Poor Chris Dodd — he just got the top media lobbying job in Washington, D.C., at the very moment that the strong-arming-pols, scare-the-children, Jack Valenti era in media lobbying is now decidedly over.

It’s obviously a very confusing time for big media these days, on a lot of fronts. But any of the consummate insider moves once used by the legendarily pugnacious Valenti (pictured here onstage at our first D: All Things Digital conference in 2003) had a hard time this past week, as Internet players went very public in protesting two Congressional bills aimed at combating piracy online.

Not that Dodd didn’t try to cope.

The former Senator — who is now the chief lobbyist for the once much more powerful Motion Picture Association of America — gave a can’t-we-all-get-along interview to the New York Times on Thursday, in which he called for a meeting with techies to come to some acceptable compromise.

Wrote the Times:

“In an interview Thursday, Mr. Dodd said he would welcome a summit meeting between Internet companies and content companies, perhaps convened by the White House, that could lead to a compromise … ‘The perfect place to do it is a block away from here,’ said Mr. Dodd, who pointed from his office on I Street toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

But on Friday, after politicians quickly moved to delay both the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s PROTECT I.P. Act (PIPA) — after successful protests pointing out that the legislation could lead to censorship — Dodd went to the full Valenti again:

“We applaud those leaders in Washington who have chosen to stand with the millions of hard working Americans all across this nation whose livelihoods are threatened by foreign criminal websites designed to steal. As a consequence of failing to act, there will continue to be a safe haven for foreign thieves; American jobs will continue to be lost; and consumers will continue to be exposed to fraudulent and dangerous products peddled by foreign criminals.”

Foreign criminals! Foreign thieves! Is it just me, or does Dodd sounds like Cher, singing, “Gypsies, tramps and thieves”?

(Let’s be clear, that utterance could never top Valenti’s most infamous quote: “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.”)

To be fair, Dodd is hindered by strict restrictions on his lobbying Congress until next year. That said, this is not an old-timey, private Capitol Hill fight, but a modern-era, social-media-charged one.

And it’s pretty clear that the old scare tactics used by big media will no longer work as well, as consumers — as much as they like their movies — seem to love their Internet more.

Thus, what has happened is that — at least for now — the MPAA and media companies have lost and lost big, after the typically fractious Web powers decided to lock arms for once and cooperate with a creative, take-it-to-the-people approach of showing a disabled Internet.

Dramatic? Yes. Effective? Certainly. (That Facebook and Google agree on anything? Astonishing!)

Where it goes from here is unclear — the MPAA and its constituents could certainly rally and put forth their own protest. Ironically, the most effective way to do that is not via the airwaves or other former means of broadcast to the public, but on the Web.

Which is controlled by Dodd’s foes. (You see the problem here.)

The answer, in the end, might have to be the cooperation he first suggested.

As he told the Times:

“The companies, Mr. Dodd said, are ‘rethinking everything,’ not just about the bills, but about their relationship with an estranged Silicon Valley. That need for rapprochement, he said, ‘has come home in a way that no rhetoric of mine could express.’”

Much more to come, obvi.

How do I totally and permanently delete my account from Facebook? I know that you can “deactivate” an account, but that’s not the same thing.

A:

Facebook makes it much easier to “deactivate” than to delete an account. The former option retains your profile information on Facebook’s servers, but hides you from everyone else on the service. If you choose to “reactivate” later, all your information reappears as it was when you dropped out. But Facebook says you can also irrevocably delete your account by following the link in this help page: http://on.fb.me/auz93K.

Facebook won’t immediately act on your decision to delete an account.

The company says on its site: “Our system delays the deletion process in case you change your mind and no longer want to permanently delete your account. Note that logging in to your account again will undo a pending deletion request.”

It doesn’t say how long the delay is.

Q:

I have a small weekend farm about an hour away from my home. I don’t want to get satellite service there and there is no cable or high-speed Internet service. What is the easiest way to record TV programs at home, then bring them to my farm to watch? I have an iPad and a Mac laptop.

A:

There are a number of alternatives. One simple one would be to download TV episodes from Apple’s iTunes or another source, and save them to your laptop’s hard disk. Then you’d tote the laptop to the farm and watch them there, either on the computer screen, or on a TV screen, if you plug the laptop into the TV. You can also download TV shows on your iPad and watch them on that device. Another approach: You could buy a product called EyeTV by Elgato, which allows Macs to receive and record TV shows. You could then watch these recorded shows at your farm. (You can do the same things with Windows laptops.) A third option is to forgo the computer route and record shows at home using a DVD recorder or even a VCR and play them back on DVD or VCR players at the farm.

Q:

I need to convert audio files from the “WAV” format to the MP3 format. How do I do that?

