glmtblog

It’s getting hot in here, and I’m not talking about the weather! Mozilla released the newest version of the Firefox web browser on March 22nd. Here are four of the most popular features that Mozilla brings to the desk. After introducing the features, we’ll take a look at Firefox’s competition.

1. Interface

The app tab and panorama are newly added to Firefox 4′s interface. Right click on any open tab and choose to pin it to the browser. This gives that tab a compact, permanent home in your browser to easily access at any time. I would recommend only having 1 or 2 of these app tabs because otherwise it will slow the start-up time of the browser, and that gets really annoying.

Panorama is a way to group tabs and organize your web life. Some people have complained that previous versions of Firefox can look untidy and be painful for your eyes. Now here’s an easy solution for the mess.

2. Customization

Add-ons are famously known to be in relation with Firefox. This is a great concept for the post-modern generation. YOU choose what you want YOUR browser to do for you. It really makes it your own and identifiably matching who you are. And everyone is different! Add persona skins to your browser, and now you can have pink flowers and kitty cats bordering your webmail, news, and social networking sites. Whatever floats your sailboat — with this web browser you’ll have smooth sailing into the sunset.

3. Privacy

Mozilla makes privacy a high priority for Firefox. The “Do Not Track” feature sends a message to sites that you want to opt-out of online behavioral tracking. This feature can be toggled on and off. The one issue with this for now is that it only works with sites that are compatible with the “Do Not Track” feature. We have yet to see what sites will be in league with this idea. For the time being, I like the effort that Mozilla puts out to standardize the privacy of consumer data and web users.

4. Extras for Web Developers

The JägerMonkey Javascript engine makes for faster and higher performance of page loads and web apps/games. There are also some fun things to play with involving HTML5, CSS3, Canvas and SVG.

Read more…

Back in January of 2009, I blogged about my experience “cutting the cord” and living with broadcast television only, then ultimately the decision to re-subscribe to satellite service.  Fast forward to today – the introductory rate has expired, and with a $50/month increase in cost, I find myself asking the same question I did 2 years ago, is subscription television service really worth it?

Despite all our efforts, our country is still in the middle of recession, and it still effects us all in our daily lives.  I am still drinking generic soda, cutting coupons, and looking for new ways to stretch my budget even further.  On the surface, cutting out satellite seems like an obvious way to free up those needed dollars.  However, in re-reading my last blog, I am reminded of how much I truly enjoy it.  And as summer fades away, I dread the boredom filled days of the dead of winter, not that far off.

While the economic situation remains the same, new technologies have evolved, creating a more plausible alternative to subscription television.  The majority of television programming is now available to stream over the internet.  Hulu was in its infancy during the first round of my debate, but it has quickly grown into a media powerhouse.  The vast majority of programming I watch can be streamed though this site.  If you can’t find a show there, most likely the host network has it available for streaming on their own website.

Well, it seems like a no brainer, why pay for something when you can get it for free? My first and biggest problem with this alternative is video quality.  In order to download at a reasonable speed, resolution has to be sacrificed.  This is not a sacrifice I am willing to make.  Blu-Ray technology has spoiled me and I now expect all my video to be crisp and vibrant, and right now that’s just not possible over the internet.

The other problem is that my preferred position for television viewing is sprawled out on the couch, in front of my big screen HDTV.  It is not relaxing to me to sit in an office chair, in front of a computer monitor, I do that every day.  While it is technically possible to connect the PC to my TV, this would require jumping through more hoops and spending more dollars than I am willing to at this point.  And besides, as I mentioned before, the picture quality is lost, especially if I try to blow up the image as large as my TV screen.

After a call to my provider, it turns out that although my introductory rate has expired, I am still under contract for another 6 months, and I’m not about to pay the early cancellation fee.  I did reduce my plan to the basic package (plus HD and DVR of course) – so although I no longer have GSN or Soap Net, I’m not paying any more than what I was before.  This also gives me some more time to debate the issue, so I’d love to hear what you think…

One of the major issues with the current packaged media formats is copy protection. Home media, commercial applications, parts catalogs, and corporate presentations all questioned the actual reliability of current copy protection encryption. With Blu-ray declared as the tangible media of the next generation it is important to examine the merits of its copy protection capabilities.

