Barrett

April 15, 2012

Please Rate this Product…or Else

This seller’s fate lies in your hands, and your finger is feeling a bit twitchy.

It feels like someone is always asking you to rate every consumer interaction in your life.

-Every customer service phone call
Usually before you’ve had the actual experience.
A recording confidently asks you to press 1 if you’re willing to stay on the line after the human interaction…

-Every app on Apple’s App store
With over half a million available apps, each one lives or dies by how popular it is.

-Every purchase on Amazon
Amazon asks you to rate everything you buy from them.
They send you an email, which contains an easy ‘excellent’ button to press.
(I’m not so sure that’s a totally objective way to gather feedback.)

I’m not a regular reviewer on Amazon, at least not yet.
Recently I rated a light bulb I bought on Amazon, just to see how it felt. It was an illuminating experience. (You had to see that coming.)

But seriously, it just felt good. There’s a certain power to it.
As suggested with the title of my previous blog post, (which references dialogue from the ending of the movie, Spider Man) you’ve got to exercise some level of responsibility when you influence/affect others.

Or do you?

The Pros
I think the social/moral mandate is clear when it comes to well-regarded ‘influencers.’ In the tech review world, there are a few sources I regularly check out.

CNET
They cover a good selection of tech gadgets with a reliable team of reviewers.

David Pogue
He writes for The New York Times and is also on CBS News Sunday Morning.
He’s approachable and witty.

Engadget
Their selection of reviews is smaller, but it’s still worth checking out.

Digital Photography Review
This is the place for geeks to research any and all specs on new cameras.
Not for the casual reader.

The Crowd
But if you’re one of a million everymen and women with posted opinions, I think you’re not considering your journalistic integrity.
You’re just letting it rip. Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!

You’re an often-anonymous entity who could be a genius or a luddite crackpot. Without credentials, you can pretty say what you want with impunity. That’s the beauty of it all.

So everyone’s got an opinion, and with the democratization of public communication via the web, everyone wants to share. And isn’t there some value to each and every one of them?

The Problem
The fact is, I simply won’t buy any home tech without first reading what others say about it.

Beyond the pros, I spend plenty of time researching what ‘the tech commoners’ are saying. I find reviewers in all sorts of places like YouTube. Those raw reviews often show me the product up close and personal in ways that go beyond the typical professional review.

Mid 20th century psychologists would call my information gathering process- informational conformity. Listening to the opinions of others leads you to your own conclusion. Often, it’s just a popular conclusion, which may or not be entirely accurate. But short of spending your entire waking day looking at every product out there, it’s all you’ve got.

Tech Group Think
I call this conformity phenomenon as it relates to home tech –
Tech Group Think.
Yes, I’ve made up another little term, but I think it’s accurate.

The irony of Tech Group Think is it’s actually hard to find consensus on how good any tech really is. It’s kind of complex, and you’re often left with lingering doubt after some heavy-duty research.

It’s easy to simply freeze up with too many differing opinions and just do nothing for fear of making a mistake. At the very least, you’re feeling unsettled with whatever choice you do end up making.

So what do you do?
It’s like Vegas. Play the odds, be confident, and do your best.

Barrett’s Rules of Tech Group Think
-There is no Perfect Score
You’re never going to find a unanimous rating on anything. Somebody always hates something. But if there are lots of one stars popping up, start worrying and move on.

-Damn the Psycho Babble
Look, you’re not a lemming. You’ve got to trust someone.
So go with the crowd.

-Believe in the Force
I say the good news here is much of Tech Group Think usually gets it right.
It’s just a strong hunch, and I’m going with it!

Mass Success = Happiness
There’s no one path to successfully using Tech Group Think. You just need to personalize it in a way that works for you. And a lot of people do it every day!

My wife is a perfect example.
While I often struggle with the simplest tech purchasing decisions, she is out there gathering all the data on the web she needs to help her make some decisions of her own.

She won’t go to a new restaurant before checking it out on Yelp.

