One of the hardest things for a lover of technology to come to grips with is the possibly that there may be certain aspects of technology that may not be as beneficial as once perceived. Or, worse yet, that these aspects may in fact be detrimental. Bummer….

   During the mobile coming of age, one key element that developers and users alike agreed upon was productivity. This would require having instant-on, up to the minute information – primarily in relation to productivity’s foundation of communication known as email. Add to that a calendar for appointments and reminders (which I personally rely on heavily), and the current world leading form of communication known as texting, productivity literally demands constant notification.

   Then came a new form of interaction known as social media. With it, the world has become an increasingly smaller place. No longer are people required to leave the comfort of their own homes to “meet” new and interesting people – from around the corner to the other side of the globe. People share as much, and as little, about themselves as they wish, whether true or make-believe. With social media came a need for a new form of productivity – being socially productive: being always up-to-date with every response to every post, sharing pictures and news links, and being on top of the latest social media trend. Again came another demand for constant notification.

   With our mobile devices we have our mobile forms of entertainment – from games, to books, to TV shows and movies – all in the form of neatly packed glowing digital squares known as apps. These bring their own need for notifications as well – stay connected with friends playing the same games and challenge their scores, receive new episode information regarding a favorite TV show, being alerted about a new eBook or movie release. Yes, yet more notifications.

   As a nerd, the fact that these types of notifications can be accomplished in an overall basic and efficient manner on such small devices is nothing short of amazing to me to this day. But then came the downside(s) to it all.

   What first started off my notification-lees lifestyle actually had nothing to do with the actual number of notifications I was receiving. It actually had to do with my once favorite cell phone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Launched originally as the flagship for the Nexus line, this phone had one extremely bad flaw – extremely pathetic battery life. The best way to to squeeze out at least a halfway decent day of usage on the Galaxy Nexus was to download and install a “battery saver” app and disable notifications on basically every app installed on the phone because, for those of you who may not know (especially you Android users), notifications adversely affect battery life.

   And my phone was quiet. At the time I felt it was too quiet, so I found myself checking my social media apps for new posts, checking email, etc. Looking back on it now, I really had no logical reason to do so. Sad to admit it, but I was basically brainwashed into to thinking that I just had to.

   Today, I no longer own the Galaxy Nexus. I no longer worry about battery life. However, I still keep notifications turned off for all my most used apps / tools. Why? For a few simple reasons:

1. My social media engagement isn’t even half of what it used to be. I keep my personal Facebook profile for what I believe is the most important reason anyone should: for sharing pictures and family updates with friends and relatives. I don’t tend to engage in “conversations” there as much as I used to, but I still believe it’s an excellent platform for simply “staying in touch”. I do engage more in Google +, but I feel I get more direct engagement and content about my favorite nerd stuff there. As for Twitter – I was never a heavy user as it were, so having no notifications from there really had zero impact.

2. As for email – not really sure why I thought I ever needed email notifications in the first place to be honest. I’ve never really been in a situation where I was so eagerly awaiting an email that I just had to know the very instant when it arrived. In fact, from a common sense standpoint, I look at it this way – did I ever in my life hang around my mailbox at home waiting for mail to come, that I had to know arrived as soon as it got there? No. So I made to conscious decision that I check email only at a certain time in the day. If I’m expecting something from someone, I usually know anyway – they tell me they are sending something.

3. I do keep one notification active – my calendar. In my opinion, this is really the only important notification on my devices. From appointments, to meetings, birthdays and other events – my calendar is probably the most important tool on my devices.

   But above and beyond those reasons, the most important reason why I stopped being a slave to notifications is because I am a husband and a father. Over the years I’ve seen how the “cell phone evolution” has made much of the public become heads-down day walkers, with me being among them as well. And watching movies like Her (which I loved and highly recommend) helped hammer-home the point:

   A few months ago, I was invited to participate at a Families & Technology seminar.The goal of the seminar was to help families with the sometimes daunting task of keeping all members of the family safe online.

   I was happy to hear the seminar hosts hammer home a couple key points that I always try to convey to those who ask me for help with their home networks –

1. Take ownership and learn – don’t be fearful of the internet and technology in general.
2. Don’t waste your time telling you kids what they’re “not allowed to do” while online.

