Customers in the Triangle have been among those across several states suffering an outage of AT&T's U-verse service now in its third day. Disruption of TV, voice and Internet service include reports from customers in North Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma.

Via Twitter, AT&T's U-verse wing shared that an issue with a server had been identified, and advised that some customers may be able to restore service by restarting their system.

Reports from customers still without service continue to stream over Twitter. In an email AT&T spokesperson Josh Gelinas said, "A limited number of AT&T customers in some markets may be experiencing issues with U-verse service. We have been working around the clock and are making progress on resolving the issue. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers."

We've identified an issue with a U-verse server. Customers may be able to restore service by restarting their system. More to come ASAP.

— AT&T U-verse (@Uverse) January 23, 2013

Clear your calendar and clean out the DVR: we're all getting free Showtime this weekend!

And by "we," I mean everyone with a digital subscription to Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, AT&T U-verse and Dish Network. The promotion runs Friday, January 11 through Sunday, January 13, and coincides with the Sunday season premieres of Showtime series "Shameless," "House of Lies" and "Californication." (For movie fans, "Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I" and "Iron Lady" with Meryl Streep also debut on the channel this weekend, and there's a slew of slightly older movies like "My Week with Marilyn," "50/50" and "The Help.")

It's also a great chance to watch as much "Dexter," "Homeland," "Nurse Jackie," "Episodes," "Weeds" and "The Big C" as you possibly can on Showtime On Demand. You can't record On Demand shows to watch later, so that means you may have to pull some all-nighters. You can also install and use the Showtime Anytime app, which you can use on iPad, iPhone, Android or a computer.

Of course, Showtime is hoping you'll like what you see enough to subscribe. For more information on the free preview weekend, go to Showtime's website.

How can you watch the 2012 Summer Olympic games? Pretty much any way you want.

Much of the action will be available on good ole over-the-air NBC, but if you're really into the Olympic games, you've never needed a cable or satellite subscription quite so much. NBCUniversal is putting all of their muscle into the summer games, offering multiplatform coverage through collaborations with cable and satellite providers (meaning you'll also need those subscriptions to watch online). This way, NBC can deliver content over multiple television channels (both live and on-demand) as well as live streaming on NBC's Olympics website, on mobile devices and tablets.

The cable channels NBCUniversal brings to the table are NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus), MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and Telemundo. In addition, there are two HD specialty channels featuring non-stop basketball and soccer, the NBCOlympics.com website, and NBC Olympics Live Extra apps for mobile phones and tablets.

AT&T U-Verse subscribers woke up this morning with no Food Network and no HGTV.

In fact, thanks to the carriage dispute du jour, AT&T U-Verse subscribers are missing all channels carried by Scripps (including DIY, Cooking, and GAC - Great American Country).

AT&T U-Verse's contract with Scripps expired at 10pm last night and the two companies are currently duking it out. AT&T says Scripps wants too much money, but Scripps says the dispute is over video rights.

Time Warner Cable introduced a new feature today that lets customers set their digital recorder remotely using the Internet.

The Remote DVR Manager was rolled out nationwide as a free service to all Time Warner Cable customers who pay $4.95 a month for the digital recorder.

The technology is an example of the types of household functions, not just cable TV watching, that will be remotely controlled by Internet.

AT&T U-Verse has added the ReelzChannel network to their line-up. 

ReelzChannel network bills itself as "TV about movies," providing "entertaining and informative programming that is all about movies, including the celebrities, fashion, music and stories behind the stories." Their programs feature movie and entertainment experts such as Leonard Maltin, Richard Roeper and Sam Rubin, and they have show of movie trailers, clips, and interviews with directors and stars. There's also a ton of content on their website.

ReelzChannel airs on channel 799 on U-Verse and is already available on DirecTV (238) and Dish Network (299).

AT&T U-Verse is in the middle of a dispute that could cost its customers the July 25 season premiere of AMC's hit drama "Mad Men."

U-Verse is threatening to drop Rainbow Media channels AMC, IFC and WE this Wednesday, July 14, after a two week extension on the expiration of their original contract. U-Verse says Rainbow's channels are the least watched and most overpriced of their channels, but that they are still negotiating with the company.

Rainbow Media has started notifying its customers that the three channels could go dark this week on U-Verse. U-Verse has about 2.3 million customers.

Now that Time Warner Cable says it will raise its monthly rates effective Jan. 1, this is a good time to review TWC's various packages and take a look at what a couple of other services offer.