Tag Archives: internet

A message to Comcast…

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Dear Comcast,

We’ve had a long history. I’d love to say that we’ve stayed together because of your amazing products or first class customer service, but we both know it’s only because you’re effectively the only game in town in terms of “high speed” interment service.

All I wanted to do today was swap out my older-than-dirt cable modem for a brand spanking new model. Nothing fancy, nothing extreme, just trading one piece of hardware for another. Like everything else in the universe, I assumed that this would just be a plug and play experience… But you know better don’t you? You know how important it is that I call you and wade through your “automated customer support” menu before sitting on hold for 25 minutes waiting for a real person to come on the line so they could tell me that I needed to be transferred to someone in your “internet department.” The best part was then spending another 15 minutes on hold so I could manually provide a serial number to you.

This is the year 2010. Are you seriously going to tell me that somewhere deep in the bowls of the Comcast corporation there isn’t a computer that could have remotely interrogated my shiny new modem, figured out where it was on the planet, and tied it to my account? I mean it’s not like I’m standing up a supercomputer or a server farm over here. All I really want to do is be able to connect my MacBook Pro to washingtonpost.com and Facebook. Just seems like something we could have made happen without going through an hour long process. Of course you know better than I do, as technology is new and frightening.

I’m glad we’ve had this time together, because it’s reminded me just how much I’m looking forward to kicking you all the way to the curb as soon as I have half a chance. Have a great weekend.

Your friend,

Jeff

Techno-fail…

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I’ve been noticing more and more in the last six months that I’m getting alot of lag in downloads and even in regular web surfing. Gaming? Fuggidaboudid. It was one of those things I’ve been meaning to get into, but hadn’t quite found the time to attack. Status: Annoying, but not critical. Until a few days ago when I was downloading two patches and trying to read the Post. That’s when Safari actually stalled out. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Stalled out and stayed that way for the better part of five minutes. In internet time, that’s effectively forever.

Knowing that there was an issue somewhere, I started running through the normal tech support stuff. Ran the diagnostics, cleaned up files, rechecked and cleaned connections, ran speed tests, visually inspected the hardware… and that’s when it hit me. Sitting quietly in the back of the “TV nook” was my cable modem; the same cable modem I bought when I was living in Virginia in 2003. Yeah, 2003. Somehow in my grand plan for tech replacement, I missed the modem completely. Probably because it’s one of those ultra-reliable always-on kind of things that I’ve never needed to think about, at least until it started choking the rest of my tech.

I think I can safely say that when it comes to the widgets connecting your house to the interwebs, seven years and two generations has been a bit too long to wait between upgrades. A trip to BestBuy seems to be in order today.

Stupid is as stupid does…

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Dear AT&T Mobility,

Wow. This is the third time I have written you in the last year. Our times together just seem to get better and better. You’re doing a real bang up job of rolling out these new devices and making sure the service we receive is top notch. Dropping unlimited data was a real score for you on Monday. And if that weren’t enough goodness for your customers, making 140,000 of your iPad customer’s email addresses and SIM numbers available through your website was a real treat for those of us who spent $700+ for the device and $360 a year for your service.

I did notice that a security consultant rushed to your defense this afternoon and reminded us that “It’s not like peoples’ Social Security or credit card numbers were compromised.” If “it could have been worse” is the best defense you can muster, well I guess I buy that. I mean it was only 140,000 customers for Heaven’s sake. Hard to believe that anyone would want to make a fuss about it, really. And thank you ever so much for not letting anyone know about this officially. It was so refreshing to read this on Google News before getting an email from you explaining what had happened and what you had done to address the problem.

So, AT&T, all I can say is that you’re a real class act. I’m proud to be a long-time customer. Keep up the truly magnificent work.

Your friend,

Jeff

P.S. If you talk to Apple any time soon, let them know that they should be super-proud to be standing right there next to you through all of this.

Clogged…

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In one of the great ironies of the universe, I’m nominally responsible for maintaining both the public internet presence of my organization and as well as our intranet (read: electronic filing cabinet that pretends to be a website). And by responsible, I mean I have a contractor who tinkers with that stuff. At this afternoon’s staff meeting I learned that we have apparently clogged the internet (you know, that interconnected system of tubes that was invented by Al Gore sometime in the mid-1990s?). And by clogged, I mean jammed it full to the point of no longer working… Yep, we filled the bowl of our proverbial toilet with the entire roll of proverbial TP that is our internal document archive and then tried to flush. The result was, well, not quite an epic fail, but it was definitely in the fail family.

So apparently the secret to bringing our private little part of the internet to a grinding halt is to ask several hundred employees to upload their training certificates to our central file management system. Who knew? Some day it would be nice to go to the office and not have the internet groan to a stop under the weight of our impressive bureaucratic capability, or find a project that was running just fine at 3:30 the past afternoon coming unglued by 7:30 that morning, or the building burning to the ground… Well, technically the building hasn’t been on fire… I suppose it just seems that way.

