Northwest Folklife... Seattle meets Earthy

Anderson's Blog, Sunday, May 27 2007. There was some ruckus outside near the Seattle center, so I called a couple of friends to check it out. It turned out to be the Northwest Folklife: http://www.nwfolklife.org/.

A very down to earth and amateurish festival, bringing together merchants, ethnic cuisines and folk music.

I had my first taste of African food, now I know what African Sponge bread tastes like. It's quite filling too! I had some Lukuluul (Chicken, with some red veggies + curried cabbage) and some Sambusas (resembled a Samosa w/ African spices).

It was a very humble experience. More pictures on the way...

Joost is incredible!

Joost! say bye-bye cable TV and say hello IP TV. Joost is absolutely incredible! Much credit goes to the co-owners of Skype Friis and Zennström, Joost delivers. With over 27 channels available and a plethora of "On Demand" content.

1. The download & installation [link]

A very standard download and installation experience, shuttling the user through a series of straight forward steps and Nullsoft Install System installation wizard (Although requires Administrator elevation, it's worth the install and on top of that it works on Vista :))

2. Setup

Dramatically easily, just create a user, or log on if you already have a username and password and away you go :)

3. Usage

The translucent UI, smooth acceleration menu transitions is a wonderful modern software touch. Check out these hot screens.




These controls fade away once you click on the screen. Fullscreen display is available with a mere double click of the mouse :)



Old school channel surfing is always available...



The new way to surf, "Search"!



Dunno what to watch, check out the Channel Catalog, here you can Discover, Explore and Decide what to watch.

The only lack luster element to Joost is the lack of content, bleeding edge, Jack Bauer, Heroes defying Lost content. After acquiring expensive licenses from blockbuster movie studios and nation-wide TV networks, I can see services like Joost soon rendering devices like TiVo and Media Centric software obsolete.

Bring on Joost!