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I have been a Netflix subscriber since 2003 because I love just setting the order of movies to come – and they just show up in my mailbox.  The problem with the service for me, is I try to get every last cent out of everything I try to turn around the movies as fast as possible so I can make my monthly fee worth while.  I guess I wasn’t the only one with this “problem”.

As you can see - FeedFlix gives you a lot of stats it gets from your netflix account (through an authorized api call).  So, with my 5 years of Netflixing, I am paying about $1.12 a rental.  I thought I was doing pretty good, but 30% of Feedflix users pay less.  CHALLENGE!  =)

It will also let you manage your DVD queue on Netflix as well as give some good overall stats of Netflix like:

• Only 20% of Feedflix users rent Blu-Ray DVDs
• As expected Tuesday is the largest shipment day of DVDs (from the weekend)
• The 1 & 3 at-a-time plans are the most popular
• Most Netflix users keep their DVDs for 7-9 days

The site is still pretty rough, and has some downtime – but I love the idea, and they are constantly looking for new ideas and improvements from their users.

Brent Movies Blu-Ray, DVD, Feedflix, Netflix

I attended a conference called IgniteIT Iowa a little while ago, and was very impressed.  They had lots of activities and speakers, but I participated in the “Scratch” activity.  Scratch is a program written and provided free by MIT.  Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.  Just playing with the program for about an hour I was able to make a very simple but animated story.  It felt like a very fun easy version of flash.  Here is a video from MIT to show a little more about it:

Click the button to download a free version to give it a try:

Brent TechNews IgniteIT, MIT, Scratch

Carbonite is a online backup company that is VC-Backed.  This was released while I was out of the country – but I had to post this story.  Carbonite with its major funding and large marketing campains loses data for 7,500+ customers.  Although Mozy (purchased then spun-out by EMC as Decho Corp) has a competitive product, Carbonite is the one that is pushing with full force in marketing.  Here is the article where I found the story at the Boston Globe:

Carbonite’s complaint charged Promise Technology with breach of contract, fraud, and unfair and deceptive acts and practices. The complaint charged Interactive Digital Systems with breach of warranty. It seeks unspecified damages against the two companies.

Promise’s hardware was meant to monitor multiple computer hard drives to assure that they were functioning properly to preserve customers’ data, according to the suit. Instead, the suit charged, “Carbonite lost the backups of over 7,500 customers in a number of separate incidents, causing serious damage to Carbonite’s business and to its reputation as a reliable source for backup data service.”

The suit said Promise engineers were unable to fix the errors. “The problems that have occurred have required Carbonite’s senior engineers, senior management, and senior operations personnel to spend enormous amounts of time dealing with the problems,” it said.

For full disclosure, I work for a company that provides online backups called FirstBackup, and we have had some customers convert to us due to this problem.  We are priced quite a bit higher than Carbonite’s $54.95/year for unlimited storage – but anything is higher than unlimited storage.  To supply decent back end systems and attentive personal support – I can tell you $54.95/year does not pay the bills.  We have used Promise in the past, and haven’t had any major problems, but enough little ones we did not continue our storage builds with them.

I get very worried when companies that are VC-backed offer products for almost nothing.  It seems that they are just harvesting customers to be later sold to another company or given a price increase.  Investors in venture capital firms are wanting a return on their investment.

I think Carbonite will weather this news, as it didn’t seem to get too much press for as much positive marketing that they are pushing out there.  (Check out this article about how Carbonite’s VP of Marketing started posting fake reviews on Amazon for their product)  I think the major loser in this mess will probably be Promise.  Businesses in the backup business make sure to watch their market, and a vendor with major problems and possibly not standing behind their product is a major blow.

