King of Excellent (according to Scaryduck)

Thursday, April 28

On advertising that doesn't work.

Ireland has a rather irritating problem. We get Sky, that overpriced, over subscribed, over advertised network that gives you 600 channels that you don't want, need or most importantly, watch. Most of the channels are the UK ones, and one of the better ones is the BBC's selection. The problem is that every single programme is advertised as being "available to watch again on BBCi Player."
No it isn't. I click on it and I get told "Not available in your area." Well why are you advertising it then? The problem is, a simple trace of my IP address says I'm in Ireland. Well, I am, so it isn't that surprising really. What I need to do is to change my IP address. We all know it's easy to do, according to films with hackers who change it 10 times in a row. The reality isn't so straight forward. I had an IP Changer, and it did what I wanted, albeit slowly. I could email from a server anywhere in the world, and to most people it was the case that I was in Russia or whatever. But it was just too damn slow for iPlayer, so I did some research. I came across a program called "Expat Shield" which claims to do what's needed. I ran it, and sure enough, I could watch iPlayer. It's free, but it does come with some pretty annoying 'additions'. It tries to change your home page to search.conduit, a really difficult website that downloads all sorts of nasties, so make sure you don't allow it to. It also tries to install some malware, so just make sure you untick it in the installation program. And finally, it installs an add-on called the Anchorfree tool bar. Again, malware, make sure this is disabled (not uninstalled, or it doesn't work any more). When it's installed, you have a tiny red shield in the system tray. Right clicking, you can enable it. Then it'll open your browser, and you can go to iPlayer and it'll work. It does have an advert at the top of the screen, but this can be closed. TDT and I sat up the other night, catching up on all sorts of BBC stuff. It was great. So, BLS should be able to get 'Stenders, and anyone else wanting to watch BBC or ITV can now do so, no matter where they are in the world. This is a good thing.
Get Doctor Who. It has to be done.