Getting Googled…

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One of the most interesting aspects of behind the scenes blogging is watching what random phrases make you turn up on some of our favorite search engines. Today is was a search via Google on “Citibank Visa Caribbean” that linked to my post “Citibank Visa (Sucks).”  Of course that’s really only interesting at all if you are interested in learning what people search for and want to try driving traffic to your site. Since I’m not selling anything, it’s mostly academic for me. Of course it’s also a bit of an ego rub when some topic garners enough e-interest to pop up on one of the aggregators. Like any good addict, though, you realize the first hit is free and then spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the right combination of tags that will send you straight to the top. That’s probably easier of you stick to one major them or topic, but since the likelihood of me ever getting the focus more narrow than “things I’m interested in”  is ridiculously low, I’ll have to be satisfied with the occasional hit from the big boys.

For me, blogging is as much about the experience of writing as it is actually getting anyone to read the damned thing. I spend so much time writing in technicalities that it’s easy to forget that I use to do it for fun. And it’s here that I get to keep myself in touch with that idea. If I ever get the chance to writie The Definitive History of Whatever or Everyone is Stupid and Here’s Why, at least we can point here and say this is where is all started.

Doing without…

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Last Wednesday for about six hours my employer joined the ranks of such forward-looking leaders in information technology as Iran and China and blocked network access to Google. Have you tried looking up information without Google in the past few years? It’s not pretty… I don’t care how awesome Microsoft says Bing works, I couldn’t find a damn thing using it. After satisfying myself that the issue wasn’t with Google (i.e. scouring places like CNet and BoyGeniusReport for rants about their epic fail) I called our vaunted Enterprise Service Desk (ESD). The conversation went something like this:

  • Jeff: I’m having trouble getting to Google on my PC, but I can get to it from my Blackberry.
  • ESD: Oh, that’s a problem with Google.
  • Jeff: Ummm… No. I’m using Google on my phone right now.
  • ESD: Oh… Hummm… Yeah… It’s a problem with Google.
  • Jeff: Thanks.
  • ESD: Does that resolve your help ticket?
  • Jeff: *Click*

As it turns out, the disruption wasn’t a problem with Google (I’m shocked, shocked I tell you). Apparently our network operations office decided to start blocking the definitive name in web searching after two individuals “got a virus from Google.” I’m pretty sure they meant they got a virus from something they found using Google. I didn’t have the patience to ask, although it seems like it would be an important distinction to make if you were in charge of network ops. The good news is that the Great Firewall is down now and we can once again use google as a verb.

If an optimist is someone who expects the best and a pessimist is someone who expects the worst, what is the proper term for someone who has no expectations at all? I’m pretty sure having expectations was where I went wrong in this scenario.

Pulling the plug…

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So after a long consideration, I’ve decided that it’s just about time to pull the plug on my MySpace page. I haven’t updated it in months and have only logged on a handful of times since setting up my Facebook page. Even with the minimal content left over at MySpace, I have a feeling that it’s just sort of an unfinished project that has outlived its usefulness. So, consider this your official notice that over the next few days, I’ll be salvaging whatever halfway decent content is left over there and moving it over to Facebook or doing away with it altogether. Don’t be surprised if things come down over the weekend for good. So get your last looks in now, because once it’s gone, baby, it’s gone.

And for those of you who haven’t made the switch or are contemplating it, Facebook has Jeff’s Seal of Approval. There’s no guarantee of any kind associated with that Seal, but I’ll tell you it’s damned good stuff. Hope to see you over there soon.

Fool me twice, shame on me…

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I guess it serves me right for believing internet rumors, but I just can’t help myself when it shows up on usually reliable sources like Boy Genius added to the slew of forums where it made the rounds. Late last night the rumor mill started circulating that BestBuy had the Blackberry Bold in stock and would begin retailing it this morning. Yeah, not so much. Once more, the AT&T/RIM/Bold succubus got everything worked into a lather only to disappoint. So now it’s back to eight more days of impatient waiting. Of course I’m so annoyed with the miserably bad roll out this device has had, I might just wait the extra week or two and try the Storm on Verizon. Then again the even bigger probability is that I’m going to end up with both of them until I can figure out which one to keep.

I had no idea…

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I had no idea how many websites I went to on a daily basis that I didn’t feel I could visit safely while I was stranded using my work laptop for the last week and a half. The good news is that my laptop is back and all the websites of questionable morals are right where I left them. Thank god for those who know how to bring the innards of this infernal box back to life! A computer with a mile-wide Puritanical streak is no fun at all.

Jitters…

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OK, so I’m man enough to admit my own weaknesses here in front of God, my blog readers, and everyone… I’m nervous as shit about the whole first date thing. I haven’t been on a “real” first date in the better part of two years. The solution to that issue, of course, is to do my research. I want to pause here and say what a wonderful thing the internet is… I mean, it’s so much more than just porn when you actually take the time to look around a little.

I live my life by Google. If Google doesn’t know the answer, I don’t really need to either. Unfortunately, the advice from Google on first dates is slightly contradictory… Be nice… but not too nice; be a gentleman, but don’t open doors; pick up the tab, but think about splitting the bill so there’s “no pressure.”

No pressure? You’re shitting me, right? I’ll consider myself lucky if I only avoid spilling my entre in my lap tomorrow. I’m going in. Keep me covered.