Return of The Plip-Plops, or how I ditched the Time Warner Cable box and returned to TiVo

Like many households around the country, ours upgraded to HD television and switched to Time Warner Cable’s set-top box.  Our TiVo was too old to get HD and the TWC box was free.  But you get what you pay for.

The TWC box was slow. It lagged when changing channels or pressing buttons.  Basic tasks like scheduling a recording or deleting a recording took way too many steps and button pushes.  We missed the TiVo interface and the audio feedback of the plip-plops.  And streaming iTunes music through the entertainment center.  And the ability to transfer recordings to a computer. The worst part was that we rarely used the movies on demand, the only advantage that the TW cable box has over TiVo.

So here is how to ditch the bland box and use TiVo.  This is the procedure for Time Warner Cable in KCMO, but it should be similar for other cable systems. You need three things to get started:

1. A TiVo HD. $299 new or $199 rebuilt.  Even cheaper if you are a long-time TiVo customer.
2. Two CableCards. These little cards go inside the TiVo and let it get the HD channels.
3. An SDV Tuner. This device lets the TiVo get encrypted channels.This article explains SDV.

Call Time Warner and ask for an appointment for a technician to bring you numbers 2 and 3. Be aware that many front-line reps aren’t familiar with this process, so be persistent.  I have found that when I call in the late even my call often goes right to tech support instead of sales, and to people who know about this stuff.

While waiting for your appointment, go ahead and setup the TiVo without the HD channels.  Just connect it to the cable and go through the guided setup.  TWC will install the cards in your TiVo, attach the SDV tuner, and you will be good to go for all HD channels in your package.

Caveat: On-Demand channels
The one thing TiVo can’t do yet is the on-demand movies. If this is important to you, then you will have to wait until the cable companies release the CableCard 3.0 standard, which is supposed to allow third-party boxes to access on-demand content.

There are alternatives like Netflix and Amazon Unbox, which are built into TiVo HD.  Any Netflix movie available for Watch Instantly can be watched on the TiVo.  Amazon offers thousands of movies for download to your computer and/or TiVo, both for rent and purchase. TiVo HD also has Blockbuster On Demand, Disney on Demand, and YouTube. There are even rumblings of Hulu possibly coming to TiVo. Overall, the selection is actually better than TWC on-demand.

Update: I forgot to mention the cost… TWC charges about $4/month for the CableCards.  Combined with the $13/month for TiVo, this setup is a little spendier than the TWC cable box.  However, TiVo does have some alternative plans like $10/month with a one year commitment.

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Our house in 1940

This is our house in 1940, thanks to photos taken by the Jackson County Tax Assessor’s Office and FDR’s Public Works Administration. The house was only 30 years old, so the old folks on the front porch might be the original owners. Our block was platted in 1897, when it was still in the Westport city limits.  The house wasn’t built until 1910, after the 1899 annexation of Westport by Kansas City.

These photos are kept at City Hall, and they will provide you with a digital copy that you can get printed. The KC Public Library has many more resources for researching the history of your house.

This is the house in 2008. It is largely intact.  The biggest change is the addition of asbestos cement shingles over the original wood clapboard siding. At some point the porch railing got froo-froo spindles and the front and rear windows sprouted aluminum shutters.  Also, the old Sanborn fire insurance maps show that the garage has replaced some chicken houses at the back of the property.

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This is a perfect example of what’s wrong with suburbanites

I know I’m a city snob, but come on!  Driving 15 seconds?  That distance is easily walkable, even in Johnson County.

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Mavericky Sarah Palin Minivan

Someone taped an 8×10 portrait of Sarah Palin on the back of their foreign minivan.  And then had the gall to drive it around Midtown KC.

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Weird missing attachments in Mail.app

Update: I never figured out what the problem was, so I ultimately copied the mail.app file from a friend (thanks, Dave!) and that solved the problem.

I recently opened up Mail.app for the first time since upgrading to Snow Leopard, and discovered a really weird problem…  All attachments are rendered with Safari’s “missing plugin” icon.  I cannot click on the icon nor drag it to the desktop.  The only way I can access attachments is via the “Save” and “Quick Look” buttons. The problem happens on received messages as well as message composition windows.

I have tried all of the usual suspects with no luck… rebuilding mailboxes, deleting the mail folder and preference files and starting over, rebooting, etc.  I also added a second, non-Gmail IMAP account.  Plus, attachments are fine in other mail clients.  This seems to be a problem specific to Mail.app.

Anyone else seen this before?  FYI, I’m running 10.6.1 with all updates.

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