Yes, the Australian television networks are bastards. Yes, the Australian TiVo HD is a work in progress. Regardless, TiVo still has a lot to offer.

The new Australian TiVo has taken a hammering in the media this week, mostly from those annoyed that the PVR's media player features won't be available until a firmware update next year. The fact you'll have to pay for the update just rubs salt into the wound.

I agree that waiting for extra features is frustrating but I wouldn't declare the TiVo hobbled. As a Personal Video Recorder, which is its primary purpose, Australia's TiVo will be very impressive straight out of the box. In my first look over at ITWire, Hands on with Seven's Australian TiVo, I seem to be one of the few journalists who think its strengths outweigh its weaknesses.

The Australian TiVo offers the four vital features that almost every other PVR on the Australian market lacks - a proper Electronic Program Guide, a "Season Pass" feature, intelligent storage management and a generous margin for error when it comes to scheduling recordings. In my experience, a PVR lacking any of these features is a waste of time and money.

Yes the TiVo's 160GB hard drive is too small, but TiVo somewhat compensates for this with intelligent storage management which automatically deletes old recordings according to your preferences. It also features excellent padding management, to reduce unnecessary recording time while still ensuring you see the end of every show.

"As for ad skipping, that is one of the major advantages of a PVR, without it you might as well stick to VHS!" wrote one reader over at ITWire.

That's crazy talk. Show me a VCR that lets you record two high-def channels at once, record more than a few hours without changing tapes, offers time shifting, can be programmed via the web and can access an EPG and then provide custom padding for recordings.

Yes the lack of ad-skipping is annoying and just reinforces the fact that Australians get screwed by the local networks. Seven are bastards. I never said they weren't. Still, ad-skipping is a luxury and I'm prepared to overlook it in a PVR that has so much else going for it.

Yes the commercial networks are bastards. Yes, they don't stick to their own schedules. Yes Nine are bastards for screwing IceTV and it's the network's fault that Australians have restricted access to EPG data. Not every article can start with the phrase "Seven and Nine are bastards", even if it is true. Yes the networks created the situation that gives TiVo an EPG advantage, but that doesn't change the fact that the TiVo is actually a very good PVR.

It seems to me that much of the criticism is coming from fanboys of other PVRs, plus Seven and Nine-haters, who are venting their spleens. Some media centre owners believe the world is conspiring against them, but they have to accept the fact that media centres aren't for everyone.

You may love your PVR and IceTV, and hate the networks, but you have to face the fact that the TiVo is the best PVR in Australia for non-technical users. Just because you wouldn't buy one doesn't mean it's junk. Just because I can see its merits doesn't make me a TiVo fanboy.

Yes, the networks are bastards, but don't hate me because I like TiVo.

It's been a busy week or so as tar as software updates are concerned. Are you managing to keep up? More to the point, how's your download quota holding up?

Top of the list is the Mac OS X 10.5.4 update, which you should be installing just for the security fixes. If you're still on Tiger, get Security Update 2008-004 and Safari 3.1.2.

Updates may be free, but you can be talking about a lot of data to download. 10.5.4 is anything from around 60M via Software Update to 677M for the combo update for the server version. Tiger users are up for around 130 to 180M for the two updates I mentioned.

Then you can throw in another 4M for the Time Capsule and AirPort Base Station (802.11n) firmware update, 138M for Pro Applications Update 2008-002 (for Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Server and Logic Studio) and 50M for Final Cut Server Update 1.1.

It's not too hard to think of a scenario where you'd need a couple of gigabytes of updaters from Apple just in the last week. If you're responsible for multiple machines or if for some reason you often need to reinstall the OS, you'll almost certainly want the combo updaters so you can go straight from a 10.5 DVD to 10.5.4 with a single update.

Then there's Microsoft.

You've probably recovered from the May arrival of Service Pack 1 for Office 2008 (180M) and/or the 59M 11.5.0 update for Office 2004, but in just over a week Microsoft has pushed out the 45M Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.0 (most useful for Office 2004, but you may want to convert Open XML documents for use by other programs), Messenger for Mac 7.0.1 (21M, and probably no big deal unless you use either Mac OS X's VoiceOver feature or European non-English languages), and most recently Remote Desktop Connection for Mac 2 (less than 8M).

RDC has been in beta for almost a year, so those of us who need remote control of Windows XP, Vista or Windows Server from a Mac heaved a sigh of relief when the software finally made it to release.