A:

There are numerous software utilities available that do such conversions, some of which are free. You can find these by doing a search on “convert WAV to MP3.” I haven’t tested any of these, so I can’t recommend one over another. However, I have done such conversions using iTunes, which is already present on many Windows and Mac computers. To do the conversion in the latest version of iTunes, first go into Preferences, then select the “General” tab, and click on “Import Settings” at the bottom right. Under “Import Using,” select “MP3 encoder.” Then, import your WAV file into iTunes, select it, and, in the Advanced menu, click on “Create MP3 version.”

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Here’s a prime example, via an unnamed magazine’s photo spread. The camera attached to that Betamax, by the way, clocked in at a featherweight five pounds.

A: TiVo digital video recorders can capture free, over-the-air TV shows, if you connect your antenna to the TiVo box. Also, you can use a properly equipped computer to do this. Some Windows computers come with a built-in TV tuner, and Windows itself comes with functionality that allows you to watch TV shows and record them to the hard disk for later playback. You can also buy add-on TV tuners for PCs that lack them. Macs don’t come with hardware and software for watching and recording TV shows, but you can buy add-on hardware and software for Macs that do this as well.

I migrated to a Mac about two years ago. One program I keep using in Windows is Microsoft Money. Microsoft has announced it is discontinuing support for the product. Do you know of any Mac alternatives out there?

A: There’s a Mac version of Quicken, but it isn’t great. Intuit, which makes Quicken, is bringing out a new, supposedly better Mac version soon, but I haven’t seen it. There’s also a product called Moneydance for the Mac (and Windows) that looks decent, but I haven’t reviewed it. Another option is to keep using Windows and switch to Quicken on that platform, though converting from Money may be time-consuming.

My cellphone is ready to be replaced. I am considering the new Droid. although I wouldn’t use it for Internet browsing, but rather as a pure communications device and to keep my calendar and perhaps a few other apps. With such limited use, is it worth it to buy a Droid?

A: I’m not sure which “few other apps” you expect to use, so it’s hard to say which smartphone platform would be best for you, since the leading platforms have different varieties and numbers of apps. But if you really expect your use to be very limited, you might want to look for something that costs less than the $150-$200 a Droid would set you back. For instance, you can get a Palm Pixi for as little as $25 or its more powerful sibling, the Pre, for around $80. You can even get a BlackBerry for well under $100, or an iPhone for $99, or a different phone that runs the same Android operating system as the Droid does for $100 or less. I suggest you consider which apps you expect to run, or how much variety in apps you desire, then weigh your budget, consider which network you prefer and compare models.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Now, two more set-top boxes have been launched to try to marry the Internet and the TV. Both adapters, from Sony (SNE) and Roku, worked well in my tests, but each has limitations. The problem is that one of the boxes supplies content from a wide range of Internet video sources, but only works on selected models of one brand of TV set; the other works on a wide variety of TVs, but only provides a single source of content.

Sony’s adapter is the Bravia Internet Video Link. This is a $300 module that attaches to certain Sony HDTV models. It can either be set up beside the TV or snapped onto the back of the set. Once it’s connected to your TV and to your home network for Internet access, a new menu appears on the TV allowing you a choice of videos from numerous online sources, including YouTube, Yahoo (YHOO), Blip. TV, Sports Illustrated, AOL, Wired, and the Web sites of CBS (CBS), Showtime and more.

Setting up the Bravia Internet Video Link was straightforward, even though it involved a welter of cables. There is no built-in Wi-Fi — you need either a cable or an add-on wireless adapter to connect to the Internet. The primary hookup to the TV is via a modern type of cable called HDMI, for High Definition Multimedia Interface.

I tested the Sony Link using the company’s most unusual HDTV set — a tiny, very costly model that uses a very thin, very vivid new screen technology called OLED, for Organic Light-Emitting Diode. This TV provided a spectacular picture, but it isn’t required to use the Sony module. The Link works on many larger, more common Sony sets with more common screens. It just doesn’t work on non-Sony TV sets.

Sony’s Bravia Internet Video Link adapter

The Sony module doesn’t have its own remote control. It uses the one that came with the TV. This makes for an awkward experience, because there are no standard play and pause buttons, and various other buttons on the remote meant to do one thing on the TV may do another when watching Internet video via the Link module.

Also, I found some of the Internet content to be disappointing. Many of the items labeled “movies” on various Internet channels were really just trailers, and some content was stale. For instance, some baseball news videos on Yahoo were weeks old.

However, Sony plans to make one of its feature films, “Hancock,” available through the Link module before it’s released on DVD. More important, it will be adding access to Amazon’s (AMZN) forthcoming video-streaming service, which promises to contain a wealth of full-length content.

