Tag Archives: Chromecast

Weekly output: streaming-media players

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For the first time since June, I only have one posted story to my name. I filed two others, but I also tried to set aside work from Wednesday afternoon through this evening. Aside from some e-mail that I had to attend to Friday afternoon, I mostly succeeded.

pegoraro-streaming-media-players-post11/23/2016: How to figure out which streaming media device to buy, Yahoo Finance

My original copy tried to explain Apple and Amazon’s conduct by throwing around some references to multilateral diplomacy and balance-of-power theory, but my editors may have thought that description was a little too much Georgetown School of Foreign Service for a guide to buying gadgets. If so, I can’t exactly blame them.

There’s something weird with how Google indexed this–searching for keywords or the exact phrase of its headline finds nothing at finance.yahoo.com, while Google has no trouble locating the copy posted to Yahoo Tech. At least the original got picked up on Reddit, I guess.

 

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Weekly output: Amazon versus Apple TV and Chromecast, enterprises helping startups, ransomware

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Two of these three items were basically handed to me over the previous week: Amazon elected to throw its weight around in an unwise manner, and then a reader wrote to me about an awful experience with malware.

10/6/2015: Hey Amazon: What Did Apple TV or Chromecast Ever Do to You?, Yahoo Tech

I really enjoyed writing this rant about Amazon’s foolish, bullying behavior. Should I have been surprised to see Apple and Google haters unite in defending Amazon’s conduct in comments on this post?

Tech.Co startups and enterprises post10/6/2015: How Enterprises are Helping Startups, Tech.Co Celebrate

I moderated a panel about the sometimes-complicated relationship between startups and big-name companies looking to help them and maybe later acquire them. Afterwards, Tech.Co’s Ron Barba wrote up the conversation I had with Google’s Don Dodge, Microsoft’s Steve Seow, PayPal’s Corrado Tomassoni, and American Airlines’ Paul Swartz.

10/11/2015: ‘Ransomware’ a game-over scenario unless you have backups, USA Today

Getting this reader’s testimony about the hijacking of his computer was no fun at all. I quizzed a few security experts about what he could do, and their answers did not provide any hop; I hate telling a reader that he’s screwed.

Weekly output: Chromecast tips, GM and the DMCA, Google I/O, online security, landline number portability via VoIP

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I had a fun and productive stay in San Francisco for Google I/O, then started a day of travel home that became a day and a half. And it was basically my fault for being a greedy avgeek. Instead of booking a nonstop back to National or Dulles, I opted to connect through Houston so I could get a belated introduction to the Boeing 787 on the first leg–and, I figured, have the extra capacity of a widebody plane on a domestic route lead to my upgrade clearing.

That left me with a tight connection before the last flight to National, and I’d thought that my big risk was getting into IAH too late for that departure. Instead, the latest in a series of storms pounded the Houston area, forced planes to divert hundreds of miles away, and led too many pilots to time-out. My brittle connection finally crumbled when United acknowledged reality and cancelled the DCA flight at around 10:30, I grabbed a reasonably cheap hotel room nearby, and I got home after 4 this afternoon. Oh, and my upgrade didn’t clear on the 787. Not my smartest travel hacking ever.

5/25/2015: How to watch your own videos on Chromecast, USA Today

My editor decided to run this column on Monday of the Memorial Day weekend instead of Sunday. That, in turn, meant I could devote Sunday to holiday pursuits instead of taking time to market the piece on social media.

5/26/2015: General Motors: Don’t Touch Your Car’s Software, Yahoo Tech

I’d planned on writing about this year’s round of requests for exemptions from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention clause later this year, but there was enough interest in a proposal to legalize tinkering with the embedded software on cars that I had to go ahead with the column. Short version of the ensuing reader feedback: You all trust GM about as far as you can throw it.

Yahoo Tech 2015 Google-keynote post5/28/2015: Cut From Google I/O: What Didn’t Make the Stage, Yahoo Tech

After the opening keynote to Google’s I/O conference wrapped up, I wrote this recap of the things that Google executives didn’t mention in that two-plus-hour presentation. I hope somebody does the same for the keynote at Apple’s upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference.

