A late Feb. firmware upgrade released by Apple for the Apple TV has broken the Boxee install on Apple TV devices.  Talk in the nerd-o-sphere is that Apple is being hush hush on reasons.  Not much that I have seen will even speculate.  Others, like the lovely and talented Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.TV have flat out begged Apple to re-enable the functionality of the very cool Boxee open source software.

With a late Q1, early Q2 rumor about Apple releasing new hardware updates to a variety of their products, many of which are obviously overdue, I am willing to speculate that the reason Apple bricked Boxee is because of a potential relationship with Netflix.  Boxee ties directly to your Netflix account, a process I just completed within 1 minute.  Within the last 6 months, Apple and Netflix began to play nice, wen the Netflix streaming video functionality for their subscribers was brought to Safari.

So let's have a look.  Apple and Netflix are now smooching sisters.  "Sure, use our browser to stream your content."  "Hey thanks, this is working out well for us to deliver our stuff to your very loyal fan base."  Alright, so now lets toss Boxee into the mix.  "Hey, we're open source, we can put Boxee on anything."  Netflix says "Sure thing, butter cup.  This is a great idea because we, as Netflix, want our customers to be able to see our movies on any device.  We're even streaming to Microsoft XBox and some Blue Ray players, heck even some new LCD TVs!".

Apple takes a second look and low and behold, they are sort of taken out of the picture streaming Netflix to people's TV because Netflix is pushing the Roku player (oustanding device, video evidence).  If they are going to make a push to offer more Apple features on the upcoming release of Apple TV, wouldn't "Hey, stream Netflix too?" be a huge selling point?  YES.  But if you can stream Netflix without having to upgrade your current Apple TV hardware, why would anyone switch over?

I am convinced that Apple killed Boxee with the latest firmware because they have an Apple sanctioned Apple TV Netflix feature on the table and in an effort to sell the new, shiny hardware later this year, they had to disable Boxee on Apple TV in order to make their relationship with Netflix continue to grow positively, despite how such action might affect the Netflix / Boxee relationship.

Any thoughts are welcome.  I am not an Apple Insider, I'm a chubby guy on my recliner in Omaha....but this totally makes sense, correct?

I have tried everything under the sun to create entertainment for myself...or at least shift my lifestyle in a way to fulfill my entertainment needs for the few hours a night I have to consume entertainment.  I have a Roku for streaming TV and movies to my television from Netflix, a Wii when I need to rock some tennis or ski my fat backside down a mountain missing 7 flags (ug, I know), I have a Tivo for time shifting content of my choosing from network and cable broadcasts, I have a 5 disk DVD changer, I have the highest level cable with HD + "On Demand", I have an iTouch full of video podcasts and audio podcasts...  Basically at any given moment between 6pm and 10pm I should be in complete control of how I spend my evenings...at the mercy of NONE....even the big whig "we know better than you what you want to watch" network broadcasts.

But even with all of this technology at my fingertips, I still have been finding myself struggling in the evenings to entertain my brain in either a fun way or a meaningful way.  I'd say 1/4 the time, I am generally enthusiastic about what I find on TV.  I have certain television programs I dig. The Big Bang Theory, Dirty Jobs, Survivor (I know...get off my ass), Big Brother (I know...get off my ass), The Amazing Race, Mythbusters, The Office, and a handful of others.  But the other 3/4 of the time from 6-10pm I am searching out things...looking for something that doesn't suck...or at least doesn't suck enough for me to turn the channel.

Tonight, thanks to a posting on Facebook, someone pointed me in the direction of http://live.twit.tv.  I thought "why not, it's either freaking American Idol, which I hate, or some crap on cable about UFOs or Monsters...."  So over I switched to watch Leo Laporte, a guy I listen to weekly on This Week in Tech.  Well I hve just spent the last 3.5 hours watching Leo Laporte and his various guests create shows, discuss technology, discuss the podosphere, and basically entertain my nerd brain this entire time.  I actually have had my 50" LCD Sony Wega TV turned off for hours because I've been watching this stream on my Macbook (holy crap, 24% battery left..I better charge).

So is this the future of my nerd entertainment?  Have I just evolved from a nerd that watches Cranky Geeks on my iPod from the toilet, listens to TWIT at work, and generally hits G4 TV every now and then for nerd news delivered by random hot chick into a dude that has spent way too much money on technology to satisfy my nerd entertainment cravings only to spend every waking moment watching video streams of nerd news on the internet instead of watching the cable I pay $130 a month for?  