The Netflix Player by Roku is much simpler. In fact, it was the simplest set-top box I have ever tested. It costs just $100 and does just one thing: It allows Netflix (NFLX) subscribers to view its movies and TV shows via the Internet on a television set instead of on a computer. It can’t get you any other video content from the Internet.

The Netflix player is a small, plain black box that works with most TVs, not just digital or high-definition models. It connects using both old-fashioned cables, like the kind used by many VCRs and older DVD players, or an HDMI cable.

Unlike the Sony, the Roku box includes both wireless and wired Internet connectivity, and has its own remote. While the box is capable of displaying high-definition content, the Netflix service isn’t currently streaming movies and TV shows in high definition, so you get varying quality, depending on your TV and Internet speed, up to DVD-type levels.

There’s no added monthly fee required to use the Roku box, but you must be a Netflix subscriber. The box merely displays the movies or TV shows you have placed in your Instant Queue on Netflix. You have to do this on your computer before viewing the videos on the Roku box. You can choose from around 12,000 streaming movies and TV shows, far fewer than the 100,000 titles Netflix makes available via DVD, but a sizable collection.

In my tests, the Roku box set up quickly and easily, the interface and remote were simple and effective, and the movies and TV shows I tested streamed quickly and without hesitation over my fast home Internet connection.

Both products are meant to promote sales of other things — Sony TVs and the Netflix movie-rental service. They do these tasks well, but neither is the breakthrough solution that will connect most TVs to most Internet video content.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

This week members of the House Judiciary Committee passed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (called “PRO IP” groan…) Act of 2007, legislation that would create an “anti-piracy czar” at the White House level, a separate IP-enforcement division at the Justice Department and ratchet up already high civil penalties for copyright infringement.

The measure is backed by many of the most powerful politicians on the House Judiciary Committee, including John Conyers (D., Mich.), Lamar Smith (R., Texas) and “Hollywood” Howard Berman (D., Calif.), the content cartel and, of course, Zucker, who likes to tell everyone that it dramatically advances the cause of protecting innovation, technological invention and creativity.

Said Zucker, “This is such an important step in combating this incredibly serious piracy and counterfeiting problem that’s getting worse, not better.”

In Zucker’s eyes, maybe. But not in the eyes of consumer folks like Google Senior Copyright Counsel William Patry who calls Pro IP “the most outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the U.S.” and consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge which feels it is in sore need of adjustment.:

This bill takes already extraordinary copyright damages and increases them, expanding the threat of litigation intended to stifle competition and innovation. … Increasing penalties is one of the least necessary, and quite possibly counterproductive, actions the committee could take, particularly when current law is adequate to deal with most infringement issues and because the higher penalties serve only to force faster and larger settlements potentially from innovators. … Instead of following the course of this bill, the committee should look to the future, to a more realistic and rational copyright regime that can adapt pre-VCR copyright laws to a post-YouTube world.”

A fondness for TiVo has encouraged users to refer to it with designated nicknames and/or genders. A teacher friend of mine was recently asked by a student if her husband’s name was TiVo after the child heard her say she would have to tell TiVo about a new TV show. But like any old friend — or spouse — who has been around for a while, TiVo has a few tricks up its sleeve that might surprise longtime users and new owners alike. This column includes just a handful of those tricks and highlights some features that may make TiVo more useful. These tips are for everyday users, not serious hackers, and many others exist.

Remote-Control Codes

Each of these codes is entered one time to enable an otherwise-hidden function, and three chimes signal the code is set. These functions can be disabled by entering the code a second time, or if TiVo is rebooted.

Clock: If you miss having a VCR nearby to tell you the time while you watch TV, TiVo can help. A digital clock can be programmed to show up in the lower right-hand corner of your television screen by pressing “SELECT-PLAY-SELECT-9-SELECT.”

While playing recorded shows, this clock displays the current time and the elapsed time of the program you’re watching. Personally, I check a show’s progress by pressing the remote’s Play button to see the progress bar, and the Info button shows the current time. But the on-screen clock might come in handy when you’re watching TV on a terrible date and you don’t want to get caught glancing at your watch.

30-second skip: One of the glorious functions of TiVo and other DVRs is their ability to fast-forward through commercials. But it takes practice to know when to press Play so as to completely miss commercials.

If you’re unsure about your fast-forwarding technique, TiVo can be permanently set to skip ahead in 30-second increments, by entering “SELECT-PLAY-SELECT-3-0-SELECT.” This code must be set while watching a recorded show. After that, the 30-second skipping works whenever you press the “Skip To Tick” button, which looks like an arrow pointing right to a straight line.

