I have used SageTV at home for a few years.  All of my cable equipment is in the basement. The only thing in my entertainment center for watching TV is a little 6x8x1 inch box called an HD200 connected to my TV, power, and the network.  3 cables gets me HDTV, online videos, and a large library of recorded shows and movies. I have 5 tuners which allows me to record up to 5 shows at a time!  3 are HDTV, and 2 are normal cable quality.  I also have another HD200 in the bedroom, which gives me all the same features/content I have in the living room, on my bedroom TV.  I have software on my laptop called “Placeshifter” that allows me to remotely watch all of the content on my laptop, even away from home.

This setup is not cheap, nor is it easy to setup although the new version has made things quite a bit easier.  I’ve spent many hours and a bit of money over the years to get my system to this stage.  What I have is an easy to use system, that gives me access to a nearly limitless amount of content pretty much wherever I am.  I can’t recommend this software enough.

I hate commercials.  There I said it.  Nothing new, but I feel better.  For one thing I don’t believe anything that’s said in most commercials, I think they waste my time and generally treat me, the viewer, like I’m an idiot.  The DVR/PVR was one of the greatest inventions ever IMHO.  Watching commercials today is basically optional on TV.  I don’t have to put up with giant ‘perceived’ changes in volume and I can focus on the shows I like.  My commercial auto-skip is truly a great thing!  However… I’ve recently noticed a surge of online videos that are either interrupted by commercials, or start off with a commercial.  I understand the need to make money, but seeing the same commercial over and over and over again before each video I want to see is really irritating.  I do like how commercials have countdowns so I know when the show will be back.  I’m much more likely to stay and watch the commercial if I know it’ll only be 30 seconds.  Any more than that and I’m switching to another tab to check my email or something.  I have a few suggestions to all these websites that are placing commercials into web video.  Get a variety of commercials if you can.  Track how many commercials a person sees over a given 5 or 10 minute span.  If I watch a 30 second video, then switch to another video don’t immediately show me another 30 second commercial.  I’ll leave, I’ll go somewhere else, or I’ll just plan stop watching and do something else.  This is probably already tracked in some form, it just doesn’t stop another commercial from playing.  OK, end of my rant, thanks for reading.  Be sure to check out my live Turkey video..and see the same commercial..over and over and over and over….   lol

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At Facebook, we’re constantly working on new ways to protect you from scams and help you keep your account and information secure. Today, we’re announcing some new tools and systems designed to keep the bad guys out and keep you abreast of suspicious activity so you can quickly take action to correct it.

We’ve always devoted significant time and effort to security. We’ve built technical systems that operate behind the scenes to quickly detect and block suspicious behavior, delete phony posts and messages, and return compromised accounts to… their rightful owners. Most of these systems are invisible to the average person who uses Facebook. Very few people will ever experience a security issue on Facebook, which means that most of you have probably never noticed these systems at work. Rest assured that these systems are there, though, protecting you and your friends.

Login Notifications

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been testing a new feature that allows you to approve the devices you commonly use to log in and then to be notified whenever your account is accessed from a device you haven’t approved. This feature is now available to everyone.

To try it out, go to the Account Settings page and click on the link next to “Account Security” at the bottom of the page. If you select the option to receive notifications for logins from new devices, when you log in, you’ll be asked to name and save the various devices you use to access Facebook.

Please, let me try to understand this.  Facebook adds the ability for users to login only from approved devices, very similar to the way banks allow their users to login.  However, Facebook does not make this the default behavior?  So when it comes to them getting money from their tracking of our info, they automatically turn that stuff on, but when it comes to our protection, it’s optional?  Oh yeah… they are totally concerned with the privacy and security of our info on their site!

I have been thinking about closing and deleting my Facebook account for some time.  Then I run into THIS INFO and it pushes me over the line.  The CEO of Facebook is one of the biggest DB’s I’ve ever read about.  I’m not going to repost all the info in that link, but it’s a good read if you get some time.  The direction Facebook has taken in recent months has been very disappointing and I do not want to be a commodity to be traded, and it’s pretty obvious that what we users are becoming to Facebook.  Track what we do, where we do it generate reports and sell the info to marketers.  No thanks!

I had decided to delete my account this weekend.  Upon further reflection I realized I didn’t want to lose that connection to my old friends.  I will stay a member for now, but remove all of my information apart from a very few things.  My last status update will be a link to this site.  I will keep all of my info on this site, where I own it, and control it.  I don’t expect to get a lot of traffic, but with my own blog I can post more info about what I’m doing, things I find interesting, pictures and videos…whatever.  I might actually put together some tutorials about stuff I know about.  The bottom line is that I am in control of my info now.  Facebook can screw.