Tivo Hacks. 100 Industrial-strength Tips Tools 2003

Hack 74 Using TiVo Mail

TiVoWeb turns your web browser into a web mail client so you can read and delete your TiVo mail .

Falsify messages from TiVo, Inc., threatening friends and family that their TiVos will stop recording their favorite shows! Or leave yourself notes somewhere you will be very likely to read them: right on your television screen. Welcome to TiVo mail.

Before we dive into writing new mail, first let's figure out how to read the mail that TiVo, Inc. might leave you first. Surf to Mail View/Delete Existing Mail from the main web page or the menu bar. If your TiVo has mail or messages, you'll be able to read them from here. But, of course, it's hard to test this, right? How often do you get TiVo mail anyway? So, let's create some mail to read first.

Go back to that Mail menu and select Create New Mail . As shown in Figure 5-23, just enter in the message you want.

When mail pops up on the message board, you get that envelope icon on the TiVo Central menu next to "New TiVo Messages & Setup." You've probably already seen the envelope icon used for channel lineup changes and the like. The more exciting way to send a messagealso a way to force the message to come upis to post the message to "Pre-TiVo Central," as this is bound to get the TiVo user 's attention. When somebody hits the button, this message is going to come up on the screen first (see Figure 5-24). Just be sure to delete the message; otherwise , it will just keep coming up.