First, I knew people all over the US that had sucky Sprint service.
And I know people all over the US who have good Sprint service, and sucky service with other carriers. Neither of our experiences proves anything.
Second, customer service is not regional, and Sprint's sucks ass.
Again, based on what? IME, most consumer-level customer service sucks, so I don't have terribly high expectations anyway. However, the few times I have had to contact Sprint, I've gotten the answer/resolution that I needed.
Third, Consumer Reports ranked Sprint AT THE BOTTOM of all the national carriers.
Consumer Reports...do you buy everything based on what CR says?
Point being, perhaps Sprint's service _does_ suck there, but doesn't mean that's the case everywhere. Perhaps where I'm at, Verizon, or Cingular, or T-Mobile's service sucks, but that doesn't damn the service of the whole company.
First, some background. I previously had analog service with Southwestern Bell Wireless. After they failed to properly credit payments, they killed my service on a weekend while I was out of town. Naturally, none of their customer service numbers got me to anyone on the weekend. So, at the end of 1999, I went to Sprint.
I got the Touchpoint phone, which worked well. I never really used the wireless web functions because of the pricing. It served me well.
Finally, at the end of 2002, with the unlimited Vision offers, and the description of how to use the phone with your computer here on/., I decided to upgrade. (Plus, with the current pricing, we'd have more minutes available, plus unlimited Vision, all for less money per month than we were paying before.)
Wife and I both got the Samsung N400. I'll agree with most of what the article's author has stated about the A500. The unit itself works well enough, although I have encountered the periodic software glitch that requires me to power cycle the phone. Only other complaint about the phone itself is that the calendar and alarm functions don't provide an option to snooze the alarm.
Many of the web sites that are supposed to be 'mobile' don't work with the browser on this phone. I know that the A500 has a bit more functionality than the N400, but if there's a better browser that I can use on the N400, I'd like to hear about it. Another gripe on the browser is that it won't let you hit another link until the graphics are loaded....annoying. And the link from Sprint's own page to the Weather Channel never works....
As for using the data side of things, I agree that the built-in browser is of limited use. I mainly find myself hitting Yahoo to check things like weather. (Oddly, Yahoo's site doesn't provide a URL that this browser likes...hafta go through the Canadian Messenger site, then when you close, it gives you the option to go to Yahoo. Since I don't see Sprint ads plastered on the Yahoo pages, I'm guessing that Yahoo is making life difficult for Sprint users due to marketing issues.) I'm also in full agreement that the various messaging services (e-mail, SMS, etc.) on the phone are too cumbersome to bother with.
When using the laptop with the FutureDial software, latency is of course rather poor. It hasn't become a replacment for dialup, but works pretty well, and it's handy to have the ability to check my mail anytime I have my laptop and a signal. The image compression does kind of suck though, so I was glad to see that mentioned. Also glad to see it can be dealt with by using different ports.
This must vary widely from market to market. I've used while living in two different cities, plus lots of traveling, and have never had any issues with dropped calls.
Plus, perhaps some issues are with your specific handset. For instance, my parents live in a low spot, and my Sprint signal there with my old handset was always poor or non-existent. With my Samsung A400, it's still low, but good enough to be used.
You're correct in many of your statements. My high school experience was similar. Then again, I didn't have to ride the bus to high school, and I suspect the worst abuse happens there. But my high school was also in a very good district, where something like 98% of the students went to college, so there was a strong academic environment. So there was, in fact, a strong sense of competition to excel academically. Our group in honors classes compared notes after each semester to see how we all ranked in the class.
Of course, we also had an excellent principal who knew every student by name, and was always in the hallways between classes.
In closing, while you're correct that the article makes generalizations which many of us may have disagreements with, the fact is that the 'Lord of the Flies' situation does exist in our schools. I think that Paul has done a good job identifying some of the reasons that this is the case. Not everyone attends the same kind of schools we did, and not every school can be like ours were, so how do we fix the system?
