We all like to know what we are getting into.  Whether you are buying the latest and most sophisticated hardware product on the market, a new phone or a new laptop, the last thing you want to have to deal with is buying a lemon.  When you see advertisements for a new gadget that has just hit the market, you would think that new technology was the beginning of the Star Wars age and that you just have to have it right now!  But anyone who has been buying into new technology knows that the promises of the marketing of new technology often does not live up to what the gizmo will actually do once you get it home.

One solution that many of us turn to are product reviews.  The idea is a simple one.  Experts try out a new technology breakthrough that is coming to the market.  They review it and you can get to those reviews on the internet.  Then you have some insider information on whether your hard earned technology budget should go for this new, highly touted new device and end up satisfied that it is just as amazing as you had hoped it would be.

Too often, those product reviews steer you wrong. Sometimes it takes a month or two or even up to a year for the real problems with a new kind of technology to get to the public attention.  But why didn't the product reviewers let us know that we were not going to be happy with the new device we just bought? There has to be a reason for the huge credibility problem with technology product reviews. Once we figure out that reason, it might change how you buy technology and how you approach finding a review of that product that you can depend on.

Who's Whispering in Your Ear?

Part of the problem that we may have with product reviews of new technology is where we get them.  When a marketing campaign is put together for a big technology release, the website that is put up to support that product is often jam packed with information.  It is very easy to find product reviews there that bring to light all of the wonderful new features of the hardware or software.

The problem with getting a product review from the website supported by the maker of the machine is that they will always be positive.  If there are any negative comments, they are only being put there to give the reviews a small amount of credibility.  Even then, whatever the "problem" is, it is almost always something inconsequential or something that is there to make the device look better or to give you anticipation of even better things coming along with future releases of the product.

It is smart to know a little bit about where you are getting your information.  If you have a favorite website to get product reviews, take a look at reviews of some notorious lemons in the technology world.  If you have trouble finding negative reviews, that brings to question any review on that website.  The same could be said of technology publications as well.  Not only should you have a critical attitude about the sources of your product review, it is also smart to look at product reviewers and ask…

Who Are These People?

There is a dirty little secret behind who writes technology reviews and where they get their information. The people who write those reviews are, and this might surprise you, writers. Now being a writer is the noble profession of Hemmingway and James Joyce.  But people who write technology reviews are not writing the great American novel.  They are doing a job to make a living like you and I.  The job they do is to write about what they are assigned to cover whether they know anything about the technology or not.

It is highly likely that the person who is writing the technology review that you are basing your buying decision on may have never seen, touched or used the gadget he or she is reviewing.  Writers are adept at finding reviews that other people write and using what they learn to write their own stylized review. In many cases what a technology reviewer will do is to go out on the web and find reviews that are already there and then use those reviews to write his or her own piece to sell to the website that is providing you with a review.

Even if the technology reviewer actually has a chance to spend time with the new technology, what they will probably review is a prototype that they tried out at the computer or phone store or a loaner that was given to the reviewer to make it possible for him or her to write the review.  The reviewer will not have the time to genuinely get to know the device so they will simply talk about the cool features that jumped out at him when he spent his 15 minutes looking over the new technology.

Also consider that when product reviewers ask a manufacturer of a new technology for a loaner to review, the maker of the device is going to give the reviewer one that is packed to the teeth with quality applications and that works flawlessly.  The prototype is a marketing copy of the technology. "Lemons" very often happen when the technology goes into mass production. So you may never read a word about the real problems with the technology until you get your own gadget and discover the flaws.

Where to Find the Good Reviews

One great tactic for making sure you buy a new technology that will not disappoint you is to wait and not buy it when it first hits the market.  That goes against that natural instinct we have to buy the hottest new thing the minute it comes out.  But technology manufacturers are notorious for rushing a new device to market with flaws in place with plans to fix the problems after the fact.

If you wait a few months until the new technology is no longer new, two things work in your favor. First, you give the manufacturers the time to fix the problems with the device so by the time you invest in it, you are getting technology that works in the real world the way it was advertised in the first place.

