I like television, basically. I have enjoyed TV a lot since I was a little kid. I watch nowhere near as much as I did back in the 1980s and 1990s. But I still knock back a few shows a week - mostly when I am having dinner - using my trusty TiVo. My personal blog about television is called Taking In Television. The site has news about the latest TV-related technology, some speculation about where it is all going, and some remembrances of mine having to do with TV. If you stop by and look at it, please drop back here and send me a message to let me know what you think of it.

This might be one case where I let the fellow early adopters taken for as much as possible while I sit back on the sidelines. I just discovered the price of the new TiVo Series 3 is $799 and to me that just seems a little overpriced. I could see $599 but eight hundred bucks for a TV set supercharger is kind of off the charts. I still have a perfectly good TiVo Series 2 that works just fine for me. Some features of the Series 3 would be nice but I am still an analog/NTSC TV watcher. Until I upgrade my TV set to HDTV in a couple of years, there is really not much point to going digital and high-def. with my TiVo. One more thing. $799??!

Updating from any previous version of Firefox 1.5 goes very quickly. The size of the update file is apparently really small. For me, it only took seconds for the download to complete. I have not read just what was fixed in this release. You can access the release notes here: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/releases/1.5.0.7.html One thing caught my eye on the page above. If you have an pretty old copy of the Adblock extension, you might want to update that before you update Firefox. If you have not updated yourself to have Firefox available, you really should. It does not replace your existing browser; it is just an application. You just use it when you are in the mood. Should you wish, you can change it to be your "default" browser. That is about as intense as "switching" gets, really. You can change back to making your other browser your default too - so there is no rubicon. You do not burn any bridges when you install Firefox. Tabbed browsing is very popular. All the major browsers I know of one has it now, and that includes Firefox. There is a website called W3.org. There, they record all the latest formats for web files. Firefox supports the major formats, and they are a leader at doing that. There is a website called webstandards.org. They point out what those are and why they are important. There is another website called quirksmode.org. They list the differences between various browsers. They indicate how fully and correctly some of those file formats are - or are not - supported by the different browsers. Firefox rates pretty highly. It is fast, powerful, convenient, attractive, and easy to use. People who have not seen a new browser in 4 years probably should pop over to the site, glance at the pics, download the app, and enjoy something fresh and new for a change. http://getfirefox.com/ Note that once you get Firefox 1.5, you do not have to download the program and install it again to upgrade it. The app is self-updating. It will ask you from time to time if it can update itself and you give it permission. Then it does it. Quickly and painlessly!

ZapTV says the new Smith show is on Google video. That looks like an exciting series, doesn't it?

CSI corpse - apparently the trigger for the discovery was not sleuthing or science. A tenant did not pay their rent, so a building engineer went to check on them. Sad. Probably one responsibility a landlord hopes will never fall on their shoulders. This story was splashed all over the news. They really spun it though.

The wait is over. Three days ago TiVo announced their Series 3 player goes on sale. It sounds like it will be available within the next week or so, if it is not already available now. Interesting caveat about the device. Not really a problem with TiVo itself, just a factor of the technology of HDTV. HDTV has more pixels and higher resolution audio. Takes more memory. The new TiVo stores up to 300 hours of regular/analog TV shows. If you store HDTV shows, then it holds something like 25 hours. HDTV seems to cut your number of hours by about 12x. Today's TiVos hold about 80 hours of regular TV shows (if they are cartoons!) and about 40 hours or so realistically of regular action TV shows. I guess 25 hours is very good. Not stupendous though. However, you can hook up an external drive. That will give you more space!! That means more hours of recording. Pretty cool, huh?

You can learn about the new Fall TV shows at TiVo. Yeah, the season has already started. But you may have overlooked something good.

I saw a special on the morning news today that was about kids being cruel to other kids. Not a new story by itself, and I know it does not apply to most kids, just some. The twist to it was how kids were using computer-based technology - mobile IM and blogs - to take pot shots at each other and even gang up on a kid. Computer experts work hard to make sure technology works. Salesmen sell it. People buy it. But none of those people want it to be used by kids to pick on other kids.

Apple released some neat products and services yesterday. Disney movies can be purchased/downloaded for about ten bucks from iTunes now. A new version of iTunes, iTunes 7 was released yesterday. There are a few new iPod products. * shuffle now starts at just $79 and is smaller than a book of matches * nano holds up to 8GB now, has 24 hours of play per charge, and is thinner * regular iPod has a brighter display The big news for TV waters is what Apple is bringing to the living room next year. Apple's upcoming iTV will sell for $299, and will let you watch the movies you buy in iTunes on your TV. Presumably, other things too. Jobs said it will use some form of 802.11 wireless networking standard. Speculation is that it will use the emerging 802.11i standard. It has a data rate of 200 mbps instead of 54 mbps that is the limit with the current standard, 802.11g. Apple has not specified which they are using yet. But apparently they did mention it will support HDTV. That requires a really high data rate. Apple is changing the world of entertainment. It is smaller, more convenient, easer to carry with you or enjoy wirelessly throughout your house/environs.

Remember the 1960s pop rock icon with the smooth, clear, strong, pretty voice - Lesley Gore. I just learned an hour or two ago that she is playing a concert later this month - only a mile or so from my house! I can walk there in a few minutes! I am pretty psyched. I have not been to a music concert in a couple of years, as far as I can recall. I am really looking forward to this. I hope I can find someone to go with me to hear her perform.