mad dog in the fog

• The 100 Best Comedy Twitters | Comedy Central Insider Blog
  Good list (via @mashable)
  (tags: twitter humor)

• Hearst Corporation: Statement of San Francisco Chronicle Cost-saving Initiatives
  "Hearst Corporation announced today that its San Francisco Chronicle newspaper is undertaking critical cost-saving measures including a significant reduction in the number of its unionized and nonunion employees. If these savings cannot be accomplished within weeks, Hearst said, the Company will be forced to sell or close the newspaper."

  Hearst said that the Chronicle lost more than $50 million last year and that this year’s losses to date are worse. The Chronicle has had major losses each year since 2001.

  (tags: bayarea sanfrancisco newspapers financialcrisis)

• Twittering Celebrities Take Fans Backstage in Their Lives – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com
  "Where the infiltration of celebrities on a platform such as Twitter gets interesting, he said, is what happens when celebrities sidestep their publicists and begin communicating directly with fans."
  (tags: twitter celebrity)
• Last.fm – the Blog · "Techcrunch are full of shit"
  Sloppy journalism is blowing is damaging the TechCrunch brand
  (tags: last.fm rumormill techcrunch)

• 2Sustain » BCG’s 10 Best Practices for Gaining a Green Advantage Among Consumers
  (tags: green)

• SIRIUS XM Radio and Liberty Media Reach Agreement for Investment
  Greg Maffei, president and CEO of Liberty: "SIRIUS XM's ability to grow subscribers and revenue in a difficult financial and auto market is indicative of how listeners view this as a "must have" service."
  (tags: satelliteradio sirius xm)
• Sirius gets lifeline from Liberty Media – MarketWatch
  John Malone's Liberty Media has agreed to invest a total of $530 million in Sirius XM Satellite Radio, allowing the beleaguered radio company to avoid a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, the companies said Tuesday.
  (tags: satelliteradio sirius xm)
• FT.com – Malone comes to aid of Sirius
  "John Malone’s Liberty Media is expected to offer about $250m in a senior secured loan on Tuesday as the first step in a “multi-stage” deal to rescue Sirius XM ahead of an imminent debt deadline, one person familiar with the satellite radio group’s discussions said."
  (tags: sirius xm satelliteradio directv)
• Sling Media – SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone (Coming Soon)
  I want it.
  (tags: slingbox iphoneapps mobilevideo)

• twibs : find the businesses on twitter
  Impressive directory of businesses on Twitter (via @briansolis)
  (tags: twitter socialmedia)

• TechCrunch: Mining The Thought Stream
  "Twitter may just be a collection of inane thoughts, but in aggregate that is a valuable thing. In aggregate, what you get is a direct view into consumer sentiment, political sentiment, any kind of sentiment. For companies trying to figure out what people are thinking about their brands, searching Twitter is a good place to start."
  (tags: realtimeweb twitter search)

• Evolution and Facebook's "25 Random Things About Me" craze. – By Chris Wilson – Slate Magazine
  I had hoped to find the trend's Patient Zero, but there's likely no single person who conceived of this scheme. But the absence of a singular "25 Things" creator reveals something much more interesting: Facebook organisms are not created by intelligent design. They evolve.
  (tags: culture facebook memes)

• DirecTV Owner Said to Seek Deal for Sirius XM – NYTimes.com
  "Sirius XM Radio, the satellite radio giant that is on the brink of bankruptcy, is in preliminary talks with Liberty Media, the conglomerate controlled by John C. Malone, people briefed on the negotiations said on Wednesday."
  (tags: satelliteradio sirius xm directv)

For the past few weeks I’ve been having all kinds of problems with my TiVo Series 3.  The problem is only happening on the HD channels.  At least once a day, I’m getting a heavily pixelated picture, video stopping and starting every couple of seconds and audio cutting out.  Sometimes the picture will be lost completely and I’ll get a gray screen, even though the signal appears to be good according to the TiVo diagnostics.

Here’s a video of what all of this looked like earlier today, including a look at the Diagnositcs screen.

I’m taking some comfort in seeing that I’m not the only person who is experiencing this issue. Here’s a recent thread on the TiVo Community forum. I’m still trying to piece together what’s going on but this is what I’ve gathered so far from that thread:

• Several people claim that this issue was introduced with the 11.0 software release
• Some people who have spoken to TiVo customer service are saying that TiVo has acknowledged that this is a software issue but they’ve given no timeline for a fix.  Another person heard that the fix could be at least a month away
• People are *really* pissed
• Many people have suggested rebooting every couple of days to minimize the problem

I will try to update this post periodically as I work my way through this issue.  Feel free to leave a comment if you’re experiencing similar issues or if you have any suggestions.  I’ve been a huge fan of TiVo over the years and, I have to say, this is the most frustrated that I’ve ever been with their equipment.

Updates:

Feb 19 – Here are the recent developments:

• I spoke with Comcast customer service the other night and they sent a few signals to the cable cards that were supposed to help with reception issues.  The problem didn’t go away.
• I wanted to rule out the cable cards as the source of the problem, so we went to the local Comcast office and swapped out the cable cards (at no charge).  I popped the new cards into the TiVo but the problem didn’t go away.  Every HD show that I tried to record tonight was heavily pixelated with audio cutting out.
• I called TiVo customer service and explained the problems that I’m having.  The CSR that I spoke with had me check the signal strength on the two cable cards.  When I told him that the signal strength was 95-100 he told me that installing an attenuator on the line would probably solve the problem.  It’s counter intuitive but apparently the Comcast signal is too strong for the TiVo Series 3 and is overwhelming the TiVo tuner.   According to him, the optimal signal strength for the TiVo Series 3 is 83-88.
• I came across this very helpful thread on DSL Reports, which confirms that the pixelation problems that I’m experiencing are due to a “hot” signal.  One of the posts included a link to a popular attenuator carried by SmartHome.  I ordered it ($12.99 + $12.75) and should be receiving the attenuator this weekend.  Hopefully the attenuator will do the trick.

Feb 24 Update:

• I received the attenuator in the mail and installed it on my cable line (following these instructions).  At first it looked like the problem was solved but a few hours later the pixelation returned with a vengeance (see below for a photo).
• I’m rapidly losing all of the brand love that I had for TiVo.  I’m not really sure what I’ll do next.  I’ll probably go back to the Comcast DVR (made by Mororola) or maybe even go back to DIRECTV.