Tivo – part 2

Further to some comments about TiVo from when I was blethering about installing it here, I thought I’d slap in a couple of photos, including two screenshots – they’re not best quality, but they convey the idea.

Yes, Pinky, it’s like the Sky+ device that Sky TV released, only better. It’s not all that impressive to look at really, but the power within the quiet little box is quite something. On a geeky note, it actually only has a 54Mhz processor, but it doesn’t need a great deal of speed, so that’s ideal.

I’m still getting my head around the “TiVo suggestions” where it saves programmes it “thinks” you’ll like, according to what you’ve recorded and enjoyed (via use of a simple ‘Thumbs Up’ or ‘Thumbs Down’ process) before. At the moment it seems to have decided that I like all kinds of documentaries, so I’ve been going through the lists getting rid of the ones I’ll never watch – but the more I watch and record, the more it’ll “learn” what other things I might want to see.

The other thing that I’m already getting used to doing is “pausing” live TV if the phone rings or whatever. It saves up to half an hour of TV, so you can pause it and watch it when the call’s finished or whatever – and also it means you can rewind a live tv programme and catch some detail you might have missed, any time up to 30 minutes ago. It’s a fun toy, but also it’s something I could get very used to.

A full review (and better screen shots) will come along in a few days when I’ve got more used to the system, and sorted out the little teething problems (like an addiction to documentaries *Grin*)

My father would love this

Via Blogs Life comes the story of the literacy scheme’s advert that contained it’s its own grammatical error. Just the sort of thing my ultra-pedant of a paternal influence would thoroughly enjoy.

Getting out more

Well, no matter how much people I know tell me I should get out more, there’s one thing I’m pretty certain of. And that’s that I don’t have the time on my hands to carve pencils like this.

Then again, I did have the time to find the link, but for that I blame UserFriendly. It’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it.

Brief attack of dyslexia

Looking at the cover of one of the Sunday papers this morning (about Tony Blair facing yet more trouble if he goes to war) I managed to read “Go to war now and we resign” as “Go to war now and we redesign“.

Amazing what just a couple of letters can do, isn’t it.

Conspiracy Theory

I swear it’s all a plot. Batteries communicate with each other. That’s the case – it has to be. In the last week I’ve had to replace the batteries in the remote controls for TV, Video, TiVo (although that’s a bit irrelevant, as it was new and didn’t come with batteries), and the stereo upstairs.

Now, the batteries in my alarm clock have just upped and died too. Bastard things are AAA size too, so I’ve got to buy a 4-pack, with naff all else running on them. Ah well.

Cheesy Beans

I know various other bloggers have written about the weirdo photographing a woman’s feet covered in baked beans, but it still makes me smile every time I read the story. Now that‘s what I call Comic Relief.

And how the hell did the police issue their advisory warning without pissing themselves laughing at the same time? I doubt I could’ve done the same.

TiVo

After much deliberation, and also because the boxes are hard to find at the moment while they plonk about sourcing a new supplier, I ended up buying a Tivo unit last week. I’ve waited ’til today to get it all sorted for a variety of reasons, not least that I simply couldn’t be arsed to go climbing over the TV and fuck about with cables and wires.

But today, with shitty weather outside and not much else on the agenda once the shopping had been done, well, it might as well get set up and sorted. So out come all the cables, manuals, and the TiVo box itself.

Connecting it all up went surprisingly easily. (Famous last words) Then it comes to powering it up so it can call home and set up channels etc. Turns out it’s still on Demo Mode, but a quick call to Customer Services sorts that out. Yes, amazingly enough, customer services are helpful, know what they’re talking about, and can sort out problems. On a Saturday. Wonders will never cease.

And after that it was a piece of piss. It’s now all connected up, has downloaded all the TV schedules for the next two weeks, and is up and running. This goes down as a successful Saturday.