Before putting a vacation together, it’s Trip Advisor or bust.

New recipe? Epicurious.

I should qualify that my wife isn’t spending time researching technology.
That’s my job.

Actually, her Tech Group Think is really just plain Group Think via tech.
(You’ve got your chocolate in my peanut butter!)

But it works out pretty well for her. And just about everyone else, it seems.
Who’s really worrying about informational conformity, anyway?!

Maybe they’re all onto something!
…and it’s finally time for me to take the blue pill.

For now, I think I’ll put my red pill aside and share the power of my painfully researched Tech with her effortlessly successful Group Think.

I make lots of grunts hunting the right tech to bring home.
She efficiently gathers knowledge via her tech links to the world.

I call that the typical life of a 21st century family.
Surely a topic for another day…

PTC7WETMFBY4

April 9, 2012

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Can nothing save this photo? Don’t be so sure. It’s got core digital integrity!

I have a little secret.
Please don’t judge me.

I’m changing reality. Every single day.
(No, I’m not crazy.)
Technology has given me this power.

I know of no rulebook on how to practice this freakish act.
So I currently self-regulate the best I can.
Others must be doing it. But no one’s talking about it.

And what is this dastardly voodoo I perform?

I’m touching up my digital photos.

Altering the Image
Since the dawn of photography in advertising, there’s been some controversy regarding the practice of touching up photos of actors and models. Making them look better….younger….thinner. You’ve heard it all before…

Recently, I remember a recent story about a cover page photo of Demi Moore for W Magazine. There was some conjecture about the impossibly small size of her left hip, and that digital shrinkage made it that way.

Sure, it seems wrong to tinker too much. But how much is too much? Clearly, it’s regularly done in the advertising industry. It only becomes a problem when some digital artist does a hack job, and the boundaries of visual reality are crossed.
So it’s okay if nobody notices?

On the home front, I feel this issue is cloaked.
Besides, who really cares what you’re doing to your own photos?

You snap a photo and upload it to your computer. It seemed like a good picture when you took it, but now the background is too bright, and the shadows are a little too muddy. The colors are off and could use a little boost as well.
Actually, now that you’re looking closer, the whole thing is a little blurry.
(You really need to hold that camera steady!)

Maybe it’s not such a good picture after all. Time to throw it in the trash.
Oh well…
Wait a minute! You remember all of this can be fixed with the power of one finger.

You can perform instant magic in Apple’s Photos program. You press the auto enhance button, and voila, your photo looks instantly better!

And while you’re at it, you can easily level the shot’s tilted angle away from its titanic slope. Then, you might as well crop it closer, because you forgot to use the camera’s zoom. And that dreaded red-eye? Gone!

Isn’t technology wonderful?
Now this whole operation doesn’t match the mind-bending moment in Harrison Ford’s “zoom in and enhance” photo reconstruction scene from his 1982 movie Blade Runner, but it’s startlingly close.

You’ve taken a pretty bad photo and reorganized a whole bunch of its pixels, making it fit for framing for all to see.
Do you see any problems here?
Not yet.

As you look closer at the other control buttons in your photo management software, you notice there are additional enhancement options. And then you start realize there are little things you can do to the people in your pictures to make them look just a bit better.

The lure is just too strong. And so you begin down your slippery slope…

Boo-Boo’s
Take my two-year old son. He’s an adventurer and loves to climb anything and everything. More than occasionally, there is the inevitable boo-boo on his nose or cheek.

I’m a proud dada, and I’ve taken lots of pictures of my son. (lots)

And yes, I’ve seen some little red boo-boos in the shots and then looked at the retouch button. Two clicks later, the boo-boo is gone. Other times, the boo-boo stays in. Why? Sometimes the boo-boo is absolutely a part of the picture’s story. It needs to be there. Other times, not so much.

Shaving Nicks
Speaking of boo-boos, I’ve taken some great shots of my father, but…

He always shaves with a straight razor, and occasionally I see some of the classic nicks that come from this life-long practice.