Second, you give people a chance to surface the problems with the device and then write real reviews that reflect those problems. The best reviews you can find are blogs where the content of the site is entirely driven by people who are actually using the technology so they can tell you what is wrong. Let someone else discover the problem so that when and if you do decide to invest in the device, you will get a good one.

In a conversation with a friend about the ongoing sophistication of television, he once remarked to me, "It won't belong before all TV will be done with holograms so the characters will be right in your living room interacting with your family."  Of course, this sounds like a science fiction or science fantasy imagination.  But you don't have to go very far to notice how the next step toward that crazy idea is almost here in the form of 3D televisions that you can have in your own home.

The reality of 3D television is already here.  There are models of 3D televisions being advertised right now that are trying to cash in on the huge popularity of 3D movies.  Probably the biggest 3D movie sensation was the movie Avatar. James Cameron, the genius behind this amazing movie has openly predicted that 3D televisions will be the standard for TV watching within a couple decades.  From a consumer perspective on the push to get everyone onto HDTV, that prediction could come true a lot faster.

A Little Soon after the High Def Push.

The drive to yet another new format is questionable and one wonders how much these frequent format changes are about marketing more than demand.  After all, when was the last time you heard someone say, "I would kill to be able to watch Fear Factor in 3D"?  Probably never. Yes, it is one thing to see a big screen blockbuster movie in 3D because that adds to the spectacular nature of some films.  But even then, there are lots of movies such as romantic comedies or independent films that would be a waste of technology to apply the 3D method to them.

It could be that it is the television manufacturers who love to push a new technology and it is the genius of marketing and advertising that makes everybody think they need that new format.  Then as the new technology takes over the market, it gets harder and harder to find a new TV in the old format. The push toward HDTV has gone this way in some ways.  When the time comes that you cannot buy a new TV that isn't HDTV, then everybody will have one, even if many consumers could care less about High Def technology.

Consumers are aware that they are being pushed toward new technology.  That is why this new concept in watching television may not be as exciting for many consumers as it is for the retail market that sells televisions. The campaign to get everyone on HDTV has been unrelenting and many consumers resent being pushed toward a technology that they do not really want.  And while there are some added values to HDTV, it has taken consumers a while to take to those new features.  As more and more channels switch to HD format, that acceptance level is catching on.

This newest push to the new 3D technology may be more difficult to get past a skeptical public.  For many it is hard to see a future where everything from their local news to reruns of Cheers being presented to them on a 3D television.  Even big screen televisions are not as massive as a movie theater screen so home viewing of big budget movies like Avatar is going to lose something seeing it in a home setting.  That is assuming that the 3D experience at home can be done to a high enough quality to live up to the movie experience.  That is a tall order.

Wearing Glasses to Watch Gilligan's Island Reruns.

One question that industry experts have had to field about whether 3D television will be a success is whether consumers will have to wear those cumbersome 3D glasses at home to get the value out of their new TVs.  The answer is yes. And they won't be the cheap cardboard kind either.  The 3D glasses needed for get a full 3D experience from a home television unit will be large and complicated affair that are powered by batteries themselves. 

Once again, there are lifestyle issues with introducing these bulky and uncomfortable glasses to the home viewing experience.  There is no question that we simply watch things at home differently than we do in the theater.  For one thing, if you need expensive and complicated glasses for a 3D television shows, how many will you need?  If you have a large family or frequently enjoy television with friends or extended family, does that mean keeping 5 or 6 or 10 3D glasses on hand for everyone to wear?  If the 3D television comes with 2 pair of glasses, that will be an additional expense to buy more. The overhead and fuss and bother of dealing with the 3D glasses for every show you watch may be more than the average television audience will be willing to put up with.

So the argument will be made, you will not see every show in 3D.  You might just watch an occasional movie, concert or sporting event in 3D.  So will that justify replacing existing television equipment with expensive 3D televisions just for an occasional use?  A TV is a part of life that everybody is exposed to every day.  Mom and dad might watch must see TV at night and then allow the teenager to watch music videos or Disney shows and then later on the little ones to enjoy the latest cartoons.  If 3D does not dominate the daily routine viewing of television, it may not be worth the investment for the average television consumer.
When Will it End?

