More on the recent WDTV situation and Flingo

Recently, I mentioned that I was very disappointed with Western Digital's WDTV Live Plus Firmware upgrade they released earlier this month.

Well after waiting over a week now for another firmware upgrade to the WDTV Live Plus machines, I am sorry to say that it is like nothing has changed. After using the WDTV Live Plus with the latest firmware some more, just about every Internet application I use seems to have bugs dealing with the keyboard. It is frustrating that we have to wait a month or longer between firmwares when keyboard functions should be easily fixed. And it seems like with these kind of bugs that are easily found, that one would get the impression that the Western Digital people do not use the products themselves or else they know about the bugs and are not capable of fixing them on their own.

I have recently tried to become familiar with Flingo. This is actually a good service on the WDTV Live Plus... if it was actually supported! With Flingo, you can go to a website and by clicking a button on your web browser, it will play the video on the WDTV. This sounds very useful, right? Well actually it isn't because Flingo will only allow you to do this with YouTube video pages which you can already watch on the YouTube application on the WDTV machines. The only advantage that I think there might be is that the resolution seemed to be better by flinging the video than by watching it through YouTube. If they had Flingo for websites like CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc., for example, you could watch episodes of recent shows on your TV by clicking the Fling button on your web browser. But that will unlikely ever happen. In fact, recently CBS and their video clips have actually disappeared from the Flingo application on the WDTV. Maybe CBS didn't like the deal they were getting from Flingo.

Finally, I did want to mention that I tried my USB Hub and it appears that it works with multiple USB devices. But Western Digital seems to not be really acknowledging that it works now and leaving their users in the dark as usual.

Hopefully in the future Western Digital will do a lot better job fixing their bugs, increasing their low number of Internet applications, increasing the usability of their exisiting applications since some could be improved greatly, and finally do a better marketing job for these machines.

My video review of the Gear Head Mini USB Keyboard now on YouTube

My video review of the Gear Head Mini USB Keyboard Model KB1700U is now online on my YouTube Channel, NATHANROADINWA.

This is a video review of a cheap keyboard that I recently purchased at Office Depot. I originally purchased it thinking it would be a small wireless keyboard that I might be able to use with an Archos 32 Internet Tablet or WD TV Live Plus machine. Unfortunately, I didn't realize until after I left the store that it is a wired keyboard. And even though it is labeled a "Windows" keyboard on the box, it does work with at least some non-Windows devices.

Please rate and let me know what you think about this video review and look for the other reviews and videos I have uploaded onto my NATHANROADINWA YouTube channel.

To view the video, click here.

Very bad news on 2 different products: WDTV and Flip Camcorders

I have very bad news to report on not one but TWO different electronic products: the WDTV and the Flip camcorders. And sadly this is no late April Fools joke.

I already installed the new firmware that was released just yesterday on the WDTV Live Plus. After just a few hours of using the WDTV Live Plus with the new firmware, I can say I am very disappointed with the new firmware. First off, the keyboard bugs that existed in Mediafly and TuneIn Radio applications were NOT fixed with this new firmware. In addition, the characters that you enter into the Mediafly search box are no longer centered properly. So this is a NEW bug.

Also disappointing about the new WDTV firmware is that the text on YouTube and Mediafly below the picture describing the shows is in very very small text which is almost unreadable from even a close distance.

Finally on the WDTV, they did add one new Internet application, but it is not a good one. It is just CinemaNow which looks very similar to Blockbuster's application since the interface for both are pretty much the same. The main difference is that CinemaNow has full TV shows available besides movies, but like Blockbuster costs money. Too bad they don't get a service like Crackle which offers some free full length TV episodes. And with a device like the Roku player, there are so many more Internet applications available for it (100+!), but Western Digital's WDTV only gives us about a dozen. The WDTV's only strengths over the Roku in Internet applications right at the moment is Deezer, Facebook, and YouTube which are not included on the Roku.

Hopefully Western Digital will immediately put out a new firmware to fix the above addressed bugs and small text issue on YouTube and Mediafly, and that they will shortly add several more services to be more competitive with other machines like the Roku.

Now on to the second product that has very bad news. This time it is the Flip camcorders. I just learned that Cisco, maker of the Flip camcorders, is getting out the camcorder business. Apparently they have no interest in selling the Flip line to anyone else, which means that in the coming months the Flip camcorders will be no longer sold. Hopefully they will still carry the accessories for the Flip camcorders. But you just never know.

And what about the software support for Flip camcorders? Will Cisco continue to update software for the Flip after they stop making them? Your answer is probably as good as mine.

My video review of the Microsoft Wireless Mouse 5000 has been added to YouTube

After nearly a month of no new videos to my NATHANROADINWA YouTube channel, I have finally uploaded a new video review.

This time it is a video review of a wireless mouse that I recently purchased with the intention of using it with the Microsoft Wireless Keyboard 3000 which I purchased previously.

I purchased this mouse thinking that I could use one USB transceiver for both the Microsoft Wireless Keyboard 3000 and the Microsoft Wireless Mouse 5000 since they had the same transceiver (Model 1364) included with them, but I then found out that they cannot be used with the same transceiver if purchased separately and they must be purchased in the Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3000 combo set to use both with only one Model 1364 USB transceiver plugged into the computer.

Please rate and let me know what you think about this review and look for the other reviews and videos I have uploaded onto my NATHANROADINWA YouTube channel.

Click here to see the video.

Did you get the free bag of chips on 4/1??

I was one of the lucky ones who did get the free bag of Lay's Potato Chips on April 1 at Fred Meyer and other Kroger affiliated stores. There was a limit of one free bag per customer, but it did appear some people got multiple bags, and I of course was not one of them. I only got one bag for myself. In case you didn't get the free bag, the following photos show what the free bag looked like.







They were small 2.5 ounce bags which means you would have to grab about 4 or 5 to equal a regular size bag of Lays chips. They only had the original and one other flavor (not sure which one) as free bags. And you can see from the above photos, "Free Sample" was printed in red instead of the price, and "Not for Resale" was printed on the back where the UPC bar code is usually printed on the bag.

It was a great free giveaway. Hopefully we will see other companies step up and do the same soon.

Count Von Count to appear next season on an episode of Fox's Million Dollar Money Drop

You read that right. Sesame Street's The Count will appear in a special episode of Fox's Million Dollar Money Drop next season and will play for charity. This of course would not be the first time a Sesame Street character has appeared on a TV game show. Oscar The Grouch appeared previously in several episodes of 1 VS 100. And several Sesame Street Muppets appeared on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader recently.

Million Dollar Money Drop host Kevin Pollak said The Count was an easy choice to bring on to the show since the show deals with money and numbers. And The Count has also seen a recent surge in popularity with his song Hands appearing in a commercial just a few years ago according to Pollak.

In addition to appearing on Million Dollar Money Drop, The Count has also started a website with a countdown starting with April 1 as the first day of the countdown. Ironically, April 1 will be the date of the last day of the countdown as well.