Thank you, Comcast, for not royally screwing with my head and my pocket.

The other day, I noticed my Comcast bill had shot up by about thirty dollars. Now, that’s a lot for me, I’ll be honest — it really does make a difference.

I called up Comcast to see what had happened. Apparently, my promotion rates expired, and I was being charged full price for everything. Plus, they increased almost every package by a dollar (HD box, HD-DVR, etc). So once the very nice representative (shocking, I know) finished explaining everything to me, I proceeded to go on my rant.

I explained that thirty bucks was a lot for me, and such an increase would FORCE me to leave Comcast for a satellite provider. I went on to ask if there’s anything she could do to keep me as a customer before I started to seek television elsewhere. She put me on hold for a few moments.

When she came back, she explained that she can apply the original promotion rates for an additional year. To that, I replied, “ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!”  Yes, and I did sound quite homosexual.

I’ve read that Comcast and other providers would absolutely keep you on your promotion rates to keep you as a customer. However, the only way to accomplish this was to actually call Comcast and to totally bluff when telling them that you’re leaving for satellite.

We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature [Beacon], but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them [the mistakes]. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it. (Facebook blog) 

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has once again apologized to the Facebook community for the company’s controversial Beacon ad system.  This, I believe, is the second apology since Beacon was released.  And this is the nth time that Facebook has apologized to the community about privacy invasion. 

For those who are unsure what Beacon is, it’s a new ad platform, on Facebook.  It’s best described as a tool that tracks your actions even outside of Facebook and reports them back to Facebook.

Beacon, part of the company’s new ad platform, tracks certain actions of Facebook users on some external sites, like Blockbusterand Fandango, in order to report those actions back to users’ Facebook friends network.

The idea is to generate advertising that is more effective because it is intricately combined with people’s social circle, so that products and services are promoted in a more organic way via the actions of friends and family. (PCWorld)

I don’t get how it even gets this far, to be honest.  There’s a board of directors that I’m sure goes over these things — how do they let these things go through?  Don’t they realize that these things can be invasive to their users?  Or, perhaps, Facebook is just fully obsessed with turning a profit and justifying their ten-billion-dollar price tag. 

Regardless, my patience with FB is growing thin.  I’ve thought about cancelling my account, but there are just too many contacts on FB that I’d like to stay in touch with.  I think, however, I will remove most of my information from FB.  I do currently have some key information on there (phone number, address, etc), and sadly, I no longer trust FB with my information.  They’ve shown time and time again that FB users are just a means to sell advertising.  FB is no longer about conecting friends; those times are long gone.  Instead, it’s about monetizing the beast. 

They should really realize how to balance the two — profits and user-satisfaction  Sure, it may mean not turning a huge profit, but in the end, they won’t have community backlash like they experience every time a new feature is rolled out. 

Facebook is doomed to slowly diminish if it continues it’s course as less about connecting people, and more about monetizing the website.  There must be a happy medium.

Google has released an updated version of Google Maps for mobile phones.  It’s a much improved version with great features and capabilities. 

The first thing I realized when I downloaded the new version and ran the application for the first time was that it pinpointed my location to within 10 meters.  Now, for those with Verizon, you know that your built-in GPS is crippled unless you pay them ten bucks a month for their software — a rip-off, yes.  But Google Maps uses the cell towers around you to pinpoint your location — instant GPS capabilities for free!

Unfortunately, there are no vocal turn by turn directions, but there is detailed on-screen directions that update as you progress on your trip.  However, I’m unsure if it offers correction updates, in case if you make a wrong turn here or there. 

Plus, real-time traffic with estimation delays are now included.  I used the real-time traffic view the other day, and it was relatively accurate.  However, I had no idea where I was in the long stretch of traffic on the map, nor how much of a delay I’d be encountering.  So, this is definitely a nice feature to have in my BlackBerry. 