   Those 2 key points withstanding, one of the first things I tell parents is never let your teen set up your home network. Sure, there was a time when setting up a router all but required a Network Engineering degree, but those days are long gone with today’s super-simple router user interfaces (more on that in Part 2).

   But if you already have your network setup, and don’t want to be a “helicopter parent” while your kiddos are online, there is simple, very effective, and FREE tool you can use on the front line of your network. Nerds the world over like myself have been personally using and suggesting to others the cloud-delivered internet security network OpenDNS for years. So for those of my fellow Nerds who fit into that camp, this post will be of little benefit to you. But for those who may be unaware, OpenDNS is a must-have in my book when it comes to effective online safety and security without completely bogging your network down with Fort Knox – type overkill.

   Without going into a mind boggling, tech – heavy explanation, I’ll give a quick and commonly used analogy for what DNS is (it was the same analogy my professor used in my Cisco lab while pursuing my Network Engineering degree):

  DNS stands for Domain Name System. Think of it as serving as the phone book for the internet by translating human-friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses. For example, the domain name http://www.example.com translates into the IP address 93.184.216.119 (IPv4). and 2606:2800:220:6d:26bf:1447:1097:aa7  (IPv6). Unlike a phone book, the DNS can be quickly updated, allowing a service’s location on the network to change without affecting the end users, who continue to use the same host name. Users take advantage of this when they use URLs and email addresses without having to know how the computer actually locates the services.

   With that basic definition in mind, think of OpenDNS as your “phone book customization service”, in that you can tell it what content of the “phone book” you do and do not want delivered to your location. Setup is fairly simple – the only thing that may be of any difficulty is knowing how to log into your router and enter the DNS address that OpenDNS will provide to you (again – more about that in Part 2). Once you’ve created your OpenDNS account and entered your provided DNS address, you will have access to your very own network dashboard with which you can set your security level and check valuable statistics about your network.

   If you’ve read any of my past blog entries, it should come as no surprise to you that I love Roku. Simply put, it made the Cord Cutting transition in my home simple and easy. Of course there are other streaming devices available as this market continues to expand. Of those other offerings I also have Chromecast, which is good in its own right at its price point, but it simply doesn’t pack the same “punch” as Roku.

   Speaking of Chromecast, Roku has also entered the stream stick arena with its own $49.99 offering. I don’t have the stick, but it looks to have the same robust selections behind it that make the Roku Player rock.

   When Google announced the Chromecast, I knew it would only be a matter of time before others (Roku included) would tap into the streaming stick market. No biggie – it’s business. But Roku lovers such as myself have been wondering, “Will there be a Roku 4? If so, when?” And, along that line of questioning, I began to think of things I think should be included to make the next generation of Roku more awesomer!

The Interface

   When I first purchased a Roku box, the interface left a lot to be desired. The channels were great, but if you added many of them you had to side-scroll to get to them all.

   This was a bit frustrating to say the least, but Roku eventually released an update that brought us the all-too-familiar grid style. And that’s just it. You see, I don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with the grid style, but I feel it’s getting a bit stale because it seems that everywhere we turn this is what we see. And let’s be honest with ourselves here – it was Netflix who set this standard.

   I believe it’s time for something new. Something fresh. An all new approach to the streaming interface, and I think Roku should be the ones to set the new standard. As they are the leader in the “streaming pack”, I think they should be the ones behind the new way we look at browsing our streaming content.

  One of my Cord Cutting goals has always been to make our TV viewing experience streamlined and simple. As a nerd, I personally have no problem with fumbling through this and that just to get something to work. But that gets annoying after a while. Aside from that, my wife (the most non-nerd person I know) just wants things to simply work. And honestly, I can’t blame her.

   After I got our Roku boxes set up, my search began for a channel that would allow live TV streaming. Sure – it’s simple to switch from HDMI to TV and vise-versa, but I couldn’t help but think about how awesome it would be if all viewing could be done from the Roku alone. In my opinion, that’s one advantage the cable and satellite providers have: you use 1 box, and simply change channels.

   There are several options out there and I believe this market will continue to grow. The first option I came across was the much talked about Aereo.  As it wasn’t initially available where I live, I waited (somewhat) patiently for it to arrive. When it did, it unfortunately wasn’t the experience I had hoped it would be.