The University of Missouri-Rolla (GO MINERS!) had a cheer that we'd yell at the end of every sports game we lost (and we lost a lot; something like 3 wins in football over the four years I was in marching band)
Of course, the only people who went to the football games were in the marching band...;)
The only times I was ever in the 'stadium' were for Alice and graduation.
Well, from what I read over the weekend, it doesn't seem that SBC was all the eager to jump in and buy DTV. It was more a case of Murdoch being the only current serious suitor, and GM asked for some other companies to step in and create some competition in the bidding process, and hence increase the final sales price.
SBC wants to clean up its image in the eyes of the Ameritech customers, and is working towards that goal.
And what about the customers in the areas that SBC has always served (i.e. Southwestern Bell territory)?
* FOC date for new T-1 came and went. Didn't even see a tech until a month after that. Then took them several weeks to actually get the circuit working correctly. What good is a FOC is you can't meet it?
* After T-1 up, send disconnect order to them for frame relay circuit. They disconnect a different customer's circuit. Then they claim that we still have year remaining on FR contract, but can't produce anything other than what their terminal screen shows as evidence. Even if there _were_ another year, the terms of the contract for early termination would be to simply pay for the remaining service term. However, after another year had passed, they were still adding new charges (even though the circuit should have been disconnected). During this time, they changed their computer systems that handled customer information, and managed to lose all records of our previous contacts with them about this issue.
* Phone service handled by a CLEC. Major cable cut takes out most of our lines, including the main number. The cut caused a caller to get a continuous ring, rather than a busy signal (if it were busy, it could roll over to one of the lines that still worked). The repair deadline time came and went. I asked about having the main number temporarily forwarded to one of the working numbers. But the rules are now that they'll only give you a free temp forward if _all_ your voice lines are down, otherwise you have to have to already be subscribed to the forwarding service. Their repair deadline came and went. Then all but our main line came back into service. Out of all the copper they could have used, the techs were using the circuit our main number is on as their communications channel! If SBC truly gave a rat's ass about service, they would have gotten a temporary repair in place, rather than taking nearly 30 hours.
For example, see the recent (and successful!) CA launch of LD service by SBC.
What does that have to do with the image of customer service? It's simply a way to try to make more money. SBC has been pushing and pushing to be allowed to do their LD rollouts, which required that they open their local service to competitors. While they've whined and whined about how 'unfair' their not being allowed to provide LD is, but in the meantime putting up as many obstacles as possible for CLECs.
An article about circuit bending in St. Louis, featuring some things that Christian Oncken (aka XJN) has done. If you're into that sort of music, his band's web site is here: Urban Jazz Naturals
Half the time, even when there are good policies in place, they don't always work. When I lived in Tulsa, I'd always go to the city's surplus auction. Usually tons of computers, mostly too old to be terribly useful, but sometimes some good stuff, like when they got rid of all their NeXTs.
So a bunch of us are poking around at the various systems, and discovering that none of them have any RAM left. This was puzzling, as we couldn't understand what they would want with 5 more more year old RAM out of a PS/2.
After some asking around, we were told that the city's policy was to remove the memory from surplus computers. I have to think that the intention was that the hard drives would be removed or blanked, but the policy said 'memory' and some drone was dutifully following the policy. The hard drives weren't even so much as reformatted.
Since reading this story, I've been doing some thinking as well as some searching. Autodesk is apparently using C-dilla on their products now to handle licensing, so a lot of the information I came across was related to their products.
Interestingly, one of the things I found here: http://autocad.cad.de/mfhdocs/autocadbasic/ autocad _2000i/cdilla_faq.pdf says:
Don't do following actions when you have installed software locked products: - Don't use boot managers which allow you to work with several primary hard disks - Don't use tools like partition magic which can adjust your size of partition - Don't move your C_DILLA folder to a other hard disk or other subdirectory - Don't erase your C_DILLA directory manually.
