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Gadgets TV

Possible takeover target TiVo has awesome customer service (not to mention easy TiVo upgrades)

TiVo Premiere XL
Buy the TiVo PREMIERE XL

TiVo has been taking it on the chin lately.

The recent blog post in the New York Times entitled TiVO, Nice Service if You Can Get It, is the typical drivel written by somebody who hasn’t taken the time to properly research and use the product they’re talking about. 

As an example – the writer, Joshua Brustein, says that TiVo has an expensive fee of $19.99/month.  He doesn’t mention that you could purchase a lifetime subscription for $499.  If you’re planning on keeping your TiVo for longer than 24 months, the lifetime subscription is the way to go.  (Web Watch won’t mention the number of deals that are on the TiVo website that may lower the overall cost even further.)

The article goes on, with the writer’s cable company trying to pimp their own DVR over a TiVo — hey, that happens. Same thing with the account of what he went through to get a cable card, involving multiple trips, phone calls, and a service tech who never showed up.    Obviously not an issue with TiVo, but with the cable company the writer is using.  For our TiVo service, Web Watch drove over to our local Cable Shoppe and picked up the cable cards directly.  Installed them into our new TiVo ourselves, and were up and running in just about an hour or so.

Obviously each user’s experience is going to be different, but none of what the writer included in his article is specific to problems with TiVo.

Categories
Funny Gadgets Websites

Women of the world – a better pee solution for you!

No Boys Allowed - 2 Girls Using the Men's Room
Buy the poster No Boys Allowed – 2 Girls Using the Men’s Room

It’s a common sight at concerts, festivals, or other public events — long lines at the women’s bathroom.

Yeah, we know – women take longer in the restroom than men do.  Bathroom equality in new buildings, and all that.

Web Watch remembers one Jimmy Buffett concert where the entire backside of the bathroom building had been co-opted by girls who were just looking for a place to pop a squat.  They didn’t care that they were peeing in full view of drunk Buffett fans — they were just happy that they had a place to go.

Seeing a lineup of 30 girls all peeing against the side of a cinderblock wall is quite a site.  Power in numbers, indeed.

Categories
Gadgets How To Internet

How Playboy secures their wireless network

Dear Playboy Advisor: Questions from Men and Women to the Advice Column of Playboy Magazine
Buy DEAR PLAYBOY ADVISOR:
QUESTIONS FROM MEN AND WOMEN
TO THE ADVICE COLUMN OF PLAYBOY MAGAZINE

If you’ve read Playboy magazine over the years (and by “read”, we mean “flipped through the pages to the pictorials, occasionally check out the interview, read the Playboy Funnies, and check out a cartoon or two”), then you should be familiar with Chip Rowe and the rest of the Playboy Advisor staff of intelligent and well-read question-and-answer writers.

Sure, Web Watch could point you to any number of articles about how to secure your wireless router, but why should we do that when Playboy has summed up the steps to take in such an easy-to-understand manner and pleasant packaging?

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Gadgets shopping Websites

Trouble applying sunscreen while at the beach by yourself? Just ask for someone to DO MY BACK

Lotion Applicator
Don’t buy THIS Lotion Applicator…
check out the one below instead:

We’ve all been to the pool or the beach, with the hot sun blazing down. In one hand is a tube of sunblock, and the other just doesn’t reach all the way around to those special places where the sun actually does shine… a little too much.

So what’s a person to do?

You can do what Kate Slavin did after she ended a 2-year romantic relationship — she designed a product to allow herself to DO MY BACK without anyone else’s help.

Categories
Funny Gadgets Websites

A compilation of Bad Designs

The Design of Everyday Things
The Design of Everyday Things

We’ve all seen braille buttons and signs posted on the drive-up ATM, and many people (unfortunately) then have to mutter to their travelling companions, “hey, look at the braille on the drive-up ATM? How many blind people drive?”

Let’s be honest – the real trick is not that their are braille-labelled buttons on the drive-through ATM, but that the buttons are associated with a display screen.

There’s no braille on the screen, so how would a blind person know which button to select?  Oh, we know there’s an easy answer to this, but Web Watch likes to point it out anyway.  It may be practical to the blind, but to a sighted person, it just looks like bad design.

Categories
Gadgets Science

Invention of the future: A strap-on fetal monitor

The Baby Owner's Manual
The Baby Owner’s Manual

Are you pregnant?

Ever wonder what it would be like if your belly had a big glass window like your oven does, so you can glance at your developing child any time you wanted?  Yeah, it would put new meaning to the phrase “a bun in the oven”.

It ends up that Melody Shiue has designed what could very well be the answer to your prayers:

Categories
Gadgets How To shopping Websites

How far would you go to avoid panty lines or tan lines? Would you do this?

Wedgie Tales and Panty Lines
Wedgie Tales and Panty Lines

Are you one of those women who go out of their way to avoid any semblance of panty line or tan line?

Just like you, Web Watch knows plenty of women who fear having panty lines so much that they are the first ones to admit that they invented going commando.  These women get angry at the thought of having to “be proper” and wear any sort of underwear that makes its presence known on the outside of their slacks or dresses.

Web Watch hears your screams.  We’re here to help.

Categories
Gadgets How To Internet shopping

How to maximize your gadget shopping dollar

Intel Core i7 Processor i7-2600K 3.4GHz 8MB LGA1155 CPU BX80623I72600K
Core i7 Processor i7-2600K 3.4GHz 8MB CPU

Have you purchased a computer lately?

Once you get past the initial “MAC vs Windows” discussion, the choices typically come down to price variations.  Web Watch has always said — and it’s been holding true for the past 20 years or so — that the “ideal” computer that any computer nerd would want will cost about $2,000.

You’d be surprised that the $2k number holds up, even in today’s retail environment where a decent home computer can be had for around $500.  Note that we said that this was a computer ideal for a computer nerd, not just any machine that would get somebody through the next two years of English class at the local university.

And that’s because that $2000 computer is one that is going to last for a number of years because it has all the bells and whistles for today, and will likely not need to be upgraded anytime soon.

But Web Watch understands that not everyone has $2k in their back pocket. Which brings up that more important question:  if you had limited funds with which to buy or outfit a computer, WHAT SHOULD THE MONEY BE SPENT ON?