2/29/2015: Google’s Security News: Malware’s Down, and You’re Heeding More of Its Warnings, Yahoo Tech

My editor at Yahoo Tech suggested I check out this half-hour presentation by Google’s Stephan Somogyi about its security efforts, and I’m glad I took his advice. He shared some fascinating details about how security warnings fare when read by distracted humans who are apparently feeling lucky all the time.

5/31/2015: Want to move your home number? Take it to the Web, USA Today

The question that led to this column about using Internet-calling services to move a landline number to another area came from a reader of my May 11 piece about the demise of Sprint’s WiMax wireless broadband–see, I do read my e-mail! It also gave me an overdue incentive to start testing some home-phone VoIP hardware I’ve had sitting around for a while.

Weekly output: Facebook Messenger, Evernote business-card scanning, right to be forgotten, Miracast

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This week allowed me to cross one tech-related item off my bucket list: operate a soldering iron without injury to myself or anybody else. More on that later…

8/5/2014:Facebook May Be Addicted to Apps, but You Don’t Have to Be, Yahoo Tech

Facebook’s decision to make Android and iPhone users of its regular app install a separate Messenger app to continue chatting with their pals is not earning many Likes. This post compared that move by Facebook to Foursquare moving check-ins to Swarm–but now that Foursquare has shipped a complete rewrite of its core app that reinvents its privacy model, I don’t mind that split as much.

8/5/2014: 3 Flops from Facebook (and 1 from Twitter), Yahoo Tech

Remember when Facebook was going to reinvent e-mail? Yeah, that was awesome. Consider this post my own penance for all the words I wrote about Facebook Messages back in 2010.

VentureBeat Evernote review8/6/2014: Here’s how Evernote’s business card scanning feature tackled 1,333 cards, VentureBeat

I had planned to use Evernote’s card-scanning feature to dispatch all the cards cluttering my desk, then decided I might as well try to sell a review of the experience. If you were wondering about the creature with the oversized eyes shown up close in the app in my photo, it’s a tarsier on the card of O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly.

8/8/2014: Can Europe Force Search Engines to Censor Information You’re Looking for on the Internet? Assessing the Right to be Forgotten, Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee

I enjoyed debating the European Union’s dubious doctrine with Internews’ Mike Godwin, Future of Privacy Forum policy counsel Joe Jerome, Emma Llansó of the Center for Democracy and Technology, Intel global privacy officer David Hoffman, and moderator Michael Kubayanda. Courtesy of Congress being on recess, this was broadcast on C-SPAN–C-SPAN 1, even.

8/10/2014: Windows can do wireless displays, but watch for glitches, USA Today

Only five days after a reader asked me about this on Twitter, my column answering that query ran. Not unrelated: I’m still awaiting answers on the other topic I’d pitched to my editor, so it was this topic or nothing.

Weekly output: Cable WiFi, travel WiFi, Internet governance, phone lanes, Find My iPhone vs. Android

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In one way or another, wireless technology figured in all of my stories this week. But why should this week be any different from others?

7/15/2014: With Cable WiFi, Your Modem Is My Hotspot, Yahoo Tech

I’ve been working on this column for a while–my e-mail correspondence for it goes back weeks–and for once, the news cycle obliged by not throwing any breaking tech news at me on a Monday. I’m still trying to figure out how so many people say they hate the idea of Comcast turning their leased modem into a public hot spot but so few (according to Comcast) opt out of it.

7/15/2014: How to Stop (or Start) Sharing Your Internet Connection with Strangers, Yahoo Tech

To go with the column, I wrote a quick explainer about how to turn off Comcast’s Home Hotspot–or set up an openwireless.org guest account for anybody to use.

NowU domestic-bandwidth story7/15/2014: What You Need to Know About Staying Connected in the U.S., NowU

This Gannett site for empty nesters officially launched on Tuesday, but if you’d thought to visit that site on Sunday you could have read my advice on traveling bandwidth then.

7/16/2014: Issues Raised by New Technology: Policy Slam, Internet Governance Forum USA 2014

This part of this daylong conference at George Washington University was an audience-participation event: People were invited to step up to the podium and share their ideas about Internet-governance issues that we ought to focus on, and then I and the other judges picked ones to debate further and offered our own comments about them.

