From Mob Rule’s counties map site:
And the 11 least visited counties by our users (lower 48 states)1T. Eddy, ND 1T. Griggs, ND 3T. Daniels, MT 3T. Logan, ND 3T. McIntosh, ND 3T. Steele, ND 7T. Cavalier, ND 7T. Dickey, ND 7T. Towner, ND 7T. Grant, ND 11. Sheridan, ND
But it gets worse. If you rip your own CDs, WiMP11 will take your rights away too. If the ‘Copy protect music’ option is turned on, well, I can’t top their 1984 wording. “If the file is a song you ripped from a CD with the Copy protect music option turned on, you might be able to restore your usage rights by playing the file. You will be prompted to connect to a Microsoft Web page that explains how to restore your rights a limited number of times.” This says to me it will keep track of your ripping externally, and remove your rights whether or not you ask it to. Can you think of a reason you would need to connect to MS for permission to play the songs you ripped from you own CDs? How long do you think it will be before a service pack, masquerading as a ‘critical security patch’ takes away the optional part of the ‘copy protection’? Now do you understand why they have been testing the waters on WiMP phoning home? Think their firewall will stop it even if you ask? [Link]
So, um… turn that “Copy protect music” option off, I guess. Why would anybody want that in the first place?
Does anybody know of a quality roofing contractor in/around the SGV? Stephanie and I need to have some minor repairs made to the roof — re-mastic a few spots, fix the way the ridge nails are done, etc. — and would welcome any recommendations.
There’s enough vermouth left over from your first round. For number two, all you need is gin and two more olives.
I fired Speakeasy today. They had been my ISP for the last year and a half or so. For the most part I’ve been happy with them. Uptime was never a problem, nor was bandwidth. However, the customer service — which along with their liberal terms of service was what I originally hired them for — took a huge nose dive when I tried to move my service to my new home. Here’s a brief timeline:
I fill out the form on Speakeasy’s web site to move my service from my old home to my new home. Later on in the day I receive an “Out of Office AutoReply” from the person presumably responsible for setting up such a move. The response suggests that he’ll be back on the 23rd
The first scheduled date for my install. At some point between 8:00am and 12:00pm they’ll be sending somebody over to hook me up. When this doesn’t happen, I go down to the coffee shop, check their on-line status form and discover that my install had been postponed. How I was supposed to know this while at home, without internet service, waiting for the installer is beyond me. It’s worth noting that Speakeasy never used the up-to-date contact phone number to call and let me know that the install was off.
The reason stated for the delay was “too many white spaces” in a form going between Covad — Speakeasy’s line provider — and Verizon. When I called in to see what was up, I was given a number for an “install coordinator” who would, I imagined, coordinate the install.
Install, part two. I go in to work and learn via Speakeasy’s on-line status form by the middle of the day that once again, and for the exact same reason — white space for Verizon — the install isn’t going to happen. It’s re-scheduled for Friday. Once again, no phone call from Speakeasy.
Third try, third cancel. Again I learn of this through the on-line form and not proactively from Speakeasy. I talk to somebody at Speakeasy who tells me that they finally cleared up the issue between their subcontractors and, honest, somebody will be by next Tuesday to get it installed.
There are two installs scheduled today. One is a regular phone line installed by Verizon. The other is the dedicated line for the DSL connection. (I didn’t have a land line at my old place, and for the sake of simplicity I elected to just move my service rather than move and change it.) At the end of the day there’s a note in the door from Verizon saying that the phone line is in and that Covad should have no trouble doing the work to get the DSL line in.
A quick trip to the coffee shop reveals that Speakeasy’s on-line status page hasn’t been updated. I call to find out what’s up, this time a little ticked, and am told that Verizon hadn’t gotten back to them and that they probably would first thing in the morning. They had better.
