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Another Knock Against DRM: Netflix DRM Utility Kills Other DRM Content

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Netflix LogoDavis Freeberg just wanted to upgrade to a bigger monitor to edit his HD home videos. Little did he know that upon upgrading to a 22″ Samsung LCD, he would also inexplicably invoke the wrath of Netflix’s streaming video DRM. When he attempted to view a streaming film, he received an error message asking him to “reset” his DRM. He found the reset utility at a Netflix help page, but then hesitated when the utility presented him with an ominous warning:

This program will reset the Microsoft DRM (Digital Rights Management) store on your computer.

This will potentially remove the playback licenses from your computer, including those from companies other than Netflix or Microsoft. You may later need to re-enter passwords or contact services from which your purchased digital content to restore those licenses…

It is this sort of insanity that keeps DRM from ever becoming a palatable option among the digital media literate. Freeberg sums up everything wrong with this situation fairly well:

When you do a DRM reset, it’s not your pirated files that get revoked, it’s the ones that you already paid for that are at risk. I’m not allowed to watch low res Netflix files, even though I have the capability to download high def torrents? How does this even make sense? It’s as if the studios want their digital strategies to fail.

We can only hope that situations like this force Hollywood, and other content providers, to wake up and realize the plain fact that most of us know already: Strict DRM only hurts honest customers, and it does nothing to prevent piracy. In their frenzy to lock down all of their digital content, they have completely lost sight of the fact that they are treating their customers like criminals. By making the legal means of acquiring content either too convoluted or unpalatable, it should come as no surprise that some consumers find it easier just to pirate what they need.

As the music industry is slowly beginning to take note, the best DRM is no DRM. Hollywood needs to wake up and recognize this plain truth. After all, how exactly did Netflix expect Freeberg to copy the streaming film? Is that really an easier process than simply ripping the DVD to xvid? And how does simply getting a higher-resolution monitor justify the DRM freak out? Wouldn’t he have also been able to “copy” the streaming video with a lower resolution monitor?

In the end it seems Netflix’s DRM certainly accomplished its job of not letting Freeberg copy the film. Unfortunately, it did its job a little too well leaving him with no content at all. Somehow, I find this to be a fitting metaphor for the many ills of DRM.

Keeping Your Windows PC Clean – Part 2: Malware and You

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This is the second post in my “Keeping Your Windows PC Clean” series. If you haven’t yet, check out my first post on using Windows Update.

Virii Plush Dolls
Picture from Paul Holloway @ Flickr

I realize now that the first post may not have been one of the most exciting topics, but when talking about the more advanced elements of Windows troubleshooting I believe it’s important to have your basics covered. Today we’ll be moving on to the most common issues Windows users face: Malware.

What is Malware?

Malware is an umbrella term that includes such computing staples as viruses, trojans, and spyware. In terms of risk prevention, it’s best to keep all of the different sorts of malicious software in mind. Simply put, there’s more to worry about than spyware and viruses. You can read an exhaustively complete explanation of all the different types of malware at Wikipedia.

Here are a few steps you can take to hopefully prevent getting malware in the first place:

Pay Attention to What You’re Installing

Once you get used to installing Windows programs, the installation process tends to feel the same after a while. It’s often tempting to simply click Next until the installation is finished, blithely ignoring the options presented to you. While it may speed up the installation process, this also opens you up to unwittingly installing malware on your computer.

The solution to this is to simply pay attention and read everything you see during installation. While an antispyware program will save you if you install junk on your computer, it’s always better to avoid putting it there in the first place. Pay attention and you’ll notice far more software trying to sneak onto your system than you previously thought. Also, choose the “custom” installation option if possible to see exactly what the software is putting on your system.

Some examples of malware include the software that tries to sneak into your system when you install the Weatherbug application (just stay away from that entirely), and the variety of junk you’re presented with when installing RealPlayer.

Take note: This isn’t just good practice for preventing malware, it also prevents tons of legitimate software which I find wholly unnecessary. These sorts of things won’t actively harm your computer, but pile enough of them on and you’re bound to notice a performance decrease. Some examples of this includes the auto-updating features of Quicktime and the Google Applications, as well as anything that masquerades as a “helper application” in your system tray.

Be Wary When Using Downloaded Files

Semi-related to the topic above, you should also pay attention to the files you download from the web and P2P applications. If possible, make sure the files you’re downloading are “clean” (checking comments usually helps with this, if they’re available), and don’t contain any strange executables. Things to look out for include random .exe and .dat files when you only expected to find music.

If you have antivirus software (which will be covered soon in this series), you can scan the files you download to make sure they’re not harboring malware. This is a last resort method of course, and the best course of action is not to download anything from sketchy pirate sites at all.

Use Firefox and Internet Explorer 7

Anecdotally, I would guesstimate that around 80% of malware that the average user installs comes from Internet Explorer 6. It’s no big secret that IE6 was one of the biggest security holes in Windows XP. This had to do mainly because of the way IE6 was integrated into XP. The tight integration was seemingly a good idea to Microsoft for development reasons, but in reality it opened up some gaping security holes.

