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Cable company woes?

There is something really interesting going on right now with the way we consume media. There are services like Hulu, YouTube, and of course "other methods" for watching your favorite shows and movies. These services are allowing us to consume media much more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Now you can imagine what the cable companies think about this, NOT GOOD, well...for them at least. For us it is great though! This seems to be causing some companies to rethink the way they $charge$ for internet access. As it stands right now, there are no huge limitations to how much one can download every month. However, the cable companies may start a tiered system for consumers. In other words, they will have different packages available depending on how many gigabytes you consume every month. What is scaring them the most though is that people are actually calling up and canceling their cable service and just paying for broadband. Well, this cuts your bill roughly in half every month, and the cable companies do not like that very much. Think about it... with services like services like Twitter, the news gets to people often times faster than on watching the television. All the major news organizations are on Twitter as well and have live internet video of their news. It is no wonder people are canceling their cable television service. I have considered doing such a thing, but have not totally convinced myself to do so at this time.

Now there is something that may be on some of your minds when it comes to consuming media like TV shows and movies through services like YouTube or Hulu, and that is quality. "Well sure I can get all this on the web, but it doesn't look as good as a DVD or Blu-Ray" is what some of you may be thinking. This is a 100% true statement, but this is all about tradeoffs. Blu-Ray discs are far too expensive right now for most people to even care about quality, especially with out weakened economic status as a country. Also, the quality is not that bad for most people. People have become a little spoiled with HD quality images and movies, including myself. Only you can decide what solution is best for your particular circumstances. My advice is that if the cable companies do decide to do this tiered service of internet service, be prepared. Monitor how much you are downloading every month. There are some great tools out there for both the Mac and Windows platforms. A google search will provide plenty of choices for both platforms. What are your thoughts on this possible change? Leave some comments and let me know.

Possible changes for Best Buy and CompUSA

There are some big changes that are rumored to be happening at both Best Buy and CompUSA. We all remember CompUSA right? It was the computer superstore for many years that refused to have competitive pricing and eventually tanked. Well, they are looking to open 30 new retail stores with what they call "Retail 2.0". I don't know if this is going to work but I hope it does! I used to love going to CompUSA to look at variety of goodies they had. But in the end, stores like Best Buy beat them out. That leads me to my next topic...Best Buy.

It seems that not even Best Buy is recession proof. They are rumored to be going through a major employee reorganization and may ask people to take pay cuts or even "streamline" its operations. Lets just hope the tech industry doesn't suffer too much longer.

Wacom Intuos4 Tablet Released!

The new Intuos4 tablet was just released last week by Wacom. I currently use a Bamboo tablet but I plan on purchasing the new intuos4 as soon as I can. There are some major upgrades to this new line of tablets. The major new features include:

- 2048 levels of pen pressure for even smoother drawing (up from 1024)

- Completely new touch customizable touch ring for even more control over commands

- 8 customizable buttons that can be used in any application

- Now comes in 4 sizes rather than dimensions (small, medium, large, and extra large)

- 2 LCD screens that dynamically change button labels depending on what app you are working in (available on med, lrg, and ex lrg only)

- New pen holder that also houses the pen nibs (tips)

intuos4 medium

When I get the tablet in the next couple of weeks I will post a full review. Until then, for more specs see www.wacom.com/intuos

Greetings All!



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