Brent TechNews Carbonite, FirstBackup, Mozy, Promise

From the NDP Group report on total sales of consoles and games, Nintendo’s Wii Fit is in line to beat the PlayStation Console in numbers of units sold by summer.  Here is just the March data:

PlayStation 2 131K
PlayStation 3 276K
PSP 199K
Xbox 360 391K
Wii 753K
Nintendo DS 588K
Wii Fit w/ Balance Board (WII) 644K
Street Fighter IV* (360) 446K
Street Fighter IV* (PS3) 403K
Wii Play w/ Remote (WII) 386K
Killzone 2 (PS3) 323K
Wii Mario Kart with wheel (WII) 263K
Call of Duty: World at War* (360) 193K
Mario Kart DS (NDS) 145K
New Super Mario Bros (NDS) 144K
Guitar Hero World Tour* (WII) 136K

I have a Wii console, because I have always loved the nintendo games, but the Wii took creativity to a new level.  Although the graphics are not as good as a XBox or PS3, the fun of the play is still there.  I also have to admit that I was one of those that ran out and snatched a Wii Fit shortly after it came out.  It is quite strange that so many people rush out to buy a product that continuously tells you are fat.

Brent Games Nintendo, PlayStation3, Sony, Wii, Wii Fit

Not that the spending slump hasn’t been bad enough on GM putting them on the verge of bankruptcy, but the just released today that they are recalling 1.5 million vechicles because of potential engine fire.  I don’t have to state the obvious, but the timing of this problem could not have been worse.  The details of the recall taken from Yahoo Fiance:

The recall includes the 1998-1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue, the 1997-2003 Pontiac Grand Prix, 1997-2003 Buick Regal, and the 1998-2003 Chevrolet Lumina, Monte Carlo and Impala.

It involves vehicles with a 3.8-liter V6 engine. The government says drops of oil could fall into the exhaust system and cause a fire in the engine.

GM closed today at $1.71 down $0.33 (-16.18%).  For a long term risky play – I will be picking up some GM stock tomorrow morning.  It looks like others are thinking the same thing – as it is already up $0.07 after hours.

Brent TickerNews GM, Recalls

Apple is about to hit a billion apps download from their iTunes App Store.  Although I am not a fan on searching through the store to find apps (I will hopefully have a solution for that soon) - I love the idea of the app store.  I have not yet taken a look at the Windows Mobile or Blackberry app stores yet that are being created to hopefully get some of the Apple success, but I will soon and make a post on those.

Apple wants to celebrate the billionth app – so they are going to be giving out a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro.  You can be entered to win if you download an app from the store, or you can enter free at their website.

Brent Apple, TechNews AppStore, iTunes

Berkshire Hathaway has always been an interest of mine, even since I found the common stock that was worth more than $100,000 a share!  Warren Buffett and his Berkshire Hathaway has always been something people in the investment looked to, especially in a time of a recession.  Talking heads of CNBC can’t say anything bad about him.

However, I do like the guy.  I think he is a brilliant conservative investor – and lives down to Earth still buying girl scout cookies from his community.  That gets a good mark in my book not to mention all the money he has made in the past.

Today was proof that Berkshire has not been immune to the banking atmosphere.  The Wall Street Journal has wrote in today’s paper:

 

Moody’s on Wednesday lowered the long-term issuer rating of Berkshire to AA2 from its top AAA rating. It cited the weakening economy and “severe decline in equity markets.” Berkshire has had big losses in its portfolio, which includes large financial companies such as Wells Fargo & Co. and American Express Co.

Mr. Buffett is weathering one of the toughest markets since he took over Berkshire in 1965. Its shares are down 33% over the past year. Further downgrades could impact borrowing costs, and hurt its ability to charge maximum rates for insurance policies written by its subsidiaries.

One of the companies most affected by the market downturn is Moody’s itself, whose stock has slid about 70% since early 2007.

I have not been a great fan of these rating agencies.  They are usually overlooking major problems in the companies, and are usually too slow to react to a changing market.  I think there is too much of a built in conflict when they are being paid by the same people they are suppose to be watching.  This situation is no different.  Birkshire owns 20% of Moody’s and I want to believe that it doesn’t make a difference in the timing of upgrades/downgrades and how severe they are.

Despite all of that, I was actually hoping to find a good dip the stock today (B shares of course) with the bad news, but with the good news out of Wells Fargo it was actually up today.  I think people are just looking for any good news though, so I think we’ll get the dip yet this month in both WFC & BRK.B.  Although I think Wells Fargo is one of the better bank stocks, I think they are just playing games to make their numbers look better by possibly just reserving less for their loan loss.  The true test will be their next quarter.

