If I could PM you on this I would, because I think you were responding to me.
Could I ask which plan with BellSouth you downgraded to? My speed with Comcast is actually decent, everything else is problematic, which is my main complaint, and I mostly want to get rid of anything from this horrid company that I can.
At least they credited you back for the install. When the rep came over, he didn't even hook anything up. He dropped the equipment at my door. I got charged for 3 outlet installs (over $100). Then, to top it all off, one of the boxes was DOA. When they came to replace it, they told me my TV was bad. I simply took the box to their office the next week and had it replaced there, and lo and behold, it worked again!
But as far as the charges, they've charged me 3 times my normal rate every other month since this happened, and I've actually been told by a tech support person that I was stupid, and that the billing problems are my fault...
I had that exact issue with Comcast. Installer never showed up, they told me he had, he didn't tag the door (which he claimed he did), and they wanted me to re-schedule 4 weeks later. I called the local office's rep and got it done that evening. And I must admit, I've had nothing but problems with Comcast since.
I would switch in a heartbeat if we had any viable alternatives. As of now, our only alternative is BellSouth DSL, which is a quarter of the speed for $5 less per month. If I had a TV alternative, I'd have already switched (facing the wrong way in my apartment for a dish).
I really wish I had alternatives like you had, because Comcast has done nothing but give me grief since I've had the service.
If anyone out there in the southern states has any experience with the lower rated BellSouth DSL plans, let me know. I'd love some feedback.
Smaller publishers who are getting left out of the loop by this. At least in an expo setting, you had to walk by the small guys to get to the big guys. Now, no one will see them at all.
I have Amazon Prime, and while I agree with the parent's post on some levels, overall, I haven't had any of the problems he has had.
There are only two complaints I have about Prime: one is that if you have an order of 2+ items, you can't have one show up overnight for their standard 3.99 fee and the other ship two day, you have to place the order seperately.
The other complaint is that a lot of Amazon items that are more expensive to ship are no longer available on Amazon Prime. For example, I want to buy the larger George Foreman Grill that is $15 cheaper on Amazon than in our local stores ($95 here, $80 on Amazon). Unfortunately, even though it ships from Amazon (not a 3rd party like some items) and I have Prime, they want $14 to ship it. So, for $1 less, I could get it in 2 weeks on Amazon, even though I've paid them $80 for the benefit of Prime.
Other than that, I've been using Amazon for years, and have only had one ACTUAL problem. I purchased a schoolbook from them this past January (on Prime), and waited for it to ship, and waited. It took them two weeks to notify me that they had to cancel the order. No reason why, they just had to cancel it. So I ended up being a month into class when I got the book from them. I would have bought it locally, but it was twice as much in my town.
I still remember my first Amazon purchase where I bought two books, and they were a day late shipping one of the two. So, they shipped both seperate and upgraded the second order to overnight shipping, free of charge. I know they don't do that now, but its things like that that got me using Amazon in the first place.
So, do I want them to patent Prime? Depends on how they word the patent. But overall, I don't see many other internet businesses having a diverse-enough business to have it work for them.
Look at it this way, if you were to rob a bank wearing a ski mask, the witnesses would know your skin color (possibly), your rough height, and what you were wearing. With an invisibility device, you'd lose those three clues; nothing else. So, no, it wouldn't make it harder to track. It would make it harder to track if you had a smart thief, however, who snuck in, never made a sound, and made off the money while no one noticed.
Entered my mother. Asks me to confirm the blurry text, won't take it. Won't take it again. Finally get it to go through, and it confirms that my name is Sally and my email address is suchnsuch@hotmail.com. Only problem is, thats not me. Go back, fight the blurry images again, and get through.
Five minutes later, I get an email from Firefox asking me to confirm by clicking a link. Ok. Click the link and get prompted by an HTACCESS password protection scheme.
I gave up at that point. So, if this has plagued them since they began, I can only imagine how many successful entries they've had.