7/17/2014: Cellphone Talkers Get Their Own Sidewalk Lane in D.C., Yahoo Tech

A bit of an experiment staged for an upcoming National Geographic TV show led to this extra post (so, my thanks to NatGeo for the upcoming extra income). The piece got a blurb on the Yahoo home page, so this may have been seen by more people than anything else I’ve written. And then it got a BeyondDC/Greater Greater Washington writeup, which was also nice.

7/20/2014: Get a browser to work where it’s not welcome, USA Today

This column pretty much wrote itself once I realized Apple’s short-sighted and easily-circumvented decision to block Android browsers from its Find My iPhone page matched the New York Post’s foolish attempt to keep iPad users from reading its Web site.

Weekly output: Nokia 1020, BYOD, PR Summit, Chromecast (x2), patent trolls, CableCard (x2), Google Maps, Gmail

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I had some 5,200 words appear under my byline this week. (I wrote one of those reviews last weekend, but I also filed one story this week that won’t show up in print for weeks.) Some of that is the result of products shipping and news breaking at about the same time, and some is what happens when you know you owe a client so many posts in a month and then tell yourself “I can finish that story tomorrow” too many days in a row.

7/29/2013: Nokia’s 1020: A Camera That Makes Phone Calls, Discovery News

Nokia’s latest smartphone includes a 41-megapixel camera that takes impressive photos, but its Windows Phone software has issues with driving directions and app selection. And its battery life may be worse than it seemed when I wrote this.

7/30/2013: BYOD Chat, IDG Enterprise

Another turn as a chat host, this time for a round of questions about bring-your-own-device policies and experiences. The link goes to a Twitter query for the #mobilebizchat hashtag, owing to the questions and answers not yet having been archived on the Enterprise Mobile Hub site. 9/29: Updated link.

7/30/2013: The Future of Technology & How to Speak Blogger Language 4.0, PR Summit

VentureBeat’s Christina Farr moderated a panel featuring yours truly, Fleishman-Hillard’s Layla Revis, Jon Oleaga of etceter and marketing maven Murray Newlands. I can’t say we got the audience past blogger language 3.0, but we did have a good chat on some basic issues of building influence and maintaining trust on the Web, whether you’re in PR or journalism or some intersection of the two.

Boing Boing Chromecast comparison7/31/2013: The real Web TV: Chromecast, Apple or Roku?, Boing Boing

I compared Google’s new $35 Web-media receiver to Apple and Roku’s models. Short answer: Apple’s best for sharing what’s already on your computer, Roku has the widest set of video and audio apps, Google has the easiest setup and the biggest potential upside. Don’t forget to check out the comments BBS, where I answered several questions about these devices and my review.

7/31/2013: Google’s Chromecast Puts the Web On TV For $35, Discovery News

For Discovery, I wrote a higher-level piece starting with what makes the Chromecast different from and better than running an HDMI cable from your laptop to your TV.

8/1/2013: Past And Future Patent Pain: When Does The Law Recognize Abuse For What It Is?, Disruptive Competition Project

I’d been meaning to write this 1,100-word essay for while; fortunately, the EFF’s launch of its Trolling Effects database of “demand letters” from patent trolls gave me a decent news peg for the piece.

8/2/2013: TiVo, media center PC makers alarmed by CableCard-cutting bill, Ars Technica

I got a nice little scoop about an upcoming bill that would end a key regulatory protection for the CableCard standard that allows TiVos and a few other devices to tune in cable TV. Check page three of the comments for a few from me answering reader queries.

8/2/2013: The Endless Re-Runs Of The Cable-Compatibility Debate, Disruptive Competition Project

This counterpart to the Ars piece summarizes the 15 years and counting of regulatory, technological and market failures at establishing a standard way to get cable without leasing a box from the cable company.

8/4/2013: Google removes multiple stops feature from Maps, USA Today

It’s never a good idea to let users discover on their own that you removed a feature many of them like to use. This column also has a tip about using Gmail’s offline and ad-free mode in Chrome.

On Sulia, I recounted an amusing HDMI failure in Apple’s flagship San Francisco store, reported an apparently painless installation of Android 4.3 on my Nexus 4 phone, shared a fix for a broadband breakdown I encountered later that day,  critiqued Google’s announcement of an overdue find-my-phone service for Android phones, suggested replacement brand names for Microsoft’s trademark-conflicted SkyDrive and complimented Dulles Airport for its real-time security wait estimates.