Now, they don't give any indication that doing these things will prevent your system from booting, but it certainly appears that C-dilla at least uses certain boot sector info in creating the string it uses.
So even if C-dilla doesn't hose you, your use of common tools may cause the protected application to need activation again.
These sorts of hassles might be slightly more reasonable on expensive software from Autodesk (and may even be easier to deal with than hardware dongles). But to cause this kind of trouble for a $30 or less piece of software?
Yes, the parent post is correct. Any refund you get is simply a refund of overpayment. You get no interest or benefit from letting the government use your money.
I've always disliked Home Depot. I go there rarely, preferring to drive extra distance to the nearest Lowe's.
The real pisser was this past Sunday. A light switch broke in the house about 7pm. The smaller hardware stores were all closed, as was Lowe's. (And yes, Wal-Mart does carry light switches, but only those rated for copper, and I needed one rated for aluminum. Avoid Wally World like the plague anyway...) We have a 24-hour Home Depot, so figured that would be the best bet. They freakin' closed the store for a holiday party. Uh, guys, couldn't you have done this at a time when your other stores were open?
Of course, that technology already exists in the form of RDBS/RDS. Can also be used to transmit traffic alerts, advertising, etc.
It's long been a real chicken and egg situation. Very few receiver mfrs implemented it in their products, and very few radio stations spent the money on the equipment.
I used to keep up with all the developments relating to IBOC, but have forgotten most of it. So will the digital stream be implemented on a subcarrier? Will existing stations need to go through the standard licensing process for adding a subcarrier service, or will their main license automagically cover the digital broadcast?
The local mall near me used to have an arcade...until they put in a police substation across the hall.
Are you speaking of Northwest Plaza? It seemed to be the place of choice for all the gang-banger types to hang out and cause trouble. I suspect that had more to do with any closure there than the law....
Or unless you suspect that some Roundup-resistant seeds might have "volunteered" in a corner of your field
Wow...Roundup Ready seeds just happen to volunteer themselves in the same neat rows you planted your regular seeds in?
If it is, then why should the farmer not be entitled to keep the seeds/plants that have just showed up on his property?
Except it's been shown that it's not the case. And since this farmer obviously hates the idea of GMO crops so much, why would he then plant his whole field with the resulting seeds?
I spray that corner of my field with Roundup and by golly, these plants are still growing.
Except as a farmer, you don't go spraying your growing crops with Roundup unless you've purchased Roundup Ready seed from Monsanto. That's the whole point of this line of crop seed. Roundup would normally kill or damage your crop plants. Roundup doesn't harm the modified plants, so you can control the weeds that compete with the crops throughout their growth cycle.
Your Joe Farmer scenario is akin to a cattle farmer feeding cyanide to part of his herd just for giggles.
Re:Not sure I understand your question...do you?
on
How to Test Your T1?
·
· Score: 2
Yep. Just ask the vendor. When we were trying to decide who was getting our business a couple of years ago, nearly all were willing to provide diagrams of their backbone, how we'd be connected to it, info about their peering agreements, etc. All very important aspects when it comes to performance.
I'm not sure that Sony shot themselves in the foot with Beta. Sure, it never really took off in the consumer segment, but it was the basis for years of professional equipment. And during all that time, Sony was perfectly happy to sell the consumer VHS VCRs.
There are lots of technologies that are used in professional settings that differ from consumer grade products. Creating a good and profitable professional product without a corresponding product for the mass market doesn't make it a failure.
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First, I knew people all over the US that had sucky Sprint service.
And I know people all over the US who have good Sprint service, and sucky service with other carriers. Neither of our experiences proves anything.
Second, customer service is not regional, and Sprint's sucks ass.
Again, based on what? IME, most consumer-level customer service sucks, so I don't have terribly high expectations anyway. However, the few times I have had to contact Sprint, I've gotten the answer/resolution that I needed.