The Google/Firefox referral ads which AdSense offers can tell when someone installs FireFox who hasn't before (if someone clicks on a Firefox referral link that has FireFox already installed, it won't count as a referral). My guess is this will work the same way.
Professor: Good news everyone. While Fox's quality programming is out of our reach, Comedy Control has decided to take us for some new episodes. Fry: Don't you mean Comedy Central? Leela: No, Comedy Control. Comedy was outlawed in the year 2045, during the Great War with the Neptutians. Comedy Control comes around and kills everyone involved with animated shows.
I think he's got it right. When we went through Java, our teacher showed us how to compile command line, two weeks later showed us Textpad. If we wanted to use Dr. Java or Netbeans or anything else, is was up to us. Textpad simply color codes and matches brackets, and its what I use to code now. Let the student use whatever they want, because as soon as they leave your sight, if you tell them not to use an IDE, they still can. Just don't teach them about it if you're concerned.
I'd consider it if my $5 for the cellular version of the internet included the games in its price and let me play what I want. But right now, I have to pay $5 a month for the wireless internet service, and then pay a monthly fee for a game I may play for five minutes and decide I hate.
Which leads me to another point. I'm not going to pay [insert carrier here] $5 to play a game which I may hate, but still have to pay $5 for. Not to mention that when I switch phones, I have to pay for it again for the same month. If decent trials were provided (more than 5 minutes), I guarantee I'd buy at least one game on my cell phone, if its for a lifetime subscription. Otherwise, forget it. You're not getting that business from me.
I went into a CompUSA and was very disappointed in their "Apple Store" corner. They actually had a guy in there (he was wearing an Apple shirt and not a CompUSA shirt) who appeared to work for Apple. It infuriated me that every single person in the area got helped, but I was there for half an hour, and never got a single person to talk to me, while everyone else did.
Granted, this was still CompUSA and not a real Apple store, but it was still maddening.
One thing no one has touched on is the fact that this is free. The article mentions that viewers can order the same shows via iTunes for $1.99 (no commercials), via OnDemand for $1 with no commericials, or for free via their website with commercials. Personally, I'd still go for the free version; I pay enough per month for my cable and DVR as it is.
Then again, ABC doesn't really have any shows that I'd actually be interested in this feature for. I do hope that NBC and CBS follow this lead, as well as Fox (for 24)
The other reply is exactly right. Take it from a college student: people are just as likely to steal a backpack as a laptop now. You can make $500 easily selling books to a campus bookstore. At my school, you hear about a lot more book thefts than laptop thefts.
Also, I'm curious: where did you get the neoprene sleeve? I honestly could use something like that with my laptop.
I have a very simple policy. I don't answer calls I don't recognize the number for, period. And if you don't leave a voicemail, I won't call back, period. Its that simple. I had a case where a 1-800 number continually called me, so I finally called back and threatened them with the Federal Do Not Call List fine, since I'm on it. They didn't know enough to think I was bluffing. They stopped calling after that.
My "rules" prevent me from wasting airtime minutes on wrong numbers.
Also, the Nokia phones used to have a black-list feature. You might want to check to see if they still do.
I honestly think thats a pretty good plan. It's definately got potential, though it would still be hard to have a site hosted on every country's internet.
The reason I say no one will notice is because, if you read the comments on the Ars Technica forums, apparently, this has been randomly appearing for some users for about two months now, and no one has really said anything until now.
I've read the article on the Ars Technica forum, and all the comments there. I'm inclined to think this is a nice change, but honestly, all they did was move the top links to a bar on the left. Its nice, and will probably look slightly better on my widescreen laptop, but its such a small change, I doubt many people will notice once it goes live.
Slashdot Mirror
If I could PM you on this I would, because I think you were responding to me.
Could I ask which plan with BellSouth you downgraded to? My speed with Comcast is actually decent, everything else is problematic, which is my main complaint, and I mostly want to get rid of anything from this horrid company that I can.
Sorry Mods, I know this is off-topic...
