My Three Words for 2015: PLAY, FUN, and SURPRISE

I've been doing Chris Brogan's THREE WORDS exercise for New Years for a while now. What's ended up working for me is keeping the same words year to year.

It's become my mantra.

These three words help me focus on what's important to me.

Here they are:



PLAY

Back in my Three Words for 2013 post, I talked about how PLAY has worked for me in travel and food blogging.

I expressed an interest in working with high end resorts that are looking to share their story in a personal way via social media. The best example from 2014 was attending the grand opening of The Hermitage ski resort in Vermont.

My wife and I had a great time, I shared content via social media while there in real time, and then compiled everything in a Storify blog post. We hope to do lots more travel this year. Let me know if you want me to help you tell your story.

FUN

I only choose to work with people who are fun. I enjoy helping fun people and companies grow. I'm good at saying NO. If a project isn't going to be fun, I won't do it. ;-)

I also made more time for leisure fun in 2014. For 2015 that's going to mean getting better at tennis, and taking up golf again.

SURPRISE

Ze Frank talks about:

- Trying New Things.
- Being uncomfortable.
- Breaking patterns.

In 2014 I ramped up my angel investing and got involved in some new companies. I'm enjoying the start up process, advising Mercedes-Benz of Burlington, and Lord Hobo Brewing Company. There are a couple of other new startups that I'll be working with in 2015, and it'll be fun to explore and learn with them.

HINT: One company is working in the virtual reality space.

Do you choose three words to start the year? I'd love to hear them.

Removing Dust and Scratches from 35mm Slides

Three Movies To Watch: Winter's Tale, Divergent, Snowpiercer

Winter's Tale - The horse in this movie is called 'Horse.'
I enjoyed watching Colin Farrell and Jessica Brown Findlay in this love story across time.



Divergent - You can't be expected to know what you want to do with your life when in College.
I expected this to be a rip off of The Hunger Games, but the story kept my interest throughout, and I'm looking forward to the next one in the series.



The Aptitude Test.

Snowpiercer - It would have been easier to buy a First Class ticket.
I heard extreme mixed reviews on this one, from LOVE to HATE. I loved it. Especially seeing all the different classes of train cars.

How to Fix: Comcast Xfinity TV Go Video Loading Adobe Flash Problem

It's cool that you can watch live video via Xfinity TV Go, but sometimes the videos don't play, and you're stuck on a VIDEO LOADING page.

You might have brought this on yourself by changing a setting in Google Chrome that keeps videos from automatically playing.

You thought it was a good idea at the time, because it sped up the browser, but then when you wanted to watch some live video, you had NO IDEA how to make it work.

I went over to the ADOBE web site, looked around at a message board where a lot of people were complaining, some even saying to DELETE Chrome and reinstall.

Well, sometimes that works, and in this case it probably would, by resetting all the settings, but I figured out how to get videos to play again on Xfinity TV Go, but just changing one setting in my browser settings...

Hope this can work for you.

Here's how I did it.

Here you are seeing 'LOADING VIDEO...'



CLICK THE 'TOP RIGHT MENU ICON'
SELECT 'SETTINGS'



UNDER PRIVACY
CLICK 'CONTENT SETTINGS'



UNDER PLUGINS
CLICK 'RUN AUTOMATICALLY'

New Xfinity Wireless Gateway Dual Band 802.11 AC Installed

I just got a new New Xfinity Wireless Gateway Dual Band 802.11 AC Installed (DPC3941T).


New vs. Old

According to Multichannel news, The new DOCSIS 3.0-powered and voice-capable Xfinity Wireless Gateway is a dual-band 802.11n router with 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz radios designed to expand wireless coverage in the home and help customers connect their tablets, smartphones, gaming consoles and PCs to the home network.

To get the higher speed, you need to have a device that is capable of connecting to the faster band. Some older devices won't be able to. For a laptop, you can get a Dual Band 802.11n USB Adapter, that will allow you to connect to the 5.0 band.

Here are the results of a Comcast Speed Test:

Wired:


Wireless:


It seems like it's going to cover a farther range from my upstairs office. I'll be watching it's performance to see how the connectivity is downstairs.