 Leo Lapore, Twit, the entire Twit.tv network are far more entertaining to this geek than crappy broadcast television.  The few things I actually dig I will probably continue to Tivo and catch when time permits...but my days of watching "Extra Extra" just because it is on at 6:30 and it's either that or Wheel of Fortune, which I can't watch because our stupid dog barks at the door every time a correct letter "ding" dings (the dog thinks it's the freaking doorbell). are completely over.  I think I have truly set my mind at ease with not having to watch my TV and my cable just because it's a big TV and I am paying out the ass for cable programming.

If it sucks, it sucks...and I won't watch.  I will find my own content....I will watch it when I want and how I want....I will not be forced into the mind numbing boredom of crap, crap, crap any more....I, my friends, will watch nerd shows on the internet.  Thank you very much Leo Laporte! 

I unbox, display, discuss and connect my new Roku Netflix video streaming player!

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I've had an idea about creating a Digg-style social news network called www.BlogFloat.com devoted to New Media, bloggers, podcasters, video podcasters, social networks, and the like, for a while now and until recently couldn't muster up the man hours it would take to create one from scratch using the tools I am most familiar with (Visual Studio and ASP.NET). After the extensive programming I did on my Twitter-like site, www.bubeasy.com, I was sure this idea would remain in the idea realm and never materialize (like oh so many of my other concepts).

In search of an alternative route, I recently stumbled onto an article on Digg titled How to Build and Launch a Social News Site in 21 Days.

After reading the article and doing the mental calculations on how I could grab 21 days worth of time from my normally hectic schedule, I set out to research a bit more about the Content Management System featured in the article, Social Web CMS. I came to the conclusion that due to the fact I would be using a shared hosting account at GoDaddy and not having to run my own server (which would involve installing PHP, mySQL, and who knows what else), I should be able to get something up and running over a weekend.

Step one was to download and install the files on a free hosting GoDaddy account I had associated with another domain name. I wanted to test out the SWCMS before I plopped out any cash for the adventure and since I already had a Windows hosting credit, I thought why not? Unfortunately, after hours of heartache and visits to the SWCMS forum, with lots of support from a variety of folks over there, I opted to go ahead and buy the domain name I wanted, www.BlogFloat.com, along with some Linux hosting.

From there, I uploaded the files (I had some trouble using Filezilla on a Mac, as it seemed to only be willing to upload one sub-directory....if there were sub-directories within sub-directories, I had to manually upload them), did some slight tweaking, and then set out to Admin the new site. With great pleasure, everything seemed to work quite well.

I set out to try to tweak the graphics of the site by finding some Pligg-based templates on the web. After trying this one and that one, finding that things like the nav menu became broken or that certain pages wouldn't load at all, I re-uploaded the original files and basically started from scratch. Actually, I went through this procedure several times over the weekend as any time I seemed to tweak anything with a non standard template, things went to hell. Not that there is anything wrong with SWCMS, nor the templates, but I have been in the .NET world for a very long time and my PHP skills are foggy.

Administering the site proved simple, too. There is a module store that allows you to easily add existing modules to the new site, pretty much every setting for the site you can imagine is located in the Language menu, and the only notepad editing I had to do for the entire site was to re-write the FAQ page to suit my site's needs.

So over a weekend, purchasing the domain name and hosting on a Friday, tweaking, testing, and reloading from scratch a few times on Saturday, Sunday rolled around and I was pretty happy with the admin settings and layout (the default template “yget” is just pretty, I like it). I spent the day attempting to upload blog post links, editing a bit more in the Admin section, and that was it.

I showed off my new site to a few friends at work and was met with “wow” and “how long?” responses. The next step for the success of the site is to build the user network. My intention is to hit up every podcaster forum I can find, contact podcasters I know personally and ask for their support, and somehow I need to get the word out to the blogosphere, as such users would really, really find a site like this handy.

Imagine as a blogger that you are able to write a post, then post it at www.BlogFloat.com with a nice description and rise in popularity on the page based on the content of your writing. If people like it, you get hits. If not, then you try again with your next blog post.

I'm exicted about the future of www.BlogFloat.com. If anyone is interested in more details on how I made it work, feel free to contact me. Or, heck, just write a blog post, post it over at BlogFloat.com and I'll see it!