Third, Consumer Reports ranked Sprint AT THE BOTTOM of all the national carriers.
Consumer Reports...do you buy everything based on what CR says?
Point being, perhaps Sprint's service _does_ suck there, but doesn't mean that's the case everywhere. Perhaps where I'm at, Verizon, or Cingular, or T-Mobile's service sucks, but that doesn't damn the service of the whole company.
First, some background. I previously had analog service with Southwestern Bell Wireless. After they failed to properly credit payments, they killed my service on a weekend while I was out of town. Naturally, none of their customer service numbers got me to anyone on the weekend. So, at the end of 1999, I went to Sprint.
/., I decided to upgrade. (Plus, with the current pricing, we'd have more minutes available, plus unlimited Vision, all for less money per month than we were paying before.)
I got the Touchpoint phone, which worked well. I never really used the wireless web functions because of the pricing. It served me well.
Finally, at the end of 2002, with the unlimited Vision offers, and the description of how to use the phone with your computer here on
Wife and I both got the Samsung N400. I'll agree with most of what the article's author has stated about the A500. The unit itself works well enough, although I have encountered the periodic software glitch that requires me to power cycle the phone. Only other complaint about the phone itself is that the calendar and alarm functions don't provide an option to snooze the alarm.
Many of the web sites that are supposed to be 'mobile' don't work with the browser on this phone. I know that the A500 has a bit more functionality than the N400, but if there's a better browser that I can use on the N400, I'd like to hear about it. Another gripe on the browser is that it won't let you hit another link until the graphics are loaded....annoying. And the link from Sprint's own page to the Weather Channel never works....
As for using the data side of things, I agree that the built-in browser is of limited use. I mainly find myself hitting Yahoo to check things like weather. (Oddly, Yahoo's site doesn't provide a URL that this browser likes...hafta go through the Canadian Messenger site, then when you close, it gives you the option to go to Yahoo. Since I don't see Sprint ads plastered on the Yahoo pages, I'm guessing that Yahoo is making life difficult for Sprint users due to marketing issues.) I'm also in full agreement that the various messaging services (e-mail, SMS, etc.) on the phone are too cumbersome to bother with.
When using the laptop with the FutureDial software, latency is of course rather poor. It hasn't become a replacment for dialup, but works pretty well, and it's handy to have the ability to check my mail anytime I have my laptop and a signal. The image compression does kind of suck though, so I was glad to see that mentioned. Also glad to see it can be dealt with by using different ports.
This must vary widely from market to market. I've used while living in two different cities, plus lots of traveling, and have never had any issues with dropped calls.
Plus, perhaps some issues are with your specific handset. For instance, my parents live in a low spot, and my Sprint signal there with my old handset was always poor or non-existent. With my Samsung A400, it's still low, but good enough to be used.
What if they download that child porn via FastTrack or Gnutella?
;)
Don't be silly. Everyone knows that the 'net is only e-mail and web sites with chat rooms....
It's all just stereotypes, folks
You're correct in many of your statements. My high school experience was similar. Then again, I didn't have to ride the bus to high school, and I suspect the worst abuse happens there. But my high school was also in a very good district, where something like 98% of the students went to college, so there was a strong academic environment. So there was, in fact, a strong sense of competition to excel academically. Our group in honors classes compared notes after each semester to see how we all ranked in the class.
Of course, we also had an excellent principal who knew every student by name, and was always in the hallways between classes.
In closing, while you're correct that the article makes generalizations which many of us may have disagreements with, the fact is that the 'Lord of the Flies' situation does exist in our schools. I think that Paul has done a good job identifying some of the reasons that this is the case. Not everyone attends the same kind of schools we did, and not every school can be like ours were, so how do we fix the system?
