Why I Canceled Cable TV Service
Jul 24th
Cable Go Bye-Bye
This week something amazing happened. My wife and I decided to kill cable. Since our latest Charter bundle had expired and we were paying out the nose for television service we were considering jumping into a new package or canceling the TV service. I was very close to going with a package that wasn’t too expensive but after all the nickel and dimeing combined with poor customer support, I decided to pull the plug. Charter phone support and even local office support can be really bad. The added fees to make changes and the extra dollars each month for just a few channels (even children’s) is ridiculous. Sometimes I think people forget that you’re a customer and that they have jobs because of you. Also, what happened to respecting customers who auto-pay or never miss payments? No one cares about great credit or customer history anymore either. I do need to say that, of the two or three service people we’ve had come to our house for cable related issues or tasks, they all have been phenomenal.
Although it’s only been a few days, I completely feel that we’ve made the right decision. Please don’t forget that channels are still broadcasted over the air and you may be able to pickup your local stations by using an antenna. This includes some HD channels as well. Our current home entertainment setup is pretty basic now. We have a Roku, DVD player with up-conversion, and a Macbook. All three devices are using HDMI cables to transmit video and/or audio connectivity to a HiDef LCD. The Roku (our latest toy) delivers a ton of streaming media depending on your subscriptions. Netflix being the blockbuster, MLB TV being the second charmer, and Amazon Video being third. Roku offers free and premium channels that clearly show where home entertainment is headed. The ‘Newscaster’ channel is all the news you need with feeds coming from CBS, NBC, CNN, ESPN, and ABC, just to name a few. Streaming my Pandora channels is an awesome feature as well. The more I dig and research on the Roku, the more I love knowing I have one. Just recently I found a private channel code online that unlocked the USB plugin option. Simply connect a usb hard drive or memory stick to the back of the Roku and you can play .mp4 video right on your TV. My initial testing of this functionality hasn’t been perfect but I’ll give it more time.
Our Philips DVD player was $40 about a year or two ago and still works like a charm so we’re not changing it at this time or upgrading to BluRay. The Macbook HDMI video out is impressive and I’m looking forward to using my laptop for media streaming more. Do you realize how many series and episodes are available online? Our son began watching Special Agent Oso on the Disney Channel a few weeks ago and I felt bad cutting him off completely. He likes to watch it on Saturday mornings so alI I do now is plug in the laptop to the TV, goto disney.com and launch one of the episodes and set the video to full screen. He loves it and I love that I can do it all without paying for cable TV. For my own enjoyment, I began watching an FX show called Justified. Hulu.com was streaming the episodes as the season was moving along. Although I can’t watch them on the night of their release, I can watch them shortly after and on my schedule. Now if only Hulu would do the same for Rescue Me, I’d be thrilled. What I need to buy next is a wireless keyboard and mouse that works from 10-14 feet away. I feel my setup is fairly minimalistic and anyone with broadband internet could be utilizing the same technology. My cable connection is about 10mb and I can’t complain. Web browsing and downloads are fast enough for me. Gaming online and streaming video and audio is flawless. Honestly, I wish I switched 6 months ago instead of picking a new cable package at that time.
In all seriousness folks, television is going to change and we can help make it change. I just downloaded the Roku SDK and I’d love to get my hands dirty on their BrightScript programming language. I’m surprised other major networks and distributors haven’t jumped in and begun designing their own premium channels. Imagine not paying for cable TV. Imagine only paying for cable internet or broadband and using a small HiDef box to stream what you want to watch, when you want to watch it. Honestly, how many networks or shows do you religiously watch? First of all, if they were taken away tomorrow, you’d most likely get by just fine. Second of all, if a network like FX or HBO offered their original series for a small monthly or annual fee, would you pay? I sure as hell would and that’s the message we need to communicate. To summarize, if you’re a Netflix subscriber, go buy a Roku. Within one week, if you’re not blown away, and don’t see the potential, I’d be shocked. I truly hope customer after customer begins dropping their cable TV service in order to show the networks that they should be delivering their content in a new and modern medium. The bandwidth is here and it’s about time we start using it for more than just web browsing and email.
