Dan's Randomness

After reading an article my boss sent me regarding the very low practice now being initiated by Verizon Wireless, I felt the need to vent about this. Verizon Wireless has started a new practice of wanting to share information about services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), billing info, technical info and location info with ‘affiliates, agents and parent companies.’ The definition for this seems to be suspiciously vague and it would seem that virtually any company can pay to become an ‘affiliate.’ What does this mean? Verizon Wireless can share virtually any information that they have about you with pretty much anyone willing to pay for it. Now seriously, of all the low down, dirty, under-handed practices, this seems like one of the worst. What makes it ever more under-handed is that they have quietly slipped it into your paper bill:

It just really pisses me off when a company will do literally anything to make a buck! I have had my ‘issues’ with Verizon Wireless in the past but for the most part, they are….were a fairly good company to do business with. That have taken their customer’s trust and smashed it into a million pieces. So in case somebody from Verizon Wireless is actually reading this, FUCK YOU! I also want to make sure that I let all my readers (yes, all 2 of you) know how you can disable this ’sharing’ of data. If you log into you account, it can be easily disabled here:

I can only hope that the next time ANY company decides to do something for money, maybe they should come down off their greed-induced high and actually think about the implications of said actions before they are carried out. I can only hope that Verizon Wireless manages to screw themselves over royally with this action. Anyway, I’m done, I shall step down off my soapbox now….

So a short while ago I bough and iPod. I know, I had said I would never get one, but they are finally to the point in terms of storage capacity that I can make good use of it. I ended up with an iPod classic 120GB. Anyway, this post isn’t about my iPod, which I have come to love, it’s about the steaming pile of shit software known as iTunes that it used to manage it….

After I got my iPod I wanted to start loading songs right away. So I opened up the instructions (my first mistake) then proceeded to install iTunes (my second mistake). When it comes to operating systems, I will be the first to admit that Apple makes a solid product. I don’t personally own an Apple computer but I have used them and really I find it very easy to use. However, when it comes to software, Apple falls far short of anything even remotely close to good. I’m sure that a number of people here has used QuickTime in the past and I truly doubt that anyone likes it. Up until buying my iPod, I had managed to avoid all Apple software with the exception of Safari (since I do web design, I need to be able to test my pages in various browsers).

But I digress….after installing iTunes, and saying no to all the prompts from SpyBot to allow all these new programs to start with the system, I fired up iTunes. Granted, it did see the iPod without a problem, and did manage to sync all my music. However, it’s so incredibly bloaty, slow to start, and install software I never approved (QuickTime and the damn Apple Updated). Needless to say, I am FAR from impressed. This is the very reason that I don’t install Apple software, I truly do hate it.

While I was waiting for my 9000ish songs to sync, I immediately began searching Google for a better solution. A few pieces of software stuck out, namely SongBird and MediaMonkey. I installed and tried both of them out but since neither were able to sync my pictures (I could have just missed it) I decided that they wouldn’t do. After some more searching, I came upon ml_ipod for WinAmp. Since I use WinAmp pretty much exclusively to manage my music, I figured I would give it a go. The install was VERY simple and the fact that the file was a whole 1MB (iTunes is around 90MB give or take) made me smile.

This plugin works GREAT. I will NEVER go back to iTunes for anything and have since removed it from my computer. I can’t possible believe that a company that makes such great operating systems can make such shitty software. Again, with the exception of Safari, my computer is once again Apple free. So if you are fed up with iTunes, give ml_ipod a shot and see what you think.

