Fox News and Time Warner: the pending divorce
Reuters reports “The COO of Fox’s parent company reportedly confirmed to the Wall Street Journal (which Fox owns) that he sent a memo to employees explaining that Fox stations will likely be pulled from Time Warner Cable.”
Time Warner is stating that they are refusing to pay a 300% increase per subscriber to carry specific channels – and Fox is threatening to cut the ties and not broadcast to Time Warner.
This is a gutsy move for Rupert Murdoch. In 1995, Murdoch’s Fox Network became the object of scrutiny from the FCC, when it was alleged that News Ltd.’s Australian base made Murdoch’s ownership of Fox illegal. However, the FCC ruled in Murdoch’s favor, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the best interests of the public.
In late 2003, Murdoch acquired a 34 per cent stake in Hughes Electronics, the operator of the largest American satellite TV system, DirecTV, from General Motors for $6 billion (USD).
Could this be a move that is meant to purposefully move Fox out of the Time Warner realm? Time Warner Cable executives have balked at paying that much and have claimed that negotiations with broadcast companies like Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc and Local TV which carry local affiliate stations are in the 25 cents to 50 cents a subscriber range.
CBS Corp CEO Les Moonves, who has been a very vocal supporter of getting pay-TV providers to pay cash for the right to carry his broadcast network, has publicly said he expects his company to be paid around 50 cents a subscriber, and Fox asks for double the amount.
Time Warner Cable, the No. 2 U.S. cable operator, which serves some 14 million customers, has stated they are willing to loose the Fox channels – and states their clients are ready to give up the Fox network. I tend to disagree – for the larger part of that campaign – Time Warner never told their clients which channels they may be loosing.
Important to note here – the Fox news channel and National Geographic Network, which are 1/2 owned are not part of these discussions.
As for me – I can live without American Idol – and there are plenty of alternatives already for NFL
Can Time Warner afford to loose the programming of American Idol and the NFL ?
Can Murdoch afford to loose the additional funds advertisers may be unwilling to pay based upon the smaller number of subscribers (14 million approx. )? One thing is for sure – just like in any divorce the children (in this case the customers) are the ones that will pay…
Today is the Day to Order Flowers – Yeah YOU –
As a geek – and a man – I tend to overlook the simple things in life… like the power of a flower. 
(ok no jokes on flower power now… woops to late)
See guy’s one thing I have learned is that ladies want to be treated … well Like a lady. They are your most important asset – they are your reason for living – your reason for working… they simply are your Reason.
While a man thinks of flowers as something that will just wilt and die away – an expensive cliché – most of us will settle down and buy them in February – but why not in December?
Here’s the deal with giving flowers. Women like receiving flowers. Men think flowers are stupid for the most part…
It’s okay – just break out the credit card and buy them already … not convinced – okay I will continue:
Why buy flowers for your Wife or Girlfriend?
- Flowers will make you happy: its about us anyhow ? isn’t it (just testing
) According to Jeannette Haviliand-Jones, psychologist at Rutgers University and their research the act of giving flowers brings out a Real smile in the giver. So get happy already and open up the wallet. - Smart People Give Flowers: thats right – if you send flowers to your wife or girlfriends workplace your partner will be the envy of every other person in their office… (it’s okay if they are @ home – I promise she will pick up the phone and brag about you for sure…) Science says that people will perceive you as having higher emotional intelligence than your peers.
If your not dating – not married… it’s okay – Send a bouquet to your mother, your Aunt – or someone in the office even.
Apple vs Nokia: Patents, Patents, Patents
Nokia Corp. is broadening a legal dispute it already has with Apple Inc. over the iPhone, saying almost all of the company’s other products also violate the Finnish phone maker’s patents. Nokia said Tuesday that it has filed a complaint against Apple with the U.S. International Trade Commission, alleging Apple’s iPhone, iPods and computers all violate Nokia’s intellectual property rights.
