Zatz Not Funny!

Apple Just Says No To Vista

Apparently iTunes, iPods, and Vista don’t play nice just yet. A variety of issues have been reported, including: purchased tracks not playing, synchronization glitches, and computer gremlins “may corrupt your iPod.” Apple warns: iTunes 7.0.2 may work with Windows Vista on many typical PCs. Apple recommends, however, that customers wait to upgrade Windows until after … Read more

Win A TiVo With Lifetime Service

TiVo’s giving away a Series2 dual-tuning TiVo with Lifetime Service each month through July. All that’s required for entry is an email address. Interesting factoid #1: The package is valued at $549.98. Interesting factoid #2: Contradicting speculation on the TCF, “Each DVR requires its own TiVo service subscription and activation, and it cannot generally be … Read more

Blockbuster Brings Carl & Ray Back

Blockbuster video announced that they will be bringing back their lovable Carl and Ray campaign for this year’s Super Bowl spot. If you haven’t seen the clips, you can find them on YouTube or most of the other video sharing sites. I’ve never been a big fan of renting from Blockbuster, but I have to admit that I love these ads. The spots do a great job of infusing humor into the marketing message and the cuteness factor of digitally animated pets has an especially broad appeal for a spot that will be seen by such a large audience.

Kevin Smith’s Top Movies Of 2006

Better late than never! Kevin has posted his top films of 2006. 2006 was an off year for me: I didn’t catch too many new flicks (I hate the movie theater and I’m between projectors) and I didn’t read any fiction. Kevin’s top film was The Departed, which I haven’t seen yet… Though, we did … Read more

Dave Wants His Vista

The question is: How come I’m not running Vista? As an early adopter, I’m a little embarrassed and a lot frustrated in not having a shipping copy of Vista. I did get on board early with beta testing — I distinctly recall loading up a laptop with a TechNet-issued copy of Vista for the August, 2005 Engadget meetup in DC.

I thought I had a good plan in place for acquiring Vista, but I’m somewhat impatient. When we decided to visit a great uncle in upstate NY for Thanksgiving, it seemed like a good time to replace his aging PC with my aging PC. Of course that decision was made the same week it was announced that all XP machine purchases would be eligible for a copy of Vista. Imagine the coincidence! ;) So I bought myself a powerful, though inexpensive, HP running XP MCE in October with expectations of receiving Vista in February.

DEMO ’07 – V in Vogue

One year, every company I worked for seemed to start with a letter at the end of the alphabet… and it appears that “V” companies are in vogue again. Two in particular have piqued my interest from their DEMO debuts.

Vuvox offers a platform for creating and sharing media. That alone isn’t interesting, but the fact that Robert Scoble is rendered speechless by the service is. The best explanation of Vuvox I’ve seen so far is that it’s a heavily enhanced, Scrapblog-type application. If you check out the site, it clearly gives you ways to add professional touches to your own media. However, there’s also some kind of social networking aspect. Look at this photo from a ZNF friend on the ground at DEMO. If you click on it to see the larger version, you’ll notice there’s some kind of user profile and links to groups, blogs and MySpace pages. Can’t wait to hear more.

95% Of Canadians PVR-less

The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) ran a study where they looked at PVR usuage in the US and in Canada and determined that only 5% of all Canadians are currently using PVRs and only 38% were even familiar with how they worked. When they surveyed American consumers, the number of people who have PVRs jumps up 15%, but even at that level, it’s still a pretty small number given how powerful the technology really is.

The crazy thing about a PVR is that it’s really tough to demonstrate the benefits to someone without seeing it first hand, but once a consumer experiences the power of time shifting, it’s very tough for them to go back to live TV.

When I bought my first TiVo, it was actually on accident. I had gone to Best Buy to buy a home theater system, but the sound set up that I wanted was a little too expensive. Rather than go home empty handed, I made an impulse decision when I saw the TiVo and after taking it home was immediately floored with how transformative the technology was. Going from a world where you had to schedule your TV to a world where everything was available on my own schedule had a huge impact on my life and instantly made me an evangelist for the company.

Confirmed: Half Price Xbox 360

After spending time with all three next-gen gaming systems, I finally decided on picking up a Xbox 360 last November. At the time, Micro Center’s deal seemed too good to be true ($200 for a $400 system) and involved playing Rebate Roulette. Fortunately for me, I won — in about 10 weeks I received two … Read more