Dump Windows Update and WGA - How to is here.

Microsoft retreats (a little) - Microsoft's WGA spyware no longer checks daily allegedly. Story here.

Microsoft has Installed Spyware on your PC - Brian Livingston, author of many "Windows Secrets" books and normally a mild mannered person, takes Microsoft to task for their WGA beta program, which they secretly have "phone home" - thus it is spyware. Full story here:

This TiVo could live forever: My son bought a lifetime contract (for $250) 3 1/2 years ago when he got a 140060 SA TiVo. Monthly fees would have cost him $543 by now. He was upset when his TiVo "died" last month.

I told him: Let me try and fix it, it's probably just the hard drive", and if he decided to stay with the Comcast DVR he got in the meantime, I could sell it on eBay for him. Frys had 300 Gig Seagates for cheap to use to replace/upgrade his OEM hard drive so I got one.

When I got the unit, I plugged it in, and despite lighting up, nothing to the TV screen, upon opening it up, the Hard Drive wasn't spinning up. I tried a different hard drive, and it too lay dormant. I went to the Weaknees.com site where it confirmed my suspicion that the Power Supply was bad, so I ordered a replacement from them. It came today, and I swapped it in, and voila : TiVo LIVES. Then I restored the 3 1/2 year old OEM 60 Gig HD onto the new 300 Gig HD, which saved all my son's settings and recording (took about 90 minutes). His TiVo now has ~ 370 hours recording time, and still has its Lifetime Subscription. Instructions here.

My son wants it back, telling me his Comcast DVR only recorded 80% of what he told it to.
I own a DirecTv unit with TiVo, so I have no need for it, and it's being shipped now.

It's nice to be able to do things for ones' children.

Can you hear me now? Allegedly a high frequency ringtone has been making the rounds in Great Britain. Teens can hear it, adults can't so the story goes. I'm not aware of any cell phone that has the capability of producing such high frequency sounds, so I'm skeptical. Story here:
Download the ringtone here.

I knew, do you know? Five things you should know before trying to Install
Windows Vista, Beta 2. Story here.

Five other things you should know.

1. GHOST your hard drive before installing Vista.
2. Create a new partition for Vista so you can dual boot.
3. Download your Soundblaster Drivers from Creative Labs.
4. Turn off Energy Savings on your Network Card. Turn off Vista Sidebar.
Configure settings for your Domain/Workgroup.
5. Firefox 1.5.0x works great, use it.

Microsoft is too cheap to buy enough bandwidth from Akamai. Anyone can now download a beta of Windows Vista here. In theory anyway. Try it Thursday morning, June 8, 2006, and you get this message:

Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista Beta 2.

We are currently experiencing a high level of demand and cannot process your request at this time.

Please check back later for availability. We apologize for any inconvenience.

FOLLOWUP: Luckily third parties have mirrored it. You may have more luck downloading it here. Don't forget to get an install code from Microsoft. Thanks to that mirror I downloaded it quickly. Read one opinion of installing Vista in the June 8 posting on a blog here, and here .

Glad I didn't buy an HP Digital camera: Cause they might burst into flame they're being recalled. Story here.