New Years Resolution: Leave FACEBOOK!

“If you’re building a product that people love, you can [afford to] make a  lot of mistakes.” – Mark Zuckerberg

Here is why I left Facebook, I do not respect Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook. He doesn’t value your information which he proved in a series of text messages a few years ago. The company has a lack of concern about your private data, allowing third parties such as Zynga access to data the shouldn’t have required. Facebook has since fixed this only to run into further privacy concerns.

People are addicted to Facebook

People are posting where they are on Facebook, great you just potentially told a theif, “Hey I’m not home right now, so take all of my cool electronics”. People are posting what they had for breakfast! Really who cares, you aren’t two years old anymore. Maybe these people should try to put their time to better use, like learning something new, get a job, try to be a better version of you. Think about all the time you spend on Facebook, it adds up! If you are complaining about your place in the world quit Facebook, you will find that you are actually doing things again and moving in a better direction.

Quitting Facebook, what you should know

Facebook hired a consulting company to figure out what would make you want to stay, they give you a pathetic form to fill out. They are trying to play on your emotions to keep you in their clutches. Good news, you fill it out, click submit, and you are free. Free to get on with your life.

Life After

I quit at the start of the New Year after watching a CNBC documentary on Facebook, it was really enlightening. I urge everyone to watch it. Please people, time to get on with living and spend less time on your computer.

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WD TV Live Plus HD ~ Review and Tips

Overview

Greetings again, I recently acquired a WD TV Live Plus HD. At first I was rather suprised how tiny the device is. Once plugged in, be prepared for a a lot of patches. Not exactly what I call a good time but with each upgrade you can see a lot of new and improved functionality. If they keep on improving the software, as well they should, it’s only going to get better.

Navigation

Navigating through the system is fairly self explanatory. There are a lot of services available to you in the internet media section. Any network shares you have setup are available to you (with some configuration in the settings).

The remote leaves me wanting more. The buttons are rather small and require a little more pressure applied to them to get them to work. Western Digital does provide the ability for a USB keyboard (even wireless). I have yet to try this but I’m very anxious to use a keyboard with it, I have seen a keyboard used and it is much faster to navigate and search for your shows.

Resolution

1080P (via HDMI), need I say more… The clarity is superb. Of course, one caveat is the video is only as clear as the source. If a YouTube video is low res, the video on the WD is going to be grainy, especially if it’s on a big screen. The WD TV Live Plus includes CVI/RCAs that plug into the back of the device with a minijack connector.

Accessories

As mentioned earlier, the device can accept a keyboard from one of it’s two USB ports. These USB ports can also accept a wireless adapter or a WD portable hard drive.  YOU HAVE TO REVIEW THE LIST ON WD’S WEBSITE FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF WHAT IS ACCEPTED AS IT IS VERY PICKY. The list can be found here.

Note: The portable hard drives take a while to be recognized, but typically install in a minute. You will see a new icon in Settings > File Management if it was successfull

Wireless ~ Tip

If you are like me, your TV is far away from your router. I took a look at the list WD provides and didn’t like the fact that they get extremely particular, down to versions numbers of the hardware, something you can’t get to without blind luck. You could buy something like a Linksys Range Extender, they work well if you do not have a lot networks surrounding your home plus, they don’t yet offer wireless-n.

My solution was to create a wireless bridge using my dual-band Netgear router, (I purchased a second one to get this to work). The great thing about doing that is the dual band functionality. All of my other devices are either wired to my base router or using standard 2.4ghz wireless g. All of my “entertainment” devices at my tv (like an Xbox, Wii,Blue-Ray) are wired into the repeating-secondary-router. On the base and secondary routers, the 5ghz band is reserved for just communicating to one another. 5ghz does not recieve as much interference as 2.4ghz and transfers data much faster (300mbs vs 54 mbs) than a standard wireless g on 2.4ghz.

If you are interested in a more detailed explanation, let me know, I will be happy to post a more detailed explanation with some instructions.

How To Get Lots of TV Shows

Playon.tv offers a lot of great value. Install it on a computer you don’t mind running all the time. Basically it turns your PC into a media server. Your PC, using Playon.tv, will grab shows from tv websites that they are providing. The TV Live Plus can connect to your PC (media server) and browse through content and play them on your TV. Also, you can stream the channels to your phone. All this for a one time fee of $50 for the software.

Hulu Plus offers good value. They offer a free trial but you have to pay every month.

Flingo, currently free, has some great exclusive content. I really enjoy Engadget, and if you are reading this, I am sure you will too.