You may have noticed lately that finding a music video on YouTube is becoming increasingly more difficult.  The music labels have always been a little fickle (now there’s an understatement) about their artists’ works being uploaded on YouTube, but now it appears that 3 of the 4 major labels have banded together to create their own music video hub.

Welcome to Vevo, a combined effort of Universal, Sony and EMI.  The lone major absentee is Warner Music, which represents the likes of Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Green Day.. so you you’ll have to look elsewhere for your 21 Guns fix.

The site has a clean interface, boasts over 14,000 titles, and you know that the quality of the videos is top-notch.  No crappy user-added garbage here.  The downside is that you have to sit through a short ad prior to watching your video, but that’s pretty much the norm everywhere now.

I’m not sure that we need yet another place to look for video, but it’s nice that the record labels are starting to play nice.

For now.

The Opening Ceremonies start tonight.  Unless I find a way to get a broadcast signal into my new TV, I don’t think that I’ll be watching them.  It does pose a bit of a problem though…  the hockey tournament will be starting up in a couple of days, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be missing any of that!  I do have a backup TV that I can watch, but it seems such a waste to have a brand new 40″ LCD sitting there.  Oh sure, it looks great when I am playing movies and TV shows from my XBox 360, but the over-the-air antenna is useless when hooked up to it.  It’s strange.. that same antenna hooked up to an older TV, sitting in the exact same spot, brings in all the channels I need in crystal clear resolution (with a little tweaking, of course)…  but hooked up to the new TV (and yes, I’m amazed that it even has an antenna connector in the back!).. it’s useless.. it gets the sound for CBC, and that’s it…  no video, and it doesn’t even attempt to bring in CTV or Global.  I’m sure that the engineers who designed the TV weren’t expecting some idiot to try to hook up a set of analogue rabbit ears to his flatscreen.  I mean, who does that?

Yeah, I know…

Better go find somewhere to watch the Games!

Tablet PCs have been around for a few  years.  Know anyone who actually owns one?  Me neither.  How about someone who’s even seen one?  Nope, pas moi.  I’ve never really been sure what they were intended for.  Sure, there might be some specialized uses for them.  I think that they’d be great for hospitals, maybe even certain factory situations.  But for everyone else… what’s the point?  Without a keyboard, data entry would be painful, right?

Well that was before the rise in popularity of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, with their fancy touch screens.  Yeah, they didn’t come up with the touch screen, but they seem to be the ones who get credit for making it cool. 

So will Apple breathe life into a product that essentially has limited mass-appeal?  Will slapping an Apple logo on something that no one seemed to want when it ran Windows suddenly make people want to own one?  I’m not overly excited about it.  I’m even less excited by the name.  iPad?  Umm…  really?  Is that the best you could do, Apple?  Am I the only one who thinks that name is a more than a little silly?  It brings to mind an image that is anything but hi-tech.

Only time will tell whether the iPad takes off.  Someday I’d love to hear from someone who’s actually held one of these things in their hands.

No, it’s not a clown fish… it’s the latest addition to my family of mp3 players.  I wish that I could find my original 256mb player.  I thought that thing was pretty amazing.  And looking back, I suppose that it was.

I’ve still been unable to locate my 8GB Nano.  I’ve cleaned out the car, and I’m still thinking that it’s in there… SOMEWHERE… but I haven’t been able to find it.  I just can’t imagine it being anywhere else.  Doesn’t matter… I couldn’t live without my music, so the same day that I went to Future Shop for a TV, I swung by the iPod section. 

Hello Mr 16GB silver Nano, complete with video camera, pedometer, FM radio, and whatever else I probably won’t use.  I actually tried out the video camera, and it’s pretty slick… but I don’t know how often I’m going to use something like that.  The pedometer… well, maybe when the ice age thaws a little (thank you Global Warming for getting my hopes up!)… I can see that being useful.. the first time…    As for the radio, I tried it.. it sounded like crap, so I went back to my regular music.

I have to say, it’s a nice looking iPod.  I didn’t care much for any of the colours, other than the silver.  I would have liked a red one, but you have to order those ones special, I believe.  The “reddish” ones that they sell in stores aren’t really what I was looking for. 

It seems lighter than my old Nano.  I think that I prefer the older square shape, but I’ll get used to this.  I like playing with it when I’m watching video, flipping it back and forth and watching the video screen adjust to however I’m holding it. 

I’m easily amused sometimes…

Many thanks to the people who commented on my TV woes.  I should have rounded you all up and taken you into Future Shop with me!  Especially those of you who enjoy haggling with the salespeople to save a few extra bucks! 

After that original post, I was determined to diagnose the problem, and see if it was something simple.  I was going to take note of when the TV was on, what time (if) it shut off by itself again, swap some cables around… basically do all the technical troubleshooting that I could do on my own.

*pop*  It shut off.  A whopping 15 mins after I sat down to watch something.  That was enough for me!  I didn’t even bother watching the rest of my show.  I just started to package it up, and went to bed.  So much for troubleshooting.  It would be Future Shop’s problem now.

I figured that I would take the Dynex back and replace it with the same model.  Of course, I did have to wait in the parking lot 40 mins for my TV to catch up to me, as there was a bit of a miscommunication with the driver bringing my old one.  (Don’t ask)

Replacing it was easy.  I had hoped that the same guy who sold it to me would be there, because I distinctly remember saying “I’ll roll the dice” the day that I bought it.  I wanted him to know that the dice came up snake-eyes, and the TV was a lemon.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t working.

Now, going without a TV really wasn’t an option.  And spending more money wasn’t an option either.  I could have downsized, and upgraded the brand name.  That might have gotten me a better quality TV, albeit with a smaller viewing area.  But I went with my original option… swap it out for a 1:1 exchange. 

