The 360 does a lot of things right. You can play some of the best games on the market today, you can stream Netflix, play nearly any video and audio format you could want plus DVDs and so on. On paper, it’s perfect.

The flaws come in when you listen to the box. The 360 has a loud fan that kicks in instantly and doesn’t let up when you do the simplest task. For a media device this is a problem, for a gaming device you can live with it.

Microsoft points. For some reason Microsoft is really into this whole “points” based monetary system. You would think having a simple dollar value to products such as video downloads, game downloads and so on would be obvious, but instead Microsoft forces its users to purchase points that buy the goods in the virtual store. Without a one-to-one conversion rate it serves to confuse customers and leave them with loose points that serve no other purpose than to make Microsoft more money than they would without the points scheme.

iTunes. This one isn’t Microsofts fault, but without a connection to the iTunes media content, those of us who have invested into an iTunes library have less value in the Xbox 360s media capabilities. I can’t fault them on this one and it’s not going to change any time soon.

Blu-ray. This one would require either an add on or a revision to the console, but adding Blu-ray playback would make for a more compelling device today with HDTVs etc. It serves as a decent DVD up-converter and those of us who invested in the HD-DVD add on have that going for us. In the end though, this is a handy cap to the system.

I know what you’re going to say. But the PS3 does nearly everything on your list. This is true, but it falls shorter in the gaming side of things. There are some decent games, but the 360 just has more to offer on that end of things.

I wish the 360 was the one set-top box to rule them all, but as of now it is not. It is a good start though, just wish it would stop squealing.

As a newspaper editor, working on three papers in southwest Minnesota; the subject of online news interests me greatly. Recently we launched three new online editions of our paper, all free to the reader. We’re still working on our online model and watching with great interest what others are doing.

Earlier this month the New York Times announced plans to begin charging for most of its online news content, starting shockwaves throughout the Newspaper industry. Sure it has been done in the past, the Wall Street Journal has been charging for years and many other publications charger for back issue content.

I have been in the midst of many newsroom meetings, discussions and debates about the merits of charging for online news content and at this point I see both sides of the coin. We have been offering this content for years now, conditioning readers to expect news content to be free.

There are many similarities to Napster in the late 1990s and the way news is handled today. When newspapers began limping their way online more than a decade ago no one truly knew what it meant to put news online. There was as much debate then as there is now. Today we’re faced with the decisions that were made back when newsprint started to go digital.

The genie is out of the bottle and it’s going to be near impossible to get it back in there, no matter how many wishes the industry makes.

Of course my analogy of illegally downloaded music through services like Napster and the newspaper industries decision to put its content online for free is somewhat false. Newspapers pretty much universally did it willingly. Where the similarities merge is the difficulty the newspaper industry faces, how do we demonstrate value in purchasing when similar, if not identical content is available freely to readers around the world?

Over the last decade the newspaper industry has seen a great shake up with publishing firms, newspapers and magazines folding, selling off and letting people go left and right. It’s a scary time to be in the print industry.

The unfortunate side effect of this comes in where news originates from. A large majority of good news reporting still comes from newspapers. Sure television and online bloggers are doing fine journalism, but the first stories almost always find their home in print.

As newspapers continue to close down around the U.S., smaller communities are going to begin to lose their voice. A few years ago I was involved in the coverage of a story in the small town of Cottonwood, Minnesota. Four children were killed in a bus accident that made headlines around the world.

It was covered on Fox News, CNN, the nightly news programs and countless blogs online. A large amount of that coverage originated from the newsroom I worked at. We were inundated with phone calls, requests and inquiries. The Marshall Independent newspaper is where that story grew and early reporting was done.

Would the Cottonwood bus crash have been covered if the Independent hadn’t been there? It’s a difficult question to answer, but many of the iconic images that helped tell the story would not exist.

I have heard the argument that bloggers can do as good a job as newspaper reporters. I don’t disagree with that, however most bloggers don’t have the same mandate that a community newspaper does. I don’t see many bloggers sitting in on RTR school board of Lake Benton City Council meetings. I don’t think that would change if those communities no longer had newspapers. Those meetings and events would go un-noticed.

This is where I admit that the majority of the news I consume comes from free online sources and even a number of blogs.

I am not attempting to change anyone’s mind on the subject. I still don’t know if charging for news online is a model that will work. I just hope people don’t dismiss the importance of newspapers in our world today. We’re still relevant and have our place. I just ask that you recognize that and support us during this difficult transitional period.

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Go ahead, try not to tear up.

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I find myself muting all the Gap and Miller Light ads this season. BUT I still haven't seen Santa sledding on razors or any polar bears . #

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The blog has been filled with virtual cobwebs for far longer than I want it to be. In an effort to make it a little more active I have been running my weekly Twitter feed through the site, but even I’m annoyed by this tactic.

I frequently say to myself “that would be a good thing to blog about,” but I inevitably find something else that takes up my focus and the idea floats away into the back of my brain. In the past I have attempted to give myself assignments through out the week, including “movie of the week,” “found links” and other various tricks that never seemed to click.

I’m doing it again. I’m giving myself assignments. I want to at least get something out once a week and if I can improve my frequency I’ll try to make it to three times a week or even nearly daily. Before I get ahead of myself I’ll try getting something out in the next few days. I’m already working on a few ideas, in an effort to encourage me to do them here is what I’m thinking about …

• Comics/graphic novels you should be reading
• A weekly Netflix/DVD/Blu-ray review
• Random podcasts, testing out podcasts that I haven’t watched or listened to before
• Buying a house

Of course these are all sketches of ideas at this point. After the papers go out the door on Tuesday night I’ll start to focus more on one or more of these topics. Until that point you’re stuck reading this cheap blog post. I’m sorry future Robert, you have your work cut out for you.