Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 278 pages
- Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
- Edition: 1st Edition August 22, 2003
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0596005539
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596005535
-
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 6 x 0.6 inches
- Weighs: 13.8 ounces
Product Description
TiVo Hacks helps you get the most out of your TiVo personal video recorder. Armed with just a screwdriver and basic understanding of PC hardware (or willingness to learn), preeminent hackability awaits. This book includes hacks for changing the order of recorded programs, activating the 30-second skip to blaze through commercials, upgrading TiVo's hard drive for more hours of recording, use of TiVo's Home Media Option to remotely schedule a recording via the Web, log in to the serial port for command-line access to programming data, log files, closed-captioning data, display graphics on the TiVo screen, and even play MP3s. Readers who use advanced hacks to put TiVo on their home network via the serial port, Ethernet, USB, or wireless (with 802.11b WiFi) will watch a whole new world open up. By installing various open source
software packages, you can use TiVo for mail, instant messaging, caller-ID, and more. It's also easy to run a web server on TiVo to schedule recordings, access lists of recorded shows, and even display them on a web site. While TiVo gives viewers personalized control of their TVs,
TiVo Hacks gives users personalized control of TiVo.
Note: Not all TiVos are the same. The original TiVo, the Series 1, is the most hackable TiVo out there; it's a box thrown together with commodity parts and the TiVo code is running on open hardware. The Series 2 TiVo, the most commonly sold TiVo today, is not open. You will not see hacks in this book that involve modifying Series 2 software.
About The Author
Raffi Krikorian is an unapologetic TIVo lover and a digital plumber. If you look hard enough, you can usually find him putting together a hack for some random stray idea that got him sidetracked from his last project. He is currently a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab where he is both studying systems of "organic scale" and constructing very small IP-nodes that self organise into greater systems. He does freely admits, however, that his serious television addiction is probably getting between him and his goal to finally graduate MIT for the second time. When he's not studying or watching TV, you can find him wandering about or trying something new. And finally, in whatever time is left, he tends to his wasted bits on his weblog.
Reader ReviewsI really enjoyed Google Hacks, and was really excited when I heard about this new Hacks book. I was, however disappointed when I actually got my hands on it. This book touts 100 "hacks" but once you get into it, you will discover that many of these "hacks" are really just steps - instructions if you will, and that many of them rely on other "hacks." For instance, the steps involved in removing the cover from your TiVo (a few screws) counts as a "hack." There are several more like this. The book seems to have been forced into the O'Reilly Hacks format, and probably would have been better were it freed up a bit. The description says its 288 pages, but in fact it really only has 239 pages of what they are calling "hacks" and with 100 hacks in the book, you can see that there is on average less than 2.5 pages of coverage per "hack." I'm not saying that each "hack" is only 2.5 pages, many are larger, but I think you can see that the coverage is light. I was very disappointed that many of the "hacks" were no more than a single page telling me to download and install a piece of code from the web. The writing style is fine, but I did get the feeling the author might not be extremely knowledgable in the TiVo space. There were several places where he had the opportunity to mention some of the real "gotchas" when working with TiVo drives and the like, but came up short. With all the contributors, I wonder if he acted a bit more as editor than author. So, if you are looking for something with a little more meat to it, look elsewhere.
Search for books at
