The 2008 Olympics: The Online Version

ByMike Moffit

I love watching the Olympics. I have great memories of sitting around the TV with my family, watching as many events as we could. As far as the Summer Olympics go, I like many of the fan favorites, including gymnastics, swimming, diving, track and field, and tennis.

Since 2004, my husband and I have been living without cable (by choice), so we have missed the majority of coverage from both the Summer 2004 games in Athens, Greece and the Winter 2006 games in Turin, Italy. This year, however, I was determined not to miss a thing, since NBC has extensive coverage online.

I went to NBC’s website to check out the offerings. Unfortunately, when I tried to download some videos, I was greeted with the message I am loathe to see: “NBC only supports Windows, chump.” (Well, not really–I’m paraphrasing.) I hadn’t had the chance to investigate much more when a coworker mentioned that I should download Microsoft Silverlight (ahh, right. I had that on my other computer, and didn’t transfer it over).

Upon further investigation, I found out that other Mac users were greeted with a different message outlining supported browsers when theirs weren’t up to snuff (for the record, NBC supports the following: IE 6 and 7 for the PC, Firefox 1.5, 2 and 3 for the PC AND Mac, and Safari 2 and 3). So it wasn’t just me, but it looked as though to use Silverlight, one must have an Intel computer.

I had already downloaded Silverlight by that point (since I do have an Intel-based MacBook Pro), so I never got to see that popup. The result: the fabulous realization of my Olympic spectating dreams come true; no more technical difficulties. Older computers aren’t so lucky; there doesn’t seem to be any other recourse for those who have an older Mac with a Power PC processor (G4, G5, etc.)

The Olympic blog on the LA Times website (which is great, by the way) mentioned this a couple of days ago as well, so are the Olympics online really only for PCs and new Macs? If anyone has been able to get a non-Intel Mac to work, we’d love to hear about it.

NBC has done a great job with their online coverage so far, with dozens of videos, live action (sometimes difficult, given the 12 hour time difference we experience on the east coast), interviews, commentary and photos. I’d hate for a true Olympic fan without TV to miss that.

NBC’s Olympic website
LA Times’ Olympic blog

Similar Posts

  • It's Snowing!

    The weather stations had been predicting some snow flurries for last night and today, but as usual I shrugged it off since we…

  • iPad Paintings by Corliss Blakely

    Corliss Blakely, a life-long Vermont artist, is now painting on the iPhone and iPad, which has “opened up a new world for artists,”…

  • Causes Of Hard Drive Failures

    By Matt@Smalldog.com An article in the Proceedings of the 5th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies this month offers perhaps the most…

  • Fine Art and the iPad

    British artist David Hockney, known for his contributions to the Pop Art movement of the 1960’s has found a new medium for creating as well as displaying his creations: the Apple iPad. Hockney, aged 73, began making doodles on his iPhone in 2008 using the application Brushes http://www.brushesapp.com/ and began emailing them to a small group of friends. By the end of 2009 he had created around 1000 images, including a series of paintings of the rising sun that he made without leaving his bed. Hockney praised the convenience of using a mobile device to create art:

    “It’s always there in my pocket, there’s no thrashing about, scrambling for the right color. One can set to work immediately, there’s this wonderful impromptu quality, this freshness, to the activity; and when it’s over, best of all, there’s no mess, no clean-up. You just turn off the machine. Or, even better, you hit Send, and your little cohort of friends around the world gets to experience a similar immediacy. There’s something, finally, very intimate about the whole process.”

    With the release of the iPad this year the artist was provided with a larger canvas to work on, which he says “takes it to a new level.” The iPad’s 9.7 inch screen allowed Hockney to create even more intricate paintings. The culmination of his experiments in this new medium is his current exhibition in Paris called Fleurs Fraiches (Fresh Flowers). http://www.fondation-pb-ysl.net/fr/Accueil-Fondation-Pierre-Berge-Yves-Saint-Laurent-471.html Perhaps the most interesting thing about this show is that the images were not only created on the iPhone and iPad, but they are being displayed on them as well. This allows the viewers to see the images as the artist intended, rather than rendering them onto paper or using a television or projector. Hockney also uses the iPad to periodically change the images displayed, allowing him to refresh the flowers.

    Another element of this story that I love is how Hockney carries his iPad around. His coats already had large pockets on the inside that he formerly used to carry drawing pads around. These have been repurposed to carry around his new favorite drawing tool: the Apple iPad.

    Come into one of our retail locations http://www.smalldog.com/retail and give the iPad a test run. Maybe you can be the next Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, or David Hockney!

  • Does It Smell Like It?

    While we normally try to avoid getting involved in the many patent disputes between Apple and what seems like every other tech company…

  • Living in the Future

    30 years ago, Star Trek was showing tablets, laser guns, space ships and intergalactic travel. In less than 50 years we’ve gone from…