Future of Television

At last there is another dream that I dared not dream, actually coming true. We are about to break our shackles from Cable television, and embrace the freedom of choosing our own shows.

It probably started before that, but the signs were making themselves clear, with the rise of Netflix's stock from $50 to $200 during which time Netflix went from being a run of the mill dvd rental company to media streaming. With an $8 subscription one is able to watch several shows on demand.


Unfortunately for me I realized about netflix too late, when I purchased a blue ray disk player. I bought the sony BDP 370 and decided to flex its capabilities. There are other players in the scene, like amazon, hulu, etc, but none are so subscriber-friendly as netflix. Last I heard, netflix stole a deal from Starz (a company owned bt Disney and Time Warner) that is expected to bring content from these two big providers in 2011. I truly wish them the best, for consolidating their position in the next 1 year.

This is a good time to rant on the others. It is unbelievable what some of them are telling us (actually Sony Qriocity): "No monthly subscription hassles" LOL. What are they talking? Do they REALLY expect me to dole out $5 every time I watch something? Or would I rather pay $8, $10 or even $25 to watch as many shows as I like? Sony is really out of touch with times. And I wish their web-sites have room in them to take our comments rather than explaining to us what video on demand is

And what about Amazon? They are not serious either. A laughing stock, in my books

And Hulu? Yes, good that they provide free (or reasonable cost aka subscription) content but they have to improve on their delivery system, as I didn't have good experience with them on that. And, they only give you one week to try their Hulu+ product. IMO they should be more welcoming. I tried calling their customer care, but I got an after-hours message even though I called on their published work hours. Rather silly of them, IMO

So my gripe here is, come on guys! Here is a customer wanting to embrace new technology and end Cable Monopoly, with 25 $ in hand, and you are saying you don't like money?

Hope they come up with something soon, rather than faking down netflix with dismissing remarks. They will fool no one, and soon they will realize it

My dream "laptop"

The closest that comes to my "dream laptop" is the Apple Mac Mini. This is a small box, barely the size of my lunch box. It has a core 2 duo processor. The newer models have more Ghz on it, like 1.87, 2.24, 2.40, 2.53, 2.66
There is a price differential for the extra Ghz. It seems to be in excess, at least for me.

My dream laptop would have as much processing power as it can have with present technology, no DVD etc drives and no hard disk. Instead it should have great, fast, interfaces like e-sata, USB 3.0 etc. And since there are no extra features like "graphic processor", drives, HDD, and yes, no OS, I expect it to be much cheaper. I should be able to buy one off for less than $250

Any manufacturers listening?

How I got rid of Gamevance

So here goes. Gamevance is an old-fashioned install-once, make-you-cry-forever virus that sits in Firefox as an add-on. So how to get rid of it?

I googled a few answers, but they were apparently for the old version. I even installed a tool for malware removal, but that didn't help.

I found and deleted the Gamevance folder with program files. No good. I scanned the registry and removed things pertaining to gamevance and its short name gvtl. No good. It was back again. I disabled, uninstalled, crashed (killed) the browser on purpose, but nothing would stop firefox from reinstalling it again without my permission.


A little more perseverance paid off. I went to this location:
C:\Documents and Settings\<my-logon>\Application Data\Mozilla\Extensions\
and there I found the extension {ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}. This belongs to gamevance. I removed this folder, and voila! it's gone