Will High Definition be the final blow to broadcast television?

Sometime in 2009 all analog television broadcast will cease, though it could be argued that high definition is also analog. Today an article said that half of US homes have a digital television, which means half do not. I have not decided whether to just let my television go black (or snowy white). With the government auctioning off the bandwidth there will be no going back. With DVD’s and internet videos I may instead just hook the television with a permanent connection to the internet. It also may help me be more creative and better use my personal time since I will need to plan my viewing.

Government subsidizing Telemarketers

Yesterday I had to file a government form locally. I was puzzled by the request because it duplicates a state filing. I assume the requirement dates back a hundred years ago when state and local governments had no easy way to communicate. I was also amazed to see them use an accounting accuracy method I had not seen in decades. I pointed it out to my colleague, who looked at me wondering why I was amazed. It was like I had stepped back in the time before computers. I had assumed decades ago when I saw it still being used by a clerk who was retiring I would never see it again. So other than a loss of time and twenty dollars what harm could filling out a redundant form have? This morning the telemarketing calls began. Telemarketers armed with information only available on that form. So I have found two important services my local government office offers; museum and telemarketing services.

Data Compatibility Automation

What is the next big thing on the web? It could be recycling data made incompatible by upgrades. Underlying web technology and standards have been stagnant this decade. That has been good for developers as languages and web browsers support code written years ago. This means that when sites like Yahoo upgrade their sites it is for minor improvements, but behind the scenes there are major changes. Yahoo upgraded this week. The old pages had a stock price tracker. It would track stocks you had previously looked up and you could also create a list. Both have disappeared today into the incompatible upgrade trash can. The feature is still there just not any data you previously put into it.

VH1 downgrades their music player

In 2006 VH1 redesigned their web site and built a new Flash music player. Fortunately they kept the old player. It appears they lost the programming expertise to build a comparable product. While there are many programmers that can write code, there are few that can write web applications at this level. In most industries these individuals receive top pay. In the computer software industry they receive the lowest pay. Creativity and inventiveness are not team qualities. A few companies are now seeking these qualities. Google has recruited over a thousand programmers based on intelligence and creativity. The top programmers at Blizzard, the creator of the most popular on-line game World of Warcraft, started their own company and are releasing their first title this Christmas. VH1 released the new player last month. It is much slower, has almost none of the original features, can not create a play list, and crashes after two hours of use. Its colors match the rest of the web site. As internet software matures I predict that companies will try to recruit creative developers instead of buying the companies they create or downgrading their software. Could the next Paris Hilton be a software engineer?

A New 8.25% Payroll Tax

States have been doing a lot of complaining that they are losing sales tax revenue to internet sales. They are working to get congress to pass a national sales tax that would collect this supposed loss of tax revenue. Never mind that the states lost this revenue in the 1700s when the US constitution made it illegal for states to tax interstate trade. What is really at stake is another employee tax. Employees are familiar with the Medicare and Social Security withholdings. More and more employees are seeing sales tax added to the list. If you do your job from home in Texas and do any of the work through the computer be prepared to add sales tax to the list of taxes to subtract from your paycheck. (I called the tax office and confirmed this). White collar jobs have seen a trend from working directly for companies to being contract. Now contract jobs are moving to day to day work similar to day laborers. Instead of waiting on the curb we wait for an email. Not only do you no longer have any benefits like health care but be prepared for more taxes. Unfortunately unlike Social Security this payroll deduction makes no promises and provides no services.

Sub-prime Rabbit

Even as the sub-prime melt down became apparent a few weeks ago many articles downplayed it. Articles on Yahoo Finance pointed out that the default rate is still low and is backed by homes that have value. What they failed to reveal is that many of the loans were bought by investors on credit with 5% or less as collateral. Meaning most investors have lost 100%. Here is a humorous video summing up the problem from an article by Gary Tanashian about investing in gold.

Stonehenge

Is this how they built Stonehenge? One engineer and a couple of helpers? Makes you want to move something big.

UFO spotted in Arlington Texas

Google mapping service accidentally documented a
daytime UFO. Google’s next project is finding Big Foot.

Fake Cows

Braum’s added a circular to the bag when I bought milk. After a sentence about the milk being rBGH free it says “and Comes from Real Cows!” So all the other stores get their milk from fake cows? I guess that goes along with chocolate milk coming from brown cows.

Why we Need the Private Sector

Tuesday President Bush announced a program to help those with mortgage problems including a hotline. He accidentally gave out the wrong number. Instead of the correct number 1-888-995-HOPE he said 1-800 which rings to a small Texas Christian group that provides home schooling material. The woman who answers the phone for Freedom Christian Academy tried to give callers the correct number but so many calls came in that she finally disconnected the phone. What I find disappointing is that with so many solutions available the government chose to do nothing. If they really considered these calls important they could have hired an answering service to sort out the calls. Since they planned to take these calls with a hotline they could have the number forwarded and do it themselves. A permanent solution would have been to buy the number from Freedom. Pay the cost for publishing a new number and a little extra for inconvenience. Freedom Christian Academy would have to agree to any solution, but as overwhelmed as they were it sounded like they would have accepted any reasonable offer.

