Underground Media: Reloaded

I hate Facebook.  I should just be upfront about that.  Back in 2007 I thought it was the coolest thing since Star Trek, but now I loathe everything about it.  From its ever changing privacy policies to how it actually shares data with your "friends" and friends of your friends, its a continuous source of irritation to me. Especially because I can't avoid using it!  My family and close friends are on it. My work peers are on it.  And if you ever meet anyone new, the first thing they want to do is Facebook you.  Nevermind that its only full of lolcats , internet memes, and people's TMI .  It's the juggernaut of social media, and if you want to have a presence online, you gotta be on Facebook. I thought Google+ would supplant Facebook at some point, but that's just not going to happen anytime soon.  Facebook has mastered one half of the law of social media inertia.  In short, once most regular folk are "at rest" on a social media property, t...

I am a huge fan of cloud storage ever since I downloaded Dropbox for the first time and realized the power and efficiency of having access to critical files everywhere across all devices.  In addition to storing all of my mobile-phone camera snaps, my wife and I also use it to maintain a shared finance folder for things like tax info, important receipts, etc.  Dropbox is mission critical for me, and it's the first thing I install when I setup a new phone or tablet. Since 2007, when Dropbox was a relative loner in the cloudsync game, many other competitors have sprung up and a few are quite good.  I personally use Evernote , Google Drive, Bitcasa , and Mega .  Why would any human being need five different cloudsync services?  Well, my needs have changed over time and each service has different strengths and weaknesses.  Evernote has great tagging and search features, but it's focus is primarily on note-taking.  Google Drive does OCR and has a documen...

I remember the early days of Hulu when all it had was the Daily Show, Family Guy, and a bunch of anime.  I was an early cheerleader and vocal supporter because the promise of on-demand streaming TV anywhere  was and is so important to the cord-cutting movement.  Hulu has come a long way since then. It's library is huge, it now boasts some impressive movie titles, and it's now possible to subscribe and watch media on your TV, tablet or phone.  And this is ultimately what is so frustrating about Hulu.  Despite all that the streaming service has achieved, it fails to deliver consistently on its promises. So what do I mean by all this?  Let's say you want to watch an episode of The Outer Limits (90's version).  Hulu has every single episode ready to stream.  In fact, they are the ONLY ones with the streaming rights to this series.  You can't even *buy* an unedited DVD for anything past Season 1. Usenet and bittorrent also come up empty. ...

So, for any new readers that I gain via G+ or wherever, here's a quick FAQ about me. 1. Where are you located and what do you do for a living ? - I'm Atlanta-based and I work in the consumer electronics industry (go figure).  I know that anyone who is anyone who blogs about tech needs to live in San Fran or NY, but I figure now is a great time to start bucking that trend.  Atlanta is a huge and growing city, all the major tech players have a presence here, tech startups are everywhere, we have 4G LTE coverage from all the carriers, the food is good and the cost of living is cheap.  You do the math. 2. Why are you blogging about "underground" tech? - Because there's a gap in the tech media right now.  Every other blog is talking about Apple this, or Samsung that.  They are reviewing the latest iteration of five-inch black slab of plastic after five-inch black slab of plastic.  But very FEW blogs are talking about cord-cutting and how the various program...

Ladies and Gentlemen, this blog is once again OPEN FOR BUSINESS!!! It's been about four years since my last post, and I'm not quite sure why I'm starting things up again.  I think the likely answer is the sheer volume of my tech "rants" over on Google+ .  I think  I need a home for them as they are just piling up over there in quite a disorganized fashion.  Also, with the exception of the good people over at TorrentFreak , there really are not a lot of online informational sources for underground tech, P2P, and the like.  I personally find myself weeding through a lot of web forums, rather than nicely curated blogs.  Also, I figured that since I have like 3,500 circlers on G+, maybe I will actually get some readers! So, what can you expect from my random rants and raves?  Well, I think all previous posts from this blog are preserved (and boy was I wrong about some stuff. More on that later), so take a peek if you dare.  I warn you, though,...

Well, loyal readers, I have strongly considered shuttering Underground Media. But, for some reason, I just can't hit the delete button. I will leave it up and accessible indefinitely, and perhaps I will occasionally post something. But for now, consider this blog CLOSED. Too many things to do, and too few hours in the day to get them done...