Remotely control your TiVo with kwiry

Your DVR may rule your world, but it's also given you a special new sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when you're away from home and remember that you forgot to punch something in. Enter kwiry, giving a lift to both you and your TV.

The kwiry service is free, and all you'll need to do ahead of time is set up your account. (You can remember that much, right?) When you realize that you're going to be away from home for that Very Special Episode of your favorite show, you'll text the name of the show to the kwiry service (59479) -- TiVo gossip girl, but we won't tell -- to the service. Kwiry picks up the ball from there and schedules the next available episode of the show on your recorder.

The TiVo option, which enters beta this week, is available to Series2 and Series3 TiVo owners; on the phone side, only SMS service is required, not the Web. (You will need to sign up for the Kwiry account online, naturally.) Kwiry itself has been around since 2006.

The service specializes in handling life's little tasks via SMS. Perhaps the most useful is the business-card replacement option (text contact [email protected] to send that person your contact info and vCard), and the status update function (status I'm updating my status line compulsively!) will keep your Twitter and/or Facebook bulletins up to date.

Other options reach out to Amazon iCal, Google Calendar, Yelp, Netflix and the like. And the e-mail-a-reminder capability, which lets you text your inbox with whatever random factoid you need to keep track of, is a humble but highly effective organizing tool for the terminally notepad-less.