The University of Missouri-Rolla (GO MINERS!) had a cheer that we'd yell at the end of every sports game we lost (and we lost a lot; something like 3 wins in football over the four years I was in marching band)
;)
Of course, the only people who went to the football games were in the marching band...
The only times I was ever in the 'stadium' were for Alice and graduation.
Well, from what I read over the weekend, it doesn't seem that SBC was all the eager to jump in and buy DTV. It was more a case of Murdoch being the only current serious suitor, and GM asked for some other companies to step in and create some competition in the bidding process, and hence increase the final sales price.
SBC wants to clean up its image in the eyes of the Ameritech customers, and is working towards that goal.
And what about the customers in the areas that SBC has always served (i.e. Southwestern Bell territory)?
* FOC date for new T-1 came and went. Didn't even see a tech until a month after that. Then took them several weeks to actually get the circuit working correctly. What good is a FOC is you can't meet it?
* After T-1 up, send disconnect order to them for frame relay circuit. They disconnect a different customer's circuit. Then they claim that we still have year remaining on FR contract, but can't produce anything other than what their terminal screen shows as evidence. Even if there _were_ another year, the terms of the contract for early termination would be to simply pay for the remaining service term. However, after another year had passed, they were still adding new charges (even though the circuit should have been disconnected). During this time, they changed their computer systems that handled customer information, and managed to lose all records of our previous contacts with them about this issue.
* Phone service handled by a CLEC. Major cable cut takes out most of our lines, including the main number. The cut caused a caller to get a continuous ring, rather than a busy signal (if it were busy, it could roll over to one of the lines that still worked). The repair deadline time came and went. I asked about having the main number temporarily forwarded to one of the working numbers. But the rules are now that they'll only give you a free temp forward if _all_ your voice lines are down, otherwise you have to have to already be subscribed to the forwarding service. Their repair deadline came and went. Then all but our main line came back into service. Out of all the copper they could have used, the techs were using the circuit our main number is on as their communications channel! If SBC truly gave a rat's ass about service, they would have gotten a temporary repair in place, rather than taking nearly 30 hours.
For example, see the recent (and successful!) CA launch of LD service by SBC.
What does that have to do with the image of customer service? It's simply a way to try to make more money. SBC has been pushing and pushing to be allowed to do their LD rollouts, which required that they open their local service to competitors. While they've whined and whined about how 'unfair' their not being allowed to provide LD is, but in the meantime putting up as many obstacles as possible for CLECs.
The problem with SUV's is that people use them for commuting to and from work, the store, and their friends house
Ok, but how many are like your friend and also haul around tons of stuff when you don't see them? Or they tow a boat every weekend?
An article about circuit bending in St. Louis, featuring some things that Christian Oncken (aka XJN) has done. If you're into that sort of music, his band's web site is here: Urban Jazz Naturals
Half the time, even when there are good policies in place, they don't always work. When I lived in Tulsa, I'd always go to the city's surplus auction. Usually tons of computers, mostly too old to be terribly useful, but sometimes some good stuff, like when they got rid of all their NeXTs.
So a bunch of us are poking around at the various systems, and discovering that none of them have any RAM left. This was puzzling, as we couldn't understand what they would want with 5 more more year old RAM out of a PS/2.
After some asking around, we were told that the city's policy was to remove the memory from surplus computers. I have to think that the intention was that the hard drives would be removed or blanked, but the policy said 'memory' and some drone was dutifully following the policy.
The hard drives weren't even so much as reformatted.
Since reading this story, I've been doing some thinking as well as some searching. Autodesk is apparently using C-dilla on their products now to handle licensing, so a lot of the information I came across was related to their products.
/ autocad _2000i/cdilla_faq.pdf
Interestingly, one of the things I found here:
http://autocad.cad.de/mfhdocs/autocadbasic
says:
Don't do following actions when you have installed software locked products:
- Don't use boot managers which allow you to work with several primary hard disks
- Don't use tools like partition magic which can adjust your size of partition
- Don't move your C_DILLA folder to a other hard disk or other subdirectory
- Don't erase your C_DILLA directory manually.
