Tech in the News | At Home with Tech

December 1, 2013

Diary of a Frustrated Black Friday Cyber Shopper

Hitting the malls to purchase your favorite doorbusters is so yesteryear. This time, all I needed was my cup of Joe and my computer. Or so I thought…

10:00pm, Thanksgiving evening-
Go to sleep early.
(too much tryptophan)
Must be frosty for Black Friday!

6:00am, Black Friday-
Wake up. Make coffee. Sit down and boot up iMac.

6:10am-
Navigate to Apple’s big one-day sale.
No real discounts anywhere in sight.
Deep sigh…

This year, Apple only offered gift cards towards future Apple Store purchases… Their previous Black Friday discounts were never that great to begin with, but this ‘evolution’ was even less inspiring.

6:30am-
Next stop – Amazon
Review list of Lightning Sales. Nothing electrifies.

Out of frustration I did put an $11 Rayovac ‘head lamp’ into my cart.
(My old geeky REI head-mountable flashlight had stopped working recently.)
It’s useful to have one of these flashlights around when you need an extra directional light source in front of you, and you can’t hold it in your hands.

6:35am-
PING!
Great deal on a Blu-ray Disc of ‘Star Trek into Darkness’ for just $7.99 on Amazon.
(Complete with digital download for Road Warrior’s iPhone.)

I said to myself, “Make it so!”
But then I noticed a review warning the universe this version didn’t contain enough of the fun bonus material.

6:40am-
Delay purchase.

Up further research, I uncovered a raging Star Trek fan controversy a few months back when four different Blu-ray Disc versions were released to separate retailers.
This sales tactic effectively split up all the extra content outside of the movie itself. So no one version contained it all.

And Amazon’s Blu-ray package seemed especially lacking…
So I put away my phaser and cancelled the mission.

6:45am-
Rayovac deal on Amazon expires in cart.

6:50am-
Head over to Target.
See the fans’ ‘preferred’ Star Trek Blu-ray version with more goodies.
Only $9!

After I completed my little happy dance, I took a closer look.
The online purchase button was grayed out.
You could only buy it in the store.

KHAAAAAN!!

7:00am-
Little Lester wakes up.

Frustrated with all my shopping roadblocks, I put my computer to sleep and headed off to the family breakfast table…

Hunting and Gathering like our Ancestors
Later that morning, I ventured out of my cyber bubble to do a little brick and mortar shopping, and ironically found my old-school experience much more satisfying.

At Staples, I picked up a 32 GB SanDisk USB Flash Drive for just $10.
(not available online)

And I found a couple of good deals on Thomas Train Set accessories for my three year old at Toys”R”Us.
(also not online)

Yes, I know the day is called Black Friday and not Cyber Monday for a reason.
But I figured with all the cyber creep going on, there really wasn’t much of a difference anymore.

Apparently, the stores still want you to get off your tushies on Friday….
It seemed their best deals were still only available on sight.
(not on site)

Following my shopping adventure in the wild like my ancestors, I headed out to a family lunch gathering.
Additional cyber shopping would have to wait…

The Discount Gift Card Illusion
Later that night, I found one last window of opportunity to distribute some of my hard-earned money back to the Black Friday economy.

A few minutes in, I ran across what I thought was a genius idea:

Discount gift cards…for myself!

It was the inspired moment I’d been waiting for all day.

If I couldn’t find any online deals, why not buy discount gift cards to use at those very same stores…?

It’s like engineering your own discounted purchase.
Right?

So I checked out the usual suspects:

They claimed to offer deals up to 35% off store gift cards.
But the harsh reality was the discounts were substantially smaller for the better-known cards I was interested in.

More like 2%-9%.

Yes, that’s technically a savings, but it wasn’t enough of an incentive to keep me interested…
So I chalked up the wasted research to my ongoing education towards tech nirvana and moved on…

Canon to the Rescue
9:00pm-
Wait! There’s a sale on the Canon PowerShot Elph 330 HS!

All along, I’ve been looking for a deal on a small pocket camera for my wife and me.

I’ve used the older Elph 300 and found it to be a fabulous little workhorse of a camera. The Elph 330 has been upgraded with a nifty 10X zoom and has been selling this year at a $179 price point..

And now I saw that Best Buy was selling it for only $129!!
(Including an 8 GB memory card and camera case)

Deal?

Truthfully, I’m not sure how much of a Black Friday moment this was.
Multiple retailers were selling it at the same price point, because Canon was offering the $50 discount.

So the only real deal was how many ‘extras’ the retailers would throw in on top of the Canon mark down.

I did a little more research and noticed that Adorama had a slightly sweeter offer.
They included a larger 16 GB memory card along with the camera case.

So I took the Adorama deal.
Click.

Shopping Endorphins Released
I had finally found my Black Friday moment!
(I would not be denied my annual Black Friday endorphin surge.
Though I have to admit this time around, I had my eyes wide shut.)

Honestly, this annual ‘hunt’ is a lot of work, and I’m not sure if the payoff justified the effort this year.

