Adam Howitt's Blog

Super Deluxe Launched

At : 11:51 AM | Link | TV | Comments (4) | Send | 952 Views |

After what seems like forever and a very hush-hush operation, my friends Robert and Brian have successfully launched Turner's newest product, SuperDeluxe.com at 9am ET today.  They have some high profile contributors offering Comedy Central style TV through the web.  Fark TV and Brad Neely have some great shorts up there so far and I'm looking forward to checking in each day.  They have a spot for uploading your own videos, like a youtube dedicated to comedy.  I'll see if I can get either Robert or Brian to discuss some of the challenges of designing, building and launching a site like this against a hard deadline.  I'll publish anything I can get them to say on the record...

WalkJogRun on Fox News

At : 2:27 PM | Link | JavaScript, AJAX, Ubuntu, BlueDragon, Coldfusion, TV | Comments (8) | Send | 1285 Views |

I'm delighted to report that WalkJogRun was featured on Fox News two days ago for the Cool Websites section after I tipped off Nancy Loo about the site.  I was surprised in her coverage when she said she had already featured the site at one point but I missed it I guess.  This time I was prepared and have my first YouTube video up now.  I know, I'm probably the last person in the tech world to do this but this is the first thing I felt was worth it.

For anyone who hasn't read anything about WalkJogRun, it's over 3 years old and is a community for runners, cyclists, walkers and anyone else to create and share routes.  It is based on Google Maps and uses custom AJAX, ColdFusion and is built on BlueDragon 6 with MySQL on an Ubuntu server. 

Motorola / Comcast DVR Mute Problem

At : 12:47 PM | Link | TV | Comments (75) | Send | 10075 Views |

I have a DVR from Comcast and it has a software bug (they all do apparently) where the remote isn't pre-programmed to handle the muting of the cable box, just the tv itself. 

This becomes a problem when you leave your DVR powered off when it needs to record something. It will happily power on and correctly records the show but when it turns itself on, the volume is muted on the cable box.  I can see the engineers thinking - we don't want to wake people up in the middle of the night when it starts recording so we'll start it in mute. 

Jeff was able to find a tip which I'll share below for resolving the issue:

1. Press the "Cable" button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
2. Press and hold the "Setup" button until the "Cable" button blinks twice.
3. Enter code 994. The "Cable" button will blink twice.
4. Press (do not hold) the "Setup" button.
5. Enter code 00141.
6. Press whatever button you want to map the mute function to.

Thanks Jeff! 

"The Office" still going strong

At : 3:11 PM | Link | TV | Comments (0) | Send | 510 Views |

I'm glad to see that not only is the NBC remake of the Office still on, but it is getting good reviews in the NY times and they appear to be adding content to the show's website.

There is a Flash banner for the with rollover effects, a Dunder Mifflin microsite and a section called your office which features pictures submitted by visitors to the site of their offices, including those oh so witty pranks. Ones to look for:

1. Tinfoil cube
2. PVC pipe cube and my favorite
3. Balloon office
   

The Office comes early

At : 3:34 PM | Link | TV | Comments (2) | Send | 952 Views |

Through the wonder of livestats and google I just discovered the pre-release of the pilot for NBC's the Office due to launch next week and I'm both suprised and glad to say I was impressed.  They have done a good job in my mind, deviating from the original scripts whilst maintaining some of the sensibilities of the orginal.

I came across metafilter.com's reviews after finding that someone found my site in search.yahoo.com while looking for "The Office NBC".  I was curious how I ranked for the same in Google and found the news about the MySpace preview event.

I think most of the metafilter comments are hugely biassed and I'm curious if most of the comments were Brits.  As an expat I followed the original series closely on the beeb and was also sorely disappointed to see the Coupling nonsense they turned out.  I found myself laughing out loud a few times during the 20 minute pilot on MySpace this lunch time.  Hope the rest of the shows work.

I don't know if anyone know the answer but what happens to shows that get canned after only a few episodes - do they just bin the rest of the episodes they recorded or is there some way to buy copies of them.  Take the Coupling US version - I'd buy the DVD for posterity and curiosity. 

The Office comes to NBC

At : 8:20 PM | Link | TV | Comments (11) | Send | 1042 Views |

I finally remembered to hunt this down and it looks like the NBC version of the BBC hit show "The Office" is launching March 24th at 9.30pm/8.30pm CT.  I'm setting my TiVO in the hope that they do a better job than they did with Coupling.  Steve Carell takes the place of Ricky Gervais as office manager and what looks like a good supporting cast.

The video clips on the site are worth a watch and the site is well done...