Wired Internet

I originally set my Sony Internet TV up on wireless internet because I didn't have a cable at the time, and I wanted to play with it as quick as possible, but being the person I am I wanted to try all the features so I tired wired internet. It didn't work.

After setting up with wireless on a Sony Internet TV then trying to go over to wired it will just say "not connected". The trick to get it to work is simply disable the wireless and it works. To bad I couldn't figure that out myself and had to ask tech support.

fancast.com

Today I wanted to watch Castle on my Google TV, and since both Hulu and ABC.com, the two sites I would usually use are blocked, I decided to just do a search and found Fancast. Looking at it, it looks a lot like Hulu, and seems to be owned by Comcast. Good news Castle works just fine. It looks like Chuck works there too, and I haven't looked around much more, but yay I can watch the shows I want again. Note: Yesterday I learned you can use NBC by changing the User Agent to Generic, but that trick doesn't work for Hulu anymore so I don't think it will last on NBC. Yay for using my Sony Internet TV as it should be used.

I haven't found a way on Fancast to queue like Hulu, but it does have RSS feeds when you go to each of the shows so you can add it to your Google Queue and it will tell you when you have a new show to watch. I couldn't get it to work right just using the favorite button then clicking add to queue, but I went to my computer and added the RSS feed to my Google Queue subscriptions in Google Reader and it works now.

Update: November 5th:

It seems that I was just a little excited and didn't review Fancast very well. In order to watch shows on it you must have the User Agent switched to Generic. If you don't it will just stay and the loading screen and never actually play. There is one down side to using this site. Ocassionally after commercials the sounds will come back, but the video will not. You have to actually refresh the page(Crtl + R), then go back to where you were. It is a bit of a hassel, but still it mostly works, which is better that what I can say for other sites.

Update: November 12th:

I haven't actually checked this, but according to everything on the internet this is now blocked too. The user agent switch will not work because the companies are blocking the version of flash, not the browser. Wow this is getting annoying, I need to get a new laptop with HDMI out, and just watch what I want no problem. I already have the HDMI cord to plug in across the room thanks to Monoprice.com, but my laptop is just two years to old. I have tired this with my roommate's computer it works great.

Keyboard and Mouse

Although the Sony remote is much more intuitive that I thought it would be, and makes for a good experience, some people (my roommate) would still rather use a regular keyboard and mouse to surf the net. Good news: YOU CAN!

After about half a day of complaining how he couldn't type on a small thumb keypad he tried plugging his wireless mouse and keyboard into the USB ports on the side of the TV and it worked without a hitch. He can now use his mouse instead of the track pad on the remote (which does have a learning curve). Also he gets to use his full sized keyboard which he enjoys. By using the keyboard he lost some functionality (turning the TV on, off works great then he is stuck), but we did find out that the Home button on any internet keyboard will bring up the home screen on the TV, and that something like Ctrl + K brings up the magic search bar. Good job Sony.

Netflix

I was excited to be able to use Netflix on my Sony Internet TV powered by Google TV, but my excitement was unwarranted. When I initially opened the app, I thought it looked cool, it brings you straight to the instant queue, which is nice. Then I tried to explore. This is where I my review ends. There is nothing more. The Google TV which is supposed to be all about searching can't search on their app. (I know I can just go to the Netflix webpage in chrome then add them there, but the resolution is hard to read, and they don't have an easy way to just search instant queue able items.)

On top of not having any features it takes a really long time to load. I know I may not have the fastest internet but everything else loads in at least half that time that Netfilx does. The biggest problem is before it loads it has to retrieve some kind of license which talks forever. Overall I am not impressed, which is kind of sad. I am waiting for an update that will make it more friendly.

Aristocracy.com

This is actually pretty funny. For some reason this blog has been having problems showing up in google. Today I looked for it, just going to google and typing in aboyandhistv.blogspot.com, and finally it came up with results and actually linked here. There were the expected result of my other blog and my twitter, but the funny thing was Aristocracy.com. Acristocracy looks like it is some kind of site that shows recent political pages. I guess by using the word inauguration as the title of my last post they found it and put it on their page. I think it is really funny. If you click the read more link it brings you here. They took the links to all the pictures in the post and even one of the videos. I think it is funny. Here is a screen shot from their home page.