At least they credited you back for the install. When the rep came over, he didn't even hook anything up. He dropped the equipment at my door. I got charged for 3 outlet installs (over $100). Then, to top it all off, one of the boxes was DOA. When they came to replace it, they told me my TV was bad. I simply took the box to their office the next week and had it replaced there, and lo and behold, it worked again!
But as far as the charges, they've charged me 3 times my normal rate every other month since this happened, and I've actually been told by a tech support person that I was stupid, and that the billing problems are my fault...
I had that exact issue with Comcast. Installer never showed up, they told me he had, he didn't tag the door (which he claimed he did), and they wanted me to re-schedule 4 weeks later. I called the local office's rep and got it done that evening. And I must admit, I've had nothing but problems with Comcast since.
I would switch in a heartbeat if we had any viable alternatives. As of now, our only alternative is BellSouth DSL, which is a quarter of the speed for $5 less per month. If I had a TV alternative, I'd have already switched (facing the wrong way in my apartment for a dish).
I really wish I had alternatives like you had, because Comcast has done nothing but give me grief since I've had the service.
If anyone out there in the southern states has any experience with the lower rated BellSouth DSL plans, let me know. I'd love some feedback.
You can't modify the AdSense code to do that, or it invalidates the links. *sigh*
You could, however, setup the AdSense in an IFrame and try to monitor it that way.
Smaller publishers who are getting left out of the loop by this. At least in an expo setting, you had to walk by the small guys to get to the big guys. Now, no one will see them at all.
I have Amazon Prime, and while I agree with the parent's post on some levels, overall, I haven't had any of the problems he has had.
There are only two complaints I have about Prime: one is that if you have an order of 2+ items, you can't have one show up overnight for their standard 3.99 fee and the other ship two day, you have to place the order seperately.
The other complaint is that a lot of Amazon items that are more expensive to ship are no longer available on Amazon Prime. For example, I want to buy the larger George Foreman Grill that is $15 cheaper on Amazon than in our local stores ($95 here, $80 on Amazon). Unfortunately, even though it ships from Amazon (not a 3rd party like some items) and I have Prime, they want $14 to ship it. So, for $1 less, I could get it in 2 weeks on Amazon, even though I've paid them $80 for the benefit of Prime.
Other than that, I've been using Amazon for years, and have only had one ACTUAL problem. I purchased a schoolbook from them this past January (on Prime), and waited for it to ship, and waited. It took them two weeks to notify me that they had to cancel the order. No reason why, they just had to cancel it. So I ended up being a month into class when I got the book from them. I would have bought it locally, but it was twice as much in my town.
I still remember my first Amazon purchase where I bought two books, and they were a day late shipping one of the two. So, they shipped both seperate and upgraded the second order to overnight shipping, free of charge. I know they don't do that now, but its things like that that got me using Amazon in the first place.
So, do I want them to patent Prime? Depends on how they word the patent. But overall, I don't see many other internet businesses having a diverse-enough business to have it work for them.
Look at it this way, if you were to rob a bank wearing a ski mask, the witnesses would know your skin color (possibly), your rough height, and what you were wearing. With an invisibility device, you'd lose those three clues; nothing else. So, no, it wouldn't make it harder to track. It would make it harder to track if you had a smart thief, however, who snuck in, never made a sound, and made off the money while no one noticed.
But thieves have been doing that for years too.
Maybe. I guess we're all deviants now!
I wholeheartedly agree. Since when is Amazon a social website?
The links on both the article and on G4 are bad...
e _my_24_hours_with_g4tv_2.php
Here's the second page: http://www.thegamerag.com/archives/2006/07/featur
Entered my mother. Asks me to confirm the blurry text, won't take it. Won't take it again. Finally get it to go through, and it confirms that my name is Sally and my email address is suchnsuch@hotmail.com. Only problem is, thats not me. Go back, fight the blurry images again, and get through.
Five minutes later, I get an email from Firefox asking me to confirm by clicking a link. Ok. Click the link and get prompted by an HTACCESS password protection scheme.
I gave up at that point. So, if this has plagued them since they began, I can only imagine how many successful entries they've had.
