and then have a setting that prevents others from embedding the code on their website, but still allow people to see the video without being a contact or using a password.

Vimeo is a great service and worth the time to get an account. Try it out, for me it is the best way to share video online. You will like it!

January 14, 2008

Bill Gates Farewell Video

This is a little late on the eve of Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld, but this video was quite funny. Bill Gates is quite a sport to be doing this plus all the others who participated in putting it together.

January 13, 2008

Flickr having some problems

Well the update bug has hit Flickr.
They made some updates to the system on Friday evening and the databases are having some problems catching up. The site is quite slow, if the pages load at all.

Seeing hiccups or site slowness: Back up They say it is back up, but people are still having problems with their pages.

I have been having some problems using Flickr with Flock. It looks like there is some problems with the two interacting Firefox and IE work fine, but Flock has problems. I have reported this as a problem.

January 11, 2008

Gizmodo Pulls Stupid Prank at CES!

For those of you who haven’t heard, Gizmodo did a real weird and stupid prank at CES this week. During press conferences and meetings, staff from Gizmodo went around with there TV B Gone and were turning off all the TVs they were using for their presentations.
That is so not cool. These are companies who are trying to make an impression of their new products or product line so they can make a living. To go around turning off the TVs so you can laugh about it is just sick.

Gizmodo is going to be lucky not to be sued by one of these companies.

CES issued a statement on what they are doing today. Unless something happens to Gizmodo and Gawker Media, then the punishment is too light.

If you are reading this blog post, you should not read or support Gizmodo or Gawker media and any future tech conference should ban them from attending, starting with Macworld next week.

I think Loren Feldman from 1938 Media summed it up real well in a blog post, Gizmodo Guys are Real Dopes.

January 9, 2008

Flock worth it so far

I am playing with Flock. What I am finding is that it is versatile and integrates really easily and well into my social network sites.
You can set up your blogs, twitter, facebook, flickr, and integrate it all into one browser.

I am still playing around with it, but I think it is definitely worth trying so far. I am really impressed.

More soon.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: flock, blogging, web browsing, internet

December 29, 2007

RIAA suing for copying legally bought CD’s to computer

The RIAA is suing a Scottsdale, Ariz., man because he had about 2,000 songs on his computer that he copied from CD’s that he legally bought and still owned.
The RIAA contends in a brief that they filed with the court “that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are ‘unauthorized copies’ of copyrighted recordings.”

This is ridiculous. The music industry is suing their fans and creating such a bad reputation for themselves, the people are not buying music from the big labels, making it worse for the music industry. Instead of looking for ways to survive in the digital age, they are trying to preserve an antiquated business model that is falling apart. Continue reading “RIAA suing for copying legally bought CD’s to computer”