Checkout this post on WiseBread/Living Large on a Small Budget: Stop Paying For Cable Television But Keep Up With Your Favorite Shows
My goal here isn’t to make you call your cable provider and drop your service now. My goal is to inform you of what’s possible, let it all sink in, and realize how much time you waste channel browsing and simply watch shows just because they’re on. Of course, saving money on a monthly basis isn’t bad either. Also, reading more rather than watching more is a good idea. If you have a broadband internet connection do yourself a favor and think about the possibilities. Do you own a laptop that has a high quality video output capability? Purchase the right cable and begin testing it out on your big screen.
CA.com Online Communities
Jul 18th
At the CA Regional Exchange this year (CARE), CA Technologies went live with a new website for CA.com. The CA.com Online Communities 
have been designed to allow customers to help customers. Of the software vendors I’ve worked with, CA understands the value in social media, online communities, and even offline community involvement. Local and global user groups had already existed with CA and their primary means of communication was email, webcasts, and message boards. What the new site will allow is a more personal and integrated control set. Individual members can now have a unique and customizable profile, a wall similar to Facebook, their own blog, rss feed content, and more (coming soon). The groups both global and regional have far better capabilities than they used to. This includes event calendars, blogs, welcome statement, membership listing, member ‘mass’ emailer, and individual message boards.
The new site without question shows the potential and in my mind, helps to make CA an even better software or technology vendor. If you’re a manager or someone who makes or influences purchasing decisions. Before you buy, you need to ask yourself, “How is this application supported?” Know the user base, know if there are communities and individuals outside of your company actively involved with the application and if there are local groups, join them! I guarantee that not only will your organization and IT resources be better prepared to handle problems, but they will also be better prepared for projects that impact or contribute to the effected application and as a result, make the application more successful in your organization. I could dig even deeper here and state that it’s possible your ROI time may be decreased simply due to the community support and how they end up helping you.
For example, the Clarity Global Community has just over 3,000 members. Not all of them monitor the message boards mind you, but a great number do and are routinely posting and replying to one another. Let’s say you have run into an issue in your QA environment, have scanned the logs, and know what code or term you want to search for. You have three general places to find your answer prior to opening a support case with CA. First, search the CA knowledge-base. Second, search the user community message boards and blogs. Third, search Google. Please do understand that possible answers or solutions in the forums should be tested thoroughly in your lower environments before considering them a successful fix. In many cases it may not be a bad idea to open a CA support ticket even if you think you have solved your problem because CA support will let you know if your resolution is a supported function. Lastly, reporting your fixes to CA is a good idea as it could help expand their online knowledge-base.
I can’t express enough how helpful user community message boards are to customer satisfaction and productivity. As I said previously, if you’re ever considering a software purchase, know what the quality of the support is like for that specific vendor and how many people who are out there that can help in solving your potential issues. It makes an incredible difference. CA Technologies has taken a great step in enhancing their user community and in time it can only get better.
Roku HD XR Review
Jun 29th
Are you a Netflix subscriber? Are you a true movie lover or do you only go for the newest releases? Maybe you frequently use Pandora or have an interest viewing Flickr and Facebook content on your television? If so, the Roku HD XR might be a great device for you. Roku brings a good chunk of streaming media directly to your television and their XR model does it all wirelessly. Although I’ve only owned it for a week and have only touched the surface of available content, I’m very pleased with the device. In this review I’ll discuss some of the parts I love, some of the items that need to be improved, and one MUST have channel Roku needs to develop. Bottom line though, if you don’t need to always watch the latest films and are a Netflix subscriber, the Roku is a no brainer and well worth the investment. If by chance you do want the latest in releases, there is the option of renting and purchasing from Amazon video but it can get expensive.
