Actually Roku has made decent progress there too - my "smart TV" in my bedroom is a Roku TV, as are a decent number of the ones I've seen in stores. The interface actually isn't bad. It's just the regular Roku setup and the other inputs are just selections like the apps. All the TV settings are just integrated into the Roku settings screens.
Also, FWIW, my downstairs TV is a standard "dumb" TV, and I'm using a Roku stick there too. I used an Amazon Fire TV for quite a while but I had to keep restoring the firmware to default and after a while it wouldn't even work correctly then. The Roku has been much less problematic for me.
Never used a Chromecast and the last Apple TV I owned was the first gen one so I don't really have opinions on them.
Why bother with that? I understand that due to the evolutionary history the device is still called a "phone", but in general the "phone" app on the device is one of the less used features for most people.
It's kinda like the "radio" in my car. Yeah - it's still called that, but it's probably been years since I actually tuned into a station.
As a consumer I don't care what is good for the company - I care what is good for ME. Having more players to play against is always a good thing - particularly as games age and their playerbase drops off. I already own both consoles, but this decision alone basically means that if the game is available in both places, I'll buy it for Xbox.
Microsoft may be no saint, but they've listened to their customers in the past. When the initial "internet connection is required" bit was announced and the internet was in an uproar, they walked that back. When the Xbox One originally came with a Kinect that no one wanted, they released a version without it.
Sony on the other hand has pulled this and the removal of Linux support years after the PS3 shipped.
Sounds good, but it doesn't sound like they have a Linux client which the OP mentioned they needed in the summary.
It may be overkill for a home setup, but even though it's an old (but still updated) I still really like BackupExec. I use it on my servers at work and do a combination of backups to the SAN and tape. The latest version also supports using a cloud data provider as a storage target so you can place backups off-site.
You have to have a Windows machine to act as the server but it does have agents available for Linux machines to back them up.
Yep. When I was younger I was told the old saying "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.".
Now that I've gotten older, when young people ask me for advice I always say: "No matter what you love, if you have to do it every day for a living you'll learn to hate it. Pick something that pays well and if you can avoid it, don't turn a beloved hobby into a chore.".
I think part of your experience may be skewed a bit. If you're in the "35" age range and have teenage kids, then you're starting a little earlier than most by modern standards. The trend lately has been that most people tend to hold off on having kids until their late 20's/early 30's, so for most 35 year olds with a family the kids are often younger.
This isn't taking away the option to pay yourself, and honestly recurring revenue isn't always bad for the consumer because it's a very predictable item in a budget. For metered items sometimes you have to adjust how much you're spending on this (ie, I live in the south. During the summer I can pretty much just assume that my power bill is going to be $70-100 more per month than during the winter due to the air conditioner). If something is flat rate, I know exactly how much something is going to be and can decide whether its worth that to me or not.
Yeah, all my memories of drive-ins are from when I was a fairly young child, but they're not fond. When I finally went to an "indoor" theater after the drive-in in my town closed, it was a MUCH better experience.
Granted, I guess the drive in is more "private", but if you're just wanting to get it on with your significant other just staying at home seems to be a better option - why bother even going to a movie you're not gonna watch?
Indeed, from a legal perspective, you are right. I don't think anyone is claiming the GoDaddy is breaking a law here.
However, look past that at the SPIRIT of the 1st amendment. It is designed to make sure that free discussion of ideas is allowed. This protection is only necessary for UNPOPULAR ideas, else the whole thing would be redundant.
So, you basically have to ask yourself:
1. Is freedom of speech an actual good idea, as a concept, or 2. Is freedom of speech some pesky technicality of the constitution that we're legally bound by but don't really support.
If your answer is 2, then we agree to disagree. If it's #1, then while I don't think GoDaddy did anything wrong, and I don't think they should be subject to any legal action as a private corporation, I DO find it distasteful that they'd censor a website due to it containing legal but unpopular content.
One's course of action should ALWAYS be to voice a dissenting opinion against things you don't support - not to try and silence it. Ironically, my guess is that by GoDaddy pulling this stunt, the site will simply move providers, and will gain a ton of publicity to a page that otherwise would likely have been silently ignored.
Indeed. Honestly - I'd be more interested in an Amiga OS for something like a Raspberry Pi. Compared to the original Amiga hardware those $25 boards are like a darned super computer.
