Month: March 2004

I had gotten a letter from my cable company, who is also my ISP. It stated that back in September 2003 they offered me a trial period of increased connectivity. Faster! Faster! or something like that… I declined saying my current connection speed was fine.

So the letter states that the trial period is over, and I can choose a Faster! speed, or if I do nothing, I can keep my current speed for just $9.99 extra per month. First of all, I didn’t want this trial thingy, second of all, I don’t want to pay more… So I call the phone number they supply.

I must say the woman on the phone was quite nice, and answered my questions. I explained that I never asked for an increase in connection speed, and was told that “technology changes” and all users got upgraded to the new speed. the old speed/price is no longer available.

Me: “So basically I’m being held hostage and have to pay more now?”

Yes

Me: “Will this happen every year? Will the price increase by $9.99 next year as well?”

I don’t think it will.

After determining I don’t have many choices, she tells me the new billing will take effect April 1st.

Me: “Wow, that’s appropriate. April 1st, that’s April Fool’s Day. I guess the joke is on me.”

(No comment…)

She never got upset in anyway (what a pro!) and then asked me if she could help with anything else, and I told her to add my name to the list of customers complaining about this. She then said she would fill out a complaint form with my name on it.

Thanks for the excellent service Charter!

Perhaps Mr. Catalano does get it. I ended up having an brief email discussion with him and I came away with the belief he understands weblogs. His main point was that if someone thinks they will start a weblog and instantly become popular and read by millions, they are mistaken.

I can see that point of view, but mine is this: What makes weblogs so damn amazing is the potential for someone to start a weblog and be read by millions. This is something that the average citizen has not had access to before. The old saying goes something like “Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one” and more and more we all own the press known as the Internet…

I just recently heard about NeoOffice/J, and I finally got around to installing it this week. Wow! I’ve been using OpenOffice.org on Mac OS X via X11, and while it more or less works, the experience of using NeoOffice/J has been much nicer. It looks more like a Windows app than the nice Aquafied OS X apps you might be used to, but it managed to open Microsoft Word and Excel files with ease. One less reason to use Windows…

CIO Magazine: The Myths of Open Source looks at, and attempts to dispell the myths of open source in large organizations.

What are those myths?

1. The attraction is the price tag
2. The savings aren’t real
3. There’s no support
4. It’s a legal minefield
5. Open source isn’t for mission-critical applications
6. Open source isn’t ready for the desktop

Chris Pirillo sent me a link to the new new Lockergnome design, which happens to be valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional, not that nasty mess of invalid non-semantic table gunk they spit out recently that we all complained about…

Thanks, Chris, you done good…