Oh, and this comes just a few days after I ordered one of those GPS pucks for my phone.  Turns out that as long as I have service, I have faux GPS-capabilities.  I’ll probably hold on to the puck, however, since it can help if I’m not in a service area. 

http://www.google.com/gmm/index.html

I’m going to be begin to help someone with their jewerly website.  Previously, I was going to recommend Network Solution’s eCommerce packages.  I’ve used their service in the past, and for the most part, it did it’s job.  However, their customer service always seemed to be lacking, and I could never find the support I needed immediately.  Of course, their user forums did help, but you’d often have to wait til another user helped you — not someone directly rom Network Solutions.

I’ve recently come across Ashop Commerce Shopping Cart Software.  At first glance, it’s everything Network Solutions offers and then some.  They have several pricing solutions that will meet my needs, as well as any future clients I’d be working with.  For one, the starter package is enough for any budding online store to use.  Throw in the 10 day free trial for the client, and I’m game. 

I also enjoy the fact that they offer several additional features, and that they lists the prices for such features, too.  With Network solutions, I’d have to talk with someone about pricing.  With Ashop, at least, I can decide, hey, I need a logo, and for roughly $275, I can get one produced — and lets be honest, a price of $275 isn’t all that bad for some corporate identity.  From there, I can get homepage design for less than $200 — where as Network Solutions wants roughly 10 times that. 

Looking deeper, Ashop’s shopping cart software can provide live customer service via chat for potential customers.  Most services, like this, charge hundreds of dollars a month.  Fortunately, for us, Ashop only charges roughly $27 monthly — not bad if you ask me, especially since it adds legitimacy to an online store. 

Ashop’s store administration demo is as good as it gets — traffic summaries, order summeries, and plenty other pieces of data, are presently directly to the user on the index page.  From here, the user can modify the layout, tweak seetings, or check to see the details of new orders.  All is housed within a clean layout and a nice user interface — definitely a plus. 

I’m certainly impressed with what they have to offer.  It appears to be a solid system that will allow me to grow without killing my pocket. 

I was looking forward to Facebook Music being that FB typically puts out a great product with clean interfaces and solid usability.

When I logged onto my account this morning, I was presented with a memo to check out the Dave Matthews Band page.  I instantly clicked it expecting something awesome. Let’s just say I was completely dissatisfied with the way the page was laid out.

There was just too much on one page. There was no organization — just a bunch of modules thrown together to focus on DMB, or any band for that matter. I had to keep scrolling and scrolling just to reach the comments and forums. Facebook is dropping the ball, and is dropping the ball rather quickly.

Most pages these days on FB are quite like this — cluttered, no organization, etc. It seems that FB would just rather spit out data than to actually organize it a la Google-style. Data and content are two things that drive today’s internet, but without any form of organization, what use is it?

Again, Facebook is a glorified version of AOL circa 1995. Nothing more, nothing less. And look at where AOL is these days.

Today, I invested several hours into fixing my brother’s spy-ware and virus infected laptop.  How one can mess up a system quite like this laptop is beyond me.

It’s been awhile since I had to concern myself with spy-ware and or virus infections.  I use an Apple machine, and have had no such problems with it.  I suppose I’ve taken for granted that Apple has, for the most part, avoided the mess of open vulnerabilities.  Regardless, even my girlfriend, who runs a Windows machine, hasn’t had any problems since she ditched Internet Explorer several months ago.  And let me tell you, I love her even more just for taking my advice and ridding herself of that spy-ware-welcoming browser.   If only my family members could listen for once and take my advice.  Instead, I’m stuck fixing their ignorant mistakes.

As a result, I quickly wrote up a small document for my brother to place near his laptop.  At first I thought it’d be a good idea to write in big bolded capped letters — DO NOT FUCKING USE INTERNET EXPLORER.  But I held back and made a small checklist of what he should do to keep his laptop spy-ware, and virus, free.