Even if they came up with their own board, it's got to be something in that $25-50 price range if they want people to really "play" with it. At hundreds of dollars the only people who are going to get it are people fondly remembering the Amiga - a demographic that is shrinking every day.
I never owned an Amiga (I did have a Commodore 128 but I jumped straight to PC's after that), but curiosity alone isn't going to get me to pay that much.
But do you really want to live in a world where a couple cant take risque photos of each other for whatever kink gets their rocks off.
Do you want to live in a world where elves aren't real? Sometimes it's not a matter of what we WANT, but of reality.
The reality is that if you give a picture to someone, they may share it. Short of some extreme DRM (and let's face it - we know that DRM doesn't work), that's simply not something that you can prevent.
There are a million things that you SHOULD be able to do: leaving your keys in your unlocked car. Letting your kids walk home alone from school. Leaving cash unattended on you desk. Walking around the worst part of town at 3am. Crossing the intersection because the light is green. Sending nude photos to a significant other.
All of those things you should be able to do; often times nothing will come of it, and anyone who wrongs you in any of those situations is still a creep (possibly a criminal). That doesn't mean though that you should throw caution to the wind and just do whatever you want. Being able to say it was wrong after the damage occurs doesn't reverse it. PARTICULARLY with digital photos - the internet is forever.
It's still in the early days of the business model. IMHO, most people aren't going to subscribe to more than a few services. IMHO, over the next 5-10 years we'll see a LOT of studios and companies dip their toes into the streaming pool, only for their ventures to fail and them start looking for a partner service to distribute their shows.
We may end up with a few more mainstream services than we have now, but honestly the market just can't support having a billable streaming service for everything that used to be a "channel" on cable.
OR, use the OTA model online - put out you own client that streams the shows for no cost but pay for it with ads/commercials.
That vault isn't THAT big. Maybe if they pulled a backlog of all the shows that have ever been on The Disney Channel and made them available they'd have enough to warrant an entire service, but I doubt it.
There's also the question of clients. Netflix has done VERY well by basically developing a client for any box you can imagine that connects a TV. PCs, tablets, Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, and pretty much all current video game consoles all have a Netflix client. Heck with a smart TV you might not even need a separate client (IMHO with streaming sticks being as cheap as they are that's a bit of a gimmick, but at least it saves you an input).
Unless Disney throws a large team of programmers at it it'll be hard for them to match Netflix's ubiquity.
Yep. I'm tapped out at this point. I've got Netflix. I've got Amazon video ONLY because it comes with Prime for "free". Other than that - I'm done. I subscribed to Hulu for a good year and a half before I realized I wasn't watching it. Same with Sling.
Truthfully while I'd be fine paying a little more than I am for Netflix (i'd probably be willing to go up to $19.95), I'm not going to keep tacking on a service for tons of different networks unless they're priced VERY competitively. Like, $4/month or less . . .
I can agree with this. My last vehicle was a Tiburon (tiny Hyundai). Current is a Colorado (mid-size pickup). Speed bumps felt a heck of a lot smoother in the car than the truck. I have to get pretty slow not to have a pretty pronounced thud when I go over a speed bump now.
I disagree - at least on the principal. Nobody who wants to keep their truck working for long as going to be just hitting a speed bump at full blast, but outside of that, the people who use their pickups for "real work" tend to not baby them as much as the people just using them as a glorified car. My dad's F-150 was a beat to death rust bucket with the seats being mostly duct tape by the time he retired it at around ~350,000 miles (and it was still technically running), but he didn't really care as he worked in construction and as long as it got him and all of his tools to the jobsite he didn't care how it looked.
Yep - everyone else is doing it too, and honestly, I've not found a single AmazonBasics product that didn't work well. Usually they're completely no-frills simple versions of whatever you're buying, but they seem to be well-built in all cases. I'm using several of their mice/keyboards, quite a few USB & audio cables, a laptop bag, DVD-R's, and a whole pile of rechargeable batteries. All have worked well.
Compared with the generic stuff from Wal-mart I actually LIKE Amazon's stuff, and at least they're confident enough in it to put their own name on it. I'm not sure everyone really know that Walmart owns Mainstays, Ozard Trail etc, so after a while if the products are crap they can just change their brand name and start the cycle over.
Yeah - I went through the antenna building phase too. They worked, but even when it's behind the TV a 2x4 with some clothes hangers and wires hanging on it just isn't appealing.
I just bit the bullet and bought a Mohu Leaf a few years back and not only does it look better, it also works better than any of the homemade antennas I ever made.
