Confessions of an Internet Junkie

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You may or may not know that Hulu has requested that Boxee shop showing Hulu content. This means all those that have a HTPC will now have to go back to BitTorrent and get the shows like they did before. this is crazy considering that that we were still required to watch the commercials just like everyone else.

Here is the official Hulu Article.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.” — Walt Disney

Later this week, Hulu’s content will no longer be available through Boxee. While we never had a formal relationship with Boxee, we are under no illusions about the likely Boxee user response from this move. This has weighed heavily on the Hulu team, and we know it will weigh even more so on Boxee users.

Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes. While we stubbornly believe in this brave new world of media convergence — bumps and all — we are also steadfast in our belief that the best way to achieve our ambitious, never-ending mission of making media easier for users is to work hand in hand with content owners. Without their content, none of what Hulu does would be possible, including providing you content via Hulu.com and our many distribution partner websites.

Our mission to make media dramatically easier and more user-focused has not changed and will not change. We will not stop until we achieve it and we are sober in our assessment that we have such a long way to go.

The maddening part of writing this blog entry is that we realize that there is no immediate win here for users. Please know that we take very seriously our role of representing users such that we are able to provide more and more content in more and more ways over time. We embrace this activity in ways that respect content owners’ — and even the entire industry’s — challenges to create great content that users love. Yes, it’s a complex matter. A tough mission, and a never-ending one, but one we are passionately committed to.

For those Boxee users reading this post, we understand and appreciate that you’re likely to tell us that we’re nuts. Please know that we do share the same interests and won’t stop innovating in support of the bigger mission.

Jason Kilar
jason@hulu.com
CEO, Hulu

I really believe that the content providers have no idea who there user base is if they have a problem with boxee. I will not be using Hulu as I only used it on boxee and not my browser.

If you are interested here is the Boxee blog post:

we love Hulu. they have built a great product and brand (including one the best Superbowl ads this year). since our early days in private alpha, Hulu was the most requested site by our users. so we built support for browsing Hulu on boxee, reached out to Hulu, and on Oct 20th, 2008 shared it with our alpha testers. the response has been amazing. people love watching many of their favorite shows on Hulu via boxee. last week we generated more than 100,000 streams for them…

two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from boxee. we tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it. you can see their blog post about the issues they are facing.

our goal has always been to drive users to legal sources of content that are publicly available on the Internet. we have many content partners who are generating revenue from boxee users and we will work with Hulu and their partners to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.

we will tell them how users love Hulu on boxee, why it represents a great opportunity for them to better engage with fans of their shows, how boxee can help in exposing their content to new people, and why they should be excited about future opportunities of working with us.

we will blog/tweet as soon as we have any updates

ThePirateBay.org here I come for my TV shows.

Your brother just got a new digital camera. Your mom got a GPS device. Your grandfather got a Falcon Northwest gaming rig with six cores and a graphics card that requires its own physical plant. You’re stuffed, sleepy, and just want to watch TV. How do you distract these hordes long enough to get in another turkey sandwich and viewing of A Christmas Story? Follow these easy steps:

1. Distract - When sis walks up to you with a new DSLR, pick up the camera and set it to manual. Then fiddle with some dials. Then take some pictures - preferably bad ones. Then say: “Look, I’m no good at cameras/laptops/PDAs/iPhones. Set this thing on automatic for now and then read the manual.” You can also write down a list of helpful websites they can visit, CrunchGear being one of them, and encourage them to teach themselves to fish.

2. Disrupt - Bring your own piece of tech - an XBox 360, a Wii - and install it onto their equipment. Point out some of the ports they’ll find on the back of their new TV and then begin playing. Once you’re done, they’ll ask you to help them get their own tech to do what yours did. This gives you an opportunity to run through a basic checklist on a device you already own and understand and can teach on your way out the door.

3. Delineate - Feign ignorance after a certain point. Turn on your Mac? Sure! Best location to get porn? Wha? Install your webcam? Sure. Get it to work with Yahoo? Nope. Pick out a great camera? Buy the Canon I own. Find a way to get cool visual effects in Microsoft Paint? Not my department.

4. Detroit - None of your relatives live in Detroit, except Matt’s. Go there for Christmas. Don’t answer your phone. The city could use the tourist dollars.

These four tips will help you stay sane and happy during this weekend full of debauchery.

m0n0wall is a project aimed at creating a complete, embedded firewall software package that, when used together with an embedded PC, provides all the important features of commercial firewall boxes (including ease of use) at a fraction of the price (free software).
m0n0wall is based on a bare-bones version of FreeBSD, along with a web server, PHP and a few other utilities. The entire system configuration is stored in one single XML text file to keep things transparent.
m0n0wall is probably the first UNIX system that has its boot-time configuration done with PHP, rather than the usual shell scripts, and that has the entire system configuration stored in XML format.

I have been using m0n0wall for the last 2-3 years and have loved it. It currently resides on a Pentium III 500Mhz with 256mb ram and a 1gb CompactFlash Card in a CompactFlash to IDE adapter. It has 4 intel 10/100 network cards and serves as an awesome router for the home. It is nice because: 1) It is Free 2) Easy to use and setup 3) Very little maintenance is required. I just install the new version when it comes out.

If you need a cheap router that can be made with old hardware I suggest you look at m0n0wall and enjoy an enterprise grade router for free.

I have read alot of posts and this one seems to bee the best enjoy!

Boxee on a laptop or connected to an HDTV, boxee gives you a true entertainment experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, and flickr.


I have just installed it on my laptop and a dedicated ubuntu box. It run awesome. If you are interesed please visit http://www.boxee.tv. You can sign up for the alpha, or leave a comment that you would like an invite and I will send you one.


They are working on a Windows version and that should be out sometime soon. Enjoy.