There are additional overhead issues that could stand in the way of 3D television.  To use these new television to watch rented video, you will need a Blu-ray player. Once again, consumers may feel pressured by the constant replacement of their video equipment. First it was VCRs then CD and then DVD and then HD DVD and now Blu-ray.  One has to wonder, when will it end?

If the powers that be can get 3D television to that point that James Cameron predicted, there are lots of growth that can happen.  One can envision 3D HD coming along after that and further developments on the glasses technology as well. Another hurdle to be conquered is to get enough television stations to broadcast in 3D to justify the sale of the equipment.  It seems like an uphill battle to get a viewing public to make this transition in light of what a limited type of viewing one would do on a 3D television.  But let's not underestimate the persistence and talent of marketers of this kind of product.  Even if you are skeptical, sure as anything you will find yourself watching TV with big 3D glasses on in a few years thinking, "What happened?"

The Beginner's Guide To Choosing a PDA

For everyone thinking of buying their first PDA, this guide's for you! A gentle introduction to these devices should be all you need. PDAs aren't like other computers - they're compact, user-friendly, fast, featureful, and even fun!

The first thing you have to do is figure out what you want to use a PDA for. The most common use is as a datebook or appointment planner, a purpose for which PDAs are suited like no other device. Address books are the second most common feature, and something else that are very well-managed on a PDA. A calculator is a given. Email and Bluetooth/ WiFi connectivity is usually required as well. PDAs also make great eBook readers. And for jotting down quick notes or sending text messages, an onscreen keyboard or stylus with handwriting recognizer.

What other fancy features would you like? A USB connector will let you hook up your peripherals. A backlight is essential if you won't always have full light. And then there's the entertainment value - quite a few games are being written for the PDA platform, and multi-media applications will let you watch movies or listen to music. And web browsers have also become standard with the platform.

All of these will be things to keep in mind when you go shopping. Be sure to ask around your social circle for the model you're interested in; chances are you know someone who has a model they'll let you look at. Work is an especially good environment for shoulder-surfing PDAs.

Major brands include the Windows Mobile Classic PDAs, ASUS - Asus P750 3G/ HSDPA/ GPS PDA Smartphone, Hewlett-Packard - HP iPAQ 212 Enterprise Handheld PDA, 4P - 4P FDA300 - Intrinsically Safe PDA - CE5 / Barcode / GPRS / Atex, Zypad - Zypad WL1100 Wearable Industrial CE6 PDA with GPS, Pocket PC, and the Blackberry. Of course, the market is always changing, and new manufacturers are always coming and going. Some of the PDS market is getting absorbed from either end into the smartphone category at the lower end and the UMPC (think mini, mini laptop) on the high end, so you might consider these devices as well.

Some quick care tips for after you get your PDA: Use furniture polish to clean your PDA, buffing out any scratches. An inexpensive alternative to a screen protector is to use a swatch of clear vinyl tablecloth from a fabric store, cut to fit the screen, stuck on with a few drops of water and using your fingers to smooth out the bubbles. In case your PDA ever gets lost, set an alarm to go off once a week and briefly flash your phone number and address on the screen, to help people find it and return it. And when worse comes to worse, remember that a hard reboot, not a soft reboot, will reset the device just like hitting Control-Alt-Delete on your home computer reboots it.

Things You Can Do With Bluetooth Sunglasses

Let us not be shy about it: When you use Bluetooth-enabled sunglasses and eyewear devices, you are officially living in the science fiction era. It's no joke, you really have joined the era of *Star Trek*. We're only a holodeck and transporter away from exploring the galaxy and talking to Vulcans and Klingons now.

Most of the functions of Bluetooth sunglasses involve features that have nothing to do with protecting your eyes from the sun. Instead, they have built-in digital capabilities which take advantage of the fact that eyewear touches both your eyes and ears.

One such device is the built-in MP3 player and speakers. Now the glasses are a headset of sorts, with USB storage onboard and speakers built right into the parts by the ear. Now you have musical sunglasses. Some of these store up to a gigabyte of music, and can talk to any other Bluetooth-enabled device, so your computer at home can download and store your music, and you can upload your playlist and MP3 to your sunglasses. Is this amazing or what?