So does my camera. But with two more mouse clicks, the nicks are nicked.

You’re welcome, Dad.

Skin Smoothing
This is where the power of altering reality really kicks in. And please call it what it is.

Wrinkle Remover!

I don’t have to review with you the aging process on the human face, but this little trick quickly reduces the prominence of certain unnecessary extra lines. It also reduces overly exposed reflections on your skin that make you look like you forgot to take a shower.

So here’s the question? Am I vain enough to perform a little virtual surgery on a select number of my photos here and there?
(You’ll notice I’m not denying it.)

And how do I justify all this?

Bad lighting.

Actually, lighting is a significant factor in how good anybody looks in a picture. A picture taken with good natural light is always going to look better than that nasty flash. And a little side and back lighting at the same time. Nice!

Since most of us don’t travel with our own personal lighting team, I think it’s fair to replicate the effects of good lighting with a few extra clicks of the mouse.

To be honest, I’m still feeling some guilt. Is this really so wrong?
I’m not working in a professional photo management program like Photoshop and making ‘major’ changes like readjusting entire body parts. I’m just using consumer-sanctioned software that’s readily available to the masses. I’m only enhancing or minimizing what’s already there.

Everyone is doing it. Right?

My Digital Moral Code
Plus, I follow Barrett’s Rule of Core Digital Integrity.
(My CDI)

And what is this digital moral code, you ask?
“Don’t mess with the core integrity of someone’s ongoing image.”

Ongoing image? What does the heck does that mean?
It’s how a person generally photographs across an average time span of a month or so. If ‘anomalies’ crop up that change that, I say it’s okay to help that photo look more ‘accurate.’

Let’s review:

-Boo-boo will be gone next week anyway – Remove it.
-Shaving nick will heal soon enough – Zap away.
-Sleep deprived darkness under your eyes is not permanent –
Use the brighten section tool.
-Flash induced glow on your forehead looks terrible –
Smooth it out and reduce.
-Little mole on your face is here to stay – Leave it alone.
-Adjust your eye color – Easy, but why would you want to do that?
-Blur anything in the photo that irritates you – It’s time to reread my CDI.

Am I out of control?

Cosmetics Industry to the Rescue
Wait a minute! Maybe I’m making a big fuss over nothing.

I’ve just realized I’m not really alone. The beauty industry has got my back.
And for those who may disagree, please excuse this possibly controversial thought as merely an academic exploration. Even men use facial products! Aramis’ Lab Series, for one, is in that growing business.

Don’t cosmetics handle the exact same issues I’m describing?
They’re just trying to make people look their best.
A bit of concealing here. A little highlighting there.
I’m not seeing this multi billion-dollar juggernaut struggle with my ethical dilemma.

We all want to look our best, don’t we?
That’s all I’m talking about!

Everyone’s doing it!
I suddenly feel so much better.

Are you worried? Don’t be.

Feel free to use my CDI, and just don’t get caught!

April 1, 2012

I Am a Road Warrior

My essential gear stands ready for the morning commute. All systems are go!

I can see the technology police in my rear view mirror.
They’re never far behind.

Take heed of this story, which reminds me of man’s failed journey
back to the moon.
Dramatic advances in technology have not made returning there any easier.
Let me explain…

Before Thunderdome
I am a road warrior.
Or to be more precise, a Metro-North train commuter.

Let’s just say once upon a time I was cast out of paradise. And I now have a daily eighty minute work-commute to New York City.

Not that I’m complaining. When I board the packed train every morning, I walk past commuters with even longer commutes. But I can’t avoid the reality that my nights are now shorter because of my daily trek.

As a result, my 42” Plasma TV is mostly dark on weeknights.
My pride and joy from three years ago no longer serves up the majority of my media consumption.

What’s a healthy, red-blooded American TV viewer to do?

The silver lining to a long commute is converting the two hours of uninterrupted train void into something useful. Some people read. Others sleep. I like to catch up on the TV I’m no longer watching at home.