So seriously….I call up ATT today with the intent of converting my dynamic IP address over to a static one. I believed this to be a rather simple request….I was wrong…..very wrong. My first challenge was trying to actually get to the orders department (The department that I was told last night I needed to talk with)….their phone navigation system is impossible at it’s best and downright hellish at its worst. I manage to get where I believed I needed to be, only to be wrong and have to be transferred. I should make a note here, each time I am transferred, I have to give them my account number and name all over again. I’m on hold for about 10 minutes here while they are doing God knows what…. Anyway, so I get transferred and the lady says yeah, we can do it, but you have to talk to our business people. She sends me to them and gives me their phone number to call them directly. After another 10 minutes on hold, I manage to get routed to a guy that, you guessed it, has to transfer me. He was at least nice enough to stay on the line to make sure that I got to the correct person. He now sends me BACK to the same damn number I called the first time to yet ANOTHER person that has to transfer me. Him and I sit on hold for about 15 minutes here before I finally arrive at a lady that can actually do this. She confirms all my details, gives me a call back number, and tells me that it will be ready on the 20th. I spend 45 minutes on hold and getting transferred for what took just a minute or two in the end. Now seriously people, was that really that damn hard!?

So after my last rant about Comcrap, I thought I would go right into another rant about cable internet service in general. So this has been really driving me crazy, and pissing me off as well. I keep seeing these ads on TV about how RoadRunner is faster than DSL, and that it “Blows DSL away.” While in all technicality, this is a correct statement, it’s HIGHLY subjective. Let’s take a quick look at the differences between cable and DSL.

- With cable, you share your connection with all your neighbors, so if one of them is a very heavy user, your speed with drop like a rock. In comparison, DSL is a Digital Subscriber Line and you have a DEDICATED connection all the way back to a fiber backbone.
- And along with that, while it is true that the theoretical maximum speeds with cable are usually higher, in very few cases will you actually come close to the maximum speed that they advertise. With DSL, you will CONSISTENTLY see speeds very close to the maximum of your package. (NOTE: Both of these, however, can be affected by line noise!)
- Finally, and probably most importantly (especially if you are an online gamer), is the latency, or better know in the gaming world as lag. With cable, your connection is, for lack of a better term, “frogged around” to make it work. It will make hop after hop, and have to jump through a ton of hoops just to get from your computer to somewhere else on the internet. Once again, since with DSL you have a DEDICATED line, a good portion of this hopping is eliminated. You will see less latency, and snappier responses (in general) with a DSL connection then you could ever hope to achieve with your cable connection. (If you want more information about latency, see this article.)

Now while I can’t really say that TimeWarner is guilty of “false advertising” or anything of the sort, they most certainly are giving select (and misleading) information regarding the quality of cable internet connections. While it’s true that you MAY get a faster raw speed (assuming that none of your neighbors are home)….the quality of that connection is far surpassed by DSL, despite that fact that you may give up a bit of speed. So remember, don’t be swayed by the massive amounts of bandwidth offered by cable companies, because bandwidth is most certainly not everything, and just because DSL (in general) offers lower speeds, that does NOT be default make it worse….in most cases it will perform consistently better than cable.

….for showing us all what a bunch of idiots you really are. You have, beyond the shadow of a doubt, ensured that I will never, ever use you as my ISP. From your attempts to throttle BitTorrent traffic (which was ruled to be illegal by the FCC), to the just announced attempt to “cap” users to a set amount of bandwidth per month for their UNLIMITED use accounts.

The true stupidity of the people coming up with these “ideas” simply boggles my mind. I can’t possibly understand what they think that they are going to gain from this. As far as I can tell, they can only lose….customers. I have a feeling that they will be fleeing at a staggering rate to a new ISP, one who doesn’t attempt to control everything that they do on the internet.

The true scope of this decision has yet to be realized by the decision makers over at Comcast. It will not take long, however, for things to become clear. Any attempt to censor, restrict, or otherwise control the “internet” will result in complete and utter failure. P2P File sharing is a great example of this. For all of you that still remember Napster (the old Napster), there was a great lesson that should have been learned here……you can’t censor or control what is on the internet, plain and simple! After the shutdown of Napster, more and more file sharing programs/sites sprung up seemingly overnight. And for each consecutive one that was shut down, there were 5 more waiting to take its place.

And if you don’t recall what happened an oh so short time ago with Comcast throttling BitTorrent traffic, you should really see how clueless these people really are. And just to be clear, this rant is NOT coming from a Comcast user, I never have been, and never will be. But even from where I sit, this is truly absurd, to say the absolute least.