How about built-in phone capability? It makes sense to combine a headset phone and sunglasses. You can build the headset bit into your sunglasses bit, and then you can walk around talking hands-free without looking like the Borg got you (we'll be keeping the *Star Trek* jokes at a constant rate here, get used to them).

How about capabilities involving the video instead of the audio? They also make so-called "spy" sunglasses with hidden camera and video recorder, so you can record a you-eye view of whatever you're looking at. This helps if you're on the away team and need the science officer on deck to analyze the alien you're looking at (we told you!). However, should you hit the beach in your video-camera shades and find yourself walking behind a bikini-clad sweetie, well, we didn't mean to put ideas into your head.

Furthermore, each of the above capabilities can be built into the same unit. And with head-up displays and video-aided visual displays, common in industrial use, you could have an image projected onto the glasses as well.

You can wait for your Borg implant or you can get these today. What can you be with them? Could you start your own superhero persona? We don't see any reason why not.

What Accessories Are Available For a PDA?

In light of the explosion in PDA's popularity in the past decade, it's kind of surprising how many people are still running around with just the bare unit. They might keep the AC adapter/charger that came with the unit, and might even drop it into a leather pouch when they think of it, but otherwise they miss out on a whole array of gadgets to make their PDA experience something more enjoyable.

Carrying cases are of course one of the most common accessories. It's worth it to get a durable one that looks good and is even stylish. After all, if the thing is going to follow you around every day, it might as well look good while it's doing that! Cases range from simple pouches to little purses to holsters that clip on the belt (for the "I'm Batman!" factor). More durable cases run to aluminum and other metals, for the rugged bush-dweller. Styles range from mod to hipster to snooty goth.

Bluetooth PDA accessories add a whole new dimension to a PDA. With Bluetooth speakers, it can become your personal music station, or with a Bluetooth headset it can become a communications tool.

Data storage options for PDAs are a must-have accessory. Typically a USB-plugged external drive can store anywhere from 128MB to a few Gigs. This extends the functionality of a PDA, and since they're so affordable, a new trend is appearing: the USB thumb-drive ring. This is a keyring with multiple USB thumb-drives on it, so you can keep them organized and have one for documents, one for video files, one for games, and so on.

You also don't have to limit yourself to using a stylus or twiddling your thumbs over an onscreen keyboard. Keyboard accessories, using either a USB plug or Bluetooth, can extend the functionality of a PDA, letting you type in comfort and accuracy on-the-go. Other input accessories include gaming console devices, including mice and joysticks. PDAs are getting powerful enough now to afford a portable gaming solution.

Screen cleaners and screen protectors are another essential accessory. These come in a wide range of solutions designed to do their job well without getting in the way.

One last accessory worth mentioning is the replacement stylus. Yes, sure, you can order the plain black ones - they point, and for some that's all you need. But recently there are modified devices that include a stylus, such as pen combinations, and even laser-pointer combinations, as well as styluses that clip to your pocket and are styled more like a high-end pen. Practical and fashionable.

What Can You Get in Bluetooth Devices? 

Information technology kind of hit a jackpot with Bluetooth. For once, we have an extremely useful telecommunications protocol which became an open standard, and to this day enjoys an open existence while not being owned by any company in particular. That is, the Bluetooth special-interest-group is actually a conglomerate of electronics manufacturers. So it isn't tied up in patents, and it isn't licensed from some company threatening to sue everybody, and it isn't closed-up proprietary abandonware that nobody in the modern day can crack... we got lucky.

For those of you who don't know, Bluetooth is a wireless communications protocol which can currently send and receive at about one megabyte per second. It is perfect for short-range data transmission which doesn't have to be high-bandwidth. One of the technologies it's replacing is infrared signals.

Some cocktail-party trivia: If the name sounds unappetizing, the name comes from the nickname of King Harald I of Denmark and Norway, who ruled in the tenth century. He's responsible for uniting the tribes of Denmark into a single kingdom, which is sort of what Bluetooth does with digital devices. And the logo is actually a combination of two Germanic runes named "Gebo" and "Berkanan."

