when do you work? (high-tech edition)

A recent conversation at work makes me curious about current work-hour trends in the high-tech sector. If you work in this sector (in any job), work full-time and outside your home, and work what your company considers to be "conventional hours" (e.g. I'm not looking for the night-shift folks here), would you please answer a few questions for me?

"Typically" in these questions means that; I'm not concerned about the occasional doctor's appointment or parent-teacher conference that makes you change your routine. If you have something more regular going on that complicates your answer, please comment. If you are Shabbat-observant, please answer for the summer and comment. (I call out that special case because I know it will apply to several folks here.)

"By what time" means if you tend to arrive between, say, 8:00 and 8:30, choose 8:30. "After what time" means if you tend to leave between, say, 5:00 and 5:30, choose 5:00. Think of this as "what's the range of hours when, if someone wanted to talk with me in person, I'd be around".

[Poll #1413594]

Tivo

There is a Tivo box sitting in my TV room, taunting me.

A coworker gave me his old Tivo (he upgraded). Tonight I hooked it up, sort of. If I use the S-video connection, it works but trumps my DVD player -- weird. (The DVD player is connected via component video, the red/white/yellow trio of plugs. I'm not sure why, other than its predecessor was.) If the Tivo's cable is connected I see the Tivo on "video 2"; if it's not I see the DVD player there.

Ok, fine, I figured -- I can use component video to connect the Tivo. I swapped out a VCR that was doing just that, so I expected to see the Tivo on "video 1" where the VCR had been. I half-do -- it's a black-and-white picture. Yes, I've swapped cables. Yes, I've checked that connections are tight. Right now it is connected via both component video and S-video, on "video 1" and "video 2", one black-and-white and one color.

Setting that aside, I figured I could at least try to set it up, and see if the IR connection to the digital converter box works. (A programmable device is considerably less useful if you can't change channels.) I told it I had cable, which is wrong but I thought that would be closest to "I have a box you have to deal with". It spent a while churning (most of that in phoning home), and then displayed a toll-free number and told me to call for support. Whee. :-) After 10 minutes on hold I gave up; I'll try again tomorrow.

Nothing is ever simple. :-)