TiVo says this code won’t work for longer time increments, like 90 seconds, and I tried using various increments, to no avail. Still, pressing this button about five or seven times in a row (depending on the show) gets you through commercials with less guesswork.

Disappearing progress bar: TiVo’s progress bar, which shows how far along a program has progressed in terms of the entire show’s duration, appears at various moments, such as when you first play a recorded show or unpause. This indicator lingers on the screen for just about three seconds, but if this seems too long, you can enter “SELECT-PLAY-SELECT-PAUSE-SELECT” to set the progress bar to disappear after less than a second.

I tried this setting on my TiVo, but one second showed only a quick blink of the progress bar, not enough time to see anything.

Number Shortcuts

From the TiVo Central menu, pressing each number on the remote control’s numeric keypad skips directly to a different tool. Some of the more useful shortcuts include pressing “1″ to go to Season Pass Manager (a list of programs that are set to automatically record every episode), “4″ to go to Search Title and “8″ to go to TiVo Suggestions.

Viewing Tips

TiVo can display a programming guide in a TV-Guide-like grid, or as a two-columned TiVo Live Guide that can list future shows for hours or days out. The top of Live Guide gives a detailed description of each selected program, along with its duration and TV rating.

The Now Playing list shows content stored on a TiVo. By default, this list is organized in time sequential order with same-series TV shows grouped into folders. Remote-control shortcuts re-sort this list: pressing “1″ switches from sequential to alphabetical order and vice versa; pressing “2″ ungroups shows to display each title; shows are regrouped into folders when “2″ is pressed again.

Lesser-Known Features

Universal Swivel Search is a way of seeing how TiVo’s various shows and movies are related to one another. It lists details about each program, including actors, directors, tags associated with a show (like love, dating and addiction) and suggestions of similar content. Swivel Search is accessed through the Find Programs menu or More Options while looking at a recorded show.

By selecting a Swivel Search detail about a particular show, such as one of its actors, you can see what else he or she starred in and whether or not that show or movie is available through TiVo or Amazon.com‘s Unbox. Unbox downloads movies directly to your TiVo ranging from $2 to $15 each depending on whether you rent or buy a movie.

Plenty of free Internet content can be downloaded from the Web to your TiVo. But TiVo confusingly places this content in two menus: Find Programs and Music, Photos, Products & More. Under Find Programs, a Download TV & Movies section offers Amazon Unbox movies and free TiVoCast content. The latter can be set to automatically download with Season Pass settings, such as The Onion’s weekly video or ExerciseTV’s twice weekly videos.

The Music, Photos, Products & More menu holds content like photos and unprotected MP3s from a nearby computer, podcasts, Rhapsody music, Yahoo! Weather and Traffic and on-screen games. You can even buy movie tickets through Fandango.

TiVo takes up valuable space in a home entertainment center, so it’s important for the company to make sure its content is varied and useful. The codes and shortcuts mentioned can change the way you use this valuable device every day.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

If I have an analog TV and get a government-subsidized converter box, will I still be able to use my VCR after the 2009 switchover to digital over-the-air broadcasts?

According to government and industry statements, a VCR will still work, but it will have to be connected to the output jack on the converter box to receive the programming it records, because its internal TV tuner will no longer work. Also, the quality of the taped program will be limited to the quality available in the older VCR, and won’t necessarily match the crisper quality of the new digital broadcasts when viewed live.

Recently, you recommended a program that tells people what programs start up when they boot up a PC. I have installed it. But how do I know which programs should be retained? There are a lot there, but I have no way to know which I can eliminate and which I should retain.

This is one of the maddening issues nontechnical folks face with PCs. Even when you know what invisible background tasks might be slowing down your computer, you lack the knowledge to decide which to kill or spare, because their names don’t necessarily tell you their functions.

One way to tell is to look them up on the Web. A Web site I have found useful for such research is called AnswersThatWork, at answersthatwork.com. Click on the icon labeled “task list,” and you will find a directory in which you can look up such programs. The site tells you what they do and recommends whether to delete or keep them.

Can you suggest a hardware box that can be attached to my TV that will keep all stations and commercials at the same level of volume? I’m going nuts having to keep my finger on the volume control of my remote.

A quick Web search turned up a couple of boxes that claim to do just that. These boxes connect between the TV set and a cable or satellite receiver.

One, a $30 device called the “TV Volume Regulator,” is sold by a Web site called Smarthome and is at: www.smarthome.com/7848T.html. The second, a $70 box called the “Automatic TV Sound Regulator,” is for sale at a Web site called firstStreet. Its Web address is: www.firststreetonline.com/product.jsp?id=55851.

There may be other, similar products out there. But I can’t recommend any of them, including the two listed here, because I haven’t tested any.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.