Now then, here's a list of devices and applications where you'll find Bluetooth technology in action:

Just about any mobile phone or headset. Just about any computer peripheral, using wireless mice, keyboards, and printers. Wireless networking between computers, laptops, PDAs, UMPCs, pocket-PCs, and mobile devices of every stripe. Speakers and headphones. These are all given, and not too surprising.

Lots of industrial applications. Bar-code scanners, medical scanners, police forensic equipment, traffic control equipment, some retail point-of-sale devices, GPS receivers, security equipment. Anything that uses OPEX (OBject EXchange, the binary file transfer protocol) as likely as not runs over Bluetooth.

And now for some of the more surprising and newer applications of Bluetooth:

Game consoles. Both the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PlayStation-3 use Bluetooth technology for their wireless controllers. This has helped to revolutionize gaming technology. The Nintendo Wii in particular has been noted for being revolutionary in having a controller which allows you to combine exercise and video gaming. In your hands, the controller can double for a tennis racket, golf club, katana, fishing rod, lightsaber, pool cue, laser cannon, and anything else you can imagine.

Small home accessories which use Bluetooth are also becoming possible as well. Bluetooth-enabled TV remotes and garage-door openers haven't yet become commonplace, but their day is coming.

Another growing field is "telehealth" devices. These are devices associated with remote patient monitoring, implanted devices, and sensory aides. Your future pacemaker or insulin monitor may use Bluetooth to communicate with a base in your home or the doctor's office.

Finally, Bluetooth has shown the ultimate sign of adoption - it's starting to show up in marketing! Yes, it is slowly becoming a common occurrence: you're at the mall, walking along by the shops and looking at your phone, when it suddenly displays an advertisement from a store you're passing. Hmmm, we hope that doesn't get too annoying, but even so, it still sounds kind of cool.

And just to balance the cool comment.. Here's the Microsoft driver model!

Is Open Source Just For Do-It-Yourselfers? 

We blame Richard Stallman. Stallman, God bless him, is the Godfather of the Free Software movement (and by extension, the God-uncle of the Open Source movement), but he projects this image of the world's oldest hippie. Add to this that many of the original Free Software founders and contributors (as well as Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux) were in the beginning pitching in their efforts to volunteer. Add some bad press associating open source licensing and free distribution with communism (in the United States, synonymous with evil) and you have this idea that open source software is just for hobbyist geeks. In short, the DIY crowd.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Even though any hobbyist can download, modify, and redistribute Linux, it is also the key cornerstone technology in most digital deployments today. This also goes for another open source operating system which is suffused with the savor of Unix, which are the BSDs: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and all. The very act you're doing now, browsing a web page over the Internet, could not be done without open source software.

Why is this? Well, for one thing, in order for the Internet to work, it has to do one very unusual thing: it has to belong to everybody. To accomplish that, it has to be built with technology which is controlled by everyone, and hence doesn't really belong to anyone. And to do *that*, those technologies in turn have to be based on standards committed to the public good, and so on.

An early cautionary example is the GIF image format. Animated GIFs saturated the web in the early days, but soon after it was adopted everywhere it was announced that the GIF method was now patented by Unisys Incorporated, who was threatening to either start charging licensing fees or suing the entire world. Only after the original GIF patents expired (as recently as 2005) was the GIF format once again free to be used by anyone.

So, with that being said, why do businesses support and contribute to open source? Well, imagine other things undertaken for the public good. Roads, for instance. If you own a shop, you want it by the road. A row of shops, each in competition with the other for business, will still cooperate together to achieve a common goal of having roads everywhere, because without a transportation infrastructure, none of them gets any business anyway. By the same logic, Free and Open Source Software (often abbreviated FOSS) is the common utility used by everyone.

Yes, even companies like Microsoft, Adobe, and Apple contribute to open source! In Microsoft's case, they are the sworn enemy of Linux, yet they contribute patches to the kernel because if you use both Linux and Microsoft software, they want to be sure that their product works with Linux. Apple, while preferring that everybody buys a shiny computer from them with Apple software on it, still contributes to BSD, because their own OS X operating system is in fact built on top of BSD Unix!