The seven Nokia patents in this complaint relate to Nokia’s pioneering innovations that are now being used by Apple to create key features in its products in the area of user interface, as well as camera, antenna and power management technologies.
Nokia, which is based in Espoo, Finland, has already sued Apple over the massively popular iPhone, claiming it infringes on 10 of its patents related to phone calls and Wi-Fi access.
Apple has denied the charges and this month countered with its own lawsuit, saying Nokia has copied aspects of the iPhone in their own devices. Apple claims Nokia is violating its patent rights on technology for connecting phones to computers, teleconferencing and touch-screen menus, among other things – 13 patents in fact.
I wonder how this will turn out… and it is so reminiscent of the BlackBerry / Rim fight…
Reactive vs. Proactive: If IT can do it why not Government
One of the first things I learned as a medic and then as an EMS Chief was to mitigate disasters before they ever become disasters. This is one of the basic participles within Emergency Management… but for some reason Our Government has not been able to grasp this. Terrorists commit acts of terror to create fear, and while they do this by causing death – their motive is to cause FEAR.
Interestingly enough – when you board an airplane you have a 1 in 10,408,947 chance of being victimized by a terrorist incident, according to the Bureau of Transportation statistics… In fact there is a greater chance that you will be killed in the car ride to the airport, by the air in the flight cabin or funny as it sounds food poisoning from the food served on the plane.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab succeeded in setting his pants on fire, according to reports. He did not use Wireless or Television to complete this task – and yet our government decides that these items need to be removed from flight for one hour before landing. Does this just strike anyone else as entirely stupid?
Ok let me play out this scenario… If the terrorist knows that they have a 214 minute flight – they also know that they have 154 minutes to set off their bomb or do whatever else they are looking to do … and after those 154 minutes they then need to sit silently with their hands on their laps… DUH!
So – the TSA basically, by being reactive instead of proactive punishes us – the travelers, the US citizen, the public – and in effect the terrorists win. If they were proactive, had actually used many of the tools in place – such as their No fly list, or A father coming to the US Consulate and stating his son is on a path to destroy America… (i can continue here… but enough on that soap box)
Ask any IT manager – being proactive protects the network – protects the data…
If our TSA and Homeland Security departments were proactive perhaps they could… just perhaps -Protect the public.
RPMForge CentOS/RedHat
RPMforge is a third party RPM repository for Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS. By simply Adding the RPMforge repository you can access to an extensive library of pre-compiled binaries.
Gui Method:
- Launch Firefox and go to http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/FAQ.php#B2. Click on the package appropriate for your version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS.
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- Note 32 bit or 64 bit ! this is very important
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- Choose Open with Software Installer (default) and click Ok.
- The Installing packages window will appear. Click Apply to proceed.
- Finally click Ok.
Command Line Method:
- visit http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/FAQ.php#B2 and copy the link for your OS version… (note 32 bit or 64 bit)
- ssh into your server
- run the appropriate link : (example: rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/i386/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm)
It is also important that you lower the priority – so the base packages provided by RedHat /CentOS are not replaced by a new version from RPMforge…
- Install the Yum priorities package via ssh: #yum install yum-priorities
- Edit the file /etc/yum.repos.d/rpmforge.repo and add this line: “priority = 10″
- Test your configuration by executing ” #yum check-update “ You should see a priority protections message in the output.
Under Promise & Over Deliver…
This evening I had the opportunity to call up a local restaurant to make reservations… The employee @ El Dorado’s stated it might be up to 50 minutes for a table for 11. We hung up after agreeing on a time – and then I received a telephone call back in under 5 minutes stating – the table was ready when we were.
I have often ordered take out from El Dorado’s and always experience the same thing… My order is always ready sooner than promised. The first time this happened I looked at it like wow – must be a slower night then they expected… the second – perhaps this is a coincidence…
I ordered wireless from a company called Country Connections and was given a delivery date longer than I would have liked — and then in just under two days later my service was installed.
