Billing reports. Yum.

About work

That's a funny heading when you consider I work for About. Maybe sometime I can use the heading About About. Heh heh.

I've been working on some accounting reports at work. For fairly obvious reasons, I can't talk a lot about the details here, but the particular report I've been working on has a lot of numbers on it. It takes a while to run too because it has to crunch through thousands of records of numbers stored in a Storable data file and a couple database tables.

Finally, today, I got the numbers to exactly match up to what we expect them to. What a great feeling.

Die Comcast Die!

A couple years ago, I got a cable modem from AT&T @Home and started experiencing broadband Internet at home. It was great. The AT&T installer that came to my house understood I'd be connecting the cable modem to a Linux system and basically said, “You're on your own... But you probably now what to do since you're using Linux.”

And he was right. I got it set up just fine.

A few months later, Excite @Home folded and AT&T gobbled up all their customers and became AT&T Broadband. A few things happened as a result of this:

• Downstream bandwidth was severely restricted. It was still “fast,” but it was nowhere near as fast as it was.
• AT&T instituted a more complex installation utility which required Windows and Internet Exploder.
• Rates were hiked - especially for customers who owned their own modems, who previously saved about $10-15/month over customers who leased modems from AT&T. After the hikes, modem owners only saved about $3/month.

This was all disappointing, but you couldn't complain too much because you still had blazing Internet download speeds to your home. Once it was configured properly, it was pretty much maintenance free.

The AT&T support people were pretty good at helping customer's solve problems too, in my experience. One thing I really liked about AT&T and @Home's support was their Java-based online chat utility which let you chat electronically with a support technician. It was really nice compared to waiting on hold waiting for the next available support representative to take your call even though they appreciated my patience.

Now, in 2003, AT&T has sold/merged/morphed to Comcast. It's only getting worse! Here's what I've observed so far:

• Monthly fee hiked another $10.
• Comcast pressures its customers to subscribe to cable TV with a $5 discount on Internet service. Someone told me this could be lawsuit fodder.
• Comcast tech support has an online electronic chat facility, but it requires Internet Explorer, Windows, and the installation of no fewer than three third party software applications which allow Comcast representatives to observe and/or control your computer.

Gawl! In a few months, you won't be able to get online with this company unless you are running an approved operating system with an approved desktop computer purchased from an approved vendor.

All in all, I'm getting fed up. I probably won't get cable Internet when we move and I'm going to discourage people from being Comcast customers any chance I get.

My hope is that this UTOPIA project moves along quickly and allows indepedent ISPs like — my favorite — XMission to get fair and equal access to fiber-optic lines going into every home in participating cities.

Die Comcast Die!

Your digital cable sucks. Your Internet service sucks. Your prices suck. You just suck!