Posted by Kyle Wiebalk on Dec 15, 2008 in
tools I moved to a new neighborhod in Los Angeles in July, and my Time Warner cable Internet seemed significantly faster. Perhaps the wiring wasn’t as old as it was in my old place?
I measured it with dslreports.com, just to double check. Then, I stumbled upon this Wired article that explains cable companies are actually upgrading a lot of customers without any marketing materials attached–no 30 sec. spots or lots of banner ads–so not many people realized it.
Their plan was to offer additional speed upgrades, like 6Mbps down/1Mbps up became 12Mbps/2Mbps for the same price. An extra $10 would bring you to a 16Mbps/2Mbps tier, etc. Bad idea during a recession, guys. We appreciate you attempting to catch us up with the rest of Europe and Asia in terms of bandwidth, but don’t base your revenue on upselling anyone now.
I tested my Internet speed now and I got a 12Mbps/1Mbps, which is somewhere between tiers. My wiring in the new apartment is from the early 1960s, though. Now that I think about it, I do remember them offering to do something with my Internet last time they called. It also cost $10 a month. Now wait a second…
Tags: bandwidth, cable, comcast, internet, time warner
Posted by Kyle Wiebalk on Dec 12, 2008 in
web design,
workflow Here’s how to instantly improve your Internet surfing experience:
1. Use Google Chrome.
I just updated from an earlier Beta release to the new stable release 1.0. Check out its features. TechCrunch published a post on how Google introduced this product with a series of cartoons. The earlier version seemed to be somewhat like a better browser, but a few annoying things forced me to stop using it. So once I randomly updated Chrome again, it actually performs now. And, it was built in an apparent amazingly fast 100 days.
Read more…
Tags: browser, google chrome, internet, mozilla firefox
Posted by Kyle Wiebalk on Jun 6, 2007 in
computers,
distribution,
videos How can we watch “interactive television,” and what does this mean for the viewer? I was reading Steve Kilisky’s post on his Dynamic Media Blog and it got me reflecting about the increasingly blurring lines between television the Internet. It’s funny how the last few classes I’m taking at UCSC all discuss ways in which electronic media merge, overlap, or displace one another; all this questioning leads to a (mostly) unpredictable future for Television 2.0–similar to a recent grad’s?
Henry Jenkins analyzes this newer convergence culture, Lisa Parks talks about “microcasting” to niche audiences, and William Boddy adds to and interprets the results of the growing list of failed WebTV-like ventures. Where are we now? We have:
-user created content piped through a cable television station (Current TV)
-television distributed through the Internet & brought to your computer (Joost)
-content distributed through the Internet & brought to your TV (Apple TV)
We have all these different technologies grasping for similar goals. As Kilisky comments, much of interactive TV’s poor adoption has stemmed by a poor user experience. Perhaps progress has been made, but it’s difficult to tell. Newer technologies might encourage more “lean forward” viewing practices, but is that what the average television viewer wants? Is it even possible to successfully mix newer, Internet based technologies with the same old original television format?
Tags: apple tv, convergence culture, current tv, interactive, internet, joost, media, technology, Television, television 2.0, viewers, web tv
