New "Books" Section
A quick heads up to let you know that I’ve added a new page to my site—Books. This page currently features a list of books I’ve recently read. In the future, I’ll probably include a list of books I’m currently reading, as well as my list of books to read.
I hope you take a look, and even find one or two books to read. Perhaps Disrupted, the book I just finished.
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Site Refresh
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was overhauling the site—in case you’re only reading this via the RSS feed, the overhaul is here! The most obvious change is the look, but the changes go much deeper. In fact, aside from the underlying data store, the entire site has been rewritten, along with a technology refresh.
For those of you interested in the details, the site is running ASP.NET MVC 5 and Web API 2 on .NET 4.6.2. Since I’m a developer, not a designer, I leveraged the very popular Bootstrap framework for a little help with the UI, along with a theme from Bootswatch for a slight variation on the out-of-the-box Bootstrap look and feel. Additionally, I’m utilizing Font Awesome in a couple of places. Of course there’s the actual code that makes it all go, which is C#, and my own custom blog/CMS engine, which has its roots in the blog software I wrote 13 years ago, and utilizes a couple of open source projects, including a slightly modified MvcSiteMapProvider, and Ninject. I've also replaced my own comment engine with Disqus.
With this update, it’s my hope that everything available on the old site is available on the new site. There is one exception to this, and that is any Url that includes a blog post id, rather than a blog post title, will not work. Several years ago, when I went away from using the blog post id to look up posts, I kept that functionality around to avoid any broken links—as of right now, those links are broken, though I don’t know how many still exist. I plan on providing a fix, involving a permanent redirect, but it’s not in place yet.
If you have any questions, or notice anything out of place, please let me know!
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DIRECTV NOW: My First Impression
As each new cord cutting option comes online, I take a look, but aside from buying an HD antenna a couple of months ago, I’ve not taken this cord-cutting idea any further. Based on reviews, channel selection, and a very attractive introductory offer, I took the plunge and signed up for DIRECTV NOW, the cord-cutting offering from AT&T owned DirecTV, if only to be able to rule them out as a viable alternative. After a weekend with the service, here are some of my thoughts.
Features
The first question I had when I started looking into streaming options was “does it have DVR capability?” The answer is no, unfortunately. At least that’s the answer right now, though they do plan on offering DVR functionality in 2017. Though they do have a growing on demand offering, if you’re not able to watch something live, you might need to find an alternative viewing source, at least in the short term, or see if the channel is included in their 72 Hour Rewind feature.
Another question that comes up often is “how many streams are you allowed?” DIRECTV NOW currently offers 2 streams. Beyond that, you’d need another account. Hopefully they’ll make it possible to purchase additional streams for a nominal fee in the future.
Finally, where would any of this technology be without devices? DIRECTV NOW is currently available on Amazon Fire TV devices, Apple TV, Chromecast (for Android only), most modern computer browsers, Android phones and tablets, and iOS phones, tablets, and the iPod Touch. Support for Chromecast (for Apple iOS), Roku, and XBOX One is coming. Here’s the official current list of supported devices.
Plans
DIRECTV NOW offers 4 plans, with an increasing number of channels and cost. At the low end is “Live a Little,” which is advertised as having 60+ channels for $35/month. This is followed by “Just Right,” which includes 80+ channels for $50/month. Next up, and this is the plan they hope to snare folks with at launch, is “Go Big,” which includes 100+ channels and a limited time special introductory price of $35/month as long as you remain a subscriber (regularly $60/month), and finally “Gotta Have It,” with 120+ channels for $70/month. In addition to these four plans, they also offer two add-on packages for $5 each/month—HBO and Cinemax. Here’s a comparison of the channels included in each plan.
Additional Offers
There is currently a 7 day free trial, and some free equipment if you prepay for 1 or 3 months. If you prepay one month, you will receive Amazon’s all-new Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, and if you prepay for 3 months, they’ll send you an Apple TV.
Quality
You should know that my experience thus far has been limited to my web browser. I’ll be trying it out on our Fire TV Stick soon, but I haven’t yet. That said, the picture quality has been at least as good as any other streaming provider. DIRECTV NOW streams all programming in HD, and downgrades the quality as necessary, depending on your bandwidth (they recommend 2.5 – 5.0 Mbps for HD quality).
Overall Experience
Using DIRECTV NOW web app should be intuitive for anyone familiar with using other streaming sites, and the channel guide is similar to most cable guides. However, I do have a couple of suggestions that I think would greatly enhance the user experience with the guide:
- When navigation from watching a channel to the guide, open the guide at the channel that is currently being watched, not at the beginning of the alphabetical channel list.
- Add some info in the guide for specific shows. For example, a show summary, episode info, and for sports, the teams that are playing.
Those two things would go a long way to improving the usability of the guide.
While I am ready to cut the cord, I’m not sure that DIRECTV NOW is the right solution at this time, mainly due to the lack of DVR functionality. As I mentioned earlier, they say it’s coming in 2017, but it’s already available with PS Vue, and Sling released a beta DVR service. That said, the $35/month special introductory offer is quite compelling, and just might be good enough to entice me to stick around while the work on the DVR. Though the thought of not being able to watch what I want, when I want, even if for a short time, feels like a huge leap back into the stone age.
Additional Information
Here are some links that you might find useful:
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5:25 PM
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Cutting The Cord
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