One Way Street

The Wall Street Journal’s front page article How the Subprime Mess Hit Poor Immigrant Groups leaves out one important scammer. In this case the implied victim. Naira Costa was not the master mind in qualifying herself for a loan that her position as a housekeeper made impossible to pay back. She is a low income immigrant that could only pay back a $713,000 subprime mortgage for a California home if values went up. But she stood to gain the most if the get rich scheme worked. If she had done the scheme two years earlier I doubt she would feel remorse and return the profits. She knew how much she made and how much the loan was for. She understood that she would only be able to pay it back if the homes value increased. Now she feels sorry that it has ruined her credit and she did not get rich. So who is the victim? Ms. Costa will not be paying back the money. The bank will be bailed out by the government. The government will tax the hard working middle class. So I better stop writing on this blog and do some work.

Are Millions of Home Lots Worthless?

There has been a wealth of articles about the housing slump. A three part series by Reggie Middleton is the best I have read so far.

Straight Talk From the Homebuilder CFO: The Coming Land Recession, Pt I
Straight Talk From the Homebuilder CFO: The Coming Land Recession, Pt II
Straight Talk From the Homebuilder CFO: How independent are the independent auditors?

If he is correct then home builders abandoned reason and locked themselves into millions of home lots. With the down turn they now hold home lots worth less than the equity. Meaning to sell them they must pay money. In past downturns it has been ten or more years before the housing market recovered. Neither home builders nor banks are in a good position to wait it out. The last major housing slump in the 1980’s claimed several Savings and Loans and some home lots sold for little more than their tax liability. Those that bought and waited did well. The 1980s showed that buyers need not be in a rush and to expect real estate investments to be money pits for years. This downturn may have one additional bottom. Local and state governments spend much more now. In states such as Michigan that have already seen a downturn, instead of cutting spending they raised taxes.

It must be hard to be Customer Service

I had yet another software failure because of a Microsoft Update. This time it was Sonic DigitalMedia Plus the software that came with my HP to burn CD’s and DVD’s. I went to the Sonic web site which was down and used Google stored copy to find their phone number. I asked if they were still in business which they did not find funny. But since they had no working web site they did not hang up since I guess nobody else was calling to buy things. They do not support the software unless you buy it directly from them. HP is responsible for supporting it. They did offer to sell me a copy. So I fired off an email to HP who had no idea what to do other than restore it from the original file, which did not work. Though technically if I reloaded the operating system and did not allow for an update and did not reload Office I guess it would work. But since the whole purpose is to burn backups of the documents I create with Office I would no longer need it. I did notice latter that if you hold down the esc key after about 100 error messages the program does come up. I am not sure if it still works but I guess I could waste a CD and find out. The solution I found is that some of the Microsoft Software will burn a CD. Kind of weird that Microsoft took out their competitor’s software. Given the number of patches and the complexity of these programs it is surprising more stuff does not break. Sonic is so much easier to use they may actually come out ahead as users pay for an upgrade. I have pretty much stopped making backups which I hope does not come back to haunt me.

So much for ordering checks

I tried for the first time to order my checks through the internet. Obviously there is a certain amount of security so that valid checks are sent to the right person for the right account. My bank only allows re-ordering checks. I am not sure how you re-order checks if you are never allowed to order in the first place. I guess when you set up your account they set that up. I set up my account when I graduated from high school and the internet was still just an idea in Al Gore’s head. So I guess I will have to continue mailing my re-order form. I sent an email and customer support was not much help. I guess I was partly to blame I provided the information on the order form. They said they could not find me and asked if I really had an account. It was obvious to me that they put in the wrong number and why. At the bottom of the check are the routing and transit numbers then the account number. Maybe I should not have given them the entire number. I did not feel that old until this. My account is too old to be used through the internet.

Vongo should take over Microsoft support maybe

One of my readers called and said Vongo replied to my last blog. I was surprised and want Vongo to know I think Vongo is a great service. I like the speed and quality of the picture. You can start watching a movie before it is finished downloading. If you watch a movie that is still downloading do not try to rewind. The movie starts over from the beginning. If you watch all but the end of a movie be prepared to have to spend several minutes holding down the fast forward button to get back to the end. But these two problems may be the result of technical limitations of Windows Media Player. I heard another user complain that movies disappeared out of the movie queue too fast. I haven’t had that problem and like having the software manage the space.

What I was looking for from Vongo was how to satisfy their new requirements. Armed with the knowledge that it is possible to use Vongo and still have Internet Explorer 6.0 I tried upgrading again. This is how you do it if you have XP.
1. Go to http://www.update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us
2. Pick custom button
3. Validate that you bought your software
4. Remove IE 7.0 from the update list
5. On the left side panel click software optional. In that list will appear Update Rollup for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (KB925766). Check it and any of the other updates you want. You will need to check Windows Media Player 11 (for Windows Media Center Edition 2005) You may not see it the first time. Upgrade and after you reboot follow the above steps again. (This is what tripped me up)
6. Press install updates link.
7. Reboot. Expect two reboots in the above process and a third when you use your computer again.
8. Load Vongo and install the new version.
9. Watch a movie.