What’s to love? Simple install, really simple. Please understand that I’ve been working with computers and networking for many years but in all honesty, the instructions are brief and straight forward. Since the XR has built-in wireless N, in order to connect to your router the only knowledge you need is what is your SSID, security password (if any), MAC address (if needed), etc.. If that sounds alien to you then you most likely don’t have a secure router and you might want to understand wireless security a bit more or ask a friend or family member with experience for help. In order to get Netflix working with your account, you’ll have to activate your Roku device for the Netflix service. Don’t worry though because the Roku’s instructions couldn’t be easier. If you need more support, check out how to activate a Netflix ready device. As far as bandwidth and quality go, my Roku has been superb. My home network is on a 10mb cable network using docsis 2.0 technology and transmits wireless N. The loading time for a specific show or movie through the Netflix channel can go up to 30 seconds (I’m guessing) but the playback, pause, fast forward, and image quality far exceed my expectations. The movie content for Netflix is ‘ok’ and as many customers report, could be better. The content available for children and family I find to be impressive and my kids are happy with it. Lastly, I like the remote. It is small but comfortable, attractive, and simple. I just hope I don’t lose it.
What can be improved? Considering my experience with the Xbox 360 and it’s Netflix streaming ability, I’ve become fond of the Netflix interface on the Xbox. It seems more ‘modern’, comfortable, etc.. It’s a bit difficult to describe, but the way you search, browse, and locate movies and shows using the Xbox’s Netflix menu is better overall than the Roku’s menu system. One specific downfall for me on the Roku’s menu is as I’m scrolling through Children shows, the Horror or Action film covers or images can also be seen in another part of the screen, leaving my three year old asking what a zombie is or what the wolf one is. On the Xbox, that’s a non-issue as each ‘theme’ is separated for browsing and if you’re in Children and Family, you will only see Children and Family content. I happen to like the fact that my Roku setup uses only two cables to connect, power and HDMI. The only area I see some people possibly complaining in is that there is no on/off switch. Simply change your TV input to the right number and the Roku will wake up and bring you to the menu system. Again, I happen to like that ability but others might not so I threw that fact in this section.
What’s missing? In all honesty, Roku has been expanding their content ever since they released their first product. They offer free and premium channels. One premium channel I have to subscribe to at some point will be MLB TV. The possibility of watching nearly any baseball game, highlight, wrap-up, etc.. is amazing to me. West coast, east coast, who cares. MLB TV has it all. Check out the link to see the full features as it’s an amazing streaming service. The BIG one that Roku needs to deliver is Hulu. Hulu is a fantastic place to discover and watch movies and television shows that can sometimes be current. This is the place you’ll find shows that run on FX, Lifetime, and who knows what else. Just recently I quickly found some great Three Stooges episodes and it’s fast and easy to use. If Roku can partner with Hulu, expand and modernize their menu system, and keep growing their available channels, look out. You may start seeing them pop-up in millions of homes. I know some of you are aware that many Blu-Ray players are now including Netflix connectivity but I’m going to stand by the Roku as a streaming only device and I hope they do give those Blu-Ray players a run for their money.
Here’s an additional review on the Roku HD XR by CNET: Click Here to Read
UPDATED: Just to let you all know, I still very much enjoy the Roku and am hoping they continue to expand their channels. Netflix streaming quality is excellent. The available HD Netflix films are really in HD…. I hope internet television is the future, not the cable company and coax crap.
Who and What is 38 Studios?
Jun 16th
Remember that pitcher from the Boston Red Sox in 2004 who pitched and won with that famous ‘bloody sock’? Ya, that’s Curt Schilling. Curt has had an online presence in social media for quite some time now (Twitter: gehrig38 & 38studios) and on occasion jumps on the airwaves of WEEI. Besides his charity work, another focus Curt has is on his entertainment and IP creation company, 38 Studios based in Maynard MA. This week happens to be a big one for Curt as E3 is currently ongoing. Specifically, a game under the code name ‘Project Mercury’ is set to be 38 Studio’s first major release and EA will be publishing it. Although details are limited at this time, Project Mercury will be available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. I’m thinking there may be some more info exposed this week as E3 is ongoing.
