Rating: 
Summary: Hands on review
Review: CAUTION!!! Just finished upgrading the hard drive on my Series 1 TiVo. This book was full of errors and outdated information. Had I not bought Jeff Keegan's "Hacking TiVo" book at the same time as this book, I would have a TiVo boat anchor by now. Luckily, I am the cautious type and read both books before I started. I don't think the author, William von Hagen even proof read his work before it was published. Besides giving wrong information on setting up larger disk caches etc. the book was littered with lots of small typos such as MB instead of GB etc.
I did give this book an extra star for the user friendly language and explinations and the larger sized type. Jeff Keegan's book is a lot more technical, has less detailed explinations and smaller type.
Rating:
Summary: Hands on review
Review: CAUTION!!! Just finished upgrading the hard drive on my Series 1 TiVo. This book was full of errors and outdated information. Had I not bought Jeff Keegan's "Hacking TiVo" book at the same time as this book, I would have a TiVo boat anchor by now. Luckily, I am the cautious type and read both books before I started. I don't think the author, William von Hagen even proof read his work before it was published. Besides giving wrong information on setting up larger disk caches etc. the book was littered with lots of small typos such as MB instead of GB etc.
I did give this book an extra star for the user friendly language and explinations and the larger sized type. Jeff Keegan's book is a lot more technical, has less detailed explinations and smaller type.
Rating:
Summary: Hands on review
Review: CAUTION!!! Just finished upgrading the hard drive on my Series 1 TiVo. This book was full of errors and outdated information. Had I not bought Jeff Keegan's "Hacking TiVo" book at the same time as this book, I would have a TiVo boat anchor by now. Luckily, I am the cautious type and read both books before I started. I don't think the author, William von Hagen even proof read his work before it was published. Besides giving wrong information on setting up larger disk caches etc. the book was littered with lots of small typos such as MB instead of GB etc.
I did give this book an extra star for the user friendly language and explinations and the larger sized type. Jeff Keegan's book is a lot more technical, has less detailed explinations and smaller type.
Rating: 
Summary: A Useful Book
Review: I am new to TiVo, but wanted to save more recordings. I added a hard drive with no problems and I bought it at [a local computer store]! The writer was a real hacker-type, but everything made sense to me. I really liked it!
Rating:
Summary: 2nd Edition is a Great book
Review: I have recently had the opportunity to read Bill von Hagen's updated (2nd Edition) book "Hacking the Tivo 2nd Edition". I read the original (1st edition) some time ago (09-18-2003) which is an eternity in internet time. There has been a lot change since then TiVo wise.
Overall impression:
Bill has done an excellent job bringing the book up to date with modern hacking techniques and tools.
Overall this book would make a GREAT book for newbies and an excellent reference book for experienced users. It contains a wealth of data/information that is very useful and is presented in a clear concise easy to read format. If you are a newbie this book will save you a lot of searching though threads for the single post that makes sense.
Likes:
Bill continues his excellent writing style. The flow of this book, like the first, is real good. Embeem who has a known history was the Technical Reviewer for the 1st edition and Musclenerd was listed as the Technical reviewer of this edition so I can say that I would trust its content. The book is interspersed throughout the book with many "Tips". I like this format. I found quite a few of these to be very good and thought provoking. There were a lot of questions that I never thought to ask but are good to know like "where did the TiVo come from?" This book answers many of the "not asked" questions.
It is relatively Up to date considering the "internet age" we are living in.
Bill devotes and entire chapter on "Extracting, Inserting, and Playing Tivo Recordings" something that I don't think any other book does. He presents subjects like mfs_ftp, tytool, tystudio, mplayer, etc. This is great information.
Dislikes:
Like the first edition I can't say there was much I didn't like about this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Useful and Entertaining Book
Review: I thought that this was a great book. I'm not exactly a novice, but I learned a good amount from reading it. I liked how it was organized, though it seemed oriented to newbies. Chapters in the book were coherent and led from one to the other well. Chapters are:1. Know Your TiVo
2. TiVo Tips and Tricks
3. Exploring Your TiVo Hardware
4. The Hacker's Toolchest of TiVo Tools
5. Backing Up and Restoring TiVo Data
6. Expanding Your TiVo's Storage Capacity
7. Connecting the Universe To Your TiVo
8. Working With Your TiVo from Windows and Macintosh Systems
9. Linux and the TiVo
10. Getting and Installing New Software For Your TiVo
11. Other TiVo Hacking Resources The best thing about this book was that it gave me info that wasn't just oriented to the old Series 1 Tivos, but to the new ones (Series, which I own). It was up to date, funny, and useful. Well worth the money. Also, the CD was great, saving me hours of download time. It has tons of cool software, and it's already set up to install and use. The CD also works on all kinds of TiVos, which was good for me since I have a Series 1 and a Series 2.
Rating:
Summary: Great book - told me what I wanted to know and more!
Review: I'd seen reviews of multiple books about TiVo, but I have a Series 2, so this was the only book that covered it. It was great! Within a few hours, I'd upgraded my Series 2 to 200+ hours of recording time, and it was easy. Hacking the Series 2s isn't covered in any other TiVo book, and I bought the Keegan book at a bookstore, but it was no help. Von Hagen's books could be a little better organized, but it worked for me. I recommend it highly!
Rating: 
Summary: tricky
Review: If you are the type of person who builds PCs from scratch parts and you are also a Linux expert, this book is for you. Anyone else should take a long look before they buy it. If you have a series2 Tivo read the bulleted points on page 223. Beware that one of the required items is very, very difficult to obtain.
Rating:
Summary: Leaves you asking more questions than when you started
Review: Im a big TiVo fan, and was really excited when I started hearing about the whole hacking thing, and was looking forward to the 3 books coming out (this one, the TiVo Hacks book, and the upcoming Hacking TiVo book - which I cant wait to get my hands on.) When I went through this one I was usually left with more questions than answers. The author is a hardcore UNIX guy, and he, unfortunately, expects that you are too. Im certainly not a newbie, but I am not a UNIX administrator either. Many times he gets ahead of himself, and describes a hack that involves doing something he hasnt covered yet, which was really frustrating - having to flip back and forth to try to figure it all out. It is also a little out of date, or just wrong about certain hardware hacks like the TurboNet card for instance, and I was very disappointed that some of the stuff that is supposed to be on the CD isnt there. Having all the software in one place and being able to install it on your TiVo easily is what is really what a good TiVo Cd is about. There are some places on the internet that sell TiVo boot CDs that are better than the one that comes with this book in my opinion. Ill keep looking for the best TiVo hacking book - so should you.
Rating: 
Summary: No new information
Review: Most, if not all, of the information in the book could be found free on http://www.tivocommunity.com. If you find the information in Tivo Community difficult to understand you probably shouldn't be hacking your Tivo, and this book isn't worth $20.
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