TiVo

Annalisa's parents have been kind enough to get us TiVo. I was heartbroken to see on the TiVo website that they require a phone line for the initial setup. We had been hoping to avoid getting a landline and were worried this would make us give Verizon $20 a month we didn't have to. I saw the other night that the Series 2 box has built-in ethernet and could use this to setup and download program guides in lieu of a regular phone. This better be the case, because the box is on its way. It wouldn't make sense to have an ethernet jack and have to rely on a modem to dial in every week to download schedules. I'm glad more and more devices support home networking. We're also in luck because the router's positioned next to the television so we don't have to buy a TiVo wireless adapter. I think TiVo only supports WEP security, which is ridiculously insecure.

I also noticed that TiVo has a PowerPC processor. I guess IBM's not totally devoid of customers after Apple dumped them, as the Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, and X-Box 360 all run their CPUs as well.