I called this week to let them know the service was less than stellar – and was told they would schedule a tech to review the situation early next week. Today they replaced the radio unit that services my house. This is more than just small town America companies helping out their customers – it is Smart Business. Each of these two organizations are performing what is perhaps the oldest marketing trick in the book – one that players like Time Warner, Vectren Gas, and most other service organizations have forgotten.. Announce the minimum of service and then give your best to deliver more that expected without bragging or making much noise about it.
The end result is the basically the same every time – A Positive effect on the customer. This creates word of mouth about the excellent level of service… not only did they deliver on what they promised – but… they provided much much much more…
Mark Stephenson, of Country Connections stated: ” We work hard and will not give any promises that we cannot meet.”
He and the team @ Country Connections succeeded in making me happy – and I will tell all my friends that I am a fan of their service.
And – next time your in Washington Court House Ohio make it a point to visit El Dorado’s and ask for Jessica to be your waitress. The service is stellar.
Cogent Latecy this morning
While doing some datacenter migrations between Philadelphia and our Ohio DC’s we noticed a large amount of latency between the two centers – a quick drop of Cogento seems to have fixed the problem.
Boy – am I Happy to have the ability to drop providers at will and be able to fix these kinds of issues on the fly
According to Internet Pulse – Cogent is still having issue:
Truth in Broadband … hmm a novel idea for the Schumer BoxWhatW
Ok – so here is some trivia -
Who was the United States Senator who championed the Truth-in-Lending legislation that requires credit card companies to carefully format their services to consumers as so: long term interest rates in at least 18 point type, and other important stuff in 12 point type?
Charles Schumer (D-NY),
Inside the box, the company must disclose seven categories of information: any annual fee, the annual percentage rate for purchases, rates for cash advances and other services, grace periods, the card’s system of calculating interest, and other monetary charges including late fees etc…
Click image to make larger
What if Broadband Providers needed to do the same thing?
Imagine if the provider was forced to tell you what, if any protocols are blocked, if bandwidth limiting is being done for specific services, the cost for cancellations, service downgrades, moves, modem rental etc etc etc…
What if Wireless Providers were required to provide the same thing?
If and only if — but with the help of the FCC – that day may be here sooner than you think.
Take action and call your local congress representative – tell them to enact the Schumer Box for Broadband and Cellular providers.
WiFi Security
Recently we attended the cPanel conference in Hoston TX. The event, like usual, was put on by a professional staff – and there is much we learned. It is important to note however security did not seem to be a concern when it came to the networking side of things at the event.
The first day, as tweeted, the cPanel event lacked WiFi for the better 1/2 of the morning due to issues with the Hotel itself. This rose to a number of rouge access points being setup, of which multiple persons logged into. These access points were giving the SSID such as “Official cPanel Wifi”, “cPanel Wireless” and many more various flavors using the cPanel name.
We logged into one such interface and turned on my systems security just to see what would happen and sure enough – someone came knocking and trying to gain access to our file system. The real fun part here is that virtually all of these fake access points were “point-to-point” connections and folks were hooking into someone’s laptop.
Next Year for 2010 – cPanel should think about setting up a captive Portal – one for which upon registration at the conference one is given their own user/pass to gain access to the network. A simple x86 system running PFSense would do this in a heartbeat. Through that system it would be wise to turn off netbios and other system-to-system traffic as well as redirect all port 2086 traffic to port 2087. Sadly – many users at the event are green behind the ears when it comes to security and systems administration…
While it is important to note – cPanel did nothing wrong here – it is also important to note that cPanel in the future would be wise to setup the infrastructure to assist in protecting their more greener clients from the bad boys in the room.
Just on our Mac alone – we saw a ton of cPanel employee computers sitting in the connection bin via Bonjour , as was Softlayers, the Planet, Microsoft’s and HostDimes. Blocking these types of services would be a great start in ensuring the security of the cPanel users both seasoned and the newbies on the block.
As for our Macs – We run through ssh and proxy always