Big Huge Games, based out of Baltimore, is a subsidiary of 38 Studios which was acquired in the spring of 2009. Successful from their Rise of Nations series, BHG has also released Catan for Xbox live. Can’t wait for Project Mercury’s release (my guess is some time in 2011)? It’s a fun and addicting arcade game where you control territory through strategy and trading. It’s based on the successful board game, Settlers of Catan. Big Huge Games aside, there’s no doubt that RPG fans everywhere are anticipating 38 Studios first major release. Will Project Mercury live up to the hype? With the staff Curt has brought including R. A. Salvatore, Todd McFarlane, and Ken Rolston, how can it fail?
“From day one, 38 Studios has been focused on creating the next generation of entertainment experiences that embrace all mediums, including film, television, comics, novels, toys and, of course, games,” said Curt Schilling, Founder and Chairman of 38 Studios. “We are creating an enormous world, with heroes and villains and a rich back story from the brilliant minds of R. A., Todd and Ken at its heart, and I can think of no finer partner than the global powerhouse that is EA Partners. Being able to leverage the expertise of EA’s publishing organization to bring our first product to market is a dream come true for 38 Studios.”
Interested in working in the gaming industry? 38 Studios posts their open positions on Twitter and on their website. Check it out.
Social Media Strategy v1.0
May 28th
Social media and online community involvement and collaboration is not a fad, it’s the future. As Don Tapscott might put it, the Net Generation get’s it, uses it, and is going to change the way web technology is used and perceived. Even better, social media tools are expanding and getting the online communities offline as many users are meeting in person to discuss issues, news, entertainment, work, partnerships, you name it.
I began using Facebook in February 09’ and Twitter in December 09’. Used Linked-In since 2008, not sure exactly when. Ya, I used MySpace back in the day but it doesn’t seem relevant anymore. I recently deleted my Facebook account which is explained in this blog entry. Until the spring of 2011 I’m serving as communications officer for the CA Clarity Global Community and I tend to use CA.com forums and community content frequently but am also interested in many other technology and collaboration based sites and communities. A partner of mine recently called me a community evangelist. It felt super cool to be recognized in something I’m passionate about but not really experienced in. At a recent CA World discussion group, I was lucky enough to be on stage with four others talking about social media, the impact of it, and why we all use it and like it. It was staggering to me how many people don’t use Twitter when I see adoption rates are sky high and ever increasing. The more time I spend in the social media realm, the more I realized I would need a personal strategy on how I use each tool which ultimately impacts how I brand myself. I can’t take all the credit really, since I first saw my pal, Josh Shear, with a write-up on his blog on how he uses social media. I feel it’s important to step back and think about your own goals and objectives in using a social media or collaboration based application. Your own strategy is a living, breathing thing that you should most likely revisit annually as your interests, habits, and even role and responsibilities change.
Twitter:
By far, my most frequently used social app. As Twitter grows, I feel it will replace email or at least take away a ton of email traffic due to the simplicity of the tool and the volume of users. Primarily, I use Twitter to learn and stay current. At times I’ll make personal posts but the majority of the time I stay in my technical world. With Twitter I apply fewer rules for myself but am careful about how my tweets are perceived. I use the hashtag, #in, to synch certain tweets to my LinkedIn account which I find helpful from a professional standpoint. Problem is, once you do that, your professional contacts know you use Twitter and may follow you, giving them read access to all of your Twitter activity. You can put a lock on your Twitter account and approve your followers, but to me, that defeats the primary purpose of Twitter. My strategy here is: This is who I am, this is what interests me, and I follow who and what I’m interested in. Tweet while you’re at work in limited fashion, unless it’s part of your job. Lastly, following people and organizations local to you is a great way to break out of your ‘online-only’ shell and connect with some real people. You can also learn about what events are occurring in your neighborhood.
