Tag Archives: television

New Social Networking Scam

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Another story from my inbox.

Yesterday, the following e-mail message from “Ben” arrived in my e-mail inbox. It had been sent using the contact form on this blog. Here’s the text with the identifying information redacted.

Hi,

My name is Ben and I’m working with the [dedacted TV channel] to help spread the word about their new outdoor photography show, “[redacted name of show].” The second episode airs [redacted date/time] and follows [redacted host name] as he photographs the red rock canyons of the American Southwest.

I came across your wonderful blog and I thought you might be interested in doing a post to let your readers know about the show and help spread the awareness. Any posts that you put up will go up on [dedacted TV channel]’s Facebook Page and/or their twitter page- so it is a good way to get some publicity for your own site. I also have a copy of [redacted host’s name] ‘[redacted host’s book]’ which I could offer out to you for your time.

I’ve put some info about the show, pics, and videos below just to give you some background. If you have any questions or need more information please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Thanks for your time and let me know if you are interested as it would be so great to have your help.

Best,

Ben

What followed was a bunch of links to content in various places that evidently showed off the show. (I admit that I didn’t follow any of them.)

Bryce Canyon DawnI received the message on my iPhone while I was stuck waiting for a tow truck (long story) and, because of that, didn’t really read it carefully. At first, I was flattered. This well-known TV channel had found my blog, liked it, and wanted to work with me on some publicity for their show. This made me feel really good because, as regular visitors here know, I do a lot of photography in red rock country in Arizona and in Utah. It looked as if I were getting a bit of recognition.

But when I got back to my office and re-read the message on my computer screen, I realized that the message was obviously boilerplate. Nowhere did it mention my name, the name of my blog, or any other identifying piece of information that might make me think it was written specifically to me. “Your wonderful blog” could be a nice way to refer to anyone’s online drivel — provided you wanted to make them feel warm and fuzzy about your project.

I’d been duped.

Or almost duped.

I then took a closer look at the domain name on “Ben’s” e-mail address. It wasn’t from that TV channel. I popped the URL into my browser and found myself looking at a Web site for a company claiming to be “social media marketing & publicity specials” that “develop strategies and execute initiatives, which generate conversations & cultivate relationships between brands and publishers.” In other words, they con active members of the social networking community to tweet and blog about their clients.

For free.

Well, the client doesn’t get their services for free. It’s Ben and his company who get the services of the social networking folks for free. Free authoring, free placement of the ads, free “buzz.” Ben and his cohorts just send out boilerplate messages to lure in unsuspecting bloggers who apparently have little else to write about. Along the way, they get these bloggers to look at the content on their clients’ sites, bumping up the hit counter to show immediate results.

I’m wondering how many bloggers fall for this strategy and how many thousands of dollars Ben & Co. rake in weekly by copying and pasting boilerplate messages on the Web.

I composed my response:

Ben,

I’m interested in this, but admit that I’m a bit put off by being ask to write what’s essentially an advertisement and place it on my own blog without compensation. Not quite sure how this would benefit me. A few additional hits to my blog would be nice, but since my blog does not generate any income for me, getting more hits is not really that important to me.

I also wonder how many dozens (or hundreds) of other bloggers you’ve contacted. Your message was very generic and could have been sent to anyone with a “wonderful blog.”

Now if I were offered compensation via exposure for my helicopter charter company (http://www.flyingmair.com/), which specializes in aerial photography over red rock areas such as Sedona and Lake Powell — well that might interest me a bit more.

Or is your message just another bit of spam to get ME to check out this site? So far, it’s a FAIL.

Any interest in making this more appealing to me?

Maria

I’m waiting for a response that likely won’t come. Why should he respond to me when he probably has dozens or hundreds of other bloggers taking the bait?

In the meantime, Ben has indeed given me something to blog about.

Roku

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Putting Netflix on your TV without a DVD.

My husband and I have a part-time residence in the Phoenix area, affectionately known as “Rear Window.” In putting together this home-away-from-home, we decided to do what we could to cut living expenses there. This meant not getting cable/satelite television or telephone service.

We do have Internet, however. We have to. It’s quite fast, although not as fast as the provider promised. (Bet you’ve heard that one before.) But it’s way faster than at home. And it’s fast enough for viewing Netflix content, as well as Hulu and other streaming video.

