Wednesday, August 29, 2007

First, the good!

I'm officially won over on OpenDNS. I performed a multitude of tests on Demon and Asura to see how page loads fared in both safari and firefox, then switched over my router to use the OpenDNS servers. (check out how on their website, opendns.com). Same pages, everything is a bit quicker, but some sites (the oh so evil myspace, for example) were dramatically faster in loading. For those non-technicals, DNS is the Domain Name System. your ISP usually has servers setup that perform DNS functions (taking myspace.com and converting it to 216.178.38.116 so the routers know what the hell your talking about, and vies-versa) OpenDNS claims their servers are smarter and faster than what your ISP is running, and after poking a bit, I believe them. Try it out for yourself.


Bad news...
Time warner screwed me over again. 10 Days after they failed to show up for my last repair call to fix my then 2 week old digital signal/fried box problems, they failed to show up for the rescheduled service call. Once it became apparent last night that they were not going to show up (again) I called into customer service and got the usual run around. wonderful. This morning I took the Consumerists advice, and executed an Executive Email Bomb, sending my nearly 4 week old tale of lies, damned lies and television to some higher-up CEO types for NEO. we'll see how that works out.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

TWC Update, 4 days later...

and I have absolutely nothing to show for it. I did get a quick message back (one sentence) Saturday afternoon requesting my account number (duh, knew I forgot something), and Monday while I was at work I got a voice mail letting me know my problem with signal (wtf, that was like....1/3 of the issue, at most) probably fixed itself, that I should call and cancel my appointment for the 28th. This morning I shot off another email to TWC asking for a status update, and referenced the call I got Monday.

remember kids, Time Warner Cable, THE POWER OF YOU!*


*(cause, you know, we're not going to do anything. have fun with that whole no service thing.)

Monday, August 20, 2007

It's no secret to those who know me that I've been having some issues with my cable service lately. pretty much everything came to a head this weekend. It's a long story, and I think it's best explained by the letter I ended up sending off to TWC's important types Saturday:

On August 8th, I contacted Time Warner cables repair line due to issues I was having with my digital cable reception. My cable box was experiencing a wide range of problems, including power cycling, shutting itself off, and pixilation. After 45 minutes of fighting with the box, I contacted support and scheduled a repair visit. Due to my work schedule I required an appointment after 5PM. I was told that the only available timeslot for after 5PM was on august 17th. Working in the technical repair field for a large company, I understand and accept that techs need to be booked in advance; I had no problem with a 2-week wait for repair.

As the 17th neared, I made sure that not only myself, but also two other individuals would be available and on premises at my home. Most of the evening we spent hanging out watching for the cable repair truck. After the repair timeframe came and went I contacted TWC support again, and spoke to a representative who informed me that the repair was listed as being complete. I informed her that no one had shown up for the repair, and I had never even received a call from the technician. The individual said that she would check with her supervisor, and call me back within an hour with a solution. I never received a call.

At 10:30PM, an hour and a half after my initial call, I contacted customer service again, looking for answers. Again I was told that the technician had been to my house, but no one was home. I was placed on hold while the CS rep spoke with her supervisor. During this hold time, I was disconnected.

Not wanting to sit on hold for another hour waiting to get back to customer service (I had called back, that was the wait time) I decided to contact support again this morning.

At 9:40AM I spoke with another customer service representative, who when informed of my situation checked the records and told me that the reason my call was closed is because the repair technician was unable to contact anyone. I’m surprised that no one even bothered to drive by the house to see if someone was available. The entire evening there were multiple cars in the driveway, lights on, doors open and people milling around the yard, etc. A simple look would have determined someone was home. Barring that, a phone call would have confirmed that fact.

The representative was unable to find any available installation times earlier than august 28th, almost a full 3 weeks after my initial problems. On top of that, it’s over a full week AFTER a technician that never showed up should have resolved my problem. A credit was made to my account to cover the time without service, but that does not explain the disparity of service I am receiving.

When I contacted TWC to upgrade my package to digital service, someone was here to install it literally the very next day, but when I contact someone for repairs to the exact same service, I’m told I have to wait 3 weeks, after spending hours on a phone trying to get some kind of help. On top of that, what assurance do I have that someone will show up on the 28th? At this point I feel like I am being punished for a problem that isn’t mine. When I placed a repair call for the 17th, between 6 and 8PM, I upheld my end of the deal. Someone (multiple someone’s) were at the house, waiting for a TWC repairman that never showed up, effectively wasting an evening of my time. To add insult to injury, the initial CSR I spoke with that evening who claimed they would “Call me back in the next hour with a solution” completely failed to follow through. All the CSR's I spoke with maintain that the tech visited my premisis, which is a blatant lie, and others aside from myself will swear to that. The real kicker, I suppose, is that at this point, nearly 50% of the time I have had digital service it has not been functioning, I have to wonder if this ratio is considered to be acceptable, as there seems to be no hurry to fix the problem. The only thing that could make this situation acceptable is to have my cable fixed yesterday, but as that is impossible, getting it repaired in the next few days, a written apology, and credit to my account that accurately reflects the amount of time and effort I have had to put into getting this resolved would be sufficient.

I look forward to your prompt response.


Sounds fun, huh. I'll let you know how things turn out.

I've worked for probably about two months or so on this, and I've been debating if I should share it or not. After thinking for a few weeks, I decided to release it, albeit in a limited fashion. For 40 days or so, "Groovebender", will be available via rapidshare HERE. Included in the zip file is the tracklist, cover art, and 54 solid minutes of vocal and progressive trance, mixed by yours truly. There's alot of new tracks, some I've not heard anywhere else, and a classic or two in the mix.

This isn't the first time I've done this, but of the dozen or so mixes I've produced, this is the only one that's going beyond private listening. So, if you like electronic dance music, vocal trance, or anything with a good beat, give it a listen. If I get a decent response, I might try something like this again for the masses. otherwise, it's back to my private stash.

Rapidshare is free, and the file is about 75Mb in size, 192K MP3 format inside the zip. Again, the link is http://rapidshare.com/files/50252281/Darksev-Groovebender.zip.html

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Lies, damned lies and business ethics...

Here's a very well written article from PBS the other day the basically says what I've been saying for years about American Broadband speeds. The best part is towards the end, where the author explains how our government intends to "fix" the problem. without further ado:

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html

SigX! The fresh maker.