Now before yall start bashing on me for this, and arguing that satellite ISPs cap their traffic, let me make one thing quite clear. One of the subsidiaries of the company I work for actually offers satellite internet access. The true difference here lines in the fact that the cost to transport objects into space is staggering. It’s extremely hard (probably impossible) to provide satellite internet users with an unlimited amount of bandwidth per month at least without raising costs into the hundreds of dollars a month.

So back to my Comcast rant…..this is just really, really stupid. There is no possible way that this will fly, and they are going to lose a TON of customers, not just the ones who “hammer” on the network. I will truly enjoy sitting here and watching as Comcast meets their demise, or at the very least, and VERY large number of unhappy customers. Comcast will, in all likelihood, be the very fist, as well as the very last to attempt such a move. I hope that everyone over there at Comcast remembered to bring an umbrella, cause this is going to be one hell of a rainy day!

So I’m sure that you have all heard them by now….those very annoying HD Radio commercials that seems to be propagating across the airwaves. It seems like in my 45ish minute drive to work, I always hear at least one, 5 days a week. Up until a short while ago, they didn’t really bother me, in fact, I pretty much just ignored them. But having finally heard enough, and wanting to always move forward in the name of progress, I decided to take a trip to my local BestBuy store. According to the commercials, HD Radios were “All over” many local stores, include BestBuy, so I figure that there would be a nice selection and maybe now was finally the time to actually upgrade…..though what I got was far from that.

I strolled into the store late one afternoon on my way home from work, after hearing yet another commercial. I walked briskly through the store back to the “bookshelf” systems looking for a nice little compact HD Radio. Much to my dismay, however, I was greeted with the “wide variety” of a whole two choices. One was $200, while the other was $250. Neither offered anything other than an HD Radio…. Needless to say, I was very annoyed. I mean seriously, they have been pushing these damn things for months now, and in that time have only managed to stock a whole two models?!?! This tells me one of two things. Either:
a) Nobody really gives a damn about HD Radio, and they all are listening to their iPods instead.
or
b) This area (Columbus) just has so little choice in HD stations that the stores don’t even bother to stock radios.

Now I’m not going to claim to be a genius, and I may not even be smart, but it seems like for $250 dollars, I could buy a very nice MP3 player, and be able to listen to my ENTIRE MUSIC LIBRARY, for the same price. Once again, I ain’t going to claim to me smart, but somehow, listening to exactly what I want to, for the same price, seems like a MUCH better deal to me. I just really wish I knew what these people were thinking when they decided to air these commercials. To me, the “all over” claim seems…..well to be an outright lie. I’m not really sure why they are pushing this so hard….it seems like it’s going to all turn out to be a flop. I’m sure it’s related to the switch to digital TV in Feb. of 2009…..but still. If you are going to advertise something, at least make sure that you have them to sell!!!! Anyway, that’s just my two cents…..

So I swear, everywhere I go, there it is again, some idiot slamming on their brakes then turning without warning. This seems to be a sickness spreading amongst the population. And it’s not just limited to turn signals! You also have people driving WAY under the speed limit, cutting traffic off, and all sorts of stupid things. I mean, are these people trying to get themselves killed?!?!

But the worst part of all of this, is that 9 times out of 10, you know what I find out about the driver?? That’s right, they’re talking on a CELL PHONE! About what only God know but is it really that hard to just say “hey, I’ll call you back when I’m not in the car?” or a simple “I will be there in 10 minutes.” NOBODY (and I mean NOBODY) needs to carry on a conversation on their phone so badly that they are risking not only their own lives, but the lives of people around them!!

And the thing is, there is no law against it (not here in Ohio anyway)! I mean, we have other driving laws about what you can’t do while driving, drinking for one. And regardless of what statistics may say about it, it is VERY dangerous to talk on the phone and drive. All you have to do is cruise around Columbus for a little while and you will see EXACTLY what I mean.

And this doesn’t apply to just cell phone, it applies to lots of other things also. For instance, it seems like at least once a week I see some girl putting on makeup while driving! I mean seriously, it’s one thing to have a phone to your ear, at least you can still see, but trying to apply makeup in the visor mirror, you have to be freaking kidding me!! It’s also not uncommon for me to see people reading while on the freeway! It’s usually the morning paper, laid across the steering wheel. I mean what in the hell can these people possibly be thinking?!?!