Brent TickerNews Berkshire Hathaway, BRK.B, Moody's, Warren Buffet, WFC

I exclusively buy my music on iTunes well before I even had an iPod.  I love getting quality music very easily.  When Apple started offering the “Plus” music that was DRM free with better quality – I knew it was just a matter of time while they tested the market with the new pricing when they would move all pricing to the “Plus”.

This is a snip from the Wall Stree Journal:

Under Apple’s new pricing plan that will take effect in April, Mr. Schiller said songs will cost 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29. He said the “vast majority” of the songs will cost 69 cents, though people familiar with the matter said the most sought-after songs — which generate most of the sales on the service — will likely cost $1.29 as both Apple and the major record labels try to boost revenue growth. Wholesale prices charged by the record labels are likely to change to reflect the new price points; spokespeople for Apple and major record labels declined to discuss their agreements.

Reading this, I was actually excited.  No more DRM, which I didn’t have a large problem with, and possibly songs at $0.69.  I have YET to find one song that I recognized for that price.  All I did see what anything that is new or popular move to $1.29 immediately.  What “vast majority” could Apple be talking about?  Was the person who said that a large polka fan?

Lastly, I thought I would be excited since they no longer offer the older version of some of the songs I had – I was wondering if there is a free upgrade after seeing the link in iTunes.  Nope – a nice $0.30 to upgrade the songs they still have.  It would cost me about $60 to upgrade my library.  Hmmm…no.

I did use Amazon’s music service before (only to redeem my PepsiStuff points), and found the downloading difficult.  Once downloaded – it had a nice app that automatically imported the song into iTunes.  But with the 5 songs I got, I had to already contact their support to authorize a song for another download that didn’t work.  Apple’s smart – they know I will just suck it up and pay the extra 30% for each song that I want.  For others though – will this increase music priracy for those that were ok with paying $0.99 a song?

Brent Apple, TechNews DRM, iTunes

I read today on CNN.com that Kumar (Kal Pen) has made another big career change.  Pen went from a pot smoking college student, to a doctor on house to now the White House!  Pen has accepted a position from President Obama to be a liaison for the arts community and the Asian-American community.  To be honest, I don’t know Pen outside of his movie and TV roles, but I think this is a very interesting pick.

The worst part, is I think we have seen an end to the Harold & Kumar movies.  Unless he is just taking this public service job to get some good material for the next movie – who knows?

Brent Movies Kal Pen, Kumar, White House

I’ve had a lot of people ask me, “So, conficker wasn’t as big a deal as they thought?”.  I too expected to see something happen on April 1st once these bots got their instruction.  But when we didn’t see any big actions by the instruction, that wasn’t a good sign.   I thought the Gizmodo blog did a great post on this:

What the April 1 update did was simple: It provided instructions for linking up with the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of new nodes registered by Conficker.c over the last few weeks, effectively growing the size of the p2p botnet to a point where it can not be stopped.

“It’s not about ownage, it’s about continued ownage,” says Kaminsky, citing a favorite quotation of one of his hacker buddies. “It’s not about how you get into the network, it’s about, ‘How do you be [there] a year from now?’” And the answer is: “You do a lot of the things the Conficker developers are doing.”

“This is not something where the guys wrote it, it’s out, then they’re going to go out and play Nintendo. They’re frankly trying to build something that is a sustainable network for months or years to come,” Kaminsky says.

Kevin Haley, director of Symantec Security Response, raises another good point: “The first [of April] would have been a pretty bad day to choose [to do something with Conficker], because everyone was watching to see what was going to happen. Whoever’s behind this is as lot more patient than we are.”

So, I agree – I think the creator(s) are doing this very well.  They are going to use this worm for something a little more than a prank.  So, please people – update your windows & run the cleaner utility to make sure you don’t have this on your system.

Brent Microsoft, TechNews Conficker, Microsoft, Windows