Even With Technology, It’s Harder to Work when Your Sick…

Geek Culture

I have been beefing up my websites. I also have been working on some external projects hard. But all of that came to a crashing halt last week.

Why? I got sick.

I felt this illness coming down on Monday (Nov. 24th). I didn’t think much of it, but after my Podcast on Tuesday, I pretty much knew I should take some downtime and relax a bit while ingesting something like lots of Liquids. (Here is a keynote – If you have a fever and your lips start to dry out quick, you might want to get some water in your system. )

By Thursday I was pretty much on the back and forth thing – Morning I would be OK, but then by evening I was burning up and freezing at the same time. Saturday I had to play with the band and by the end of the 3rd set I was hurting more than I ever hurt before. If it wasn’t for the little catnaps between breaks, I would have probably not made it.

Monday – Feeling better but coughing entered into the mix. Still did my shows. Tuesday – Coughing getting worse. Still did my Podcast – then took a 3 hour nap before going to a local Podcasters meeting I started up here. Wednesday – After 3 PM I went downstairs, plopped in front of the TV and stayed there all evening.

Now it’s Thursday and although I am still not 100%, I have to catch up on everything I’ve missed. I planned to post some videos, but they’ve been sitting on the back burner. I planned a couple GeekNewsCentral Articles, but once again, back burner. Even the contract stuff I do pretty much was set aside as I couldn’t focus or concentrate.

The funny thing is that I could have done any of the stuff in question. With technology today I could have laid on the couch and put the videos together. I might not have been able to write the articles, but I could’ve at least put together some notes.

It’s interesting how an illness can debilitate a person. Thinking “I can do it when I’m better”, then when you are more level headed you realize how much more stress you put on yourself. Still, when you are sick, you really need to put some attention to getting better.

I am not sure how much longer this will go on. I keep hearing “Everybody’s getting this bug”. Hopefully it’s not something that might warrant a doctor visit. But I do know that it’s time to start catching up on my projects or else I might find myself in a hole I can’t get out of.

Where Will They NOT Sell Advertising?

advertising

USAToday is reporting on a high school teacher in San Diego, who has started selling advertisements on his test papers in order to pay for printing costs for his class. He felt it was the only way to subsidize the costs of printing for his classroom; his budget is $300, but his printing costs about $500 per school year.

Most ads, at this point, are pretty innocuous. Inspirational messages from parents top the list of ads, but ads have also been bought by local engineering firms and an orthodontist.

What concerns me about this is that this marketing gives advertisers access to children. Our children are the most vulnerable to advertising, without the maturity and life experience to weed out the obnoxiousness that is advertising. I can block advertising when my kids surf (ad blocker plus for Firefox) and keep the television watching to a minimum, but if my kids are getting advertising at school on their tests and homework papers, I have absolutely no control over that. While I would trust that the teacher would not allow questionable advertising to be printed on his test papers, when it comes to the almighty dollar, often greed trumps good sense.

I can appreciate the teacher’s ingenuity, but I think there is probably a better way. If he only needs to make $200, couldn’t he have had a small class fundraiser that targeted the parents, who should be supporting their kids’ education anyway? I have to think this teacher went too far.

GNC-2008-12-02 #428 The HP Magic Giveaway

Podcast

I talk about the HP Magic Givaway and the concerns I have about what Ustream is doing at the beginning of the show along with a host of other things. Do not forget the People’s Choice Podcast Awards Ceremony

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Show Notes:
Bad RSS
Time Machine Nightmare
Vista SP2 in April 09
Pownce Acquired by Six Apart
Antivirus Definition Lag
Firefox to 20%
Mac to 8.8%
Play Poker Online be Swindled
Soviet UFO Disclosures
Sandisk and SSD Improvements at CES
Media Point Device and Blockbuster
Nokia Big Announce
LHC could be offline to 2010
Apple Tells Mac Users Get Antivirus Software
Clearwire + Xohm = Clearwire
Electronic Standby Mode
Do you read TOS?
Cheaper – Higher Resolution Cameras from Mistake

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Ustream.tv removing critical comments in Messsage Forum

internet

Yesterday after seeing ads injected into my video stream I asked the question in the Ustream.TV forum if there was a way to shut the ads off. The reply was no. The moderator then closed the message topic from further comment.

Seeing he closed the message topic I posted a second message that outlined my concerns and hoped to get a constructive conversation going. Well they not only closed that discussion before anyone could respond they actually deleted the comment in order to stifle debate. This was a second slap in the face.

The question that needs to be asked does Ustream.TV want to have a conversation with it’s family of content contributors on their own site or do they want to have the conversation here?

I find it very curious in over 2 hours of viewing shows that are featured on the main page of Ustream.TV that none of those shows has the advertising we saw yesterday popping up. But as you dig in deeper, and leave the front page the advertising is very apparent.

What it appears they are doing, is making the shows on the front page look inviting without the intrusive advertising, and then sticking advertising into the content producers streams that are not on the front page of the website. Good strategy if you do not want to scare off perspective new content producers.

I have received a Twitter from someone at Ustream saying they would like to do a call. I will talk with them but they need to understand that they need to start being a bit more transparent and be willing to take the heat of criticism in their own forums. More as this develops.

To be fair I found out that Mogulus has started doing the same type of ad injection as well. Which really disappoints me that neither of these two sites informed their content producers or have given us a pro-offering that we could pay to play without advertising.

Ustream.TV pushing inline ads without warning.

Information

Revised:

I am leaving Usream.TV as soon as possible. Large in part due to what happened during a live sponsored event on ustream when they started without warning pushing large advertisements into the content stream.

I did not opt into having ads jammed into my viewers face. It was ridiculous. The ads where completely inappropriate for our audience.

I would have gladly payed for a premium service to not have ads forced n my viewers. But now that they have done this without warning I am finished with them they have burned a bridge here.

This could not come at a worse time as I was planning on holding the Podcast Awards ceremony on their service. I will be looking at alternatives today and tomorrow. Mogulus is one possibility but their encoding is not as good as Ustream.

The way they initiated this is wrong. No warning nothing. I understand a company has to make money just give us a heads up that this is going to start. 

Sad to think that they would not consider asking people to pay for premium accounts before doing this.

Not only that but the moderator over on their forums closed the discussion when I asked to how to turn advertising off, apparently they are getting some heat over this.

I have been chatting with some of their biggest streamed shows and they are pulling the plug on them as well.

Update: It should be noted that I am not against a company making money after all they have to keep the lights on. What I do take issue with is that the ads that are being pushed into the streaming content multiple times over the course of a hour and taking up nearly 1/2 of the screen real estate. The ads popped up so many times in that the viewers where annoyed. When the viewers get annoyed they leave.

When Blip.TV came out with a pro service I gladly payed the $100.00 a year for faster encoding and the ability to have my own branded player without a watermark. They got paid and I got some cool new features. I am sure Ustream.TV is having trouble determining what is a fair value to charge for a pro-service but for many of us our viewer experience if important enough to pay for. If I were a betting man I bet the ads in those overlays do not pay that much. I bet what i would be willing to pay is more than they would ever make in this type of advertising.