After Service Pack 2 for XP was released, IE became a bit more bearable with a few security upgrades. Then came Internet Explorer 7 which offered greatly improved security (especially for Vista users), but unfortunately still couldn’t compare much to Firefox.

My advice for this section boils down to this: Use the latest version of Firefox for your primary web browsing, but also make sure to have Internet Explorer 7 installed because you need to have some version of IE installed. You might as well have the most secure version. (Of course if you followed my advice from the first column, you’d already be covered.)

Coming Up Next Time

The next article in this series will cover what you need to do to remove malware from your system. I didn’t include it in this one because it’s honestly a very different topic, and if you followed my advice in this section to heart you may never actually need to remove any malware 😉

Also, I realize that everyone has their own theories when it comes to computer maintenance, so I welcome you to offer your suggestions for avoiding malware in the comments.

Study Shows 73% of Americans Haven’t Heard of Online Office Suites, Should We Be Surprised?

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Download Squad is reporting on a recent NPD study that shows 74% of Americans haven’t heard of Google Docs or any other online office suite. Out of 600 PC users, NPD found that around 94% had never tried any web-based office suite, although around 20% have at least heard of them. You can catch the full breakdown of results on the chart below.

NPD Online Office Suite Survey

Chart from Microsoft Watch

Download Squad sourced Microsoft Watch for this story, who read a bit more into these results and proclaimed that the end was near for the Web 2.0 office suite. But is that really the case?

I don’t think we should be surprised that most U.S. PC users haven’t heard of these web applications. After all, there is practically no publicity for this stuff outside of technology websites and magazines. And while they’re occasionally mentioned in the tech sections of mainstream media outlets, I would wager that those sections still don’t get much attention from non-techy readers.

My point is this: Technology enthusiasts, just like any niche, converse on a completely different level from general users. We should expect that topics we live with every day are completely alien to normal PC users. In these cases we need to put ourselves in the shoes of these users to understand the best way to communicate newfound concepts to them.

Microsoft Watch is completely insensitive of these considerations, which explains why they believe online productivity suites are already dead when they have barely had a chance to prove themselves. These online suites may not become household names tomorrow but it will happen eventually, as proven by their examples of other successful online applications like tax preparation software.

The biggest barrier to their success is of course Microsoft, whose Office suite is practically synonymous with productivity software on PCs. Microsoft has also trained the majority of PC users to buy their software in stores, so someone is going to have to change their mindset. My money would be on Google. At some point they’ll have to drop that “Beta” tag on Google Docs and start a real ad campaign.

They can’t just make the public aware of these online office suites, however. They also have to prove that their data will be safe, and that their online software contains all of the features they normally use in Microsoft Office. It won’t be easy, but Google is one of the few companies with enough brand clout and money to make it happen.

Until then, these suites, just like pretty much every new Web 2.0 trend, will remain in the domain of technology enthusiasts.

Keeping Your Windows PC Clean – Part 1: Using Windows Update

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Windows Vista LogoWorking in tech support, I constantly run into a wide variety of users who seem to know very little about taking care of their Windows computers. This isn’t necessarily their fault, since most people simply don’t have the time or patience to dig beyond the surface-level workings of their computers. Ideally, users shouldn’t have to worry about the way their computer works, but that sort of blissful utopia is still several years away in my opinion.

Luckily for the uneducated Windows users out there, it’s actually much easier to take care of their computers than they think. This series of posts will offer simple and free ways for even the greenest users to maintain their computers. Let’s start with something basic:

Keeping your computer up to date with Windows Update

Despite Microsoft’s penchant for buggy operating systems, in truth they do a good job of keeping both Windows XP and Vista up to date. Of course, to take advantage of these updates you need to make sure you’re actually downloading and installing them. You can do this manually from Windows XP by going to WindowsUpdate.com in Internet Explorer (not Firefox), or in Vista by navigating to Start Menu > Control panel > Windows Update.

Check for updates by clicking the appropriate buttons or links in XP/Vista, and then simply proceed through the installation process. If you’re an XP user who hasn’t updated in a while, you may be asked to go through some extra updates before you’re allowed to install actual Windows Updates.

You can also configure both Windows XP and Vista to download and install your updates automatically. Personally, I recommend just enabling the option to download updates but not install them automatically. When Windows installs your updates automatically it also reboots your computer once it’s done, and this could pose a problem if you accidentally leave an unsaved document open. You’ll end up losing all of the unsaved data.

To enable automatic downloading in Windows XP, navigate to Start > Control Panel > Automatic Updates. Choose the option to “Download Updates for me, but let me choose when to install them”, and click OK.