Sure enough, there’s an update around noon saying that the final install will be done on the 22nd. That’s a full three weeks after it was supposed to be done, which is nuts, so I call in and ask if it couldn’t happen sooner. It turns out that they usually give their clients time to plan the install dates, which is why they pushed it so far out. I’m allotted an earlier time later on that week.
At home again doing the 8:00am – 12:00pm thing. At 11:30 the Covad guy shows up to work his magic, and within ten minutes he tells me that Verizon never did install the second line and that he can’t do his work.
Waltz. Tango. Foxtrot.
I call Speakeasy and get all manner of “we’ll open a ticket with Verizon.” We explore some other options and come up with 5-7 business days as being the earliest that they could get me up and running. In 5-7 business days, I could get less expensive yet higher-speed service from somebody who hadn’t been jerking me around for the last three weeks, so I tell them to cancel my service.
Things like this happen all the time. You can’t hire any service without there being some sort of glitch. There are several things, however, that make this a fireable offense. First and most damning is that not once did Speakeasy call me to let me know that they weren’t going to do what they told me they were going to do and indeed what they had me agree to stay home from work to let them do. That’s crazy. They had a contact phone number. It was up to date. There was no reason for them not to use it. Missing a deadline is bad. Missing a deadline and wasting somebody’s time is awful. Shame on you, Speakeasy.
Next is that every time I talked to somebody at Speakeasy the attitude I got was “we’re sorry, but really it’s Covad/Verizon’s fault.” You know what? I don’t care if it’s Covad or Verizon’s fault. I’m not paying Covad or Verizon. I’m paying Speakeasy. If you’re screwing something up — and if subcontractors you’re paying are slipping, you are indeed screwing up — it’s your fault. Own up to it.
Finally was just the number of slipups. Any one of them I would have let slide, and indeed did let three blown deadlines go. All four of them together, on the other hand, are pretty hard to ignore. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me won’t be fooled any more than four times in total.
So now I’ve hired DSLExtreme for about the same price and double the speed. Their install estimate? 5-7 business days. But they’ve blown four fewer install dates than Speakeasy so far this year, so they get the nod.
There’s relatively little traffic between Monrovia and Pasadena at 5:30 in the A of M. Just thought I’d share.
I was going to say something snarky today, but I think a better use of this time and space would be to point you over at Chris who has some useful things to say about the 5th anniversary of September 11th.
We’re going to hear a lot of speeches from a lot of people today. I am fearful that many of them will reflect where we are, rather than where we need to be. We stand as a nation and a world sharply divided, with the focus on the minutiae of day-to-day struggles for tactical advantage over one another. We need to be a nation and a world united and focused on a strategic vision to build the world our ancestors’ struggles demand and our inheritors deserve.
DHH v. Joel On Software is turning out to be the best nerd sissy-fight of the year, and it’s devolved to a level that’s truly funny. Joel lands the latest punch in his 300th installment of “I’m so great because I put my developers in private offices and live in New York:
To some extent, one of the best ways you can attract developers is to let them work on something interesting. This may be the hardest thing to change: doggone it, if you’re in the business of making software for the gravel and sand industry, that’s the business you’re in, and you can’t pretend to be some cool web startup just to attract developers.
Another thing developers like is working on something simple enough or popular enough that they can explain to Aunt Irma, at Thanksgiving. Aunt Irma, of course, being a nuclear physicist, doesn’t really know that much about Ruby programming in the gravel and sand industry.
OH NO YOU DIDN’T!
Joel’s piece went up hours ago. There’s still none of the overly earnest if not a wee bit defensive counterpointing on Loud Thinking that’s been quite so amusing. Get with the program, David.
Seriously, folks, this is good stuff. It’s the debate team vs. the chess team in a no-holds-barred steel cage match and may the biggest nerd win. If you’re in to this sort of thing, you have to check it out.
Notable celebrity death + at-home t-shirt production = exceedingly tacky yet funny.
It’s true. Do the math and prove it for yourself.
