Time Warner pushed new software onto my DVR this morning. This is what wound up in their comment form:

Please consider the following: when you force your customers to “upgrade” the software on their leased equipment, the new software should, at the very least, offer the same features as the previous software. I would suggest that Time Warner allow its developers to use a box running Aptiv’s Passport Echo software. Perhaps then, they might understand how customers actually use a DVR.

The Navigator software offers no discernible way to limit a series recording to certain days of the week. This was very simple to accomplish using Passport Echo, and indeed is at the very core of how many people use their DVR. Similarly, having the ability to set retention options (ie keep forever or delete as needed) at a series level is crucial. I have no desire to babysit my DVR every day to make sure it has enough space to record what is important to me.

At this point, Time Warner’s DVR “service” is nothing more than an obnoxious, unstable VCR that carries an outrageous monthly fee. Actually, it’s a lot less useful than that; at least a modern VCR know what days of the week are.

Oh, and it’s a lot less easy to use than a VCR, too. In fact, it’s so frustrating that it only took 2 hours with the software to convince me to purchase a TiVo and ultimately drop DVR service from my account. From my talks with others subjected to the “upgrade”, my experiences and feelings are far from unique. TiVo’s shareholders should thank you.

Thank you for ending years of happy, trouble-free DVR service, and allowing me to see the light.

- Mike Peschka

Last night, I dreamed that I had a fight with Rosie O’Donnell and called her an anti-semite.

Maybe I shouldn’t have coffee before bed.

I know I can be a bit picky at times, but this doesn’t really strike me as something I want to buy used:

I’ve posted the Barco for sale on Cragslist. With any luck, I’ll soon have a few extra square feet in my bedroom.

We’re just a few days into the year, and I’ve already had what will surely be my greatest stroke of genius. The product of my brilliance? Single-Serving Whipped Cream Packets. Or, more likely, whipped topping packets. Why has no one thought of this before? It would be perfect on everything!

Glancing over my site this evening, I noticed that a good portion of my posts use exclamatory punctuation in the title. This led me over to Wikipedia, since I was curious as to whether it’s considered a “mark” or a “point”. All trivialities aside, I did manage to learn two things:

1. I’m really a woman, given my predilection for the things.
2. There’s something called the interrobang, my new favorite punctuation mark‽

If anyone can manage to find a key combination for producing the interrobang on a Mac, I’ll be forever indebted. Until then, I’ll just have to keep using the Special Characters palette.

That is all.

Eat your collective hearts out! I have the most popular Web site EVER!

PS- I thank you, whoever you are.

After installing Leopard on my MacBook, it seems I finally have full access to all 4GB of my RAM!

My memory arrived this evening. Installed easily, working perfectly!

Here you can see the new RAM showing up in About This Mac:

And here you can see (most of ) its presence in Activity Monitor:

As expected, I’m only able to use 3 of the 4 GB installed, due to mapping limitations in Intel’s chipsets. But I’m okay with that. I still get to use more than the official limit of 2GB without sacrificing video speed.

Another Friday night, another contribution to The Great Pumpkin Experiment of 2007. This week, we have Macadamia Nut White Chip Pumpkin Cookies. Before we get started, I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone about the importance of…

TEAMWORK!

Cookie me!