Ever since I was a kid I’ve enjoyed watching many of the holiday specials that are on this time of the year. I remember as a kid looking in the TV guide for when Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer was going to be on. My entire family would gather around the TV and watch Rudolph as if it was the first time we had ever seen it.

Now that I have a TiVo, I no longer need to schedule my life and make sure that I am around for these wonderful shows. So, in the spirit of being a geek, I’ve setup several Wishlists to record my most favorite holiday specials. As a matter of fact, I am currently transferring How The Grinch Stole Christmas to my computer so that I can burn it to a DVD using MyDVD and TiVoToGo. If you’re a kid at heart like me, you may want to get your Wishlists established. I was a little surprised to find out that some of these specials are already being shown.

The victims of Katrina need your help. Head on over to the Red Cross website and give a donation or call 1-800-HELP-NOW to find out how you can help.

Just got this email…

Congratulations! Your friend Randy credited you with a TiVo® service activation.

No need to lift a finger. Your TiVo Rewards™ account has automatically been credited with 5,000 TiVo Points.

Just thought you’d like to know. Plus, it gives us an excellent excuse to thank you for being the wonderful TiVo Rewards™ member that you are! We appreciate your support.

To review your TiVo Rewards™ account summary, browse rewards or redeem TiVo Points, simply sign in at www.tivo.com/rewards anytime.

Thanks Randy! I’m not sure who you are however; I appreciate it anyways! If you’d like to give me a TiVo rewards referral, please use the following email address when you sign up with your TiVo service: raianoat AT gmail DOT com. Thanks again!

TiVo’s rewards program is great. You really should sign up for it if you haven’t already. If you don’t know what TiVo’s rewards program is, head on over to this site.

Here’s a list of features that I would like TiVo to incorporate into the existing generation of TiVo DVR (Series 2) or at the very least into the next generation (Series 3?). This list will continue to grow as I think of new add-ons. Let me know if you have any thoughts that you think I should add.

Happy Father’s day to all you Dads out there. This is an especially important Father’s day for me since it is my first :). Today I plan on spending a couple of hours catching up on a Yankees TiVo recording from yesterday. My son, who is only 4 months old, is already a Yankees fan. I bet you were wondering how I was going to incorporate TiVo into this post.

On a some what related note, TiVo recently announced the top 25 TV Dads of all time. Here is an article which talks about the survey.

My cheap a$$ finally broke down and bought a new computer (3 GHz, 1GB RAM). I’ve had my old computer since college (’99). I really began to notice how slow my computer was when I started to use MyDVD. In case you didn’t read my previous post, it took me nearly 6 hours to burn a DVD. Along with MyDVD, I also ran into a couple other software applications that really pushed my computer to the limit.

Instead of building my own computer, I decided to go with a Dell. I built my last computer however; I didn’t want to be bothered with all the problems that come with building your own computer. Yes, you can probably build the same computer I purchased for a lot less however; you have to deal with the hassle of getting stuff to work. I thought about getting a Mac however; I didn’t want to have to worry about what software I would have to purchase. I pretty much have all the software I use for Windows. If I had purchased a Mac, I would have to purchase or find replacements for a number of software applications that I use on a daily basis. Sorry Mac fans, you haven’t gotten me to switch yet :(.

Right now I am burning another Thomas and Friends DVD. I’ll let everybody know how long it takes with my new computer. Hopefully it doesn’t take nearly as long as it did before. Also, I didn’t run into the thumbnail problem that I had with MyDVD before. I was worried that this problem would come back to haunt me however; so far, things appear to be working as they should. Stay tuned for me info…

I have run up against a brick wall. And it’s in the form of the last nine episodes of this year’s recently concluded season of Carnivale.

For those unfamiliar with Carnivale… Like David Lynch’s seminal “Twin Peaks,” Carnivale creates a metaphorical universe of a road carnival in the 1930s that’s almost nightmarishly dense in symbolism and clues. TiVo is made for stuff like this, as it allows quick jumping back and forth between episodes, as well as a higher resoultion way to click frame by frame through the visions, dreams and other visitations the shows characters have inflicted upon them. Was that a crescent moon reflected in the wolf’s eyes as he stared down the evil preacher on a remote road? Back it up three frames and call your friends to discuss.

Here’s the rub. By recording at Best Quality, I’ve eaten up about 3/4 of my 40gig box, making it damn difficult to record anything else of length.

At some point, I may hack my box and add another hard drive, but a bigger issue is in play here.

When am I really going to re-view these episodes? I’ve seen them. My wife, mother, brother and I have discussed them at length. Short of having the cable go down for a month straight, I will never watch these eps again.

I should delete them. Alas, I cannot.

So, TiVoverse, how do you handle the shows you TiVo? Watch and toss? Record over to digital tape and then burn to DVD? Fill one machine up and move it to the A/V closet and get another?

Tell us.

Wouldn’t it be nice if your TiVo could display caller id information so that when the phone rings, you know whether it’s worth getting up and interrupting 24 or the Daily Show?

It’s possible. There are two basic approaches:

1. Here’s how I got caller id on my TiVo using a Windows caller id program called YAC (you must have a caller-id capable modem in your Windows machine). There are “listeners” available for TiVo Series 1 and 2, so that your TiVo(s) get notified about calls over TCP/IP over your network.
2. Alternatively if you want to do the caller id with the TiVo modem instead of using a YAC (Windows) server, check out Elseed.

Personally, I took approach #1, because I also wanted to be able to see caller id on all of my various PC’s and YAC’s listener model is flexible enough to handle that (you can configure up to 10 listeners on your network).

Do you consider yourself a TiVo enthusiast? Would you like to blog about TiVo news, information & commentary? If yes, you might be able to help TiVoBlog.com. Now that I have a newborn in the house, I not able to blog about TiVo as much as I’d like to. I’m looking for somebody who would like to contribute to TiVoBlog.com. If you are interested in helping out, drop me an email.

Updated 4/2: I’ve received emails from several people who are interested in helping out. I am in the process of going through each email in order to determine who could best help. I’m looking for a couple of people who would be willing to contribute to TiVoBlog.com whenever they have time. I’m not looking for a major commitment just a couple of posts every once and a while. It would also be nice to have somebody who is willing to edit current posts. I know that I am not the best writer so I wouldn’t mind it if I had a second set of eyes look over what I’ve already written. Please let me know if you are interested so that I can add your name to the list of candidates.

You may be surprised to know that up until today I hadn’t owned any TiVo stock. Just today, I added a small amount of TiVo stock to my portfolio. I know what you’re thinking, it probably wasn’t a great purchase because TiVo stock recently went up quite a bit. Here’s why I did it:

1. Although the stock has gone up recently, I still think it has a long ways to go. Call me a dreamer if you want to but, I really think the Comcast deal is a wonderful thing for TiVo. I wouldn’t be surprised if more cable companies realize that TiVo is a great product.
2. One of the first things people tell me is that I should purchase some TiVo stock because I am such a big enthusiast. Now I can tell them I already own it ;).
3. I’m always up on TiVo news therefore, I should be able to react quickly.
4. It feels like a good idea. Let’s face it, I haven’t put the farm on the line. If I loose a couple bucks so be it.