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85%
PROS
Easy to read, tons of great tips, helpful tip organization, detailed and very in depth.
LOWS
Unless you are ready to void your warranty, there is not much here for you.
OVERALL
An excellent guide on how to make the most out of our TiVo, providing that you are willing to open up your box and void the warranty.
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The next six chapters of the book are much more intense than the chapter outlined above. Even though they are more involved, the book does a great job of providing a step-by-step walkthrough of how to get each done. If you are looking to take advantage of your TiVo, these are the chapters you want.
There is a whole chapter devoted to teaching you how to add more hours to your DVR box, meaning installing a bigger hard drive. The first few pages talk about identifying your TiVo model to determine how it is equipped for a second drive and what it requires to put a new one in. I found this section to be very in depth, and cover anything that I had questions on. It also tells you about all the different tools you would need and an explanation of each. The rest of the chapter was divided into the traditional hacks setup, teaching you how to open the TiVo, back up the software, and ultimately how to add a second drive. If you are interested in installing a second drive, this chapter does a great job of thoroughly explaining how to accomplish it.
Chapter three and chapter seven get more in depth about working with TiVo. Chapter three teaches you how to manipulate your drive partitions, get caller ID on the TV screen, play MP3s, put text on the screen, connect to TiVo serially, and other various things. Once again, if you are ready to totally screw around with your TiVo, this chapter will give you great ways how to. Chapter seven takes your level of inquisition to another plateau, and teaches you how to write your own code for the TiVo. It will give you a “crash course” in Tcl, the language of TiVo. After reading through this chapter, I learned a great deal about programming TiVo, and was well on my way to creating some of my own code. If you continue to read this chapter, you will get a better look at coding for TiVo and creating your own parameters.
Chapter four and five deal with bringing the World Wide Web to your TiVo device. Chapter four teaches you how to actually connect your TiVo online, and then perform wget's to retrieve things from the web, setting up FTP servers, reading your email on a TiVo, and even listening to your email.
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This chapter can keep you busy for a while, but it will get your TiVo online. Chapter five briefly discusses the home media option for TiVo as well as TiVoWeb. It will teach you how to use either the home media option or the open source TiVoWeb project to check and set recording status from web browsers all over the world. I found this chapter to be very cool, especially because of the detailed look at exactly what you need to do to set up remote recording options.
Perhaps the best chapter of the book is chapter six, which teaches you all about how to work with the recorded videos of TiVo. I learned how to take any of my recorded shows and transfer them to my computer. There are numerous ways to accomplish this, and the book delved into each and every one of them. Now I can take two weeks of Guiding Light with me on my laptop when I am traveling. Life can't get any better than this.
TiVo Hacks is a great way to indulge yourself in the many ways to play around with your TiVo to make it even more tailored to your needs. The usefulness of the book will depend on how far you are willing to go with your TiVo. If you are ready to void your warranty, get ready for some great ways to make TiVo even better than it already is. If not, you may not find TiVo Hacks to be as helpful as you would like.