2.5 GHz Band is crowded, 5 GHz band isn't
I used WiFi Explorer to take a look at EiFi networks that are around me. The 2.5 GHz Band is crowded, the 5 GHz band isn't. The Xfinity tech told me that the crowded band is like the old wireless home phones where you had to pick a channel. Sometimes you'd hear your neighbor's calls, or have conflicts with their phone.

That's what's happening with the 2.5 GHz WiFi band. It's getting crowded. So crowded in fact, that it can become almost unuasable when there are lots of devices in the same area.

Here's my quiet neighborhood's 2.5 GHz WiFi band.


Here's my quiet neighborhood's 5.0 GHz WiFi band.


A lot less crowded.

And yes, I named my Xfinity Wireless Gateway Skynet. ;-)

There were other suggestions.

Press Release:

INTRODUCING THE INDUSTRY'S FASTEST WIRELESS GATEWAY:

Our new Gateway not only offers faster speeds, but it also operates within the 802.11 AC spectrum, a Wi-Fi channel that is used by many of the latest consumer electronic devices including the Samsung Galaxy S4/S5, Macbook Pro, and the Macbook Air. And like previous Xfinity Gateways, the new hardware is built to the MoCA 2.0 standard, which allows the device to leverage a home’s existing coaxial cable network to create a faster and more efficient network of connected devices in the home.

This technology translates into faster speeds and a better connection to do all the things we love: stream HD video, download music, network multiple rooms in our homes, and connect lots of devices and gadgets simultaneously.

Jimmy Fallon says "This must be viral..."

“@stevegarfield: Camp Winnipesaukee - YouTube. #FallonTonight https://t.co/lCOZTZioQq” whoa - @stevegarfield? This must be viral...

— jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) December 17, 2014

Camp Winnipesaukee w/ Jimmy Fallon & Justin Timberlake

The Hermitage Club: A Private Mountain in Vermont

The Hermitage Club.

Teaching my Mom the difference between HDMI1, HDMI2, and TV so she can get Netflix on the Amazon fireTV stick

I got my mom (89) an Amazon Fire TV Stick to allow her to watch Nextflix on her TV.


Installing the fireTV stick was easy, teaching her the the difference between HDMI1, HDMI2, and TV was hard!


Amazon fireTV stick connected via HDMI EXTENDER CABLE TO Monitor HDMI port

HDMI1 and HDMI2
Once I had the firstTV stick set up, it was time to teach my mom how to use it to access Netflix.

My mom has Xfinity and uses that remote to do everything. But now that I introduced a new input, I had to go find the remote that came with the TV to show her how to switch between Xfinity and the Amazon fireTV smart stick, which from here on out I'll call Netflix.

So I found the remote and showed her the SOURCE button.

Note: Maybe she oculd have used the Xfinity remote to do this. I'll have to take a look the next time I visit. Makes sense.



Me: Here mom. Use this remote to change between HDMI1 and HDMI2. HDMI1 is your TV, and HDMI2 is Netflix.

Mom: What does HDMI mean?

Me: I don't know, just press the SOURCE button.

Mom: What's HDMI1 and HDMI2?

Me: HDMI1 is your TV, and HDMI2 is Netflix.

AMAZON FIRETV STICK REMOTE
So we get Amazon fireTV stick display up on the tv and now need to navigate around.



Me: Use the circle to go up, down, left, right, and the button inside the circle to select. Try moving around.

Mom: OK.

When my mom pressed down, it moved down two locations instead of one, and sometimes she pressed the select button instead of navigation. We figured out that the black circle was not differentiated enough in color to distinguish it from the black selection button.

We figured that out.

NETFLIX
Then we moved on to selecting Netflix.


Netflix on Amazon fireTV stick

Once there we looked at how to select and watch a show.

Back to TV

After that we practiced going back to TV.

[Times Passes and we visit again]

Mom: My TV isn't working. It says No Signal. I watched Netflix on my computer at my desk.

So I went over to the TV and saw that the SOURCE was set to TV. Ah ha!

Me: Mom, when you press the SOURCE button, you don't go to TV to get TV, you go to HDMI1 to get TV, which is Xfinity. When you press the SOURCE button, you need to bypass the TV option and only go to either HDMI1 or HDMI2. No TV.

That cleared things up!

My Mercedes-Benz C300 Test Drive Story