What does all this say about me?

Coincidentally, The New York Times just ran a Black Friday story
talking about how retail marketers are targeting ‘self-gifters.’

The article identified this shopping group as a ‘special demographic niche’ and then identified a poster child by featuring an ‘incurable self-gifting’ man from North Carolina.

They included a photo of him happily sitting in his living room, working his laptop while his wife stood by.
As I looked at the smile on his face, his hyper-focused eyes looking for bargains…
…he actually appeared a bit maniacal.

Could that be me?

Should I be worried?
(pregnant pause)

I say, “NO!!!”

Look, we all end up buying ourselves things from time to time.
Is it so wrong to buy yourself a gift or two on Black Friday?

And isn’t that the day you’re supposed to find better prices?

Why should all this be such a surprise?

So I’m a self-gifter from time to time…
I know I’m low-hanging fruit.
I’m good with that.

The Truth is Out There
So another disappointing Black Friday has come and gone.
Yes, I bought a cheap flash drive and got a couple train deals for my son.
And, I’m relatively happy with my Canon Elph purchase.

But it’s hard for Black Friday to live up to all the hype.
Especially if you’re not heading out to the malls at 12am to stalk your ‘doorbusters.’
(This year, stores actually opened on Thursday!)

The good news is you get to avoid all that madness if you stay close to home.

And if you can distance yourself a bit, a simple truth permeates through all the holiday advertising Kool-Aid.

The act of pounding the pavement may still be the way retailers reward you on Black Friday.
But finding all your holiday shopping deals is not a one-day sprint.
It never was…

It’s more like a marathon.
You’ve got Cyber Monday,
and then most of December ahead of you.

Take a breath.
Exhale.
Pace yourself.

Then you may find your Tech Zen.

Good luck!
I’ll see you at the finish line.
(or somewhere close!)

November 24, 2013

The Dilemma of Downloading a YouTube Video

There are worse ways to spend 10 minutes than juggling in Google’s Winter Wonderlab. Plus you get your very own YouTube video to share. But what can you do if you want to immortalize the memory?

Should you find yourself with a spare hour in New York City over the holidays, you absolutely must pass through Bryant Park on 42nd and 6th Ave.
There’s the ice skating rink going as well as the pop-up shops and dessert kiosks. Who knew walking through a park could be so much fun?!

This year, Google has a rather large pop-up presence there, sporting a
‘Winter Wonderlab,’ featuring their Nexus 7 tablets and Chromebooks.

Play. Create. Chill.
In the center of their pop-up store is a high-speed photo studio inside a giant snow globe. In it, they shoot a slow motion video of you with a moving camera on a track. The result is a wicked cool 20-second sequence of you having fun in the globe, surrounded by fake falling snow.
(The actual elapsed recorded action is only about 2 seconds.)

Then, they download the file, and you’re invited to customize your mini movie with music and distribute it via one of their Nexus tablets, conveniently waiting for you in the pop-up store.

The whole point is to get you to say, “Mmmmmm….Nexus tablets.”
And then go buy one.

I’ve got to admit, their marketing tactic was rather compelling.

And I’m also not embarrassed to say I kind of liked my corny little video from their Winter Wonderlab.

The Google folks even provided me with my own URL to call up my cinematic moment, which conveniently lives as a YouTube video, housed in a Google Winter Wonderlab wrapper.

But you can also click on the video itself and call up the original YouTube page where the video lives.
(Remember, Google owns YouTube.)

Can You Keep your Snow Globe Joy Alive Forever?
So there I was watching my video, and I said to myself,
“Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if I could download my silly video to take a look at whenever I wanted?”

Sure I’ve got a link to forward for anyone to watch.
And the link is always there for me, right?
(I don’t think YouTube is going anywhere.)

That said, I suppose it’s an open question how long Google will keep its
Winter Wonderlab open in the digital space.
(Snow globe videos aren’t so hip in July.)

The Dilemma
The problem is you can’t download YouTube videos.
Google understandably doesn’t offer that functionality.
(since they want you to keep giving them plenty of online clicks to feed their advertising model)

So now what?

At this point in the conversation, it’s important to share some legal realities on this point…

YouTube officially frowns on the downloading of their videos through other technologies. This would break their terms of service.
Plus, you don’t own the copyright on someone else’s content.
YouTube does suggest one exception if you are trying to download your own content.

So in this particular case I wanted to download specific imagery of Barrett juggling Styrofoam snowballs.
But I didn’t create the actual content… Google did.

Hmmmm… How gray is that?
(Next question…)

So I’ll simply say I may have considered the following investigative mission.

Think of this as solely a theoretical exercise…

How to Download a YouTube Video
I quickly realized I wasn’t alone in this intellectual query.

There are a whole lot of players out there offering to help you out…

Keepvid.com
But I was interested in finding a quick, ‘relatively’ mainstream solution that didn’t require additional software downloads…

I asked a few friends, (a Gen X and a few Gen Ys)
and they immediately replied…
“KeepVid!”

