Technofail

[darkemeralds]

OMG

I was just writing up a rant about the complete technofail of my Android tablet-for-which-I-paid-too-much. I was gonna rage against T-Mobile, and Google, and Android, and the stupid fucking DRM fail that makes it impossible for me to use streaming Netflix on this otherwise perfect-for-lying-in-bed-and-watching-shows device.

(That part's still true. And also? Netflix's streaming TV show selection sucks. Really a lot.)

But that was then. And now: TV show! On my tablet!

Here's what I had to do:

1. Install an FTP client app (SwiFTP) on my tablet
2. Install an FTP client on my Ubuntu laptop
3. Acquire the TV show from sources that stupid fucking DRM limitations will drive me to despite not only my willingness to pay Netflix money, but my actually paying Netflix money, speaking of wasting money
4. Transfer the acquisition, with a vast amount of fiddle-farting around, to my tablet, via FTP
5. Get an app on my tablet that can play said .avi file

This was after trying all kinds of tricks to get my laptop to recognize and give me access to my tablet via a regular old USB cable. Total fail. I overtaxed my geek limitations after about an hour of command-line mumbo-jumbo that didn't work.

Why didn't it work? As far as I can tell because either T-Mobile or LG sent out an un-refusable system update that broke that functionality.

But hey. TV show. On my tablet! Via a workaround that was time-consuming, extremely annoying, mentally taxing, and mostly not very legal.

PS: The show is "Community," which was highly recommended by ravurian. He said it was LOL funny, and let me tell you, after an evening of utterly frustrating geekery, I could use a laugh.

Comments

[darkemeralds]

I know, right? Sometimes I just get irritated enough to say no to the corporate overlords and go get a solution from the open source mob.