Yeah - my brothers' 8 year old daughter was digging through some old stuff and found a VHS of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. She's recently seen the live action movie and excitedly asked "Do we have anything that can play these big fat DVD's?".
To be honest I'm surprised she even knew what a DVD was.
Never forget that religious conservatives are all about the nanny state getting up and in your business as they are particularly concerned about what you do in your bedroom and home in general.
Trust me it's both sides on this. The right does it because of oddball puritanical values, and the left does it under the assumption that every prostitute has been "trafficked" because they can't fathom that a woman would voluntarily engage in something that goes against their own personal feminist code.
And of course the right just adopts the whole "all prostitution is 'trafficking'" angle because it has become the new "think of the children". Heck half the time it gets woven INTO it. If people are against trafficking, then they'll be EXTRA against child trafficking.
It's the oddest thing but they seem to have found their common ground.
They've had a SMALL push lately, but nothing big. If you went to their tool section for example they might have one item "Made in the USA" amongst all the Chinese stuff.
Overall though it's somewhat of a non-issue. Economic benefits aside, "Made in the USA" is more in indicator of a minimum level of quality versus being the only quality items.
The Chinese can and do produce quality products - it's just that they also don't seem to mind producing absolute junk if that's what you'll buy. Most stuff made here won't (usually) dip into "junk" territory.
IE, if you see a $2 frying pan Made in China. Another for $15 Made in China, and another for $30 Made in the USA.
While the $15 Chinese pan is equal in quality to the $30 American pan, there is no American equivalent of the $2 pan that will probably warp the first time you use it. An American company wouldn't put that out as it would damage their reputation - a Chinese product might not have a brand on it at all and if it does it'll change frequently enough that you won't ever know who really made something.
A lot of (particularly older) people were used to that idea that the "junk" tier doesn't exist - in their minds even the cheapest item in the store should be of serviceable quality. When they buy it and it breaks almost immediately, they develop an aversion to "Made in China".
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Actually Roku has made decent progress there too - my "smart TV" in my bedroom is a Roku TV, as are a decent number of the ones I've seen in stores. The interface actually isn't bad. It's just the regular Roku setup and the other inputs are just selections like the apps. All the TV settings are just integrated into the Roku settings screens.
Also, FWIW, my downstairs TV is a standard "dumb" TV, and I'm using a Roku stick there too. I used an Amazon Fire TV for quite a while but I had to keep restoring the firmware to default and after a while it wouldn't even work correctly then. The Roku has been much less problematic for me.
Never used a Chromecast and the last Apple TV I owned was the first gen one so I don't really have opinions on them.
Why bother with that? I understand that due to the evolutionary history the device is still called a "phone", but in general the "phone" app on the device is one of the less used features for most people.
It's kinda like the "radio" in my car. Yeah - it's still called that, but it's probably been years since I actually tuned into a station.
As a consumer I don't care what is good for the company - I care what is good for ME. Having more players to play against is always a good thing - particularly as games age and their playerbase drops off. I already own both consoles, but this decision alone basically means that if the game is available in both places, I'll buy it for Xbox.
Microsoft may be no saint, but they've listened to their customers in the past. When the initial "internet connection is required" bit was announced and the internet was in an uproar, they walked that back. When the Xbox One originally came with a Kinect that no one wanted, they released a version without it.
Sony on the other hand has pulled this and the removal of Linux support years after the PS3 shipped.
Sounds good, but it doesn't sound like they have a Linux client which the OP mentioned they needed in the summary.
It may be overkill for a home setup, but even though it's an old (but still updated) I still really like BackupExec. I use it on my servers at work and do a combination of backups to the SAN and tape. The latest version also supports using a cloud data provider as a storage target so you can place backups off-site.
You have to have a Windows machine to act as the server but it does have agents available for Linux machines to back them up.
Yep. When I was younger I was told the old saying "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.".
Now that I've gotten older, when young people ask me for advice I always say: "No matter what you love, if you have to do it every day for a living you'll learn to hate it. Pick something that pays well and if you can avoid it, don't turn a beloved hobby into a chore.".
I think part of your experience may be skewed a bit. If you're in the "35" age range and have teenage kids, then you're starting a little earlier than most by modern standards. The trend lately has been that most people tend to hold off on having kids until their late 20's/early 30's, so for most 35 year olds with a family the kids are often younger.