   Another option I tried out was NimbleTV. However, Nimble TV isn’t as much live TV streaming as it is quite simply a satellite service provider. In fact, upon signing up for the service, you will receive an email from Nimble TV telling you to expect an account letter from Dish (which I did) that they tell you to simply ignore. On top of that, Nimble TV’s lowest priced plan is $29.99. There is a free plan, but the channel offerings are lack-luster to say the least. My Spidey Senses immediately began to tingle – if I’m going to pay at least 30 bucks a month for a service that’s merely streaming satellite television, why wouldn’t I just pay for satellite television?

   This week, I decided to give simple.tv a try. I had seen it before while searching other options, but for some reason I kept saying to myself, “I’ll get back to that one.” I have to say, I’m glad I did. Simply put, I literally saved the best for last.

   Quite frankly, what the folks at Simple have done is nothing short of genius. As there is no way to directly connect your over-the-air HD antenna to your Roku, simple.tv provides the “bridge” to make it possible. And to add extra icing to the awesome cake, simple.tv gives you DVR functionality by having you connect
an external hard drive. And this is the full DVR functionality you expect from cable and satellite – you can pause, rewind, fast forward, schedule recordings of upcoming shows, or an entire series of shows.

  ALL from the simple.tv Roku channel, the Android app, or the IOS app! Or, if you don’t happen to have your mobile device handy at the time, you can always simply schedule your recordings from the simple.tv website. Not only can you schedule shows from the apps or the website, you can watch YOUR shows as well – either your recordings or live TV being picked up by your HD antenna. Like I said, nothing short of genius!

   As I wanted to tread lightly to give it a test drive, I picked up the 1st generation simple.tv unit (pictured above and left). It’s a single tuner unit, meaning that if anyone else wants to tune in while I’m watching, they either have to watch what I’m watching or they will change the channel and interrupt my viewing. This really isn’t a big deal in my house though – we all tend to watch the same things at the same time. Simple.tv has since partnered with SilliconDust to offer the dual tuner pictured below.

The Cons:

   The biggest negative I experienced was the initial setup. Simple.tv isn’t necessarily “out of the box” ready, which is understandable. It of course has to scan for and set your available channels. Also, if you decide to give it a try, be warned about the external hard drive you connect – simple.tv will completely format it upon setup. You may want to purchase a new one to dedicate to the unit, or if you’re a nerd like me, use an extra one that you may happen to have lying around (I happened to have a 500GB Western Digital in my hardware closet). I’m not 100% sure why formatting is necessary, but at least you are given a warning about it during setup. Overall, the setup time was extremely long. Granted, part of the extra time I experienced could be attributed to the fact I’m running the 1st generation unit that had to download an update, but I felt the drive formatting and channel scanning process were a bit excessive time-wise.

   Requiring Microsoft Siverlight for desktop viewing is also a bit of a con, especially for us Chromebook owners.

Another thing that may be considered a “con” to some is the channel load time. I personally understand that this type of streaming requires a little patience, but you channel surfing types may be a bit turned off by the “Please wait while we tune into channel ___” screen. Simple.tv does a great job explaining this in the owner’s manual that comes with the unit as well.

The Verdict:

  Overall, from a Cord Cutting perspective, I give simple.tv a solid 5 out of 5 stars. I’ve only seen one slight hiccup in which the live shows that simple.tv was displaying were at one point almost 15 minutes behind what was actually being aired live. And when I changed the channel, then went back to the original broadcast made it start over. I emailed support and got an almost immediate response – another one for the “pros” column. However, a simple reboot of the unit appears to have cleared up that issue.

   If you’re looking for a simple solution that lets you watch live TV through your Roku, mobile devices, and computers, I highly recommend simple.tv!

 One of the first things I thought about when I first Cut The Cord was, “it would be awesome if there was a Roku channel for live, over-the-air channels.” After all, you can pick up many HD channels (many with better display quality than if you were to view them via cable or satellite) with an inexpensive antenna. How cool would it be if you could keep everything centralized, with everything available through your Roku, without having to flip back and forth? Sure – it’s really not that big of an issue: on our family room television, we simply select “HDMI1” for all things Roku, and then “TV” for over-the-air broadcasts.

