Tag Archives: netflix

Creeping Dead Zones

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Has anyone else noticed that there appears to be two very prominent creeping dead zones that surround the weekend? I mean, think about it. Nobody is really conscious Friday after lunch, and when you get to “High Tea” around 3pm, where really civilized countries are napping already, you could strip buck naked and streak through the office and NOBODY WOULD NOTICE. The same fuzzy non-time surrounds the beginning of the week too, that nothing of meaning ever happens between Friday afternoon and Monday afternoon.

The comical part of me sees this as a creeping problem. First we lose Friday afternoons and Monday mornings. Then as time goes on, people start making allowances for Friday mid-mornings and Monday afternoons. The work week is being effectively gnawed down on both sides by this creeping inertia.

Case in point, a help desk’s ticket throughput during these dead zones. Nobody has problems, principally because they’ve already checked out and can’t be bothered. I swear that sometimes you can hear tumbleweeds dashing along our office during these dead zones, it’s so quiet. So we keep busy. I bet a monumental amount of network traffic is bound for Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, and yes, my dear readers, WordPress.

The people who manage productivity should be alarmed. The weekend has sharp pointy teeth and it’s getting bigger! 😉

P.S. This is the first time the WordPress Proofreader didn’t have piss OR vinegar for me. YAY!

Apple iPad App Review – Page 1 Line 2

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Part 3 of my Apple iPad App Review, what I have on Page 1 Line 2 continued:

  • Netflix – The Netflix app is free and provides access to the streaming content of the Watch Instantly system present in a basic Netflix account. The application works well, it has yet to crash, but I did run into a usability headache early on while trying it out. With all video on the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad the native presentation of the video appears with slight letterboxing, depending on how you orient the device while you watch it. There is, in almost every video application a button control to remove the letterboxing and expand the video to use the maximum amount of screen real estate. While using the Netflix app, early on, I mistook the exit button for the letterbox-resize button so every time I would start a movie and try to maximize it, I was actually asking Netflix to go back to the previous video selection screen. I became quite irate at the Netflix app for what I perceived as a epic failure until I realized that I was pressing the wrong control. Now that I know where to expect the control to remove letterboxing, the app behaves as it was designed to, and I’m quite happy with it. The movie quality is at best 720P but that is perfectly acceptable to be able to hold it in your hands or against your legs while you watch. I predict that this, and any front-facing camera adjustment to the iPhone/iPad will melt down any 3G network in a red-hot minute.
  • TweetDeck – A true Love-It/Hate-It app if there ever was one, the TweetDeck app on the iPad is acceptable, it’s worth the cost, which is to say free. In the portrait orientation it wastes a fantastic amount of screen real estate meaninglessly, but at least it doesn’t crash with wild abandon as it does on the iPhone. The biggest gripe I have about TweetDeck, both the iPod Touch version, the iPad version, and the Adobe AIR version is the impossible-to-reconfigure font and font size in twitter text on the display. This app is ripe for relocation and/or removal.
  • Videos – The factory included Videos app is a delight to use, much like the other factory included apps. The folding metaphor when you select videos is very visually appealing and the video itself is crisp and beautiful and all the controls work as you would expect them to. The first video I played on my iPad was Airplane!, it’s how I inaugurate all my Apple devices. Funniest movie of all time, meet best device of all time. 🙂
  • YouTube – I’ve just touched on the YouTube app only sparingly. I suppose other people get a kick out of watching inane people doing inane things. I haven’t posted a video on YouTube and I guess I’m too old to ‘get it’. This app will likely be relocated, as factory apps can’t be deleted from the device. YouTube works for Google, it works for a lot of people, but I don’t really care that much for it. Technically however, it does work well, much like the other video apps on the iPad, and it hasn’t crashed on me so I don’t have anything negative to share.

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