Going down the list, open source is used in governments (another case of cooperative public production), businesses, educational institutions, laboratories, and institutions the world over. Besides running the Internet, Linux deployments include the Loongson processor, the US National Nuclear Security Administration, French Parliament, the OLPC project, Sony's PlayStation 3, Amazon.com, Google, the New York Stock Exchange, CERN laboratories, and the United States Army.

The fact is that actually there are two Linux cultures. The home/ hobbyist tinkerers exist on one level, while government, science, and industry works on an entirely different level. Truly, the home desktop user market often appears to be unaware of both!

Will DOS Always Be With Us? 

Kind of like the COBOL programming language, DOS is in a state of perpetually being declared dead, while still seeing moderate, if unenthusiastic, usage. There are very good reasons for this, but they lie in the murky depths of computing history.

To deal with COBOL first, the COmmon Business-Oriented Language came along at the right place and time in history: right when industry world-wide was adopting the mainframe computer. As a result, businesses today are still content to keep running these mainframe systems, and are obliged to keep hiring from an increasingly smaller pool of COBOL programmers to maintain them. The logic here is that there's no reason to buy a newer car if your old one just keeps taking you to the store and back!

With DOS, it, too, came along at the right place and time, but for different reasons. DOS, or Disk Operating System, happened along at the exact time of the desktop computer revolution, when almost overnight, every home seemingly had to have a computer. The Internet itself soon became the must-have reason to own a computer. So during this time, the computer market exploded, and with it, the software market.

Exhibit A is Microsoft. The first version of Windows to see widespread sales was 3.1, and it ran as a shell on top of DOS. Subsequent versions of Windows ran on DOS as well, but slowly phased out the need to have a command line shell supporting them. In fact, Microsoft's latest Windows version do still use a command shell, but only as a side offering. they keep the command-line interface mostly hidden from the end user.

Anyway, DOS was the dominant system for home computing, and so all of the software written at this time ran on DOS. The tech industry just kept growing... To this day, more software exists for the DOS platform than any other!

This leads to a kind of snap-back effect. Unlike COBOL, DOS systems quickly became outdated and home consumers have apparently decided that they need a new computer every three to five years. But one thing they hate to do is switch software! So now we have this legacy of old software that still needs DOS to run. You can see where this is going.

Today, the most prominent substitutes for DOS are the Free and Open Source product DOSBox, or the commercially-produced FreeDOS. Both of them run on modern systems, and run as an embedded program to emulate a DOS environment for legacy DOS-based programs.

DOS is also an extremely light system. The only comparable system to it is the oldest versions of the Linux operating system. You have to go to Linux 2.0 kernel to get as much "bang for buck" in the same space. More recent versions of Linux have become more featured while bloating up in space, and DOS... well, it stopped right there! It is very feature-bare, but it runs! So now DOS has also become a common system on very small digital devices.

These two effects have served to create a continuing life for DOS when, by all logic, it should have died off long ago. Linux, the free interpretation of Unix, has been pressing hard to replace it, since Linux can be customized for any task and the bloat can be stripped out to fit it into small spaces. But for now, DOS still has a twilight existence.

I never thought I'd see the day when a piece of free software got me reaching for my wallet and singing the praises of everyone involved - but here it goes... It's a quick story over two days... So bear with me.

The story starts with the stark realisation that even after shelling out for the Platinum $100+ per month cable premium package for the last few years, the companies in Australia are still peddling junk and it's getting worse.  Don't even get me started on the rapidly increasing advertising volumes.  Or mention the 'insult-to-your-intelligence' "Download" feature you can now get on your PC - Where you can't actually "Download" anything - or move content to your PDA or movie player!   Despite these gripes, as a family, we have traditionally wanted to do our bit to keep the Australian industry alive using legal movie services, local DVDs stores and so on.  Let's face it - free to air TV in Australia has a long way to go before it's going to keep a family of five entertained.

So - grumbles aside - I turned off the cable box and happily upgraded my buggy old Vista Ultimate Media Centre to Windows 7 - Which, by the way, has been a fantastic experience.  My fanatacism for Microsoft operating systems has returned and I retired that embeded Media PC permanently.  Having worked out the movie and music collections again and connected up the old NAS boxes (thanks to a Buffalo blog!) things were looking up.  Even the old TV tuner worked out of the box! (Three cheers again Microsoft - Good work after the XP Media Centre nightmare!) 

