Rating: 
Summary: Almost worthless for version 2
Review: As near as I can tell, all the material applicable to version 2, the current version, requires elaborate, dangerous procedures that will void your warrantee.
Rating: 
Summary: Nicely organized and easy to read
Review: Book contains lots of hacks, but lacks clarity. Writing seems muddled at times, and instructions for hacks such as backing up TiVo's disk and adding a new disk are unclear/confusing (at best). Although I've not been a TiVo hacker, I do build & repair PCs as a business (and dabble in LINUX)...so I consider myself to be somewhat knowledgable.Ultimately, the book disappointed me. I shall keep searching for one that's clear, accurate and useful.
Rating: 
Summary: "TiVo Hacks" Disappoints
Review: Book contains lots of hacks, but lacks clarity. Writing seems muddled at times, and instructions for hacks such as backing up TiVo's disk and adding a new disk are unclear/confusing (at best). Although I've not been a TiVo hacker, I do build & repair PCs as a business (and dabble in LINUX)...so I consider myself to be somewhat knowledgable. Ultimately, the book disappointed me. I shall keep searching for one that's clear, accurate and useful.
Rating:
Summary: An Open, Extensible Tivo For the Tinkerer
Review: Did you see the September 2003 Forbes magazine, with a Tivo on the cover? The folks at Tivo must have been pleased! So too might you, if you have a Tivo or are thinking of getting one. The article said that in the field of Digital Video Recorders, Tivo is the dominant one. [Though the article also said that the competition is increasing.] As far as this book is concerned, that article is reassuring. It says a Tivo is your safest choice of DVR; independent validation of the book's topic. Now considering the book itself, it is easily readable. Much more so than your typical instruction manual that comes with a software package, and usually feels like it was written as an afterthought. (As it probably was.) The copious diagrams in the book of the screen captures of software, and of the hardware, greatly help the understandability. Essentially, the book appeals to the tinkerer of either software or hardware. It gives you an appreciation of how open the product is, either explicitly by its manufacturer, or, perhaps more importantly, by the vast user community that has arisen around it.
Rating:
Summary: Nicely organized and easy to read
Review: I have not read the other tivo books yet, but I think this one is pretty good. Yes, you can get all the information online from the forums, but this book does a nice job of organizing it all in one place that you can flip through in your leisure. I found the pictures helpful too. The other reviewers seemed a bit harsh on this book, but maybe since I borrowed it from the library, I'm a bit more forgiving.
Rating:
Summary: You can get all this online for free
Review: I really enjoyed Google Hacks, and was really excited when I heard about this new Hacks book. I was, however disappointed when I actually got my hands on it. This book touts 100 "hacks" but once you get into it, you will discover that many of these "hacks" are really just steps - instructions if you will, and that many of them rely on other "hacks." For instance, the steps involved in removing the cover from your TiVo (a few screws) counts as a "hack." There are several more like this. The book seems to have been forced into the O'Reilly Hacks format, and probably would have been better were it freed up a bit. The description says its 288 pages, but in fact it really only has 239 pages of what they are calling "hacks" and with 100 hacks in the book, you can see that there is on average less than 2.5 pages of coverage per "hack." I'm not saying that each "hack" is only 2.5 pages, many are larger, but I think you can see that the coverage is light. I was very disappointed that many of the "hacks" were no more than a single page telling me to download and install a piece of code from the web. The writing style is fine, but I did get the feeling the author might not be extremely knowledgable in the TiVo space. There were several places where he had the opportunity to mention some of the real "gotchas" when working with TiVo drives and the like, but came up short. With all the contributors, I wonder if he acted a bit more as editor than author. So, if you are looking for something with a little more meat to it, look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: A bit misleading
Review: I really enjoyed Google Hacks, and was really excited when I heard about this new Hacks book. I was, however disappointed when I actually got my hands on it. This book touts 100 "hacks" but once you get into it, you will discover that many of these "hacks" are really just steps - instructions if you will, and that many of them rely on other "hacks." For instance, the steps involved in removing the cover from your TiVo (a few screws) counts as a "hack." There are several more like this. The book seems to have been forced into the O'Reilly Hacks format, and probably would have been better were it freed up a bit. The description says its 288 pages, but in fact it really only has 239 pages of what they are calling "hacks" and with 100 hacks in the book, you can see that there is on average less than 2.5 pages of coverage per "hack." I'm not saying that each "hack" is only 2.5 pages, many are larger, but I think you can see that the coverage is light. I was very disappointed that many of the "hacks" were no more than a single page telling me to download and install a piece of code from the web. The writing style is fine, but I did get the feeling the author might not be extremely knowledgable in the TiVo space. There were several places where he had the opportunity to mention some of the real "gotchas" when working with TiVo drives and the like, but came up short. With all the contributors, I wonder if he acted a bit more as editor than author. So, if you are looking for something with a little more meat to it, look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly organized and missing important stuff
Review: I've bitched aboutn the other TiVo books, but this is the worst. I like other O'Reilly hacks books, but this doesn't fit, and it's all old stuff that you can get off the web. I sent this back and bought the Vonhagen book instead, which actually worked for a Series 2 and was fun to read. The other books suck.
Rating: 
Summary: Serious hackers only need apply
Review: The majority of the book is working the TiVo at the operating system level to alter the software or to transfer movies. This is advanced stuff that requires a good deal of technical skill. The first chapter of the book does have some hacks that are done from the interface itself, like enabling the advanced season pass. The second chapter covers adding more disk space to your TiVo. Then beyond that you get into the advanced topics; putting your TiVo on your network, changing the software, transferring movies around, and then authoring code for the TiVo.
The book is very focused. The text is well written and the graphics are used effectively. The section on adding disk space is very well done and is better than anything I have read on the web for doing the same type of work.
I recommend this book for people who are familiar with Linux and hardware hacking and are interested in extending their TiVos. For just the average TiVo user you may want to review the table of contents to make sure that you are getting enough out of your purchase.
Rating:
Summary: You can get all this online for free
Review: There is very little to no new information in this book that is not available online. Check out http://www.tivocommunity.com. If you are good enough to do an upgrade/hack you are good enough to find the information on your own.
| 