To enable it in Windows Vista, navigate to Start > Control Panel > Windows Update and select the Change Settings option on the left side of the window. Choose “Download Updates for me, but let me choose when to install them”, check off the two check boxes at the bottom of the screen, and click OK.

vistawindowsupdate.jpg

Once automatic downloading is enabled, you will receive notices in your system tray telling you when you have updates to install. You can either install them by clicking on the relevant icon, or, my personal favorite, choose to “Shut Down and install updates” when you click Start > Shutdown.

You’d be surprised at the sort of performance improvements that you get from making sure your computer is up to date, not to mention the numerous security benefits, so it’s always a good idea to make sure you’re doing so.

On Ginger: The Latest Netvibes Update

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Netvibes Logo

Continuing with their spicy naming scheme for major releases, Netvibes founder Tariq Krim recently posted the first preview of the next update to Netvibes, Ginger. The updates mentioned so far sound enticing, and as a devout Netvibes user I’m already feeling the itch to test out this new build.

Ginger will be introducing the following new features to Netvibes’ already impressive repertoire:

  • Better content and easier access to it
  • Social features
  • The ability create your own Netvibes universe

The addition of new content is not surprising at all, but the latter two items definitely got me thinking. I have written about Netvibes’s introduction of personal universes in a previous article on Daily Bits as a response to new social networking initiatives by Google and Yahoo. Now it looks like Netvibes has beat them both to the punch. [Read more…] about On Ginger: The Latest Netvibes Update

Learning from Gerstmann-gate: Never Underestimate Your Online Community

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gerstamnn.jpgJeff Gerstmann is an Internet god, or at least that’s how it would have seemed if you visited any gaming site since the world caught wind of his sudden dismissal on Thursday, November 29. From the moment I heard the shocking news, I knew that this incident wasn’t going to disappear in any tidy fashion. Gerstman was one of the most senior journalists from Gamespot, and the rumor at the time was that the dismissal was influenced by a negative review he published for the Eidos game Kane & Lynch.

Unfortunately for Gamespot, they were also running a massive ad campaign for Kane & Lynch at the same time. The juxtaposition of these two events led the gaming community to question Gamespot’s journalistic integrity. The gravity of the situation was clear. It was going to take some serious public relations work with the Gamespot community to smooth things over.

But of course, in all their infinite corporate wisdom, CNET had their own idea on how to handle this publicity mess: Just ignore it.

In hindsight, I’m sure they regret that decision now. The lack of communication from CNET, coupled with other unfortunately timed events, fueled the fire of confusion and anger by the gaming community. We can speculate endlessly as to why Gerstmann was fired: Perhaps Eidos was angered by his Kane & Lynch review, or perhaps it was a culmination of other behind the scenes events. In either case, CNET left the Gamespot community in the dark.

That was their mistake.

Gamespot is one of the longest running online gaming sites on the net. Launched in 1996, its had more than a decade to build what many Web 2.0 sites are rushing to do right now, a strong and dedicated community. All of that community building effort was reduced to shambles the instant CNET fired one of the most well-liked personalities from the site for seemingly shady reasons, and with little to no explanation.

In retribution, the Gamespot boards, not to mention the comment sections and forums of other major gaming sites, were flooded with posts about Gerstmann. Joystiq started a Gerstmann-gate series of posts compiling the many reactions that started popping up online. It was no surprise to anybody that a great majority of the gaming dialog that weekend was all related to Jeff Gerstmann in some way.

There was no real dialog with the Gamespot community until the release of the December 4 episode of their weekly podcast, the HotSpot. Needless to say, it was an incredible episode, and I’ll admit that the sheer amount of emotion in that podcast inspired me to write this piece.

In the podcast, some of the remaining Gamespot employees gathered around for a heartfelt farewell to Gerstmann, and an even more emotional apology to the fans. They stressed several times that the Gamespot staff was a fairly close family, and this sudden move by their parent company knocked them all off-kilter. They also stressed that their family also includes the Gamespot reader community.

One of the Gamespot staff members in the podcast summarized the horrible treatment of the community by CNET succinctly:

It’s not how you respect your userbase, and the people that have supported us and turned is into what we are.

This was exactly what the community needed to hear, and the fact that this message was delivered with such honesty made it all the more believable.

It’s obvious now that the decision to remove Gerstmann came down from on high in CNET corporate, but it’s even clearer that they had no idea how tightly knit the Gamespot community was. In the podcast, they mentioned that CNET stated that they “didn’t understand the Gamespot audience” or the circumstance of the situation. They also mentioned the obvious disconnect between the corporate CNET office, and the day-to-day workings of Gamespot proper. It’s refreshing to hear them be so up front about something that we all pretty much assumed the day Gerstmann was fired.

This, is communication CNET.

The lesson they need to learn for the future is that you simply can’t ignore your online community. This is especially true when you have one of the oldest and largest communities on the web. The trend towards transparency isn’t just a hip Web 2.0 fad. It’s a significant improvement on past communication models and will be the key to managing online communities from now on. Couple transparency with an attentive ear towards community dialog, and you have a recipe for a healthy online populace.

(Picture from Joystiq)