Netflix LogoI have a Netflix account. After a rocky start, we settled in and I think it’s a great service. Not long ago, Netflix added the ability to view certain titles immediately, on your computer. Although it was very slow in enabling this feature for Mac users, it also added the ability to stream video from the Internet to a computer, provided that you have a Netflix-compatible device. (I wrote a little about this here.)

RokuI bought the Roku Netflix Player. Yesterday, we plugged it in and gave it a whirl.

Setting Up

Setting up the device meant plugging it into a wall outlet (or power strip) and connecting it to the television. It came with all the cables we needed. We have WiFi at Rear Window and Roku had no trouble finding our AirPort Express network and logging in.

All the configuration is menu-driven right on the TV screen, using a remote that comes with the device. It was pretty intuitive. There was one point when it looked as if we were repeating steps we’d already done, but the process was slightly different. The only thing I think people might find baffling is how to get the activation code they need to enter into Netflix to connect their account to the device. I guessed at what to do and got it right. I think a lot of folks probably pick up the phone and call for help at this point.

Watching Movies

Once your Roku activation code has been entered into Netflix, the device is connected to your account. Any movies you have listed in your Instant Queue will appear on Roku’s main menu. It takes about 60 seconds for a movie you add to appear on Roku, but you can have any number of movies listed there.

Movie ListingTo add a movie to your Instant Queue, you must find a Netflix title that has both an Add and Play button. There are supposed 12,000 of these titles as I write this. One way to zip to the titles that can be viewed immediately is to click the Watch Instantly tab on the Netflix site. This displays only those titles you can watch online or via a Roku-like device. Add a MovieTo add the title to your Instant Queue, point to the Play button and choose Add to Instant from the menu that appears. You can add a bunch at a time so Roku offers a good selection to choose from if you don’t have a computer handy when it’s time to watch.

When the popcorn has been popped and you’re ready to watch a movie, use your TV’s Input button to switch to the input you assigned to Roku. Then use Roku’s remote to scroll through the movies you’ve added to your queue. Press the Select button to play a movie. There’s about a minute of buffering and then the movie starts.

Quality, etc.

Quality depends on your Internet connection. Netflix recommends at least 3 Mbps or better for DVD quality. Our speed is supposed to be 9 Mbps, but I clocked it yesterday at about 4.5 Mbps. (You can test your speed for Netflix purposes and learn more about how speed affects quality here.) The movie we watched, Contact, played well with no skipping and very few digital artifacts. If I didn’t know better, I’d think we were watching a DVD.

The TV we used it on is a 25-inch standard television. My husband has his eye on a large HDTV; it will be interesting to see how it works with that if he does buy it.

The Roku device supports all the usual video streaming controls, including pause/play, fast forward, and rewind. We played with this a bit. Each time you change the play point, there’s a bit of buffering before the movie resumes. I don’t think that’s either unexpected or unacceptable.

Conclusion

I’m pleased with my $100 investment in Roku. I think it’ll help us fill a gap in entertainment needs. Although there is a one-time investment in the device, there’s no additional fee through Netflix to watch streaming content. The fact that the device is wireless makes it easy to move from one room to another. The device also supports Amazon Video on Demand (or will do so soon), so if you like to spend extra money on video, that’s an option, too.

Personally, I hope they begin supporting content from other “free” sources such as Hulu and network television Web sites. It would be nice to get my Daily Show fix on a regular TV screen.

Another Example of the Media Screwing Up the Facts

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A brief rant.

One of my Twiiter friends, @Vatsek, tweeted the following to me last night:

Have you seen this? Helicopter crashes at Texas A&M, killing one — CNN News web page

First of all, I do want to make it clear to folks that I don’t normally go out of my way to track down news stories about helicopter crashes — unless they’re local or there’s a chance I might know the pilot. But since @Vatsek tweeted it to me, I figured I’d better check it out to see why he’d flagged it. I found the article on CNN.com, “Helicopter crashes at Texas A&M, killing one.”

It was a brief piece with an overhead view of what looked like a helicopter that someone with a very large foot had stepped on. Included in the text were these sentences:

…The copter, which was heavily damaged, was attempting to take off when it crashed. A rudder apparently failed, the university statement said….

