According to The WSJ, live television ads might make a comeback. Tuesday’s broadcast of NBC’s “The Tonight Show” is going to air a live skit promoting Garmin GPS. NBC says the Garmin deal “obviously is a reaction to the DVR issue and a reaction to commercial ratings”.

So how is this TiVo proof? You can skip it just like anything else, but apparently Jay Leno’s announcer will play a part in the live skit as well. That make’s it a bit more difficult to differentiate between the actual show and the commercial. Nevertheless, I’m sure the FFW button will get mashed as soon as it becomes clear that it’s an advertisement. Hardly a breakthrough idea.

The truth is most commercials suck. They don’t benefit the viewer at all. Advertisers tend to take, take, take and never give. The ads that are successful are the ones that give back, at least a chuckle or a tear. I still stop my TiVo for new Mac ads because they make me laugh, and movie trailers because they give me a glimpse. But Ford, Zales, Quicken Loans, Lowe’s - forget it.

The only way to become TiVo proof is to make remarkable ads, ads clever enough to make people stop fast forwarding just to watch it. Everything else will get skipped.

Note: If the live skit is going to feature scenes like the pic above, chances are a lot of people men will stay tuned.

The recording at the local emissions office sounds like this…

“Our hours are Monday through Friday, 9AM - 5PM, Saturday from 9AM - 1PM. If you don’t want to wait in line, avoid coming between the hours of 11AM and Noon and do not come at the end of the month”

This is because everyone delays getting their cars tested for tab renewals. It’s such a widespread problem that they have to address it on their recording, simply stating “do not come” at the last minute. Why do people feel the monkey around until it becomes an urgency? There are convenient opportunities all month long to take care of it, but people wait until it’s at critical mass and must be done “right away”. Pity.

That being said, I’ve got to run. If I hurry I can make it before 11AM. My tabs expired May 22nd :)

I loathe the boring look of Gmail. While pillaging the internet for a solution I stumbled across a Firefox extension called Better Gmail. I’m pretty sure it’s a collection of Gmail enhancements wrapped up in one easily manageable extension, one of which being Skins (one of which you see above).

Ahhh…that’s better. If you don’t already have it, Check it out.

Update: It just asked me to update to 0.7 and the above links point to 0.6.1. If it doesn’t do it automatically, check for updates and install ‘em.

It doesn’t happen much anymore, but door-to-door salesman used to be common in our early youth, especially in our parent’s era. When vacuum cleaners and tupperware dominated this practice, a crafty fella’ with his product in tow would do everything he could to convince you to allow him to demo his offering before you…….it would only take a few moments of your time.

The internet and online video have allowed demos to evolve from employing salesman to pitch door-to-door, to showing how powerful a blender is via YouTube. The cost and time for demoing a product nowadays is minuscule compared to the salary or commission of a fleet of salesmen.

In most cases, you’re able to share a story about your product and control the features and benefits emphasized. If that story isn’t truthful, the demo can turn on you, like it did with the Kryptonite bike lock.

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Up until an hour or so ago, I’ve been blocked from Del.icio.us for nearly two days. I’m sure it was a simple error on their server, but even a support e-mail did nothing fast.

We reminded you a while back to backup your hard drive on cds/dvds/external drive, and now I recommend you do the same with your Del.icio.us account. You never know if their server with your account may go kaput one day, so this 1 minute task would pay off if it happened to.

1) Make sure you’re logged in. Click the settings button.

2) Click export / backup under the bookmarks column.

3) Click the export to html button.

4) Save the webpage it generates to your desktop.

This simple process may save you from the excruciating pain of losing your bookmarks from over the years, or not being to access them for an unknown amount of time.