The BVo Proceeds Apace

I haven't mentioned it in a while, but th B-vo (the Blake version of the TiVo) is humming along pretty nicely.

It takes more hacking than I'd like (as I hope to produce a lot of these) but the main items (viewing almost-live TV, recording, ripping and playing DVDs) and a lot of the peripheral items (weather, web browsing, slideshow viewing, etc.) are also sweet.

My only concern now is with my TV. I'm not usually "cutting edge" with technology. That may seem funny coming from a programmer but it actually fits in pretty well: I'm happiest when I can sit down and program. When I'm fiddling with environments, dubious hardware interactions, network issues, etc., I'm not programming. So I generally wait until the kinks in a system are worked out before messing with it.

It's been a lot of work to put this together, especially for someone as lazy and easily bored as I am. But I can sell the fruits of this labor, I hope, and refine the hardware into something really slick as time goes on.

I've got, for example, a guy who can build custom cases. (Right now the B-vo is a not a pretty thing.) The ultimate goal is to make a small, sexy thing, like a Wii, that's completely quiet (the B-vo is very quiet, with just one small fan).

Probably about the time I really get rolling, Apple will work out the kinks and legal issues with their Apple TV system and shoot my business all to hell, so I'm already looking at little twists and turns that will make the system more fun than theirs.

It's been a while since I've had my own business. It's time to start again....