Seems I’m a little late to the party…

Keepvid.com has actually been around for years…
And after doing a little research, I saw it’s often mentioned as a major player in this space.

KeepVid’s usability is pretty straightforward.
There’s only one annoying pothole to avoid.
Don’t click on the ‘Download’ or ‘Play Now’ buttons on the top of the page.
Those misdirect you to advertisements.

PCWorld has posted this useful ‘how-to video’ on using KeepVid.

A Decision for Another Day?
So there you have it.
Do proceed conscientiously…

And to repeat, this is all simply an exercise of the mind…
A noggin rumination, if you will.

If the Shoe Fits…
That there are effective ways to force video content off a webpage is not a happy reality for many multimedia-hosting websites.
But it should also give you pause…

If you upload your own videos to share on these websites…
Then set their permissions as non-downloadable…
And believe that they are safely ‘not grabbable’

…think again.

If you upload your own multimedia content into the universe, there are always ways for others to get it.
(yeah)

Now, we’ve come full circle.

Enough said.

All right, enough worrying for one post…
Now, go make your own snow globe video and have some fun!

November 17, 2013

Retraining your Borg Mind to Master the Sounds of iOS 7

When the update bar gets to the finish line, your iPhone will never be the same. Better. Stronger. Faster. And unfamiliar. Welcome to the updated audio world of iOS 7.

You are more Borg than you know.
Remember on ‘Star Trek’… that race of evil, technology-enhanced humanoids, all enslaved to the connected, collective ‘Hive Mind?’
Yeah… those guys.

The good news is I’m not here to report that you’ve lost your free will to technology.
(not yet)

The bad news is you’ve already lost total control over parts of your unconscious autonomic mind to your mobile operating system.

Case in point:
iOS 7.

Reprogramming Your Autonomic Tech Self
Your smartphone probably isn’t drilled into your forehead or otherwise hardwired via more elegant solutions.
But since you carry your phone about with you everywhere you go, it might as well be.

And when you’re not directly interfacing with it visually, the method your phone uses to stay connected is through a myriad of audio cues:

‘Ding a ling.’ Your phone rings.
‘Bleep.’ You’ve got mail.
‘Ping.’ Hey, you’ve got a text.
‘Ta Da.’ There’s calendar invite.
‘Pong.’ Here comes a tweet.
‘Beep Beep.’ Time for your appointment.
‘Wahhhhhh.’ Your date just cancelled on you.

You really don’t have to think about what all the sounds mean anymore.
You just intuitively know it.

It’s like not having to think about breathing.
Your autonomic nervous system controls that in your brain’s medulla oblongata.
(And you thought you’d never again use that factoid from high school biology class.)

So what happens when all those familiar iPhone audio cues change?
Enter the new and ‘improved’ world of iOS 7.

Your iOS Life as It has Been… is Over.
I finally upgraded to iOS 7, Apple’s newest mobile operating system for their mighty army of iPhones/iPads.
I’m usually a late adopter, waiting around a few weeks for the 2nd or 3rd update tweak before I pull the trigger. First versions are always a little buggy.
(I jumped in this time at iOS 7.0.3.)

It’s no secret that this new iOS looks quite different.
And it contains enough operational updates to require your focused attention while you’re brushing up on how to use it.

For me, the larger problem wasn’t what I had to relearn visually.
It was losing the ability to understand the sounds of my phone’s updated language.
My phone would talk to me, and suddenly, I couldn’t understand it.

It felt as if my connection to the Borg Collective had been severed.
And I was about to began wandering about aimlessly with my arms flailing this way and that…
(not that the behavior is so unusual for me)

The only solution was to learn all of the new default audio cues.
And then let that information slowly seep into my medulla oblongata…

Sure, I still kind of knew what was happening when the phone rang.
Although I did miss calls, sometimes thinking I had heard someone else’s ring tone…
And the default jingle is so much more soothing, you can easily miss it in the roar of life.

Plus, I felt detached from the newly foreign sounds.
Even the on/off clicking cue was different… It had more echo.
Couldn’t they leave anything alone?!

Help!!!
What alternate universe had I been transported into?
My happy, Borg-like relationship with my iPhone was now just a mess.

Resistance is Futile
After a week, I decided it was time to go back to the future.
I just didn’t dig the new language.

(No, I didn’t ‘man-up’ and stick it out till my unconscious sufficiently absorbed the update.)

Instead, I drilled down deep in the iOS settings menu to discover
‘Classic Sounds.’

And I reactivated them.
(all of them)

Mmmmmmm… Classic Sounds.

I felt all warm and cozy again.

Yes, one day I’ll personalize the language of my iPhone with some of the newfangled audio cues.
(‘cause old sounds do eventually get boring…)
But I’ll determine the schedule of implementation, thank you very much.

And thank you, Apple for leaving the back door ajar for me.

I’m happy to report that symbiosis has finally been restored in my little
bio-tech relationship. I can again walk and talk with my iPhone… with ease.

My sense of individuality remains intact.
Total assimilation can wait for another day…

Category: Tech in the News

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: