Hulu United States Only — FAQ

Paul4 Replies

In a Comment on there Hulu Blog,

August 16th, 2008 at 08:52 AM Umm, when exactly did Hulu decide to shut its doors to everyone outside of America? The site’s title is “Watch your Favorites. Anytime. For Free”. I’m sorry Hulu, this is a complete lie, as anyone viewing your site outside of the US is banned from viewing your videos. All the time. So that you know, I intend on writing a letter to Joss Whedon asking that he pull his Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog video from your network and redistribute it to a video site that isn’t run by people who embrace the philosophy “Defective By Design”. That way, the thousands of other people wanting to see this video, like me, don’t have to resort to downloading the thing via the piratebay.

Well, This is something I wanted to discuss for everyone who reads my blog why Hulu isn’t allowing anyone outside of America to see the videos.   It’s all have to do with there contracts they have with certain providers.

Let me explain it to you another way, Hulu is now being watch all over North America.  Hulu is obligated to make sure no one out side of the US can watch these movies because they have “NO RIGHTS” to share this with anyone out side of the US.  When Hulu makes deals with these major distributors, they sign a contract.  In the contract somewhere at sometime, they are explicitly forbidden to stream this material outside of the US.

Is there ways around this?

Having experience in the computer repair and understand of what is required for someone to get around this type of “Protection” is somewhat hard.  Here is the reason, when Hulu banned people from watching outside of the US they did so by banning a group of Internet Protocols.

Here are Three ways at which I know you can watch HULU programming.  Be advised that these are ways to get around the protection and by doing this, You hold me not responsible for any and all actions.  I talk about this because it would be unfair not to, I’ve got to have some responsibility to my readers.

  • USE A PROXY Server in the United States —  Now this one is the hardest because I don’t know of any.  I am not going to do your homework for you, but I will say there has to be several in the US.  Be Warned that using this will greatly reduce quality and speed.  You will sooner or later be found out and blocked, so use this one is at your own risk.

  • Ask Major Media Distributors to join HULU — Writing to them and asking them to join Hulu will increase the likely hood of them opening up the resources to let people view outside of HULU.  You see the other distributors have the rights to distribute outside of the US.  If you get them to come to Hulu, you will be giving them the power to allow certain content to be streamed outside of HULU.  If you want to contact the distributors and ask them to join Hulu, by all means go through the IMDB and look for the distributors you want on HULU and find out how to email them or Snail Mail them!!

  • USE an VPN to Access HULU — This one is like Proxy Servers but this one is most often used by people who are traveling outside of the US.  That’s right if your company has a VPN inside of the US you can watch shows.  This too could get your IP banned from Hulu, although I tell you this for those business men and women who are traveling and live in the United States and Military people too.  Has all the same flaws as Proxy, will slow you down, and quality will take a hit also!!

These are just a few of the ways you could stream information from HULU but use at your own risk.  If you have any other comments to add just go ahead and add them.  I want to hear what people think or what they want me to talk about.

Cleaning out the Prefetch Directory!

Paul

From time to time you will need to clean out the Prefetch directory in Vista and XP.  Here is how you do it in Vista.  You first would need to boot into safe mode in Vista then you will log into Vista and go to:

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[C:\Windows\Prefetch Directory]

Having been using XP and Vista for the past few years, I’ve found that deleting all of the files in prefetch directory and letting them rebuild actually speeds up the system.  I got a feeling it has something to do with file corruptions.  After you go into the Prefetch directory and delete all the files.  You would then go into your Readyboost Directory if you are using Readyboost then there will be a Readyboost directory inside the Prefetch directory.  Deleting all the files in the Readyboost directory also will greatly improve performance of your system.  Don’t delete the Prefetch Directory or the Readyboost Directory, Vista won’t let you delete the Prefetch but will with Readyboost.  Deleting the Readyboost directory will prevent  Vista from using Readyboost and then you would have to restart the process of using Readyboost.

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If you can come up with more ways to speed up Vista then by all means let me know!!

Undeleting the Recycle Bin in Vista!!

Paul1 Reply

Having been using Windows Vista there are some things you must remember with Vista.  You can easily delete the recycle bin or even the Compuer icon with much thought.  I recently had a problem with that.  My son wanted to play on my computer and hit the delete key and hit enter.  So there I was without a recycle bin.  Thanks to a little figuring out, I’ve come to understand that it is just as easy to put back the icon.  Unlike Ubuntu and other linux distros if you delete the recycle bin, you have to go through some hoops.  I know I have used them in the past.  So let’s start out with what vista says when you try to delete the recycle bin.

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There it says you must go to the personalization menu to fix that.  Ok so I go there and then I would need to click this:

You would have to click on “Change Desktop Icons” and then you are almost home.  Here is where you have some choices.

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You will need to put a check mark in the “Recycle Bin” box and you are set to go off and do other wonderful stuff.  if you are like me and you want to have network icons and computer icons on your desktop well check those off too.  The Computer icon is useful if you need to get to the hard drive.  The network is useful if you want to get out to your local network. I should also mention the control panel, that can be useful from time to time so it is all about what you want to make space be like.  You want to have it neat and spacious then you wouldn’t want to clutter your desktop if you want several programs at your fingertips then yes do what you want.  I’ve recently discovered how useful it is to have a clean desktop.  Don’t know why but I’ve begun to work on keep my screen desktop organized.

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Vista and BSOD

Paul

I wanted to talk about Vista and the terrible BSOD scenarios that I have found around the network.  I also want to talk about them to a point.  So I went through and look and here is what I found:

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  • NVidia Graphics Drivers — That should be well fixed by now.  I  don’t have an NVidia Computer with Vista on it and can’t say one way or the other.  I do know that recently they added new graphics drivers for Vista and are out.   That alone should fix most of the problems.

Here are a few of them that I could find out lately.  Most of the Blue Screen of Deaths for VIsta should be over with.  Since the Release of Vista SP1, Microsoft has issued driver fixes and program compatibilities with that release.

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Running old programs on Vista (tips and tricks)

Paul

So We’ve talked about how to get Vista to shut down better.  So I thought we talk about getting Windows XP programs to run on Vista and be more stable.  You can do this with Windows XP, ME, 2000, NT,. and 95 programs.

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  • Run the program in compatibility mode — This is something Vista comes with now for running old programs in Vista. To do this you will have to do some minor things.  Go to where the program is and right click on the program.  Select properties>compatibility.  Select “Run this program in compatibility  mode for:” Select  windows Operating System that you think would work with the program.

  • Run the program as Administrator —  This is a really good tip and trick to sometimes get programs to run with vista.  It goes hand in hand with the last one.  Right click on the program and select “Run as Administrator”.  I find some old programs don’t know about the kernel protection in Vista and you need to give them permission to use the kernel for the program to work.

  • Give the program special access —  Yes this one takes a little skill but should fix some of the problems with vista and old programs.  Right click on program and select properties.  Select security, and then select the group you want to associate with it.  I always suggest putting it in the administrator group because of the problems with Vista and the kernel.

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These few tips and tricks will greatly increease the likely hood of a old program to run in Vista.  Now remember if you have a Vist x64 Version you might need to do the Run as Administrator more than not.  I am not sure why I just know it is sometimes required.  Let me know what other tips and tricks you use with Vista and I’ll be sure to pass them along!!