The Google/Firefox referral ads which AdSense offers can tell when someone installs FireFox who hasn't before (if someone clicks on a Firefox referral link that has FireFox already installed, it won't count as a referral). My guess is this will work the same way.
Professor: Good news everyone. While Fox's quality programming is out of our reach, Comedy Control has decided to take us for some new episodes.
Fry: Don't you mean Comedy Central?
Leela: No, Comedy Control. Comedy was outlawed in the year 2045, during the Great War with the Neptutians. Comedy Control comes around and kills everyone involved with animated shows.
Is there a cached version of this somewhere? computerworld.com appears to have already been slashdotted.
I think he's got it right. When we went through Java, our teacher showed us how to compile command line, two weeks later showed us Textpad. If we wanted to use Dr. Java or Netbeans or anything else, is was up to us. Textpad simply color codes and matches brackets, and its what I use to code now. Let the student use whatever they want, because as soon as they leave your sight, if you tell them not to use an IDE, they still can. Just don't teach them about it if you're concerned.
I'd consider it if my $5 for the cellular version of the internet included the games in its price and let me play what I want. But right now, I have to pay $5 a month for the wireless internet service, and then pay a monthly fee for a game I may play for five minutes and decide I hate.
Which leads me to another point. I'm not going to pay [insert carrier here] $5 to play a game which I may hate, but still have to pay $5 for. Not to mention that when I switch phones, I have to pay for it again for the same month. If decent trials were provided (more than 5 minutes), I guarantee I'd buy at least one game on my cell phone, if its for a lifetime subscription. Otherwise, forget it. You're not getting that business from me.
I went into a CompUSA and was very disappointed in their "Apple Store" corner. They actually had a guy in there (he was wearing an Apple shirt and not a CompUSA shirt) who appeared to work for Apple. It infuriated me that every single person in the area got helped, but I was there for half an hour, and never got a single person to talk to me, while everyone else did.
Granted, this was still CompUSA and not a real Apple store, but it was still maddening.
One thing no one has touched on is the fact that this is free. The article mentions that viewers can order the same shows via iTunes for $1.99 (no commercials), via OnDemand for $1 with no commericials, or for free via their website with commercials. Personally, I'd still go for the free version; I pay enough per month for my cable and DVR as it is.
Then again, ABC doesn't really have any shows that I'd actually be interested in this feature for. I do hope that NBC and CBS follow this lead, as well as Fox (for 24)
The other reply is exactly right. Take it from a college student: people are just as likely to steal a backpack as a laptop now. You can make $500 easily selling books to a campus bookstore. At my school, you hear about a lot more book thefts than laptop thefts.
Also, I'm curious: where did you get the neoprene sleeve? I honestly could use something like that with my laptop.
Keep in mind that their anniversary is April Fools Day... What better joke than to celebrate their anniversary a day later? ;-)
I have a very simple policy. I don't answer calls I don't recognize the number for, period. And if you don't leave a voicemail, I won't call back, period. Its that simple. I had a case where a 1-800 number continually called me, so I finally called back and threatened them with the Federal Do Not Call List fine, since I'm on it. They didn't know enough to think I was bluffing. They stopped calling after that.
My "rules" prevent me from wasting airtime minutes on wrong numbers.
Also, the Nokia phones used to have a black-list feature. You might want to check to see if they still do.
I honestly think thats a pretty good plan. It's definately got potential, though it would still be hard to have a site hosted on every country's internet.
I'm with you. My forums are 50% American, 50% non-American, so half of my visitors would no longer be able to post...
The reason I say no one will notice is because, if you read the comments on the Ars Technica forums, apparently, this has been randomly appearing for some users for about two months now, and no one has really said anything until now.
I've read the article on the Ars Technica forum, and all the comments there. I'm inclined to think this is a nice change, but honestly, all they did was move the top links to a bar on the left. Its nice, and will probably look slightly better on my widescreen laptop, but its such a small change, I doubt many people will notice once it goes live.