How does that work, exactly, as I nimbly sit between two other commuters, (in the dreaded center seat) traveling seventy miles an hour on track three?

Maybe there’s an app for that. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In the ‘Preapplenary’ Dinosaur Era, without the conveniences of smartphone tech, I had it all figured it all out. Back then, I was moving my TV recordings like magic for mobile consumption onto my little DVD player.

My favorite TV shows were captured by my Panasonic DVR/DVD recorder. The shows were recorded first to its hard drive, and then transferred via a built-in, high-speed process to re-recordable DVDs (how environmentally friendly of me). Within fifteen minutes or so, I could prep six hours of mobile TV to take with me for the week on the train. No computer required.

I took my nimble Panasonic 7” DVD player that fit comfortably in my soft briefcase, and when I set myself up in my train seat complete with Bose noise cancelling headsets, people looked at me like I had invented cold fusion.

I was a mobile tech god, and feeling very much invincible.

Wrath of the Titans
Technology is supposed to make your life easier. And here I was, happily keeping up with all my favorite shows. What could be better?

Technology is always evolving.
And sometimes that can be a problem, when everything is already perfect.
Especially when there’s business profit on the line.

One rainy day a couple years ago, it was clear I had angered the technology gods, and a whole bunch of their lawyers.

First, Panasonic and other manufacturers of TV recorders with hard drives suddenly stopped making them.
“No more demand for the product,” they said.
I say, “All that free media copying. Very bad. You should be buying it. “

DVD recorders (sans DVR) were allowed to keep living, but I found their usefulness limited. You’re forced to constantly pay attention to how much space is left on a DVD and then swap it out every six hours. Or else your last-episode-of-the-season recording doesn’t happen. It’s back to the nightmare days of programming your old VCR. What a pain!

The killer blow came via my friendly cable company.
Cablevision, like all patriotic American companies, has a right to protect its product from being stolen. So they, like other cable companies, had been scrambling many of their channels to prevent people from illegally sampling all the programming goodness without renting a cable box. I have no problem with that.

The spigot began closing, and one day, my Panasonic DVR/DVD recorder just saw blue. Blue on every channel. Nothing but blue.

Yeah, I was blue. And a whole lot of other colors.
It wasn’t like I was trying to steal anything. I was paying Cablevision a pretty penny every month. But I was breaking the law.

You may ask, “Why not just have my recorder drink from the free digital broadcast stream in the sky?”
I’ve got bad reception at home. D’oh!

Wait a minute! I also had a built in DVR in my cable box! Couldn’t I still legally transfer my shows to my blue brick? Sure. But there’s a catch-
It’s real time transfer. No more high speed. That old technology is now illegal.

That slowed down the DVD transfer from fifteen minutes to six hours!
What commuter has time for that?

So after my glorious and free media age of agility, all my recorded media became imprisoned safely and legally back at home in my cable box.

What’s a road warrior to do?

I hate admitting this, but my solution was to simply lick my wounds and go cold turkey on my TV shows. Instead, I decided to focus on all the movies I was missing at the local multiplex. (As a new parent, I hear this is typical.)
As I was already a Netflix subscriber, I loaded up my movie cue and began packing the red envelope as a part of my standard travel kit.

Digital Xanadu
Now don’t get me wrong. Technology hasn’t abandoned the mobile viewer. Not one bit. There are plenty of options available today to facilitate mobile media viewing.

The problem is each solution has an added cost associated with it.
And I’d prefer not to pay for my TV shows a second time just to watch them outside the immediate vicinity of my home entertainment center.
I feel once is plenty, thank you very much.

All this said, here are some of your choices:

iTunes
This is what you’re supposed to do. It’s easy. It works. It’s fast. Perfect.
Of course, you’re paying $1.99 or $2.99 (HD) a pop for an episode of your favorite TV series. (Apple used to rent out episodes, but
they killed that option last summer.)
Yes, I’ve bought TV episodes via iTunes and quickly transferred the content to my iPhone, but I don’t fancy the idea of owning lots of memory-heavy episodes I only intend to watch once.

