about the universe forum commander Shop Now Commanders Circle
Product List FAQs home Links Contact Us

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Tivo and the Sound of Silence

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

I have a land line (i.e., a "telephone" connected to a "wire" that actually goes to a "telephone pole" for you young folks). I have this because it is a back up should something happen to the cell phone. It has mostly become the major intrusion in my life as almost every phone call I get is someone wanting me to give money to this or that charity, or to get this or that new service for a credit card. So much so that I long ago disconnected the answering machine that was built into the phone. I do not really notice the phone much anymore. So much so that I was completely unaware that it had been dead for over a week.

How did I know it had been dead for a week? Because I now have Tivo, and Tivo complained that it has not been able to contact its home base for a week. I honestly do not know how many more days, or weeks, I might have gone blissfully unaware that the phone was dead. It really had (before I got Tivo) become nothing more than a constant aggravation (even though I am on the "National Do Not Call List) and intrusion with calls from strangers wanting me to give them money (either for charity or for new services).

The thing is, whatever was wrong with the phone, if anyone called while it was down it just "rang", i.e., the person (or computer) calling got the sound of the phone ringing, but nothing happened at the phone itself. (I know this because when I found out it was down I called it myself to confirm it.)

So I spent much of yesterday first waiting for the phone company to show up (they actually showed up by 0900 and got the phone line working soon after, there is still some good service out there, but I noticed the repairman was not a "young guy"), then trying to get Tivo back on line. Tivo it seems does do well (at least over a phone line) trying to get caught up after a week has gone buy. Connections failed constantly, data was announced as downloaded, but not displayed. I began to get concerned that whatever had taken out the phone line might also have taken out Tivo. But by midnight Tivo had finally sorted through all of its problems. (It might have been that it needed to update the data in a particular form and was not able to do it while I was "watching" it upload the data. I say this because I watched it uploading at first, and it would report it had the data but never update, but late last night I tried updating again, but this time left that particular screen and went to watch a show, coming back to the update screen later. This time the data did "partly upload" in that I could search for shows after this Friday, but my "to do list" did not update. Then, sometime just after midnight, the To Do List also updated.)

Ignoring all of the above, however, the true sign that my phone was working again is that at 0900 hrs (I worked late last night on a project SVC had given me and planned to sleep until 0930 and get to the office by 1000) my phone rang and a credit card company was asking me accept a new service. After the silence of the last week, it was almost enough right then and there to make me disconnect the phone, and I fear now I will not because of Tivo. If not for Tivo, I would be enjoying the Sound of Silence.