Friday, April 30, 2004

I was writing to today about TiVo - here's what I ended up writing about it...


This morning, at least, TiVo has again put up for sale factory renewed
Series2 DVRs. These have the full warrenty on them.

The 40 hour model is listed at $149 - with a $50 rebate! That gets
you started at $99 . Then, the ongoing program listing service is
$12.95 a month (or a one time cost of $299).

The 80 hour model is $199 after rebate.

I bought a floor model TiVo at Best Buy at about this same price.
Another TiVo owner, with a bit of experience, helped me upgrade my
40 hr hard drive to a 157 hr hard drive. I still hope some day to
get with my friend to add a second hard drive to the system.

The only thing that would be better than TiVo
in terms of a) watching shows in less time, and
b) watch shows when I want to, without having to keep meticulous
notes on what was on which video tape, etc.,
would be if the various cable stations would join together to create a
video on demand service for all their programming, with the disk farm
being on their end.

Until that day - which probably isn't all THAT outrageous of an idea (anyone
want to invest in such a project?) I find that TiVo, with its
o extensive broadcast programming database,
o ability to create almost regular expression searching and
automatic recording of shows,
o season pass recordings that are pretty good at tracking changes
to show days/times that are announced
at least 24-48 hrs in advance
(and if you use a directv satellite setup or maybe broadband,
then I believe this time drops to less than 30 minutes),
is so much more valuable to me than my VCR was.

An example of how 'insidious' TiVo can become arose today
at lunch. I was mentioning that my kids were really
getting a kick out of watching the reruns of the old
Dilbert animated series. I was asked "Oh, when is
that on" and I had to reply that I'd no idea - tivo
finds it and records it whenever it comes on.

Similarly one of my kids were actually lamenting the
fact that they seldom saw all the 'neat' new
commercials their friends talk about at school - we
just do several 30 second skips and move on with
the show, resulting in seeing an hour show in about
45 minutes or so...
what a week. Running around every evening taking kids hither and yon. All day chasing bugs, answering questions, and trying to solve problems. The fun never ends. On top of that, I've been fighting either a cold or allergies, and so I've been physically feeling miserable. At least I'm sleeping again. For a few days, I would cough all night, feeling like I was about to lose a lung. Now, however, my wife's doing that...

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Working today on building latest tcl extensions - sure would be nice if everything took the same arguments, etc. so that one command style could be used across the board. But everything has its own little exceptions, etc.

Saturday, April 17, 2004

what a rough week. Lots of tough problems and busyness. And a busy weekend ahead.

Still trying to find an affordable internet provider. Sure would love to find high speed internet at a small cost.

Monday, April 12, 2004

Linux on the GameCube by Howard Wen -- As consoles grow in power and digital convergence looms, they become ever more attractive targets for free operating systems. What better hack than to port Linux or BSD to the GameCube? Howard Wen interviews the developers behind GameCube Linux.

Saturday, April 03, 2004

I'm searching for an internet provider alternative. Right now, I have a no cost up to 56k internet connection. However, the isp has been
increasingly blocking web sites until its become important to consider alternatives.

Unfortunately, with my finances extremely limited, the alternatives are not great.

We've at least 4 problems.

1. content blocking
2. one phone line
3. slow speeds
4. no current tech computer (mac 68k machines and a win98 machine)

To resolve all 4 problems APPEARS that it would take, at least, $1000 up front with a $600 a year investment - way out of my range.
My range would have been a $300 up front investment and under $20 a month.

Thursday, April 01, 2004

Time for spring break. I don't know what that will bring us - frustration, confusion, busyness and hopefully some fun times, along with the sombering rememberance of what Easter really means.