TiVo loyalty evaporates

Now requiring a 1-year service contract, TiVo is gradually pricing themselves out of business, and it's more than a money issue for users. When it becomes too costly in terms of convenience and freedom, subscription growth will slow, and hardened TiVo nuts like me will stop using their settop boxes in lieu of MythTV and other Open Source platforms.

The first big news out of the TiVo camp in a long time was their decision to allow networks to "red flag" shows, which can limit when a program can be watched, how long it can be saved to the hard drive and whether it can be copied using the TiVo-To-Go feature.

TiVo has been extremely easy to use, and that has been its major selling point all along; no one who tried it didn't love TiVo. But the limitations just got to be too great for this to be a viable product in my home. One example is its proprietary file format. I want standard MPEG files that you can import/export/edit and save as long as I damn-well feel like it.

My loyalty for TiVo is gone. I predict that I will be using MythTV in 2006.

BetaNews | TiVo Institutes 1 Year Service Contracts

More than just "early adopters" Podcasting

This is clearly not a small thing. Podcasting has unquestionably hit the maintream -- repeatedly.

And they're not just 2-5 minute 'casts; I frequently see mainstream media producing 20 to 60-minute shows, some longer.

Podcasts are largely free, although some big names, like Rush Limbaugh, have managed to collect a fee from their fanbase in exchange for their exclusive content.

For those that stumbled across this post accidentally, Podcasting is an audio (and video, in some cases) form of "blogging", using a communications protocol known as RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, which enables anyone to automatically receive feeds to which they subscribe, similar to email.

Wired News: Tracking Rita: Interactive

Management defined...

Read carefully this story. It says, in essence, that the President cannot manage, for its definition is "getting things done through other people". This imbecile couldn't lead a dog catcher.

Health Emergency Declared for Texas, La. - Yahoo! News