Just minutes after I posted this I got an email from Gerry. Seems he was out of town for the weekend and hadn’t caught up on his email - but he was catching up on his blogs, and he saw this post. So, sorry, Gerry is getting his TiVo HD - well, he said it is for his mom (that’s very nice, isn’t it?) - so there won’t be a second drawing.

---

Well, this is kind of unexpected. I haven’t heard from the TiVo HD giveaway winner, GerryL. I emailed him (I’m assuming a he given the name) immediately after I selected the winner. Then again on Monday. And just now I emailed saying if I didn’t hear back by 8PM Eastern tonight I was going to have to select another winner, as the TiVo Rewards Program ends tomorrow and I don’t want the points going to waste. I did warn in the contest post that if I couldn’t contact the winner I’d have to select another.

So, GerryL has just over four hours in which to contact me or he forfeits the TiVo HD and it goes to someone else. I certainly hope the new winner is watching their email, as the program official ends at 11:59PM ET tomorrow, May 28, 2008. So I think I’ll give the second winner, if drawn, until noon to get back to me. And then I’ll have to draw a third, and if the third, if drawn, doesn’t get back to me by 8PM I’ll just give up and give it to a friend or something rather than see the points go to waste.

I really never expected it to come to this, and I hope it doesn’t - four more hours.

GerryL!

Gerry won with this comment, congratulations Gerry! And thank you to everyone who entered, I wish I had a TiVo HD to give each of you. While the TiVo Rewards program is ending, TiVo is planning to launch a new incentive program in the coming months, so I hope to continue doing giveaways in the future.

I hope you’ll all stick around and that you enjoy the blog.

Gerry, I’ve already emailed you - please reply ASAP so I can claim the reward for you before the program ends.

If you’re curious, it is a random drawing:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -Tw

my $draw = int rand(374);
print $draw . "\n";

You’ve got one day left to enter to win a TiVo HD. The deadline is Friday at midnight (Eastern). Enter now or forever hold your peace.

I can never leave things alone, and that includes my WordPress installation. I make a few changes to WordPress to get to to suit my needs and preferences a bit better than it does ‘out of the box’. For example, I don’t used the advanced editor (TinyMCE) because I prefer doing my markup by hand. But I do use some of the simple editor buttons on the basic editor, and I change them to better suit me - for example, I have the ‘img’ button prompt me not only for the URL and alt text, but also the width, height, and border, because I always include those. So I thought I’d share the diffs between WP2.5.1 and my changes, simple as they are. As well as some tweaks to the Sociable and reCAPTCHA plug-ins.

I’ll put this under a cut since it is long, and not interesting to most I suspect. Though I hope that this might encourage other WP users to try getting their hands dirty and tweaking things a bit.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes the little things can make your day. About 14 minutes, 13 seconds into episode 726 of CNET’s Buzz Out Loud podcast (also in video, as below) is a segment on TiVo resurrecting product lifetime, in which Gizmo Lovers (and Dave Zatz and Zatz Not Funny) are mentioned. (The counter on the video player counts down, so it is around the 18 minute, 25 second remaining point.) So yeah, seeing Molly Wood say ‘Gizmo Lovers’ on camera made my day. I’m a simple man with simple pleasures.

Overnight I upgraded the site to the latest version of WordPress, 2.5.1, as well as updating a slew of the plug-ins. (If you run a WordPress site, you owe it to yourself to check out Admin Drop Down Menus. I can’t recommend it enough.) If you notice any issues, please let me know. Thanks.

PS. Don’t forget the Style Selector in the upper-right for those of you who dislike the green-on-black color scheme.

Don’t forget, there is one week left to enter to win a TiVo HD.

This is it! The TiVo Rewards Program ends on May 28, 2008. That’s the last day to redeem points. And we have just enough points for one last big giveaway! This time we’re giving away another TiVo HD!¹ And ANYONE can win!

I’ll accept entries until midnight EST Friday, May 23, 2008 - that’s two weeks from now. Entering couldn’t be simpler - just leave a comment. That’s right - all it takes is a comment, and one comment only. Take note - if you leave multiple comments you’ll be disqualified.

Also, you MUST enter a valid email address in the email box when you comment. That is how I will contact the winner to get their shipping info. I won’t even consider entries without a valid email address. Don’t worry, they aren’t used for anything else. Since there will only five days to claim to prize after the end of the contest, if I can’t contact the winner, I will have to pick another. So make sure you enter your email correctly.

Now, get to entering and good luck!

¹If you already have a TiVo HD or a Series3 you can optionally take the WD My DVR Expander and a TiVo Glo remote instead of the TiVo HD.

I’ve consulted the Mystic Perl Script and it has pronounced that the winner of the TiVo HD giveaway shall be…

Leigh Ann!

Also known as LJ user trinsf.

Congratulations Leigh Ann, I’ll be emailing you to get your shipping information.

Coming soon, our final (under the TiVo Rewards program anyway) TiVo HD giveaway! There are a couple of days left to donate points to the site to help fund additional giveaways. Remember, April 28th is the last day to give anyone a referral.