I was very excited today to see that New Hampshire finally jumped on the E-Z Pass bandwagon. On the Everett Turnpike, they have one lane in both directions that is E-Z Pass only. I thought this was fairly clear and well labeled with a big red and purple sign hanging above the dedicated lane.

Aparently I was wrong.

While traveling northbound, as I approached the toll plaza there was one truck in the dedicated E-Z Pass lane. As I got closer, the truck was still there. I pulled up behind the truck just as he was backing up slightly. He rolled down his window, looked around with a confused look, threw change at the toll booth, and drove off.

After my initial “damn, people are dumb!” thought, I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt. The system is new, he may have missed the sign, whatever. It was a one-time thing, no worries… I can deal with that. Fine.

Aparently I was wrong.

Now it’s about 45 minutes later and I’m traveling southbound and approaching the toll plaza. This time, the dedicated E-Z Pass lane is empty. I’m getting closer to the toll booth when suddenly a car with Connecticut plates cuts in front of me to get into the E-Z Pass only lane. I started to think “cool, someone embracing this new technology…”.

Wrong again.

The lady gets to the booth… stops… and sits. She sits there for over a minute as traffic backs up behind her (and me). Everyone is laying on their horn, and this lady (and her 3 passengers) are just sitting there looking around, not sure what to do. Finally, she opens her door, gets out, and places change on the ledge of the toll booth. WTF!?!? These people are so stupid. The little message sign even lit up and said “Call E-Z Pass”.

Someday, reading and being good at driving will be a requirement in order to be allowed on the road.

TiVo is giving away their 40 hour units for free when either a 12-month or lifetime subscription is purchased. When you activate your TiVo, be sure to tell them I referred you! Just enter my email address: pjhansen -at- mudslide -dot- net when prompted during service activation. Yes, it’s that simple to give me some referral points.

Ok, so my free TiVo arrived at my doorstep via UPS this morning. I am still miffed at the fact that an analog telephone line is required in order to set up a TiVo initially. There are many posts online that claim there is a way to perform the initial guided setup over a broadband connection – but this does not seem to be the case. Here’s the detail of my adventures in TiVo-land.

I unpacked the boxes and connected up all the video cables. I then connected my USB Ethernet adapter to the back of the TiVo and plugged it in to my home network. Finally, I turned on my TV and connected power to my TiVo. Up popped Tivo’s Guided Setup. Cool.

Here are some things I’ve run into while setting up my new TiVo.

ERROR: Failed While Negotiating
During the initial guided setup, I encountered a “failed while negotiating” error during the initial phone call to the TiVo service. After some troubleshooting, I found this to be caused by the fact I had my network connected to the TiVo during the initial guided setup. Simply unplugging the Cat 5 network cable fixed the problem.

Test call failed.
Even if I make a minor change (like adding a dialing prefix) to my phone setup options, the TiVo forces a test call. There appears to be no way around this, because backing up takes you to the phone options screen with no way to proceed except by making a successful test call. If the test call fails (like when you’ve already put the long phone cord away), you’re out of luck.

Indexing… 99%
After the second phone call to the TiVo service, my TiVo began to index all the listings and content it downloaded. This was progressing nicely until it got to 99%. At this point, it just sat there for about 15-20 minutes. This was frustrating because I had the TiVo set up in a temporary location while I set it up.

That annoying TiVo light
The newer Series 2 TiVo boxes have a very annoying white light on the front panel, that makes the TiVo logo glow. There is an option to turn this off, however when the TiVo connects to the TiVo service or restarts, this light comes on. I woke up in the middle of the night to find the whole room lit up by the darn TiVo light. I wish the option to turn it off really meant it would stay off. The default should be off, so when it reboots it doesn’t come back on unexpectedly.

All in all I’m happy with my TiVo. This is my second unit, so now I can transfer shows between them. And of course, the home media option (now free) allows me to play all my MP3s and browse photos from my TV. Me like.