tech, news, productivity, views and stuff
BBC reports on Which that reminds consumers that the cap for downloading data doesn’t come into effect until the 1st July.
The consumers’ association Which? is warning that people going abroad with smartphones can still face huge bills if they connect to the internet.
By 1 July, new rules will come into force in the European Union which will cap bills for downloading data.
But, until then, people travelling in Europe could face unlimited bills.
Just upgraded my EyeTV software to version 3.3.2 in the main as I am hoping it will solve some of the stability issues I have been having with the software.
No major new functionality from what I can see.
The Guardian’s Charles Arthur has added his thoughts to the ad blocking debate.
News websites’ relationship with readers could be portrayed as an activity akin to herding sheep: that you get a lot of people to come to your site, they read (or listen to, or watch) the content, and they also see adverts that advertisers pay to place.
But when the readers use “ad-blocking” software to filter out adverts – meaning the ads are never served to the page, thus pushing down the money that the site receives from advertisers – the game becomes more like cat-and-mouse. Faced with a small but significant number of people who are happy to have your content but not happy to have the adverts that fund it, what is the site to do?
Read more.
So do you block Ads?
Yes there are some very annoying adverts out there and I can understand why people want to block them.
Likewise with the plethora of Flash based adverts out there that can kill a browser, likewise another reason why I can understand why people want to block them.
However…
It must be remembered that many sites depend on advertising and blocking the can “hurt them”.
Ars Technica in a recent post said:
My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature.
I have to agree.
Despite all the issues with annoyance, I know I would be more annoyed if I couldn’t access sites like Ars.
The EyeHome is ALIVE! Working again after a few months now without it.
The main issue was a dead power supply. I couldn’t find a spare. In the end I found that the PSP charger, which is also 5V fitted and worked.
Initially I had an issue with finding the 10.5 Mac but after changing the IP address on the Mac it did work.
As I now have an 802.11n Ethernet bridge under the TV the streaming worked really well. No buffeting or stuttering.
Now need to get the EyeHome software running on 10.6 that looks a little more complicated.
Quite intrigued by this new product from Elgato. The EyeTV Netstream DTT.
EyeTV Netstream DTT is a dual network tuner for digital TV. It connects to your TV antenna and to your Ethernet network router/switch to stream digital television in full HD to your Macs and PCs. If you have a Wi-Fi network you can watch TV wirelessly on a portable computer, free from cables.
Find out more.
Now I don’t think I will be getting one, as though it is a very clever piece of technology, I don’t see me using it that much to justify buying one. In the main as I rarely watch live TV these days, much more likely to watch either recorded TV from the EyeTV on my iMac, or downloaded from iTunes.
Still if you do watch a lot of live TV then this could be an ideal opportunity.
From The Telegraph
Services such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Buzz can alert criminals when users are not home, according to Confused.com, the price comparison service. Foursquare, for example, shows that people are in a specific spot and, more importantly, that the user is definitely not at home, Confused.com added.
BBC reports on Yahoo who despite everything are still in the search business.
Web giant Yahoo said it is still in the search game despite falling market share in a business it helped create.
Read more.
So which search engine do you use and why?
So there I was working at the computer when EyeTV started… well I was expecting that, I was recording Being Human on BBC Three.
Wait…
It wasn’t doing it…
No recording.
Hmmm…
Couldn’t even get a live TV Window to open.
In the end I had to unplug the UBS EyeTV device I was using and plug it back in again.
Thankfully Being Human is repeated through the week so I can get the whole episode recorded.
Installed new Boot Camp drivers on iMac. Windows 7 now working a treat.
Realty easy to install. However it was huge… 381MB is one big download.
Well my wireless keyboard and mouse now work.