DVD Box Sets
You can always buy DVD box sets of your favorite TV series. But waiting months later to watch the most recent season brings new meaning to the concept of patience. Plus water cooler chat will ruin most of the good stuff before you get to it.

TiVo
I really want to buy a TiVo box.
(The prices have really come down, starting at $150, plus the $15 monthly service plan.) But I don’t own one precisely because all of its content can’t be easily transferred for portable viewing. Once upon a time, TiVo made their boxes with a DVD recorder built in. No more. Remember, that’s illegal.

Now, they’ve got something ‘better.’
It’s the one-two-three TivoToGo service, which allows you to transfer your TV recordings from a network-connected TiVo to your computer via TiVo Desktop Software. Then you compress the files for your smartphone via a program called Toast. Finally, you upload the file to your portable device.

“Yoi, Ishta Nem!”
(My mother would utter this phrase learned from her Hungarian relatives for times of complete frustration.)

So TiVo has taken my two-minute solution and created a several hour process. Ludicrous!

EyeTV HD
This is a little $200 DVR that bridges your cable box to your Mac, where you can watch and convert programming to iTunes. This seems relatively straight forward, but I’m still not too psyched to be using my computer as a prep station to route my TV shows to my iPhone. That’s still more work than I want to put in.
Pass.

YouTube
Yes, I know it’s built into my iPhone, and yes I’ve successfully watched its short form programming while on the train. But I never considered the 3G stream would hold up for 30 or 60 minutes. That said…

HBO GO
I tried a new service this week that a reader let me know had finally come to Cablevision subscribers- HBO GO.
All that HBO programming I never have time to watch. On demand. On my iPhone. Would full episodes really work over 3G? On a moving train, passing through black holes of cell phone coverage.

It did!

Now, it wasn’t perfect, and the picture did stall occasionally, requiring me to reload. But I am still very impressed.

Wow. This feels like a game changer. And it doesn’t cost any more!
(You have to already be an HBO subscriber.)

Slingbox
Now that I’ve realized 3G streaming while commuting actually works (mostly), I have a renewed interest in a box that’s been around for a few years called Slingbox.
This $180 device connects to your cable box or DVD recorder and then to your home network, creating a video stream to the web. Like a virtual universal remote, it can control your recorded programming (or live TV) for display on your mobile device via a download called SlingPlayer Mobile. ($30) There’s also a HD version of the box, but I’m not sure I’d want/need HD with 3G.

It seems almost too good to be true. And the product isn’t something I hear about a lot. Nor are retailers like Best Buy pushing it. So this device clearly hasn’t gone mainstream yet. (no pun intended)
But it’s gotten decent reviews. Maybe… just maybe, this could be my magic bullet.
I may just have to try this out one day soon.
Stay tuned…

The Dream Stream Won’t be Forever Free
It’s still sinking in. So now I don’t have to take my shows with me? They’re always out there waiting for me? There’s even a Hulu Plus app?!
(yes, subscription required)

I know my newly realized mobile media dream solution has one fatal flaw. And I’ll soon be on the wrong side of the law again. I’ll be sucking too much bandwidth out of my all-you-can-eat data plan from AT&T Wireless. Their newer data plans already have caps, after which hefty charges are assigned to your monthly bill (ticket).

I know it’s just a matter of time before it suddenly becomes a technology crime to stream like this for free. My iPhone’s portal is gonna get locked down, and they’re throwin’ away the key. No doubt about it.

Until then, I’ve decided to make the most of it. I should commute like there’s no tomorrow! Maybe even sport a new iPad with Retina Display and 4G LTE.

Riding the speeding train with my full cup.
Drunk with the satisfaction that for now, technology has once again made my life just a little bit better.

Drink. Drink, like there’s no tomorrow!

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