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Friday, July 16, 2010

reason to NOT use CLEAR internet

UPDATE (December 2010):
I am still using CLEAR (but soon plan to switch to Time Warner). Service has been very poor (sometimes good and sometimes so poor that sites such as Pandora could not obtain the bandwidth needed to operate).
According to what I read on the CLEAR blogs, the service has been oversold in many areas, to include Austin Texas. At high use times they are intentionally limiting service to many users, yet instead of admitting this, they put users through the wasteful drill of disconnecting their router and re-booting their equipment, to troubleshoot the speed issues.
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I recently decided I would try out Clear Internet.
I liked the idea of being able to buy it and get it all set up, and then move it from my apartment to my new house.
For this particular area it had decent reviews (although in some areas it has very poor reviews).

I purchased a modem, paid a sign up charge, and paid for the first month.
At this point I was into my commitment to try Clear for about $150.

Then came time to connect.

It seems that they are just not going to let me use the service, that I am paying a premium price for without agreeing to the following statement:

By providing this telephone number (whether wired or wireless) as part of our established business relationship, and regardless of whether this number is listed on the federal Do-Not-Call-Registry, you consent to being contacted by Clearwire (and/or its designated agents) at this number, for any purpose (including sales, marketing, and promotional offers) and by any means,including autodialed or prerecorded voice calls and text messages. You specifically acknowledge that you may incur, and will be sole responsibility for, charges relating to these incoming calls or messages.

I have seen sites that make every effort to get people to agree, even to go so far as to automatically default the choice to an X each time the user is returned to the page due to some omission.
However, this is the first time, I have ever seen a company, selling me a service at a premium price (with no discount over competing vendors), FORCE such an agreement on the customer.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Comcast Voice Over IP WARNING Do Not Purchase

WARNING: If you are Considering Comcast Voice Over IP

Incoming Calls have a HIGH rate of just not coming through.

Initially I saw it as a relief from the flood of sales calls, and thought maybe my entry on the "do not call" list was finally taking effect.
Then I realized that people who had tried to call me, had been sent to voice mail, and my phone never even rang, to indicate an incoming call.
I also tried tests from my own cell phone, and the result was I was sent to voice mail without my phone even ringing.
My internet connection was working just fine at the time, for other internet activity.

The above problem has cleared up, I am not longer experiencing missed calls (that I know of). The sales calls continue to flood in.

Your Number will be Sold to Telemarketers possibly FASTER than you can get the number distributed to your own Friends and Family.

Before I had even distributed my new number to my friends and family, I started getting sales calls.
The sales calls have been flooding in at an increasing rate.

I did add the new number to the do not call registry, but that process takes longer than it took Comcast to have my number distributed to several Telemarketers.

I even got a sales call from a Comcast Competitor, for satellite Television. I was very tempted, but I boycott companies which do phone solicitations and NEVER allow the actual phone solicitation to lead to the my helping a company profit.
Why?
This is one of those externalities that companies are not required to pay for.
They NEVER compensate me for the time lost due to the interruption.
They take up the time of hundreds of people, and if they get just one sale after thousands of calls, they still profit. As for those who didn't buy; we are a non factor, something they care nothing about.
Do they care that I must turn off my ringer, which results in my phone being of minimal value to me. No they don't. They only care about that sale they might make.

My Advice:

DO NOT PURCHASE Voice Over IP from Comcast Cable
The price goes up to $44.99 very quickly. Vontage is so much cheaper.

So for now, the only service I really need from comcast in the internet (no one else is fast enough, in my area, at this time).

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Finding a simple Counter Dilema

My Counter Dilema, Deceptive advertising.

[update: I was actually impressed with the service I got from amazing counters, once I had emailed them. This doesn't address the issue of the deception in the sponsor choices, but at least they were quick to respond to my email, and willing to help me obtain a sponsor I was comfortable using.]

I recently did a comparison of several internet counter services. I was looking for simple counters, which did NOT include tracking. These exist and often consist of a simple image file (gif or png); which is updated by the site, each time the file is accessed.
I needed counter code which would not be rejected by sites which filter out script code and many useful dynamic html commands.

Any page which started throwing pop-ups was ruled out (I have some pop-up blocking turned on, and I don't want to do any further blocking).
Any page which started sending out irritating noises was ruled out. I use my computer to listen to music.

