It only allowed some sites through (I guess out of fear of competition, possibly coupled with technology problems). Did you read the article posted by RT? Every single criticism of AOL that was in there was true. I didn't think the internet was so great, based on my experience with AOL, so I didn't use it. For a few years. See? I thought it sucked then. The alternative was a flashing cursor on a black screen, and I preferred that. As I said 3 posts ago.

Listserves were better than AOL. IN MY OPINION. Ignoring what was available on AOL and merely e-mailing with friends was better than AOL. IN MY OPINION.

I thought VCR's were great at the time, and for the technology we had then, I'm still impressed with them (though TPTB forced Beta, which was a better recording quality format out of the marketplace, I still appreciate the huge advance that was the VCR). I get your concept, but I disagree w/r/t AOL. What is your problem with me having that opinion? Big early AOL stockholder?

No. Your faulty analogy is saying ncs knew there were options and was unhappy with what she had choosen.

What burger and I were saying is that she would not have known of any alternative. Say if your faulty analogy was the first analogy burger or I had ever seen, we might think "analogies are clumsy and relatively unuseful." But we wouldn't know of an alternative, or the full power of the tool until we had read a sucessfully used one- like this. See?

To the extent my analogy implies that she knew of other options, I rescind my analogy.

Your analogy sucks. You suck. Can't we freeze you in the 9th circle?

I'm not defending the marketing, and once I stopped using floppies, the 1000 hours free BS became a drag. And, yeah, they use all kinds of tactics to keep you locked in, like Microsoft.

The problem I've got with the critique the article offers is that the Web sucked in 1993, and the Web sucked in 1994. Sure, listserves and email were great. You could email your buddy in the next dorm room over. Or maybe email your parents across the country, who would pick it up the next day when they dialed in. And listserves had great porn on them, with no graphics.

AOL did two things others weren't really doing in the mid-90s: 1) providing some content (however sucky, which could be said of most media providers then and now) and 2) introducing the Web to mainstream america.

Did they do it best? Of course not. But they spurred the innovation. People got a taste of the web, and wanted more of it and better. And we got it. I'm not sure that without AOL it would have developed so quickly, and in a way that it's not controlled by Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Comcast, or someone else. It would have happened eventually, but I think AOL deserves some credit for helping it get there.

(and I've never owned AOL stock, and cancelled my service as soon as a better ISP became available in 1997)

good first step. now will you promise to stop posting on the parents' board?

nice selective quoting.

tons of people have you on ignore. if i quote enough of your posts that the content comes through I get PM yelled at. sorry- i like you and hate that i have to parse your message.:(

thanks I feel so much better about life.

celebrate and embrace that in your life that works- identify and change that which makes you unhappy. once ncs knew something better than aol was available do you think she stayed with it?

2. Although I should remind you that most people have Fringey on ignore. When you continually serially quote her posts, you force those people to read her idiotic drivel. Let's mind the FIREWALL on that info pipeline.

DVR advice
 

My beloved TiVo (the ancient Series 2, 40 hour variety) has finally bit the unfixable, corrupted data bullet, and it's time to get a new unit. Of some sort.

Suggestions?

A new TiVo box? Which one?

A DirecTV DVR (I have the satellite service)?

Some other box I'm just not thinking of at the moment?

Suggestions appreciated.

Gattigap

DVR advice
 

Well, they have a dual tuner model now, but that's probably not worth it if you're going through directv already (since you don't use the tivo tuner if you're using a box).

I'd go with whatever directv offers.

DVR advice
 

How much do you generally record or need to keep around (do you need more than say 100 hours of space?). Do you like the Tivo interface, or would you want to switch to Dtv's offering?

DVR advice
 

I have DirecTV (with one dish, two receivers).

I would like 80+ hours or space. More is fine but not critical.

I liked the TiVo interface. I don't know much about the other interfaces, but would prefer that they not suck.

From the little bit of research I've done, it sounds like:

* The old DirecTV with Tivo (the R10) was good, but it's no longer in production, and I would have to go find a box at a dealer somewhere. This means, I'm afraid, that I may have to install it myself instead of calling DirecTV to come install it for me.

* The new DirecTV DVR (the R15) is built on a different system than TiVo. It is cheaper ($5/mo to Dtv instead of $16/mo to Tivo for programming updates) and would be installed by DirecTV, but from what I've been able to gather, it sucks as compared to TiVo.

* A standalone TiVo box runs anywhere from $0 to $200 or so depending on hard drive, but (a) there's no integration with DirecTV, so I can't take advantage of the dual tuner for some reason, and (b) there's the $16/mo instead of $5 month.

Is there anything I'm missing here?

Thanks,
Gattigap

DVR advice
 

Just that there are dtv-branded tivos still out there at certain 3rd party retailers, which unlike the standalone tivos, just cost $5/6/mo paid to dtv (no extra charge for extra receivers), instead of 16/mo paid to tivo. Those boxes also have less features than the standalone tivos (no tivo-to-go, networking, etc.)