   As is the case whenever I have such a curiosity, I began to scourer the inter-webs looking for said awesomeness. My first thought was to simply look for Roku channels created by individual local stations. Some stations do have their own Roku channels, but the vast majority of those channels only carry the station’s news broadcasts due to licensing constraints. And that’s when I stumbled across a news story about something called Aereo that was causing a legal stir in New York.

   Without going into the complete history of it all as that’s not the purpose of this post, long story short is that the cable giants and networks have been fighting Aereo in an attempt to shut them down but thus far they have been unable to. Why? Because of the simple genius behind Aereo. As you may know, you can buy a simple antenna and hook it up to your TV and pick up free broadcast HD channels (some older TV sets will require you to buy a low-priced HD converter box). The genius behind Aereo is that they house your “antenna” for you. They do this with “Antenna Farms” that are simple, tiny antenna on circuit board arrays.

   

   One of the most important and fulfilling things I’ve cherished all of my life is the gift of learning. I literally love to learn. A philosophy I live by and hope to pass on to my children and all those I meet is simply this –

“Never stop learning!”

   Regardless of anything I may even be considered an expert at, I know that I can always learn more about it and actively look for more. Fewer things in life are more exciting to me than discovery and learning. In all that I love, I look for more ways to learn more. Have I stressed learning’s significance enough?

   In steps Coursera. Coursera is a for-profit educational technology company offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOCC’s) funded by computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller from Stanford University.  They partner with top universities and organizations worldwide, offering courses online for anyone to take for free! The heart of the Coursera mission statement reads:

“We envision a future where everyone has access to a world-class education. We aim to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities
they live in.”

 Both Facebook and Google Plus have given us reviews of our past activity. Google Plus was first with it’s Year In Review offering, with Facebook following suit with a bit more vast review of your entire Facebook experience. Twitter recently joined in (somewhat) by giving us the ability to see our first tweets.

   Day by day on the Google home screen we get “today in history” lessons from their Doodles – some cool, some funny, and some are actually interactive games. Wouldn’t it be cool if you had a way to see the same type of “today in history”, but have it be about you?

   Now you can with a cool little app called Timehop! Timehop brings together your posts and photos from Facebook (Facebook is required to log in at the moment), Twitter, Instagram and Foursquare from 1, 2, 3 and 4 years ago today. It also displays pictures that are stored on your device from the corresponding day, provided you still have them on your device. Thus, every day you get your very own ‘today in history” about yourself! Also, at the very bottom of your daily display, Timehop also provides you with a Google-type “today in history” (for example – at the time of this post, Timehop is informing me that 15 years ago today, the first season of Futurama begins airing on Fox).

   As is possible with any app, Timehop isn’t without it’s own share of hiccups at the moment. For example, some users have reported issues with the Twitter log in, although I had no issue with it. However, I have noticed that although I’m logged into Instagram it has yet to show me any of my historical posts from there. I’m not sure if it’s just coincidental, in that I may simply not have posted anything on Instagram on any of the past 2 days that I’ve been running the app.

   I wouldn’t necessarily categorize Timehop as a “Must Have App”, but it is a pretty cool app worth checking out!

Timehop is available for Android via Google Play, and in the App Store on iTunes for Apple devices.

   Some say that copying is the best form of flattery. You know you’ve done something really well when others try to be like you. However, I don’t think this is true in the case of application development.

   If we look at some of the powerhouse success stories like Facebook and Twitter as guidelines, and the countless other social media wannabes that have come and gone that have tried to copy them, it’s easy to see that in the tech world, copying is often a sad and pointless endeavor. Simply put – there is already a Facebook and a Twitter, and there will never be another social media outlet that will see the same successes they’ve enjoyed.

  True – there is my current personal choice, Google Plus, which has grown and continues to grow. But in all honesty, this can be attributed to the fact that it was created by an already established, thriving company – Google. But as for a from-nothing, ground zero start up social media site? Again, there will never be another such as Facebook or Twitter.

  A little while ago, the world was graced with a wildly successful and equally annoying little bird that flew threw Mario Brothers type pipes. There were many videos, jokes and postings. And then, its creator killed it. What has followed in subsequent weeks has been nothing short of pathetic in my opinion. When I visit the Play Store (which I do daily) I find countless Flappy Bird copy cats. With goofy names and often different main characters, these rip offs are nothing more than cheap copy cats. Are these being developed just for laughs? Just to have some sort of goofy fun? Maybe. But, even the joke has worn out long ago.

