Tivo: A cautionary tale
I tend to be wary when it comes to technology. I don't get excited about new gadgets, and even as they become more ubiquitous I still stay away from them until I'm convinced there's really a need. This has served me well, I think, but it can have its disadvantages. I shall explain:About one month ago I bought a Tivo. It's a great device, and I pretty much watch all my programs through it now. At least, I did until about two weeks ago when the unit was suddenly unable to maintain a connection to my phoneline. I made many calls to Tivo tech support, and they walked me through every possible solution to solve my problem: unplug the unit and plug it back in, call the phone company to make sure the line is clear, throw the Tivo against the wall, etc. Finally, they determined the problem was with the unit itself, so they sent me a new one.
To make a long story slightly less longer, the problem was never with the Tivo itself. The problem was that I didn't have a filter on the phoneline coming from the Tivo, which caused my Tivo and DSL to interrupt one another. I found this out not through Tivo, but through my DSL provider. It was a simple solution that took all of five seconds to resolve, but my inherent technophobia turned it into a two week ordeal. If you have DSL and you're planning on getting Tivo, I hope you will heed my story. Or, if you're more tech-minded than I, then I hope you enjoy laughing at me for not knowing this in the first place. Either way is cool.

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