People really just need to learn to put the phone, makeup, newspaper, or whatever else they are doing down, and just drive drive. The road itself requires your full attention!!!

So I’m sure by this point in time, you have all had an experience with SPAM, usually in the form of emails in your inbox. Having had the same email address for a good number of years now (not to mention the 50+ email addresses that are forwarded to my main inbox), I get a very large amount of SPAM (it’s not uncommon for me to see 70+ SPAM messages a day). But some new(er) SPAM methods have come into light recently, that are immensely more annoying than simple email SPAM.

1) Comment SPAM – This spam is posted to guestbooks, forums, comments on articles, and virtually any place that allows for an “open post” of information. This has caused the CAPTCHA revolution, decreasing usability and frustrating many users across the web.
2) Vehicle SPAM – This is something that seems relatively new, though it could just be this area. There is nothing I love more then walking out of the store, only to find a small, colored sticky note telling me that I can work from home and make thousands of dollars a week.
3) SMS SPAM – This is the most annoying of all. It’s one thing to SPAM my email inbox, at least I don’t pay for each email you send me, but SPAM to my cell phone?!?! It’s really annoying to be woken up in the middle of the night, grab your cell phone, then be greeted by a SPAM message. What more, if you have a limited number of text messages per month, or no text message plan at all, then these messages have the potential of costing upwards of $0.20 PER MESSAGE.

I swear, there are truly a lot of people in this world with no morals at all. It really pisses me off that they can, and do get away with this. Not to mention that it’s not uncommon for a SPAMMER to make over a quarter million per year. You guys are a bunch of assholes, with no respect for anyone or anything, and I truly hope that you get what’s coming to you.

For all of you out there afflicted by SPAM, who think you can’t do anything to fight back, just remember. Myspace recently won $230 million dollars after they sued a pair of spammers who where using the Myspace messaging system to send SPAM messages.

There is also, what I would call, my favorite site of all time, Project Honey Pot. This site is dedicated to the tracking, logging, and prosecuting of SPAMMERS worldwide. If you own a domain, run a website, or simply post on blogs and forums, then you too can help out in the fight against SPAM!

So I’ve said this before, though never here so I thought that it would be a good rant since I haven’t had one in a while.

Anyways, MySpace has been around for some time now, and it still boggles my mind to think that people actually like and use it! I mean, almost once a week now, I hear a story of someone getting their computer infected with a virus, that the got from MySpace! And if that weren’t enough of a reason to stop using MySpace, it also turns out that it’s home to a rather larger number of “online predators” and the like.

I realize that MySpace has been seen as a way to stay “connected” with friends, but seriously now, there are many many MUCH better ways of of doing this. I just can’t possible comprehend what people see in MySpace. Not only are the above point true, but SOOO many people just go so overboard on their profiles, that even on my high-speed internet connection, hell even the “super connection” that we have at work, I have seen profile pages that take over a MINUTE to load. You have to be freaking insane to actually want to sit there and WAIT for it!!!!

Then there is all the crap music, videos, and stupid flashing gif images that people embed into the pages, and post in each others comments. The single most annoying thing about ANY web site, is having a poor-quality, outrageously stupid, FAR to loud song that plays BY ITSELF when you visit the page. So there I am, surfing the net and listening to music off my computer, all the sudden I hit this page that starts BLASTING music, I don’t care what the hell the site is, I don’t ever stay there any long than it takes for me to close the tab.

But back to MySpace, and the flashing gif images that EVERYONE on there uses. I mean, what in the hell is up with those?! Do people really think that it’s cool to post them all over the place? “Hey look, I can post this shiny shit all over this place then suddenly I will be cool!” I swear…..it’s just, well I don’t think there is even I word that I can think of to describe how stupid it is.

So remember kids, there is no faster way to look like a moron, that to create a MySpace page that will cause others to grow old and die while they wait for it to load!