There were no questions asked.  I did remember to ask the guy whether he was aware of anyone returning the same TV with the same problem.  His answer was “no”, and I’m inclined to believe him, if only because I couldn’t find a single instance online of anyone complaining about this problem.  So maybe it was an isolated occurrence.

I’m proud to report that the new Dynex 40″ LCD looks great in my living room, and so far has been running without any problems.  Now that I’ve moved past worrying whether it’s going to shut off on its own, I’ve started tweaking some of the settings to make it more personal.  I think that I’d like to add some additional speakers to it, especially since I quite often watch music videos.  But that’s something for another day. 

What do you do when Life hands you lemons?  You get a new TV! 

Should I have aimed for the LG?  Only time will tell.  I’ll give you the opportunity to say “I told ya so” in a few months/years…

As pretty much everyone in the western hemisphere knows, I finally bought a TV.  Sure, it took having my other one go *poof* and emit a funny smell… but hey… I finally stopped babbling about buying a new TV, and just did it!  Nike would be so proud of me.

I’ve only had the TV for 4 days, and I haven’t had it on today, so this is based solely on the previous 3 days of use…  it looks nice, sounds nice, and I generally feel that I should have taken the plunge and bought it much sooner.  With one tiny little unwelcome feature.

It seems to mysteriously shut off.

Three times, once during each day, the TV has mysteriously shut itself off.  I’m watching content through my XBox 360, and two of the three times, I was skipping ahead in a movie when the TV shut off.  The third time, I was sitting at the XBox control panel, and it turned off.  It turns back on easily enough, and I continue watching…  but it’s more than a little annoying.

I’ve started an initial scour of the internet help forums, hoping to find someone complaining of the same thing.  So far I have not found anything.  I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.  If it was a common problem, I’d be inclined to take it back quickly and look at something else.  If it’s something that is unique to my TV then I’m inclined to take it back and replace it with another of the same make and model.  But I’m not ready to just package everything up, and go through the bother of taking it back in, only to find out that it might be something in a setting or something that I can resolve myself.  I need to take a closer look at the power saver options, although my initial thought is that is not the cause of my issue.

I have 30 days to return it with no questions asked, so I still have some time.

I’ve been using the free version of AVG Anti-Virus for years… before it became popular.  Now it regularly tops the list of anti-virus software, especially considering that it’s completely and totally free for personal use.  You can’t get much better than that.  I’ve recommended it to anyone and everyone who’s ever asked me what they should use.  Norton?  McAfee?  Nope.  They were good in their day.  Great, even.  But it’s pretty hard to compete with something that is effective, easy to use, and (did I say this already?) free.

So I just plopped down $19.99 for a year’s license of AVG Anti-Virus…

?WHAT?

Yes, it’s true.  I had to reinstall Windows, and was putting all my programs back on, and when it came to AVG, I noticed that they were promoting their professional license option for $19.99 (regular $35).  I compared the two of them closely.  AVG Free does everything that the professional version does.  I think that I have access to their support line now, not that I’ve ever needed it.  So basically, I paid $20 for something that I could have gotten for free.

Why?

It’s an excellent piece of software, and something that I’ve been lucky to have access to for years.  I think that it was a very gutsy call for the company to offer a full version of their software for free, in a market where their competitors generally charge $30 or more.  Unlike many “free for now” models that aim to hook a user with a free product, and then turn it into a paying one (Bluemountain.com e-cards is a great example), AVG has continued to offer it’s free version… well.. forever.

I really don’t have a problem with companies that attempt to entrench their brand, and then move to a newly revised pricing model.  They are businesses, after all.  And businesses can’t survive without money.  Even in the case of BlueMountain, I briefly had a paid membership with them, but closed it after deciding that I wasn’t going to send as many e-cards as I had thought.  So it’s perfectly understandable that companies charge for their products, to be able to continue offering those products.  It doesn’t necessarily mean  that I don’t enjoy a free option over a paid one, but in this case I think that I can throw a little money their way.

It is Christmas, after all.

I found myself asking that very question again recently.  I was visiting a friend and several of his co-workers had stopped by.  I noticed that 2 of them were carrying iPhones, and I asked them what they thought of Apple’s wonder phone.  The answer was pretty much the same.  They loved them, although one guy wasn’t quite as thrilled with his $90/month cellphone plan.  When I mentioned that I had tried to use one in FutureShop and couldn’t quite seem to get the hang of typing on the flat screen, they both said the same thing, pretty much in unison.

“You get used to it.”

So I’ve been told.  I think that should actually be Apple’s slogan for the iPhone.  You’ll Get Used to It!

I just don’t know if I want to take the chance with something that I’ll get used to, especially if I don’t get used to it.  How long do I fumble with my txt messages, waiting for the light to suddenly turn on, and regain my über-txter status that I have with my Motorola Q?

And then there’s the whole contract thing.  As much as I complain about  my current phone (and will never EVER buy another Windows Mobile device as long as I live!), I do appreciate my $25/month pre-paid bill, as opposed to a $90/month kick in the gut.  Sure, you don’t have to have the top of the line iPhone package, but there really aren’t any cheap ones, especially if you want to actually use the phone in all of it’s online multimedia glory.  And it still bothers me that we don’t have unlimited data plans in Canada.  I think that if I’m paying nearly $100/month, that I don’t want to have to worry about how many YouTube videos I’m watching.  Damn you, Susan Boyle.

So for now, it’s still the frustrating Motorola Q.  Perhaps in the new year it will inexplicably stop working after being thrown under a moving train, or lost in the St John river.  And then I’ll have to make the decision..  Blackberry vs iPhone…

When’s that Droid phone coming to Canada?  I think I read that Telus was going to start offering it in the new year.