Linked-In:
Ahh, the online resume of choice. Linked-In took me a while to understand, yes, dumb I know. My caution with this app was who do I connect with and why? If it’s an online resume and professional networking tool, why link to friends and family? You shouldn’t… unless they are also professionally connected. Now, I have a few rare exceptions to that rule, but the majority of the time, I eat my own dog food. Why link to your current boss or co-workers? This one is tough as I agree with two sides of the fence. For one, if you work with them every day, why do you need to link with them online to communicate and collaborate? You’re most likely already doing that within your organization, if not, you should be. Two, taking the no fear approach and connecting to your closest team members sends a different message. It says you’re not afraid that they know who you are, where you come from, what’s on your mind, what activities or groups you’re involved in, what you’re doing, etc.. This ultimately leaves you responsible and accountable for your online actions and how you represent yourself and your employer. Accountability is the buzz word for me because I don’t think there’s enough of it in today’s corporate or enterprise environment. Using Linked-In and Twitter together can really help you build a professional network. I’ll end on a pet peeve though. If you’re going to signup for LinkedIn, use it. Many people create an account and login once every six months. If you do that, you’re not doing yourself or your connections any favors.
Facebook:
The largest social network in the world today and yes, I’m going to create a new personal account. I’m not a big fan of Facebook given their history on selling customer data and lack of privacy concerns. Since I deleted my account though, I realized that there are specific family and friends I want to stay in touch with and they all use Facebook. I’m at Facebook’s mercy because it’s the easiest way to share family information. Facebook is a great way to share stories of your kids, pets, hobbies, or whatever you have or love. To keep this one simple, my strategy here is: Share my personal life with family, let them know I have a blog, band, career, children, etc. Keep them informed of my life. You’d be surprised how many people miss you as you grow older. I think many people are like me where they either move away or are consumed with their own immediate family and responsibilities that they let their close friends and family fall by the wayside. I may ‘friend’ close friends, but under limited circumstances. Initially, I let Facebook get out of control and I was friending people I hadn’t seen in 10-20 years. I was bombarded with news of all of the game-playing they were doing and not real life wall posts. Another thing that killed me is I would remove friends and they would continue to ask me to be friends again… they didn’t get the point the first time I guess. One recommendation I do have is not to turn it into a photo gallery of hundreds of photos. I say, keep your Facebook wall relatively clean, delete old data, and keep your photo albums up to date and limited. For all the youngsters out there, I’m not sure Facebook is the place you have your social/party club/girlfriends/boyfriends, etc. unless you’re going to keep your family off your friends list. How you use social media is crucial. Each app for the most part, should be tailored on how you want to use it. I guess the friends part is tough because I’m the eldest of the Net generation and I don’t have a need for that level of social activity. My needs are really family driven. If you’re in your teens and twenties though and want to enjoy a rich ’social’ experience, just use caution. Maybe create multiple accounts.
CA World 2010
May 25th
After submitting an idea I had for community expansion, CA made me customer committee member for CA World 2010. I mildly participated in event planning, attended pre-conference calls, and had insider information on most CA World happenings. My primary goal for this event was to network with fellow community officers and members and expand user community participation. Secondary, I wanted to learn the CA Clarity roadmap, explore cloud computing, and get an understanding for CA’s role, if any, in social media and collaboration.
The Big News: CA is now ‘CA Technologies’ and is investing heavily in SaaS.
The CA Regional Exchange (CARE) was fantastic. In fact, the networking aspect of my visit went very well. I was able to attend invite-only meetings with CA community management, business analysts, and web developers on CA’s new online portal. Because I am an advocate on social media and enterprise collaboration in general, CA also asked me to participate in an open forum discussion. It was the most rewarding aspect of the conference for me. I knew I had made some good points throughout the hour-long discussion when multiple attendees, from different countries, either messaged me or chatted with me, lending positive remarks about my points. In one reply I had made, I received applause. The topics I brought up included social media strategy and personal branding. The venue was on a stage with about 130 in attendance. I’m the guy in the chair to the far right below.
