Over the past couple of days I’ve received the following feedback via this site’s “contact me” form. Rather then answer each of these questions with a personal email, I’ve decided to post my response here so that hopefully it will benefit somebody else. If you’d like to add anything to my response please feel free to leave a comment.
Chris wrote:
I like your blog, but the intellitxt ads are very annoying.
My response:
Chris, thanks for sending in this feedback. I’m sorry to hear that the Intellitxt ads are annoying you. I definitely don’t want these ads to annoy you and that is why back in Sept. of last year I installed a WordPress plugin which reduced the number of ads that “regular” TiVo blog readers see. A regular reader is somebody who has left a comment. If you’d like, you can leave a comment on this post and from that point forward (assuming you don’t delete your cookies) you should not see any of the Intellitext ads. If you don’t want to leave a comment, you could also install a Firefox addon known as AdBlock (just like you suggested). I hope my response makes your TiVoBlog reading experience that much better. In the future I may get rid of Intellitxt ads entirely.
Mai wrote:
Hi. I am new to Tivo. I stumble upon your blog as I was trying to find a way to get TiVo Desktop 2.6.1 to allow me to transfer files directly from my TiVo to my Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500GB usb hard drive. I have read through several of your blog entries and feel you are more qualified than the people at TiVO technical support to help me. I have spoken to 5 agents and they said Tivo desktop is only capable of transferring to the default “My Tivo Recordings” folder created during install. (Then why do they give the option to “change” location in the program?) I have attempted to change the folder location for my recordings but I get an error that says “The specified service does not exist as an installed service”. What does that mean? Anyways, I have a very small 30GB hard drive on my laptop with only about 7.5GB free. I can only transfer 3 hour long SD shows at a time, then transfer those shows to the FreeAgent drive before I can transfer more shows to my laptop. Is there a way I can transfer directly to the Freegate? Your assistance would be much appreciated.
My response:
Mai, is it possible that you are having a problem with 2.6.1’s certificate? The following thread on TiVoCommunity suggest that you should update TiVo Desktop’s certs. Let me know if that works…
Andrew wrote:
Hi there, love the site, but was wondering if you could help me out. looking to buy an hd tivo and with the new rebate on the series 3, i was seriously considering it. my only hesitation is that theyre not making em anymore and i would guess have a new model coming soon since that came out in 2006. do you know of any rumors about a new tivo model? a post about that might be a good idea as the series 3 is now 2 years old and the tivo hd almost a year. there may be others like me wondering if they should just wait. thanks and keep up the good work.
My response:
Andrew, I understand your concern but I don’t think I would hold off on buying a Series 3 or TiVoHD simply because you’re worried about TiVo releasing a new DVR. There has been some rumors about a Series 4 or OCAP enabled TiVo however, I haven’t heard anything in quite some time. If I were you, I would go with a TiVoHD and then purchase an expander drive if you need the extra space. Don’t forget that TiVo is always adding new features to their DVRs. For example, sometime in the near future you will be able to watch YouTube and Disney Movies on your Series 3 and TiVo HD.
Bryan wrote:
I’m running Desktop 2.6.1 and the program won’t load. It returns the error message: “Unable to begin TiVo Desktop. Element missing”. I tried re-instlling the software to no avail. Any ideas on how to fix this?
My response:
Bryan,have you taken a look at this thread on TiVoCommunity? It looks as though you could be having a problem with the registry/TiVo Desktop cache.
I’m a regular reader, but don’t usually have anything to post. Thanks for suggesting a way to work around the annoying Intellitxt adds (by adding this post).
Alex,
One thing to remember is that out of the box, Adblock Plus (ABP) is going to block all of the advertisements and the Google Analytics script. If enough people install ABP, the default settings would affect your Google stats. I think you would be better off with non-popup ads.
When I installed ADP, I disabled the default filters and just blocked the popups, but I don’t think most people will do that. Especially when a new install will remove the popups (and everything else).
The idea of using cookies to disable the popups for readers who left a comment sounds good in theory, but has issues in practice. I use two PC’s at work and a few more at home. That means I have to leave a comment from each PC to eliminate the ads.
I usually read this blog through Google Reader (which completely eliminates the ads), but if a blog post links to an older one, I’ll click into the link and view the actual blog post from your site. Since my feed subscriptions are managed by our Google Overlords, I’ll run Google Reader from whatever PC I happen to be at. I’m not going to post a comment just to get a cookie (unless of course you give out actual cookies of a chocolate persuasion).
Have you considered running a poll on your blog about the popups? Something like:
How do you feel the inline popup ads on this site?
[] I put up with them as the cost of viewing this site
[] They bother me enough to install software to block them
[] I like them
[] I never noticed them before
[] What are inline popup adds?
I don’t think Mai’s issue has to do with the cert – 2.6.1 already has the updated cert included.
It sounds like she wants to save transfers directly to a USB drive, which is no problem. I do it. Just connect the USB drive to the PC, then in TiVo desktop you set the transfer location to a directory on that drive (in my case, F:).
I have no idea why she’s getting that ‘installed service’ error, unless she’s trying to select the USB drive in some way other than by the drive letter.
MZ, you’re correct. I miss read the thread on TC. 2.6.1 does include the updated certs. Maybe Mai can provide us with more information so that we can solve this problem…
Chris,
Sorry it took me so long to reply but, I’ve been extremely busy at home. In any case, I understand the limitation of ABP and how it blocks all ads. I also understand that putting a cookie on your machine doesn’t really work if you read this site from multiple browsers. Like I said in this post, I’m considering removing Intellitxt ads from this site completely. I’ll be sure to post something if/when I do remove the ads. Currently the ads help to pay my hosting costs as well as give me a little extra spending money so that I can justify buying software/hardware which I mainly use for this site. Thanks again and let me know if you have any additional feedback.