Techno-Babble

So, Qwest finally explained to me why I was on their DSL platform.  Basically, yes, I was slammed.  There were good procedural reasons why my intended order did not go through and I can understand that however the blind substitution was not appreciated.  Anyway, they did explain, made appropriate concessions, and I am satisfied with the resolution.  

So, now that I have been checking the web server logs, I really think I should contribute more here!  I mean, its great to see...  people are actually looking at my RSS/ATOM feeds from all over the world using multiple operating systems, client software, etc.  Thanks for watching, everyone!  I will try to be more on top of this now that I know people are watching.  Last log analysis was not so promising...  now I'm tempted to actually automate my stats instead of my usual (usual for THIS site anyway) awk / sed /  grep stats which are great and all, but now I might want some pretty pictures with country flags and all of that fun stuff.  I wonder what else is free and decent besides AWStats.  I like AWStats but that is a market I would like to re-visit.  And its not just the RSS/ATOM its also the pages!  Seeing how many people have already viewed my article about how awful Parlor Billiards and Spirits in Bellevue, WA is has really been impressive. 

So many times this has happened.  I sign up for DSL through Qwest with a 3rd party ISP.  What do they do?  They stick me on the Qwest or MSN product.  Guaranteed.  This time I was sure it was going to be right.   She completely understood what I wanted and repeated the order back correctly.  100%.  Then it was due date...  and they delivered...  Qwest internet service, not the wonderful OpenAccess internet service that I had ordered.  I don't like this.  Back when I worked for a long distance company, this was called "slamming" and it was really a big problem.  Even if this isn't technically classified as slamming, its still giving me something other than what I ordered and expecting me to pay for it  Not cool.  Bad telco!   It makes me feel scammed.  I'm a customer walking up to Qwest saying "here, take my business...  I want this particular service you have..."  and instead of selling me that service and thanking me for using Qwest, they have to go ahead and take a little more.  I'm sure they will formulate some reason for this, try to make me pay to change ISPs back to who I ordered in the first place.  I have no idea.  I'm waiting to hear back from my rep and they are reviewing the phone recording allegedly.  Whatever happened to the customer being right?  I think its time to escalate again.  Monday.

I love Apple.  Too bad my 20" widescreen iMac G5 is a lemon.  It always has been always will be and I think it finally bit the dust again, now outside of warranty, and therefore I might just finally be done with the whole thing.  That's a real bummer.  I can't afford another one right now so now I use Linux at home again.  Not really a problem but bye-bye favorite platform.  It had four on-site or advanced replacement repairs while it was under warranty.  Now I think the mid-plane and-or video subsystem are shot.  Boo.  What a lemon.  I'll still keep recommending Apple hardware 'cause I have a pretty good track record with them...  this iMac is not one example of said record.  This thing has just plain sucked when it comes to reliability.  Things that have been replaced are:

1. Power supply
2. SuperDrive
3. Hard Drive
4. Main board

And I think something else too but I can't remember.  And now its dead again.  Enough of my complaining!  I know I can't afford almost anything they'll do to it at the Apple Store.   The third light doesn't come on, for those of you who may know something about these that means something about it not having communication with the midplane.  Any advice is appreciated.   Everyone else will appreciate it too because then they won't have to listen to me whine anymore.  :)  I must say,  I will never have this problem with commodity PC hardware running Linux. 

Today there was a pretty crazy fiber cut (two separate locations actually) in Southern California.

Here are some links about this:

The C|Net article
San Francisco Chronicle / SFGate article

Made for some interesting chatter on the NANOG mailing list. 

I've always wondered when this would happen more.  When I lived in Bellingham, there was a major fiber cut...  kind of a similar situation.  Left a good portion of Bellingham and Whatcom County  out of service to come degree for several hours.  In the case of the Bellingham fiber cut it was just one location.  Being in telecom and Internet for years, that really bothered me as I really did expect a little more redundancy there.  There was a lot of interesting discussion about lack of redundancy in primary carriers on NANOG too.   


Oh, and don't forget to pay your taxes!  (or file for an extension)  The day is drawing near!

I'm very disappointed...  but...  things are making sense now.  My VW golf has finally lost its head gasket.  I changed the oil last week and there was whiteness and weirdness...  and in the new oil, within minutes, whiteness and weirdness.  We have water in our oil...  and this explains the weird oily sheen in the coolant and the fact that it doesn't appear to be leaking coolant anymore (after replacing a heater hose flange, heater core, radiator, and complete set of hoses last year) yet for some reason some goes missing.  Yeah.  Too bad.  I'd love to do the head gasket as a project but I think maybe it is time to get rid of it.  It will be advertised with the problems it has...  I'm honest about that...  darn.

So another exciting thing I want to start talking about is my 1997 Lincoln Mark VIII.  This car is actually a really great car.  It has been having a couple of issues lately but they all make sense.  One problem is that the car lived in salt air for a good portion of its life and wasn't driven much so there is slight corrosion / residue all over the engine.  I'm actually thinking about cleaning the engine which is normally something I avoid in the name of not washing out any seals, gaskets, etc...  but this Lincoln only has 40k miles (I'm also converting over to synthetic oil tomorrow) and that's as new of a car as I'm going to own for a long time so we should probably treat it as such.  Then there is the VW Golf.  I need to sell it.  It was really nice to have the other day when the Lincoln was broken in the driveway and I needed to go to the Schuck's in Shoreline...  but we really don't need a second car and we can live without it.  So it needs to be sold.  It'll be great to get rid of that.

I'm pretty excited.  I'm no longer working for SourceLabs and I start on Monday for Demand Media.  Working with SourceLabs has been an excellent experience and I will miss it, however I think this job at Demand may be exactly what I'm looking for!  :)  I'm not sure yet, of course, as its very different from most of my previous positions in that it appears I may actually be allowed to have some focus...  and various other advantages.  Anyway, I haven't blogged in a while as I've been taking some time off between jobs to spend with the family and lots of other good things.  Anyway, I'll let you know how the job is going.  I like the team; we'll see how my first day is on Monday!

These are great TV Cards for MythTV  I have the 5500 and it is just plain super.   No problems.   Love it.  Get one today for your new MythTV setup on your old (but not too old!) PC.