“All of the sudden, he dropped straight back down into the ground,” [a witness said]…

I have two problems with these statements:

  • A standard helicopter does not have a “rudder.” It has a tail rotor, which is controlled with anti-torque pedals. Those pedals resemble rudder pedals on an airplane, but they are not rudder pedals because a helicopter does not have a rudder.
  • If a helicopter’s tail rotor (anti-torque system) failed, the helicopter would not come “straight down.” It would be spinning like crazy. That’s because the tail rotor prevents it from spinning like crazy. If it failed, it would spin. And it’s pretty clear from the photo in the article that the helicopter was not spinning like crazy when it hit the ground.

This is yet another example of the media speculating, with absolutely no knowledge, about the cause of an accident, spreading misinformation among the public. What’s even worse about this is that if they asked any helicopter pilot — even a new student pilot — to fact check their story, they could have gotten it corrected with, at the very least, the proper terminology for the tail rotor/anti-torque system.

Waiting for the Cable Guy

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No, not a movie review.

At this moment, I’m sitting cross-legged on a comfy new red leather sofa, listening to NPR and staring at a blank “parchment” (think pale pink) wall. The wall will soon house our first HDTV. And, with luck, it will also sprout a cable Internet connection.

I’m waiting for the cable guy.

He’s supposed to be here between 8 AM and 10 AM — a nice, narrow range. It’s 8:21 AM as I type this.

We spent a lot of time researching our Internet and television options for the Phoenix apartment. We discovered that we could get cable Internet that was 7 times faster than what we have in Wickenburg for half the price. (Chalk that down to another benefit of life in a city over life on the edge of nowhere.) We also discovered that if we went with DirectTV (rather than Dish Network or the cable company providing the Internet), we could get HD television service set up in up to four rooms, with DVR (think TiVo) for half of what we were paying Dish Network in Wickenburg for two rooms.

I should point out here that we’re not getting anything other than “basic cable” television channels. Why? Well, there are a few reasons. First and foremost, this is a part-time residence. It’s idiotic to buy premium cable channels for a home we’ll be occupying only part of each week. Second, we have a Netflix subscription. Why be at the mercy of television provider schedules — or pay extra for on-demand television programming — when you can get the movies you want to see on Netflix?

Netflix LogoBut that’s not all. Netflix also has the ability to play many movies on demand on your HDTV through your Internet connection if your connection is fast enough and you have a compatible device to handle the incoming Internet content. Our connection here will be fast enough. Devices to handle this start at $99; we just have to decide which one to buy.

Of course, all this television stuff is moot right now, since we don’t have any television down here right now. I don’t miss it too much, but I am looking forward to watching movies in high definition on a big screen.

AirPort ExtremeAirPort ExpressBut I’m hoping the cable guy can put the Internet connection on this big empty wall. I’ll use an AirPort Express that I brought from home to set up a wireless network and attach a printer, which I’ll also bring from home. If we wind up with a Netflix-compatible device that isn’t WiFi compatible, I’ll bring down a spare Airport Extreme base station from home and swap it with the Express, which doesn’t have an Ethernet out port. Otherwise, the AirPort Express should do the job.

So I’m waiting for the cable guy. It’s now 8:46 AM. He should be here any minute now.

TV to Go

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I get my Daily Show fix.

I’m not a big fan of television. It’s the universal pacifier and the majority of current programming is so mindless that I think it can do more harm than good. But there is one television program I try hard not to miss: The Daily Show. I find Jon Stewart’s news commentary both eye opening and extremely entertaining. In fact, when the writers’ strike was in full-swing, it was the only program I missed.

Daily ShowAt home, I watch The Daily Show via DVR (digital video recorder, like TiVo, that’s built into our Dish Network satellite receiver). Not only can I store them away until I have time to watch them, but I can fast-forward through the commercials. (I really hate watching commercials. What a complete waste of time!) But here in Quincy, where I’m spending the summer in my camper, I don’t have a television at all. And after a week of withdrawal from the Daily Show, I decided to do something about it.

While I can go to Comedy Central’s Web site and view entire episodes online, my funky, unreliable Internet connection makes that positively painful. Too many pauses! So I broke down and bought a “season pass” on the iTunes Store. For $9.99, I can get the next 16 episodes of The Daily Show downloaded directly to iTunes. Even though my Internet connection fades in and out, iTunes keeps track of where the connection broke and resumes the download from that point. So I can actually download an episode over several Internet sessions. I can then watch the episodes at my leisure.

I should mention here that I’m a bit of a news junkie. The stereo in my camper is almost always tuned into NPR. While NPR gives one view of the news, it’s great to be able to supplement it with Jon Stewart’s take on current events.