Five dollar footlongs, five golden rings and five years of Government Video Expo. Five is indeed a prime number. SnapStream is entering its fifth season of showcasing its TV search technology at GV Expo, the East Coast's largest pro video and broadcast expo. Will you be there?

At some point in your computer-based life, you have probably experienced the wretched agony of software that doesn’t do what you think it should. You’ve probably clicked on a cryptic button, waited entirely too long for a task to complete, or accidentally activated the nuclear option that consigns all of your progress to digital oblivion. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. These experiences are so ubiquitous that they have been given an official title, “Computer Rage." (Yes, it's in Wikipedia.)

SnapStream isn't lacking for strange traditions, and this one certainly doesn't break that mold.

One of the least recognized, yet most powerful features of SnapStream is the ability for our customers to create custom workflows by leveraging the software’s built-in API. The Application Programming Interface acts as a connector between different software programs, allowing them to interact with one another in a seamless fashion.

Lots of folks have conspiracy theories about the government, that the government is Big Brother; the government is always watching. Well, I'm here to tell you that government surveillance is a real thing, in one aspect that I know for sure, and that is television monitoring. I can say this with the utmost certainty because SnapStream is in use at hundreds of government organizations throughout the United States, Canada and beyond.

Several of us SnapStreamers enjoy playing America's game, which involves neither a helmet nor pigskin, nor the trajectory of a wingless bird (cue avian grumbling). We like football and Angry Birds too, but this classic game is poker — No Limit Texas Hold'em to be exact.

As frequent readers of our blog know, we've written several posts about how to build your own digital cable headend (aka a QAM headend). And we've reviewed most of the products in the market, including our favorite the Blonder Tongue HDE-2H-QAM.