Social Media Discussion
From my perspective, it does seem as if CA Technologies is focusing as an organization on customer satisfaction and fulfillment. From a community perspective and even product perspective, CA is listening to their customers, as they are clearly enhancing the Clarity application based on user feedback. CA marketing is greatly pushing two mantras or themes. One being ‘partner’ not a vendor, the other being, ‘we can’. CA is also leaping into cloud computing as that topic was the hottest of the conference. They are growing their SaaS offerings and the majority of their new customers are choosing SaaS solutions. For those not familiar, CA has branded their SaaS offerings as On-Demand. ie. CA Clarity PPM On-Demand vs. CA Clarity PPM
Clarity and the word Kilimanjaro never came up. I could tell based on attending CA World 2008 that MUCH had changed in the user interface and CA was greatly expanding usability, simplicity, and integration. In Clarity 12.1, the next major release set for the end of August, is including a new graphical interface that sits on top of Xog and allows drag and drop like table matching from an SAP database to the Clarity database. The goal would be to build xml feeds using SAP or Oracle templates as needed. For Clarity v13 and On Demand, the user interface has changed and includes a larger footprint as the left side navigation menu auto hides when you’re not using it, the binocular browse is gone as you click in a cell, begin typing and it autosenses the value you’re looking for. Overall, there are multiple user interface enhancements and I’ll need to obtain CA documentation on in order to specify them in greater detail. One breakthrough I had at CA World was in regard to dashboards that call web services, connect to external and internal data, and then display the information needed. I spoke to a local vendor out of New Jersey that specializes in the dashboard creation and web service connections. Although using web service calls to another database is more of a tactical decision, rather then importing the data into the Clarity database directly, from a visibility perspective, it may be best to explore the use of web services as they can help in automation, productivity, and even increase data visibility.
Clarity’s release model has changed. CA understands the complexity in putting out quarterly releases for on-premise customers. As a result, customers who do NOT subscribe to the SaaS solution will only receive major product updates and releases annually. I’m assuming hot fixes would be thrown into that mix as needed but in most if not all cases, CA would not want or ask their on-premise customers to install their own updates throughout the year. For Clarity On Demand, CA manages and publishes all changes. With On Demand, CA will auto release 3-4 updates per year and also align major releases at the exact time an on-premise customer would receive their release, keeping major releases in synch. The advantage for the On Demand customer would be, they get the latest and greatest enhancements first, they have a 24/7 web or cloud environment, and no disaster recovery worries. CA with a SaaS solution does all technical management of the application environments. This allows the customer to focus on ‘doing’, not managing. With that in mind, I’m not sure if Clarity On Demand is something that aligns to my organization’s needs but we will investigate it. As such, I’m going to get a 30-day Clarity On Demand trial setup that includes the new user interface for us to test out. Note, Clarity 12.1 will NOT have the new interface, only the On Demand product will. CA will release the new interface to on-premise customers with Clarity v13 set for spring (June) 2011.
Summary:
CA World 2010 was good, the keynotes given by James Cameron and CA management were awesome, and the Maroon 5 concert topped it all off. I found myself running to session after session, meeting after meeting, and there was actually too much to do. That’s a bad thing for me because I missed many things I wanted to participate in and research. The CA Regional Exchange (CARE) was by far the biggest reward I got from the event and if the opportunity is there next time, I would like to only attend CARE and not CA World. Because I have been fortunate to go two years in a row, I’d rather send a co-worker in my place for the next one. As long as I am a leader in the user communities, I will continue to attend CARE which runs over a weekend. I did tweet a lot from CA World, and users of Twitter can follow the hashtags #CAWorld and #CA_RE to read countless ‘live’ posts made by many event attendees including myself. People tweeted in the middle of sessions as they learned product information, they tweeted quotes from the keynote speakers, pics from the concert, you name it. It was awesome and even made the Twitter people into a tight knit group. Using Twitter at an event was a great way to meet people as well as take notes on the event. I’ve written this entire summary without even reading through my Twitter timeline. I’m going to see if I can extract or report on my Twitter timeline and attach it to this summary, maybe as an additional post. It’s an innovative look at event participation and a very fast way to record notes and share them with the world in an instant. Why do I love that opportunity? It allows the people who can’t attend CA World to follow what’s happening based on tweets. I could stay home, follow hashtags on Twitter for the next CA World and learn an awful lot about CA’s product news and information, speakers, and celebrations. Lastly, I’m going to try and get PowerPoint copies of all event sessions. I’m guessing for legal reasons I shouldn’t share those though. CA World 2010 was great. It was the best IT or technology event I have ever attended and contributed to.