Hulu: It's not ready for prime time.

There's been some hype about the new video site Hulu. It's exciting because like YouTube, all the videos are searchable and FREE. Unlike YouTube, the content is from the major TV networks and major movie studios. The concept is tantalizing: This FREE service could potentially usurp cable and Netflix. But alas, it's not quite there yet. The graph above summarizes Hulu's shortcomings, despite the fact that (or maybe because it is?) FREE.

This isn't a full review, but in summary Hulu:
- offers FREE movies and TV shows to view on a computer
- links to other sites that do have the video you're looking for even if Hulu doesn't have it.
(e.g., searching for 'LOST' and 'One Tree Hill' gives you links to the ABC and CW sites, respectively.)

- The video quality is sub-DVD resolution and does not look good connected to an HDTV
- searching for 'Iron Chef' returns links to 'Top Chef'.
- searching for the Russell Crowe classic 'The Gladiator' leads to about 8 links to the not-exactly-classic 'American Gladiators'
- searching for 'The Titanic' leads to 'Wildboyz: Thailand 2'


In short, searching for stuff on Hulu is hit or miss...or miss completely.
To those using Hulu now, I say: Good Luck!

Haggling: for the Best Buy

Who knew? Everyone knows that the sticker price on cars is strictly for suckers. But how about the price tags at your local electronics retailer and your local big-box retailer?
At Megastores, Hagglers Find No Price Set in Stone-The New York Times

Flash-based hard drives: Like Ryan Leaf.

Jeesh. Flash-based hard drives a.k.a., SSD (solid state drives), are like the Ryan Leaf of computer tech. Flash-based drives showed so much promise, yet has delivered nothing so far for notebook computing. They are expensive (~$900 for an SSD upgrade on a notebook computer) and unreliable.

In theory, SSD's have many advantages over conventional hard drives:
- energy efficiency (due to lack of moving parts)
- silent operation
- compact size
- fast

So far, the potential benefits have yet to be realized. Performance gains have been minimal and in some cases are actually WORSE than standard hard drives. Compact size has been a non-factor so far since they're usually used inside of standard notebook casings. Energy efficiency gains have also been minimal.

Now, adding insult to injury, a recent analysis shows that "a large computer manufacturer" is getting around 20 percent to 30 percent of the flash-based notebooks it is shipping sent back because of failure rates and performance that simply isn't meeting customer expectations.

About 10% of the SSD notebooks are defective (compared with only 1% of standard hard drive-based notebooks). Another 10% or so are reporting performance issues with basic functions such as video streaming.

Of course we're just in the beginning of phasing in SSD drives, but here's to hoping that you don't make the mistake of buying an SSD-based computer. Here's also to hoping that I'll be writing about SSD's being like Eli Manning in the near-future...