On this high, I discovered this crowd - http://www.milliesoft.co.uk - and subsequently their eye-popping plug-in called TunerFree MCE.  "Not another software review..." I hear you scream !

Did you know that there are literally hundreds of legally streamable free-to-air high-definition TV programs ready to watch via your Windows 7 Media Centre - all for just a few coins a month... Interested now?  Here's where the fun started.

Installation from Milliesoft was the simple bit...  in it went with an expectant air of nervous excitement.... Starting up the "Extras tab" and clicking TunerFree MCE lands you to this...

Amazing looking array of programming when you discover that each channel has stacks of programs and each program often has multiple episodes... But clicking on a show throws an omminous error about "this program is only available to UK viewers!!"

After reading the forum notes HERE - It became quickly apparent what the issue was... We're not in the UK!! Or the US for that matter for US's Hula... And all of these free-to-air services expect your IP address to be "local"... Soon fix that!

VPN services to the rescue...  

After testing a few options, the most reasonable so far seems to be www.ukivpn.com - Signing up for a single month to test the US and UK VPNs was painless and about $12 (unlimited bandwidth and US + UK VPN logins) - A darned site cheaper than the $100+ we're paying for cable.  Off went the PayPal details and a unique VPN login was provided just hours later... Impressive setup.  They even provided nice neat instructions.

First up, I created a couple of Windows 7 PPTP VPN tunnels (remembering to just set CHAP2 and switch "AUTO" back to PPTP in the VPN type (otherwise Windows 7 sits there trying to negotiate an IPSEC VPN for ages)...

Secondly, I created two simple batch files which can be called in the TunerFree MCE settings page:  

StartUKVPN.bat

RasDial USVPN \disc
RasDial WORKVPN \disc
RasDial UKVPN username password

and EndUKVPN.bat

RasDial UKVPN \disc

I needed to make sure my US and Work VPNs were disconnected first, before hitting the UK VPN - All too easy - and to my amazement - it all worked!  No more error messages.

Now we're enjoying a full selection of UK TV content from within Windows 7 MCE and couldn't be happier.  Now onto Hula from the USA.  It worked too.  Not the same picture quality and more advertising - But the US VPN setup works nicely despite some mouse-work needed.  Possibly some room for improvement in the Hula dept...

If you get stuck with anything, drop us a comment and I'll post more detailed notes in the area that you're having issues with.

If this article helped out, don't forget to visit our sponsors banners.

Have fun
Andy

P.S. I'll add notes and further screenshots as they come to light.

There needs to be a Gadget for everything? Right?

Well given that cardboard is so 1980's and every item of clothing will soon need to have a battery to make it "do something" - the MingleStick fills an age-old niche. The business card replacement.

While I can't see companies handing out MingleSticks instead of business cards to get the trend going, BUT if it takes off, it's sure to be a great wave. We've all been talking about Open Social and about just using a unified Card-Exchange on your Windows Mobile, Symbian or iPhone PDA - but is anyone listening?  New Gadgets are just more fun!  And I guess the simple answer is that pulling out that special iPhone application is just "too complex" for many. The Mingle Stick is extremely simple and surprisingly effective.  I look forward to seeing it at an upcoming trade-show even for business card exchange.

Here's the MingleStick home page if you want it "from the horse's mouth".

So how does it actually work?? Simple...

Step 1: Press a button

Two users point their MingleSticks at each other and press a button. The red flashing light turns solid green to indicate a successful connection. The connection is made within a split second! Just point and click! It’s that easy!

Step 2: Plug into a computer

Plug your MingleStick into a computer that is connected to the Internet. Your MingleStick connections are then uploaded to our website. You will then be asked to login to your online account with a secure username and password.

Step 3: Review your connections

View the people you connected with using your MingleStick. Check out their profile pictures and contact information within your online address book. You can also visit their social profiles found of popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. Mingle360 turns your real-world conversations into online connections!

In Action!

Now that you have a basic understanding of how the MingleStick works, watch the
following video to see the MingleStick in action!