Ice Cream Cone? No thanks, I’ll have a Bacone.
A bacon cone filled with scrambled eggs and country gravy topped with a biscuit.
Delicious!
Archive for April, 2009
Goodbye TiVo!
I recently decided, after being a TiVo customer for 6 years, to cancel service for both of my TiVos and move to a new platform. Anyone who has read this site for awhile knows that I love my TiVo and I tell everyone that they should get one. I even have a TiVo sticker on the back of my Jeep. So why am I saying goodbye to TiVo?
Reason 1: The monthly fees. For two TiVos I am paying a monthly fee of $20. What does this monthly fee get me? It allows my TiVo to connect to their server and download the program guide data. That’s it! Sure if you ask TiVo they will list of every other feature as part of the benefits of this monthly fee. But it’s marketing spin. All the features (pausing TV, recording TV, transfering shows to another TiVo) stop working if you stop paying. You can’t use this device if you don’t pay for the service. I should still be able to use my TiVo without the program guide!
Reason 2: Advertisements! You would think if you paid $20 a month for a service that they wouldn’t need to also paste ads all over the interface. You would be wrong. TiVo has been slowly sneaking in more and more ads. Pause a show…an ad pops up over the paused screen. Finished watching a show…the ‘keep or delete’ dialog has an ad plastered there. On almost every page there is some little banner or blurbs for some product, movie release, or additional service. Hey TiVo…do you know why I got a TiVo. So I could easily record all my favorite shows, unlike a VCR, but also so I don’t have to be forced to watch commercials. But then you go and put ads all over my once ad-free TiVo.
Reason 3: The TiVo desktop. This is a piece of software that runs on your PC and allows the TiVo to read your music and picture files. It also allows the transfer of videos to and from the TiVo. The software has a huge issue, that is discussed in many user forums all over the internet. If you leave this software running all the time (as it was meant to be) it continues to slowly eat up your RAM until the PC is unusable until you reboot. I have seen update after update of this software, but it still has this huge memory leak. I have been forced to use a much older version to avoid this problem…which means I can’t take advantage of many of the new features. Fix the existing problems in your software before you start adding new features.
Reason 4: The interface is dated. I’ve been with TiVo for 6 years. Do you know how much the user interface has been updated? About a year ago they changed the font to make it more readable. How about thumbnails of my videos? How about the ability to play other video files without conversion? And why does playing music on a TiVo seem like an after thought? You can’t search, sort by artists, etc. It only lets you browse the folders as they are on the PC.
Not to mention, there is so much more this device could do. It’s just a PC…so why not give it more PC like features. Let me check my email, surf the web, view YouTube videos, use Instant Messenging all from my TV. With Windows Media Center, AppleTV and the cable company DVRs…there is a lot of competition to what used to be a market dominated by TiVo. That’s why they lost me….not because I hate TiVo. I loved it.
So what have I don’t in place of TiVo? I built a new PC with Windows Vista…which allows me to use the Windows Media Center feature built into Vista. I know what you are thinking…Vista sucks. If you disagree, tell me why in the comments. But every person I’ve asked says “I’ve heard it’s slow” or “I hear some software won’t work on it”. You know what I never hear? A first hand account of someone who has used Vista. It’s always “I heard it wasn’t good!”. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet…this whole post could be a flat out lie!
Porn star Marilyn Chambers dead at 56
The First Lady of Porn, Marilyn Chambers, is dead at the age of 56. I think we should all have a moment of…well not silence. How about we all moan for about 30 seconds. Ready? Go.
By the way…do you have any idea how much porn I had to look through to find a safe photo of Marilyn. It’s hard work, but when it’s all over, you really feel like you’ve acomplished something.