  Enough already.

  If you are a developer, or currently striving to become one, do us all a favor –

  I have no problem admitting it – I’m that guy. The one who, at Christmas time, already knows what he plans to purchase his wife for Christmas. Not only that, I’m also that guy who sits back and laughs at those “poor bumbling fools” fighting traffic and crowds at malls and box retailers. “Why do they do this to themselves?”, I ask. “Haven’t they ever heard of the internet!?” It’s so beautifully simple and easy: No crowds. No parking. No driving. Heck, you don’t even have to get out of your PJs!

  But they always fight it. “How do I know what I’m getting if I don’t go to a store and check it out before I buy it?”

To that, I drop some simple knowledge. Fact is, contrary to popular belief, online shopping was created by and for men. How can you tell? Simple – look at the overall shopping habits of men. We go to a store, knowing before hand what we want, grab it and leave. A majority of the time, we rely on the knowledge of at least one other man (usually a relative or trusted friend) who has some knowledge about the thing we’re going to buy when deciding our purchase. Or sometimes it’s a man who we trust in his field (and by trust in his field, I mean a guy who’s got a TV show. He has a show – he has to know what he’s talking about, right?). With that in mind, I always check the user / consumer ratings of a product being sold online to gauge whether or not I will purchase. And I encourage others to do so.

  Now keep in mind, there is a science to this. Just because a product has a 5-star rating doesn’t mean it’s worth your hard earned cash if there are only 10 people rating it. Your freshman Statistics class will alert your Spidey Senses enough to know that’s not a reliable population pool. You need enough of a pool to convince you in the same way your relative, trusted friend, or respected  TV Guru would.

  For those of you who don’t know, I love to cook. I’m mainly grill centered (no gas!!), but I love cooking all around. Fortunately for me, I was blessed with a wife who loves to cook as well. She’s gifted with the skill of custom cakes and deserts (for years, she’s been the go-to for birthday cakes for the kids in our families), and she frequently surprises me with new meal recipes. We’ve been together for quite some time – about 18 years, 14 married. We’ve seen our share of cookware throughout those years.

  For several years, we had the same cookware. Nothing too fancy. But it had had it’s time, and my wife began dropping hints about a new set. So in 2012, I made the logical decision to purchase a new set.

  But, I didn’t want to get her just any set. I wanted a set to knock her socks off. I wanted it to be beautiful stainless steel to match all of our other kitchen tools. I also wanted it to be nice enough to give the feel of professional cooking without being too overly expensive. I dove head first into my go-to online shopping source, Amazon, looking for that perfect set. I read review after review. I compared prices. I read reviews from other sources about some of the Amazon offerings. Finally, I found the perfect set.

So I thought….

  The perfect set I settled on was this beautiful 28pc 12-Element Stainless Steel Cookware Set. And, when I say beautiful, I mean this set can really class up any kitchen! The box and description informs that it’s a $1100 value (should have been a red flag for me), and upon my wife’s opening it on Christmas day 2012 I could agree. 100%! Simply stunning!

At fist…

  Soon, there was water dripping from seams after washing and subsequent cooking. And regardless of how low and slow you cook, EVERYTHING sticks the majority of uses. Ultimately, within months, we ended up with this:

  Talk about disappointment. After all, I counted the stars on Amazon –

Customer Reviews

   As much as I love Android, and all things Google-related in general, there is actually one thing that I hate. And for the life of me, I’m nut sure why it has never really changed.

   To begin with, I use Google Calendar for everything. And, I mean everything – keeping track of due dates for bills, appointments, meetings, special events. You name it – it’s on my calendar. In fact, I don’t use to-do list apps because my calendar is my to-do list.

   When I look at my calendar, I like to be able to see what’s coming up at a glance, in Month View. Whenever I’m on my Chromebook or my Nexus 7 tablet, I check my calendar in month view especially if someone tells me of an upcoming event, meeting, etc. I need to be able to quickly glance to see what’s coming up. As I mentioned, I keep track of bills with it as well – those that have been paid and those that are pending.

   So, what is it that I hate? Simply put, this –