Blu-ray copy protection uses 3 major layers of copy protection:

1.   Advanced Access Content System (AACS). AACS is similar to CSS, which was used with DVD, and works like a secret handshake between the disc and the player. The major benefit is that the “handshakes” are renewable and transparent to the honest media user. It has been publicized that this technology has been hacked, but the renewability of this scheme makes it difficult to compromise it completely.

2.    BD+. This technology works like a virtual machine that monitors the system to detect modification or “modding”. “Modding” evolved out of the gaming industry as systems were easily modified to play pirated games. BD+ keeps a memory of the hosting environment and can detect and render a system useless until normal functioning is restored.

3.   BD ROM Mark. A licensed replicator of the media will be required to use a unique watermark on the disc. The Blu-ray player will look for that watermark before playing the disc.

These three layers of control will hopefully manage the amount of piracy in the industry and allow content providers to feel confident that their distribution is contained. Content security is important to entertainment content, but also to those looking to contain their brand and disallow manipulation and unauthorized use. The 3 layers of copy protection used by Blu-ray aim to protect those interests.

I am relieved as we leave another Earth Day behind.  I get very irritated when I see the messages all around, calling me a criminal for throwing my recyclable goods in the trash.  Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially rebellious, I like to throw my junk mail and empty cans in the garbage can.  Is it apparent yet that I like to live on the wild side?

So why do we need a special day for this?  A day to remind people not to throw their recyclables in the trash, to put those newspapers in the bin, to buy organic, or to say, down with pesticides.  Does it make people feel good to focus on how responsible they are being for just that day?  How about just that week?  Really, does it last through the month?  I think overall the being green is a trend that makes people feel good about their actions that day.  I think a lot of people suffer from the “herd mentality” and follow what they are told to do to be environmentally conscious.

We are told to buy organic everything because it doesn’t pollute the earth and leave that nasty human footprint.  Does it?  I mean, if it’s organic it has to be good, right?  I saw an ad a few days ago telling people to buy the company’s 100% organic products.  These products are great.  Shipped directly to your front door from your friendly overseas neighbors.  Sure, the materials were grown naturally in a field somewhere, using no pesticides, and were handpicked before being processed and turned into your feel-good green product.  But what about the energy required to get it to your front door?  How was it packaged?  Does it use lots of plastic or paper made from an endangered tree?  How much raw material was discarded before gathering enough material to create your green product?  How much were those children paid to pick the materials for your green product?

We are told to buy a hybrid car by people sipping water out of plastic bottles.  Get rid of your incandescent light bulbs and put in the energy-efficient cfl [mercury] ones, brought to you by the people who have their furnace set to 75 degrees and their air conditioner to 65 degrees.  Or how about the people who look down their nose at others for buying things at Walmart yet they stuff their garbage full of things that can be composted?

Being green begins at home.  Shop local.  If it comes from India chances are the trip over here outweighs any good done by being organic. Turn off your lights.  Do you need that light on in the other room so your furniture can see?  Read the fine print.  If it’s recyclable, great.  Can you toss it on your compost pile?  Even better, buy it!  Live through real sustainability, not by following popular trends, and certainly not just for one Earth Day.

As a lifetime fan, I was very excited about Disney’s The Princess and the Frog coming out.  I am somewhat of an art snob, and am fairly particular about animation.  The new graphics coming out, while pretty cool from a graphic-computer point, just don’t do it for me artistically.  I prefer the hand-drawn look, the rich colors, the uneven, natural shading.  Watching a “real” Disney movie makes me happy and at peace, and takes me back to when I was a little girl.