-Corby-

The Guild, a review of the web tv show located at http://www.watchtheguild.com

If you are not already in love with Felicia Day, then you're out of the loop! Who is she? Well, she's "Codex" on "The Guild", www.WatchTheGuild.com. She is also the writer and lead on this awesome web tv show. I stumbled onto this gem while chowing down a foot-long Blimpie's Best sammy over lunch about a month ago.

I had fired up the TV for a little G4TV on my cable system while destroying the sandwhich and they were doing an interview with Felicia about "The Guild". Being a former, and ever recovering, MMORPG geek, I was intregued immediately. After having spent nearly 3 years of my life sucked into the world of Everquest, only having given it up after my lovely bride politely told me that if I didn't stop playing the game, I'd be playing with myself for the rest of my life, anything I can live the MMORPG life vicariously through without actually logging the hours is right up my alley.

So that evening I watched the entire season 1 and as there were only two episodes of season 2 released, I added those to the night's viewing enjoyment. Note, each episode is only between 3-8 minutes long so knocking out the entire series up to this point is well worth the less than 2 hour investment. Much more entertaining than the 2-hour movie you've got 6 items down in your Netflix queue (trust me, I know).

Basically "Codex" (Felicia Day) is in a guild with a few other players. Vork (Jeff Lewis), Tinkerballa (Amy Okuda), "Zaboo" (Sandeep Parikh), "Clara" (Robin Thorsen), and "Bladezz" (Vincent Casso). Here's a direct link to the Cast Page.

This band of looters and raiders are all...special...in their own way. Zaboo leaves his mother's home to travel across the contry to pronounce his love for Codex, who is the least bit interested but still allows the creepy little sex pot to live in her house. His mother later comes into the picture as a mega-boss. In an effort to get some help from her guildmates, Codex arranges a real life get-together with these fine folks she's never met in person before. Hilarity ensues, as this group of social misfits, albiet a powerhouse of MMORPG goodness in-game, are a bunch of weirdos in real life. Hm...wonder if that's how things were back when I was rocking the Quellious Server in Everquest as a level 47 magician, "Skoalman".  Anyway, Bladezz holds the guild's loot bank hostage, Tinkerballa offers to babysit Clara's neglected children, Zaboo continues to attempt to make Codex fall in love with him pitifully, and Vork is trying to abide by guild rules not only in-game, but in real life.

One thing that the show is missing is some actual in-game footage. Maybe there's copyright reasons they aren't allowed to clip in some Warcraft video or whatever the flavor of the month MMORPG game is these days. It would sure be nice to see some "South Park"-esc game action here and there as this group struggles between real world problems and in-game guild obligations.

I've got to give this show a 10 of 10 for not only nerd humor, but the writing is great, the cast is outstanding, and the show is just an all around blast to watch if you can relate to the gamer mentality. Give "The Guild" just an episode or two of your time and see for yourself. I can promise you that you'll enjoy it as much as I do...if you're the least geeky or nerdy. And if you're here, you are.

-Corby-

I was sitting at work today when I received an email about the joining of Blogworld's expo and the New Media expo into one event.  I attended the first Podcast Expo (had a great time, met lots of awesome people) and the second which I believe was changed to "New Media Expo" the following year, both in Ontario, CA.  Although I haven't been able to go since, due to family and work, I still follow all of the happenings in the podosphere and in the new media expo world.

The email I received today was titled "BlogWorld Expo & New Media Expo Merge to Create One Huge Event for the Entire New Media industry!" from Rick Calvert, founder of Blogworld and New Media Expo and Tim Bourquin of the Podcast and Portable Media Expo (later named New Media Expo).  The two gave their perspectives on how the joining expos came about one, big mega nerd get-together.  The full contents of the email from Rick's perspective was published over at  Blogworld.com and Tim's perspective at newmediaexpo.com.

Ah, the old days of sipping beers in the Ontario, CA Marriott hotel bar with the likes of Keith and the Girl, Brother Love, Dawn and Drew, the guys from Nobody Likes Onions, Rob from Podcast 411, Nate and Di, Swoopy, Bibb, and countless, countless others....  (my old Flickr photos of the first year's event can be found here)

It's nice to see the two groups getting together and hopefully an official "sticking it to the old media man" expo will come out of this.  As active in the podcasting community as many of us are, either as content creators or fans/listeners/viewers, we new media folks need all the togetherness we can get.  I think that by these two forces joining together, we might be in for some of the best new media expo adventures yet!

-Corby- 

The eventual video podcast is coming, but for now, all I have for you is an intro video.  I think it looks pretty good on the iPod, minus the lower 3rds and any real content....but coming soon!

Intro