It's controlled by a big corporation, so you should use Bing instead.
This isn't taking away the option to pay yourself, and honestly recurring revenue isn't always bad for the consumer because it's a very predictable item in a budget. For metered items sometimes you have to adjust how much you're spending on this (ie, I live in the south. During the summer I can pretty much just assume that my power bill is going to be $70-100 more per month than during the winter due to the air conditioner). If something is flat rate, I know exactly how much something is going to be and can decide whether its worth that to me or not.
Yeah, all my memories of drive-ins are from when I was a fairly young child, but they're not fond. When I finally went to an "indoor" theater after the drive-in in my town closed, it was a MUCH better experience.
Granted, I guess the drive in is more "private", but if you're just wanting to get it on with your significant other just staying at home seems to be a better option - why bother even going to a movie you're not gonna watch?
Indeed, from a legal perspective, you are right. I don't think anyone is claiming the GoDaddy is breaking a law here.
However, look past that at the SPIRIT of the 1st amendment. It is designed to make sure that free discussion of ideas is allowed. This protection is only necessary for UNPOPULAR ideas, else the whole thing would be redundant.
So, you basically have to ask yourself:
1. Is freedom of speech an actual good idea, as a concept, or
2. Is freedom of speech some pesky technicality of the constitution that we're legally bound by but don't really support.
If your answer is 2, then we agree to disagree. If it's #1, then while I don't think GoDaddy did anything wrong, and I don't think they should be subject to any legal action as a private corporation, I DO find it distasteful that they'd censor a website due to it containing legal but unpopular content.
One's course of action should ALWAYS be to voice a dissenting opinion against things you don't support - not to try and silence it. Ironically, my guess is that by GoDaddy pulling this stunt, the site will simply move providers, and will gain a ton of publicity to a page that otherwise would likely have been silently ignored.
If PC's or Mac's went away I'm sure they'd have it. Amiga's are only getting this "support" because it's effectively a dead platform.
PC's and Mac's don't just have support - they still have active hardware and software development after more than 30 years . . .
Indeed. Honestly - I'd be more interested in an Amiga OS for something like a Raspberry Pi. Compared to the original Amiga hardware those $25 boards are like a darned super computer.
Even if they came up with their own board, it's got to be something in that $25-50 price range if they want people to really "play" with it. At hundreds of dollars the only people who are going to get it are people fondly remembering the Amiga - a demographic that is shrinking every day.
I never owned an Amiga (I did have a Commodore 128 but I jumped straight to PC's after that), but curiosity alone isn't going to get me to pay that much.
But do you really want to live in a world where a couple cant take risque photos of each other for whatever kink gets their rocks off.
Do you want to live in a world where elves aren't real? Sometimes it's not a matter of what we WANT, but of reality.
The reality is that if you give a picture to someone, they may share it. Short of some extreme DRM (and let's face it - we know that DRM doesn't work), that's simply not something that you can prevent.
There are a million things that you SHOULD be able to do: leaving your keys in your unlocked car. Letting your kids walk home alone from school. Leaving cash unattended on you desk. Walking around the worst part of town at 3am. Crossing the intersection because the light is green. Sending nude photos to a significant other.
All of those things you should be able to do; often times nothing will come of it, and anyone who wrongs you in any of those situations is still a creep (possibly a criminal). That doesn't mean though that you should throw caution to the wind and just do whatever you want. Being able to say it was wrong after the damage occurs doesn't reverse it. PARTICULARLY with digital photos - the internet is forever.
It's still in the early days of the business model. IMHO, most people aren't going to subscribe to more than a few services. IMHO, over the next 5-10 years we'll see a LOT of studios and companies dip their toes into the streaming pool, only for their ventures to fail and them start looking for a partner service to distribute their shows.
We may end up with a few more mainstream services than we have now, but honestly the market just can't support having a billable streaming service for everything that used to be a "channel" on cable.
OR, use the OTA model online - put out you own client that streams the shows for no cost but pay for it with ads/commercials.
That vault isn't THAT big. Maybe if they pulled a backlog of all the shows that have ever been on The Disney Channel and made them available they'd have enough to warrant an entire service, but I doubt it.
There's also the question of clients. Netflix has done VERY well by basically developing a client for any box you can imagine that connects a TV. PCs, tablets, Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, and pretty much all current video game consoles all have a Netflix client. Heck with a smart TV you might not even need a separate client (IMHO with streaming sticks being as cheap as they are that's a bit of a gimmick, but at least it saves you an input).