If you delayed downloading the Office updates, you could be looking at another quarter of a gig on top of Apple's updates.

Now you know why you didn't sign up for that 400M per month Internet plan!

But the size of these updates makes me wonder if we'll see a return to the days of friends and colleagues passing around CDs and other media containing updates, just as we did in the days before 'everyone' had an Internet connection.

At the very least, households and small offices should think in terms of manually downloading updaters so they can easily be applied to multiple Macs, rather than using Software Update on one system at a time.

If you're using a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA or some sort of converged device then chances are that you're using one of five different operating systems. Those are BlackBerry, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Symbian or OS X (for the iPhone/iPod touch mob).

A week or so ago, Nokia announced that they have purchased Symbian. They've been a major shareholder for a while but have procured the remaining stock. What many people don't realise is that Symbian is the dominant player with over two-thirds of the mobile market. So, while Apple grabs the headlines and Microsoft tout the brilliance of their handheld OS, they are all merely filling the gap. Why is that?

I've been using different mobile operating systems for some time. While Symbian may not be the most glamourous it's exceptionally robust and flexible. It can be adapted for touchscreens and keyboard only handhelds, the PIM apps can sync with just about every desktop app you can throw at it and there are many applications freely available for the platform.

What this means for other Symbian handsets such as those made by Sony Ericsson isn't really clear yet. But what I do know is while Apple, Microsoft, RIM and Palm collect the headlines it's Nokia and Symbian that really own the mobile phone market and are likely to do so for quite some time.

It may surprise you, but the there is one single thing that has increased my productivity in the last few weeks.

No it’s not getting up earlier or going to bed later. And no, it’s not watching less Top Gear, 5th Gear or Dr Who and neither is it revisiting my Torchwood episodes. In fact, I now take Budweiser the dog for a walk every day, and am trying to extend the length of these walks. The fishing still suffers, but the inventive cooking is coming back.

Nor have I farmed off more work to someone else – directly the opposite actually with plans for a third magazine and contemplations about creating a series of mini ‘workbooks’ on specialist products.

So what is this magic ingredient? H G Wells time potion? Nope. Typing faster after taken touch typing lessons?
Not that either.

Quite simply, it has been the addition of a 3G wireless card to my Acer Ferrari laptop. Now, precious business time that was uselessly wasted is being used productively without costing an arm and a leg.

In the past, as I fly regularly to Sydney and Melbourne, time wasted waiting for overdue planes and take off times would drive me spare. Sure, in some places you can get pay-as-you-go, but it is horribly expensive in comparison, the same as some of the in-house wireless setups are at hotels. I don't use too much data when on the road, so a 10GB plan for me is ideal, allows me to create and send the stories I do as a freelancer, and connect back to home base via LOGMEIN as needed.

Check each of the vendors out. It may help you too.

The decision by ICANN to open up unlimited top-level domain names is going to make life a lot more complex for any business with a web presence.

ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is responsible for controlling the internet’s naming structure. It decides which address extensions are allowed and oversees the global network of domain name servers that keep the whole thing humming along.

At a meeting in Paris last week, ICANN decided to throw caution to the wind and effectively remove any restrictions on what can be used as a top-level domain. So, rather than being limited to a .com, .org, .au address and the like, from next year you’ll be able to register anything you please.

Expect to see the likes of .pepsi, .microsoft and .google before too long, as well as a vast array of generic domains. There’s sure to be everything from .pizza and .florist to .melbourne and .porn. The options will literally be endless.

As if that wasn’t enough, ICANN has also given the green light to having domains in characters other that the current Latin alphabet. Those from other alphabets, such as Japanese and Chinese will also be allowed.

While this all sounds great for the liberalisation of the internet, it’s going to make things tougher for businesses trying to protect their turf.

As well as trying to secure the .com version of their address together with the country-specific version of wherever they happen to be operating, a raft of new addresses will soon be required.

If you’re running Joe’s Pizza shop with the address of www.joesbestpizza.com and have also registered the .com.au variant, what happens when someone registers the .pizza domain? And what about .homedelivery, .fastfood and .tasty to boot?

Businesses that need to capture as much web traffic as possible will have to dig deep and lock in as many variations as they can – another expense most can certainly do without.

Sure, it might mark the democratisation of the internet, but the ICANN decision will have a large sting in its tail.