However, a Disney movie must be more than just visual.  For the experience to be complete it must touch on both vision and hearing.  The music and the singing must be present, and done well to guide you smoothly through the scenes. In this, I must say, they succeeded rather nicely.  The voices of the cast are fantastic.  Each character’s voice has a unique personality.  The inflections are exaggerated and just perfect; be it a more general southern accent, one from New Orleans, or the most fascinating Cajun dialect.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie, so much so that I will be purchasing this today on Blu-ray.  The art was beautiful, the music and voices fantastic, and the story so enjoyable and relevant to today.  Everything was done to perfection [as if I would accept anything less.]  To top it off, I was able to see this movie at a small little theater in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.  The Rivoli is a small hometown theater that plays just one movie per week.  I took my son to see this and would not trade the experience of sitting in a [packed] movie theater with an audience of mostly squeely and excited children.  I can’t wait until the next one!

A few years ago when my son was born I would get up every few hours at night for the first few months, trying to get my tiny baby to eat.  Rapidly becoming a creature of habit, my son would wake up every night around the time Conan O’Brien came on.  Through these often mind-blowingly exhausting feedings, I would laugh my butt off.

I was very happy when Conan got the job on the Tonight Show.   This show would entice me away from Fox around 10pm.  I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss the monologue and through the wonders of Hulu I was able to watch the rest of the show as well.  Conan O’Brien is not for everyone.  I do think he is like whiskey; an acquired taste.  It takes a bit, but once you have the taste of this in your system, it’s hard to let go.

Sadly, his short run is at an end.  I will miss Conan.  I definitely will not make it a point to watch Jay Leno.  The whole fiasco leaves me  feeling a little peeved with NBC.  Back to Fox it is.

Go Conan!

Corporate DVDs and Windows Media Player

In the past week we have received 2 calls claiming their “DVD’s would not play in Windows Media Player” on office DVD players.

2 theories were proffered by our NewMedia staff:

  (1) Windows Media Player does not have the DVD function installed in its version and therefore not recognizing the file format used in all DVD Videos.

 (2) The IT department at various companies purposefully disable DVD-Video funtionality within Windows Media Player to prevent employees from watching Hollywood movies.

Let us know if you have heard anything to the contrary.

China Blue High-definition Disk (“CBHD”), a format eerily similar to the defeated HD DVD format, is outselling Blu-ray 3 to 1 in China.  Apparently the advantage comes in price.  The HD DVD equipment is slightly adapted to accomodate a different codec and new security features.  Current DVD manufacturers can update their existing lines to make CBHDs for approximately $800,000 USD.  Compared to $3 million USD for a new Blu-ray line, this translates into a much lower barrier to manufacturing this product. 

The retail price per disc in China is selling between $7 and $10 USD and Warner brothers has adopted the format.  Does the Chinese format stand a chance to come over to the US?

Some will go ahead and say “Optical Disc is Dead.” Some will point to the music industry and the shrinking number of brick and mortar music retailers as proof of this doomsday assertion. iTunes has made revolutionary advances in its product offerings as the “AppStore” is celebrating its one year anniversary this July.

Proof in the alternative can easily be found in the video game industry. Here we have the most technically savvy consumer and yet the most effective distribution of content is via optical media. However, a totally optimistic view of optical disc product expansion is likely misguided.

There are certain situations where digital delivery makes perfect sense. Sub-1 gig applications like music, casual games, and ring tones are perfect examples of this. In the consumer market, as we recover from this economic crisis, our insatiable hunger for rich entertainment applications will intensify. Boundaries will be pushed instead of retracted as has happened in the past 5 years. The need for larger tangible storage and delivery solutions will continue to outpace the necessary bandwidth needed for digital delivery of these rich applications.

Corporate promo videos and applications likely aren’t perfect for digital delivery. Email marketing is becoming less and less effective, so how do you steer people to your download space with high rates of success? Packaged media provides savvy marketers two avenues for promotional real estate- the media and the packaging. Proof can be found in the “As Seen on TV” market. How many free DVD offers do you see now?

There will be effective uses for both methods over the next 10 years. Great Lakes Media Technology will be positioning itself to help with both methods. Currently we offer solutions for your developed or undeveloped content to be delivered on disc or web. No matter how you need it done, we’ll help deliver it.

• Strip file clean and proof it in our template
• Once it’s approved, trap all applicable colors and create films
• Check trapping on films and accuracy of text, photos, etc… and send on to make screens