Will all you TiVo upgrading cats mention what places you used? There seem to be a ton, and I'd prefer to buy from a place where at least some anonymous lawyer on some internet board had a good experience.

Weaknees.com

You can do it yourself. Just check out www.avsforum.com and read up on it. It's just like switching a hard drive from your computer, with a few twists. Or the site that ncs suggests can do it for you too. But it's really easy to find a cheap disk drive and install it. Much less than $149.00, but no warranty.

Fun with small electronics that don't get you off
 

Let's say that I want to install some sort of motorized door on a cabinet I have, and I think that I want to try to do it myself. I used to be pretty handy with shit like that, and I think that it might be a fun project. What websites and/or books would I look to to teach me to do stuff like that? Where could I buy the parts? Is this completely out of my league? It seems like it could be a simple small chain drive motor with a remote control, and I would just have to figure out all the engineering and design issues.

Ordered. Thanks! Now I'll never have to delete old episodes of "Two Guys and a Girl"!!

But will it park my Jetsonmobile?
 

Cool. Things like this make me wish I lived in DC.

The arrival of the motorized parking garage.

Internet Phones
 

Does anyone have experience with internet phones? The monthly cost is very low, but I am concerned the quality of the voice transmission is sub par.

Thanks in advance.

NYIE

Internet Phones
 

There was an article evaluating VoIP in the NY Times a few weeks ago. It may be available online or on Lexis. The conclusions were reasonably favorable for Vonage, IIRC, but not others, and even Vonage had some problems that didn't please them. It sounded to me like something worth waiting a few more months to develop.

Internet Phones
 

And there was another one yesterday, in the Circuits section.

Hi def goes small
 

Six Japan broadcasters agree on digital TV standard for cellphones

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's six major television networks said they have agreed on a terrestrial digital standard aimed at beaming high-quality TV images to mobile phones, starting March 2006.
"I think if we decide to make this a business, we will have to make sure our phones are compatible with this standard," said a spokeswoman for NTT DoCoMo Inc., the nation's largest operator with some 45.5 million subscribers.

Vodafone is the only cellphone operator in Japan to offer a handset model equipped with analog TV tuners, which it launched last October.
http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...lt-290x384.jpg http://news.yahoo.com/?tmpl=story&ci...com_technology

Can Hi Def phones be far behind?

Sony announces 1 Terabyte DVR with seven tuners. That's enough for 50 hours of HDTV content. Sadly, it will be sold only in Japan, which apparently is one place on Earth where the laws of physics apparently permit seven watchable television programs to air at the same time.

ETA: On reflection, four of those are probably anime porn. Which doesn't really change much about my post, I realize.

HD update
 

So we installed the HD dish a couple of weeks ago. Fairly painless. Picked up the 55" plasma yesterday. Stand is on order. HDTivo is on order and will ship in freakin July. So now I have this expensive TV set sitting on the floor of my living room in a box. When I get the HD Tivo, I will give an update as to how the plasma looks.

And did we ever discuss Voom? Worth it? Not worth it? Anyone?

voom tv

Powered small speakers
 

I'm looking to buy some small (bookshelf sized) speakers. Powered. Under (or about) $100. I know I'm not getting audiophile quality, but I don't need much for a small room this will be used in.

Recs?

I was leaning towards either the Cambridge Soundworks Soundworks
or the JBL Creatures .

Any experience with these or others?

And please don't say "for just a little bit more money you could get . . . " I know I could. But I don't want to pay a lot when I need only a little.

Thanks.

Powered small speakers
 

I can't find them on the website, so I'm not sure if they make them anymore, but Bose had a pair of speakers called "roommate" that were powered. I had them back in college and they worked well for a dorm room. I still have the pair, though I think they need to be rewired. You may troll around e-bay and see if there are any available.

Powered small speakers
 

I've heard good things about the JBL creatures. FYI, Harman Audio (JBL's parent) has a huge store on ebay . You may be able to get them cheaper than MSRP.