Unless Disney throws a large team of programmers at it it'll be hard for them to match Netflix's ubiquity.
Yep. I'm tapped out at this point. I've got Netflix. I've got Amazon video ONLY because it comes with Prime for "free". Other than that - I'm done. I subscribed to Hulu for a good year and a half before I realized I wasn't watching it. Same with Sling.
Truthfully while I'd be fine paying a little more than I am for Netflix (i'd probably be willing to go up to $19.95), I'm not going to keep tacking on a service for tons of different networks unless they're priced VERY competitively. Like, $4/month or less . . .
I can agree with this. My last vehicle was a Tiburon (tiny Hyundai). Current is a Colorado (mid-size pickup). Speed bumps felt a heck of a lot smoother in the car than the truck. I have to get pretty slow not to have a pretty pronounced thud when I go over a speed bump now.
I disagree - at least on the principal. Nobody who wants to keep their truck working for long as going to be just hitting a speed bump at full blast, but outside of that, the people who use their pickups for "real work" tend to not baby them as much as the people just using them as a glorified car. My dad's F-150 was a beat to death rust bucket with the seats being mostly duct tape by the time he retired it at around ~350,000 miles (and it was still technically running), but he didn't really care as he worked in construction and as long as it got him and all of his tools to the jobsite he didn't care how it looked.
Yep - everyone else is doing it too, and honestly, I've not found a single AmazonBasics product that didn't work well. Usually they're completely no-frills simple versions of whatever you're buying, but they seem to be well-built in all cases. I'm using several of their mice/keyboards, quite a few USB & audio cables, a laptop bag, DVD-R's, and a whole pile of rechargeable batteries. All have worked well.
Compared with the generic stuff from Wal-mart I actually LIKE Amazon's stuff, and at least they're confident enough in it to put their own name on it. I'm not sure everyone really know that Walmart owns Mainstays, Ozard Trail etc, so after a while if the products are crap they can just change their brand name and start the cycle over.
There were always options to be able to move them to the other side. I'm sure the same will still hold true.
If more people want the controls on the right, then the controls should be on the right - at least by default.
Yeah - I went through the antenna building phase too. They worked, but even when it's behind the TV a 2x4 with some clothes hangers and wires hanging on it just isn't appealing.
I just bit the bullet and bought a Mohu Leaf a few years back and not only does it look better, it also works better than any of the homemade antennas I ever made.
Yeah - my brothers' 8 year old daughter was digging through some old stuff and found a VHS of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. She's recently seen the live action movie and excitedly asked "Do we have anything that can play these big fat DVD's?".
To be honest I'm surprised she even knew what a DVD was.
Never forget that religious conservatives are all about the nanny state getting up and in your business as they are particularly concerned about what you do in your bedroom and home in general.
Trust me it's both sides on this. The right does it because of oddball puritanical values, and the left does it under the assumption that every prostitute has been "trafficked" because they can't fathom that a woman would voluntarily engage in something that goes against their own personal feminist code.
And of course the right just adopts the whole "all prostitution is 'trafficking'" angle because it has become the new "think of the children". Heck half the time it gets woven INTO it. If people are against trafficking, then they'll be EXTRA against child trafficking.
It's the oddest thing but they seem to have found their common ground.
There's a difference?
They've had a SMALL push lately, but nothing big. If you went to their tool section for example they might have one item "Made in the USA" amongst all the Chinese stuff.
Overall though it's somewhat of a non-issue. Economic benefits aside, "Made in the USA" is more in indicator of a minimum level of quality versus being the only quality items.
The Chinese can and do produce quality products - it's just that they also don't seem to mind producing absolute junk if that's what you'll buy. Most stuff made here won't (usually) dip into "junk" territory.
IE, if you see a $2 frying pan Made in China. Another for $15 Made in China, and another for $30 Made in the USA.
While the $15 Chinese pan is equal in quality to the $30 American pan, there is no American equivalent of the $2 pan that will probably warp the first time you use it. An American company wouldn't put that out as it would damage their reputation - a Chinese product might not have a brand on it at all and if it does it'll change frequently enough that you won't ever know who really made something.
A lot of (particularly older) people were used to that idea that the "junk" tier doesn't exist - in their minds even the cheapest item in the store should be of serviceable quality. When they buy it and it breaks almost immediately, they develop an aversion to "Made in China".