Now, they don't give any indication that doing these things will prevent your system from booting, but it certainly appears that C-dilla at least uses certain boot sector info in creating the string it uses.
So even if C-dilla doesn't hose you, your use of common tools may cause the protected application to need activation again.
These sorts of hassles might be slightly more reasonable on expensive software from Autodesk (and may even be easier to deal with than hardware dongles). But to cause this kind of trouble for a $30 or less piece of software?
Yes, the parent post is correct. Any refund you get is simply a refund of overpayment. You get no interest or benefit from letting the government use your money.
I've always disliked Home Depot. I go there rarely, preferring to drive extra distance to the nearest Lowe's.
The real pisser was this past Sunday. A light switch broke in the house about 7pm. The smaller hardware stores were all closed, as was Lowe's. (And yes, Wal-Mart does carry light switches, but only those rated for copper, and I needed one rated for aluminum. Avoid Wally World like the plague anyway...) We have a 24-hour Home Depot, so figured that would be the best bet. They freakin' closed the store for a holiday party. Uh, guys, couldn't you have done this at a time when your other stores were open?
Every year the federal government gives them a ton of money in subsidies to 'wire up rural areas'. Nothing happens.
That's a good chunk of where all those surcharges on your phone bill are going....
Same here. Everything there but the chewy goodness of content.
maybe a digital readout of what's playing.
Of course, that technology already exists in the form of RDBS/RDS. Can also be used to transmit traffic alerts, advertising, etc.
It's long been a real chicken and egg situation. Very few receiver mfrs implemented it in their products, and very few radio stations spent the money on the equipment.
Tried their site, but /.ed
I used to keep up with all the developments relating to IBOC, but have forgotten most of it. So will the digital stream be implemented on a subcarrier? Will existing stations need to go through the standard licensing process for adding a subcarrier service, or will their main license automagically cover the digital broadcast?
The local mall near me used to have an arcade...until they put in a police substation across the hall.
Are you speaking of Northwest Plaza? It seemed to be the place of choice for all the gang-banger types to hang out and cause trouble. I suspect that had more to do with any closure there than the law....
Or unless you suspect that some Roundup-resistant seeds might have "volunteered" in a corner of your field
Wow...Roundup Ready seeds just happen to volunteer themselves in the same neat rows you planted your regular seeds in?
If it is, then why should the farmer not be entitled to keep the seeds/plants that have just showed up on his property?
Except it's been shown that it's not the case. And since this farmer obviously hates the idea of GMO crops so much, why would he then plant his whole field with the resulting seeds?
I spray that corner of my field with Roundup and by golly, these plants are still growing.
Except as a farmer, you don't go spraying your growing crops with Roundup unless you've purchased Roundup Ready seed from Monsanto. That's the whole point of this line of crop seed. Roundup would normally kill or damage your crop plants. Roundup doesn't harm the modified plants, so you can control the weeds that compete with the crops throughout their growth cycle.
Your Joe Farmer scenario is akin to a cattle farmer feeding cyanide to part of his herd just for giggles.
Yep. Just ask the vendor. When we were trying to decide who was getting our business a couple of years ago, nearly all were willing to provide diagrams of their backbone, how we'd be connected to it, info about their peering agreements, etc. All very important aspects when it comes to performance.
shooting themselves in the foot.
I'm not sure that Sony shot themselves in the foot with Beta. Sure, it never really took off in the consumer segment, but it was the basis for years of professional equipment. And during all that time, Sony was perfectly happy to sell the consumer VHS VCRs.
There are lots of technologies that are used in professional settings that differ from consumer grade products. Creating a good and profitable professional product without a corresponding product for the mass market doesn't make it a failure.
Group policy to push patches is only available for Windows 2000 domains. So that's not an option for NT-based networks.