At one point I thought I had found the perfect counter site.
The site didn't send me into pop-up hell, or make irritating noises as the pages of their competitors seemed to.
They had a good selection of counter designs, including one which looked like LEGO (my favorite toy).
They offered a simple counter option, which consisted of a simple png file, so it was not going to be rejected by myspace and other web page hosting services which reject counters with any real content to them.

Of course I understand that advertising is what makes the service free, so I accepted that I would have to take an ad with my coutner.
I did not like the initial sponsor my counter was assigned. So I selected the option to choose a new sponsor.
Selecting a sponsor is a semi-random process, where I continually select new sponsor until I get the one I want. Several came up multiple times, before the list had completed. So maybe it is random with different probabilities assigned to different sponsors.
Going through their list of sponsors, I found several I actually do business with.
I even found a sponsor, for cupons, to a site owned by the company which employs me. But I continued through the list.
At one point I thought I found the perfect sponsor, there was a choice to choose the counter site (the one I was on) as my sponsor.
I thought this would be perfect; if someone is clicking on a link, next to my counter, why not take them to a site where they can get the same counter.

So I selected the counter site, and proceeded to the step which generates the code.

What did I notice?
While my sponsor link did say "amazing counters" hidden in there was an ad for Dell Computers. My counter image (which is much larger than my sponsor link) was turned into a link to a Dell Computer site, even after I did NOT select Dell as my sponsor.
While I have no real issue with advertising Dell Computers (although it is a major competitor of the company which employs me), I did not like the sneaky way it became my true sponsor, AFTER I choose to select something else.
Why was the counter site sneaky about this? Why even have amazing counters in the sponsor list, if selecting this leads to the assignment of a different sponsor?

After realizing that my sponsor was Dell, and not amazing counters (as I had selected) I went back to the sponsor selection.
I proceeded to look for a specific sponsor I had seen earlier in the list. After HUNDREDS of clicks, it did not come up again. I was about to give up and select another sponsor, which I was ok with.
I selected ToysRUs-cupons. Did this link take me to a site associated with ToysRus? Of course not. It was a general cupon site, with Dell on the top of the list.
If one scrolled down, ToysRus cupons were available, as were several of the other companies, I had seen cupon links for in the "select sponsor" process.
In the meantime, I had become just irritated enough, that I had used the "send us a message" functionality.
I went back to the "select sponsor" and continued the process.
Eventually, it came up, what I thought was a link to the company I work for (or at least their online shopping service). Maybe I hadn't noticed the word cupon after it before, and maybe that was what I saw before.
I went ahead and tried out the link (if I was going to have this link on my site, I needed to check it out). At least it was what it claimed to be, and the first cupons offered, were for the shopping site which sells the products made by the company I work for. (The links to get Dell cupons were off to the side).

Dilema 1)

Will I continue to have amazing counters as the counter service I recommend to people?
It is still my favorite online counter service. (OK, sneaky sponsor assignment is less undesireable than pop-ups and noise).

I could write my own counter service, and offer it to those who ask me where to get counters. But not today, and it will take a significant chunk of time to come up with a variety of counter designs.

If I do decide to write my own, For the short term, do I continue to use amazing counters?
Do I continue to recommend amazing counters.?

Dilema 2)
Assuming I continue to use amazing counters;
Do I select a sponsor which offers cupons for products sold by my own employer, or a site which pushes products made by the competition?

There was a time when this answer would have been obvious to me. There was a time when I cared if the company, which employs me, did well. There was a time when if the company did well, all the employees were rewarded.
But the company has made many changes.
The company no longer treats the majority of its employees as valued assets.
No longer do the majority of the employees have any vested interest in the performance of the company. There is a new philosophy that only a small handful of employees are really adding much value at all, and the rest of us are easy to throw away and replace.
They pay me (and pretty well). I do the work I am assigned, and struggle to maintain the same level of work habits I had when I felt more valued. I owe them honest work in return for that pay. My loyalty goes no further.
But for some reason, I just don't feel right having a major competitor as my counter sponsor, although I feel free to do so.

(I know it is easy to alter the code, and remove the sponsor, but I want to stay within the terms of service, if I am going to install code from another site).