While I’m not a very big fan of baseball, and I really cannot stand watching it on TV, every now and then I didn’t mind going with my family to a good SkySox or Rockies game. Either way, I’ve gotta give a huge shout out to the Rockies for their huge win against the Diamondbacks, which has them “roaring into the World Series like no team before them”. Good job guys!
In a recent attempt to cut down on the costs of some of the services we pay for, including telephone, we have decided to switch to a VOIP provider. In the end, I decided to go to Lingo, both because of referrals from friends and because of the lower price (compared to Vonage).
The ordering phone call was very straight forward and very smooth, along with the installation of the equipment, however things have started go downhill from there. I had been told that the porting of my telephone number would take about a week and a half to two weeks. Almost a week and a half later, I received an email stating that I had to fill out a letter of authorization to transfer my current number. When two weeks hit, I called customer service to find out what kind of ETA they had on the transfer – as we were getting quite close to having to pay two services in one month despite the one month free from Lingo. They answered with a week and a half from the point when my letter of authorization had been turned in. At that point I asked why they didn’t mention that at the time I ordered the service. Their answer was “Sorry, but please fill out our customer service survey that we’re emailing to you”. So, no big deal. I’m fairly new to the VOIP services, so I passed it off as they did say they would put a rush order on the account.
Over the weekend I also found on their website that they had listed this Monday as switch-over day, which they fulfilled as expected. Once the port was finish, I started playing around with things and found that all outgoing calls were still using the temp phone number they gave me when they signed up. When I called to find out how to correct this, I found that the ported number was currently listed as the accounts second number and that I’d have to re-order the numbers to fix outgoing calls, and remove the temp number to keep from being charged for an additional number every month. Woooohhh… Wait a minute. I wasn’t told about this either. I asked them why they didn’t tell me about this when I was ordering and I got the same response (in very poorly spoken English) “I’m very sorry about the inconvenience, however please fill out the customer service survey we are emailing you to help better our service”.
SO, after I have that worked out, and the temp number delete, I plug in my phone base (we own a simple 5.8ghz phone base with 3 wireless phones). Everything seems to work fine until I cannot hang-up any of my phone calls. I try flashing the calls, resulting in the same affect: I’m still connect. So I call Lingo back up… again. After explaining my situation multiple times, mostly thanks to the lack of clear English communication, I find out that the VOIP equipment (which is a Linksys SPA2102) supposedly has issues with phone equipment higher than 3.8ghz. I was irritated enough by the lack of clear communication, that I just accepted that response and left that phone call at that.
After several minutes of trying to figure out how the frequency of the phone has anything to do with it, I called back. I did get someone who was a little easier to understand, and asked what the frequency has to do with the price of tea in china. Supposedly the SPA2102 has issues with frequencies higher than 3.8ghz because the tone given by the phone to indicate that it has hung up or flashed isn’t properly understood by the equipment due to the frequency being to high. While that still seems a little odd, that’s a much better explanation that I had heard before.
So at this point I’m going to research this one further by calling Linksys and see if they agree with this assessment. Either way, I’m also upset that if such an issue does exist, that their sales department doesn’t warn of such an issue BEFORE you order the service. Other than that the call quality has been excellent, and the features offered are quite excellent compared to the same options provided by my land line provider. So I guess we’ll see how things pan out, but I would warn people about truly understand what they are getting themselves into before switching to a VOIP provider. If anything else, ask plenty of questions…
11/1/2007: Correction – I have a SPA2102, not a PAP2…
Update 11/23/2007: I just today resolved my issues with Lingo, so definitely read on – as much of this was just a matter of miscommunication.
Tuesday, DailyTech.com carried an article discussing possible ways the music industry is going to attempt to shred consumer rights even more than they already have. It has been known for some time that the RIAA has argued against the concept of Fair Use. Essentially, your purchased music is licensed for a single copy, making any copy of that song – be it a backup or ripped to your mp3 player – is a violation of the song’s copyright / license. In addition to the fact that they believe you have not purchased a product that you can do what you like with it, they also believe that using your radio in specific manners is also wrong. The article says it best:
Another possible avenue of legal action for the RIAA is the pursuit of businesses that play unauthorized music in stores. The Performing Rights Society (PRS), Britain’s version of the RIAA, may give the RIAA some possible ideas with its pending litigation. The PRS is suing the Kwik Fit Group, a car repair shop in Edinburgh, for £200,000 in damages. The case revolves around the complaint that Kwik Fit employees brought in personal radios which they played while working on cars, which could be heard by colleagues and customers. The PRS says this amounts to a public “performance” and should have entailed royalties.
So you cannot listen to your radio any more, because someone else might hear it? Nope, it’s a public performance, and licensing fee’s are owed to the label of music being played. Far be it the fact that the music was being publicly broadcast over the radio. I then have to wondering how much further the insanity will go. Will I have to start considering whether keeping my home theater/audio systems could be a possible legal liability? If we continue down this path, it’s just a matter of time before they think they should charge you each time you listen to a song…
On the same note, User Friendly had a couple of great strips about this.
Don’t ask your child, “Can you take your jacket off baby?”, while not noticing that the waitress has just asked if there’s anything else she can do for you…
Now that Hero’s is over, I can get down to some real business. WordPress 2.3 (for the un-blogged, it’s whats running what your reading) was released today with several modifications, including the additions of tags. Being that I can never hold back a good upgrade, I’ve already slapped the thing on. I even went to the task of removing all the actual install files by hand so that I could do the svn tag checkout method. So far everything has been extremely smooth except for the breakage of Extended Live Archives (which I’ve temporarily disabled), and adding the <code>the_tags()</code> call to my theme was as easy as ever. Trying to decide what to do with all my categories though, since I kinda was using them as a form of tag. That’s something I can figure out later.
I guess that’s enough for one night, time for some sleep… or Team Fortress 2. Decisions, decisions…
Update 11:47 – Note to self, modify the tag and categories in my theme. It looks kinda silly right now…
Today is great night, as one of the greatest TV shows ever is starting it’s second series! If you haven’t ever had a chance to see the first season, I would highly recommend renting it…
Ye may ‘r may not be knowin, that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. So ye best be talkin like a proper pirate, er we’ll pillage your booty ya scurvy dog! An’ if yer findin it a wee hard to be talking like a proper pirate, ye best be headin here to learn! Yarrr!
Since when has Alberto Gonzales owned the Atlanta Falcons?
I found this one kind of interesting, since I live in the area. Nasa’s Earth Observatory just had an article, with images, showing an abnormal about of vegetation all the way from west New Mexico to central Texas – with the largest concentration in western Texas. The major cause for this abnormality is the large amounts of rain that the area has been exposed to during the past couple of months. Just looking at the picture, I found it odd that North-Central, which is has been hit by just as much rain as the rest, shows low amounts of vegetation. The article then goes into an explanation that standing water, or excessive water killing the plants may explain the red area’s over North-Central Texas and Oklahoma.
You can read more about this at Nasa’s Earth Observatory [Warning: Science Content]
Update: Not many days later they also had an article about the heatwave in the west. Notice how again, Texas has been effected by our extremely off summer…
You can also find that article at Nasa’s Earth Observatory