All in all, I got rid of his piece-of-shit AOL virus scan.  I found this to be the bottleneck.  As soon as I uninstalled this software, I found myself making progress.  I downloaded, installed, and ran, Ad-Aware 2007.  This picked up most of his spy-ware issues.  Then, I bought Norton 360 to help all his Internet and virus protection needs.  Norton 360 handled all virus issues.

Now, four hours later, his laptop is running a lot more smoothly.  I cannot wait to shut this laptop down and return to my OSX normalacy.

Phew.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to abandon net neutrality and allow telecoms companies to charge websites for access.

Ultimately, the FTC wants the market to sort out it’s own issues. While an open market is, more or less, the best market, I don’t believe it fits the internet model just yet. The fact that internet providers have already stated they’d like to charge additional access for certain high-traffic websites is just mind-boggling. Is this just another attempt for internet providers to earn more money?

As an internet subscriber, I’m already paying my internet provider to bring me data from A to B. This model is currently “unlimited” data transfer for X dollars a month. I say “unlimited” very lightly because there have been reports of internet providers suspending subscriber’s accounts when the subscriber “abuses” the unlimited data transfer. But that itself is another story for another time. Back to the start of this original statement. More specifically, as an internet subscriber, I’m paying for data to be brought from another source into my home.

Also, as a web developer (a la SongMeanings), I’m already paying another internet provider to bring my data from A to B. Again, more specifically, data from my servers to your home.

Internet providers are not going to give up their monthly fees if they decide to go the “pay-per-site” route. They may decrease the monthly fee, but in no way will they just part ways with it completely. So still, you, as an internet subscriber, are paying a monthly fee to receive data from A to B. But with the pay-per-site model, you’ll be paying an additional fee to query Google, check stocks on eTrade, and or browse lyrics on SongMeanings.

So, in all, I might be paying up the ass for my internet. But on the contrary, the internet providers could also adopt more of a phone-service type system. That is, you get Y internet minutes for X dollars a month. And when you go over Y, you pay X+1. Bullshit, I know.

I’m fully for paying for the bandwidth I use — I understand someone has to pay for it, and if I’m using it, that someone should be me.

But if we let the market, right now, dictate prices, we, as subscribers, are only going to get screwed, again. For most people, the market is a duopoly — possibly a monopoly. I know I only have a choice of either Verizon DSL or Comcast Cable. For the market to dictate prices, we need more players to provide internet access. It will drive prices down and ultimately make consumers and producers somewhat happy.

So, I finally grew tired of my DSL.  For the last two weeks or so, it’s been extremely slow and totally unreliable.  Just the other night, I went from having service one minute to randomly not having service.  A few minutes later, it came back on — only to die again.  When it finally came back online for good, it was extremely sluggish.

I decided to give The Slowskys Verizon a call that night.  After listening to horrible music for a solid twelve minutes, I was finally able to speak with a technician.  I explained to her what just happened as well as the many instances in weeks prior.  She went through the whole scripted “plug this in” and “plug that in” and “wait thirty seconds” scenerio.  Sorry ma’am, no improvements.

She went ahead and checked the line for me.  Everything seemed normal on her end.  She then asked me to go through some modem configurations for her.  I did.  Everything was normal and configured correctly.

She said there’s not much else that she could do.  She suggested that it could have just been a glitch in the network.  She also, ever so kindly, suggested I scan my system for spyware and the like.   Not trying to be a complete asshole to her, I reassured her that my system is spyware free.  She questioned my confidence and at that time, I simply said, “ma’am, I’m running OSX.”

The conversation ended a few moments later.  She said she could set me up with an appointment so a tech could come to my house.  I declined and said I’d call again if the problem persists.

The problem persisted.

Today, I decided to move onto Comcast cable internet.  I figured they’re the same price, so I might as well have the faster internet access along with the convenience of everything under one bill.

I just called Verizon to cancel my DSL.  The computer operator asked me why I was cancelling my DSL service.  I told her, “other.”  She then told me to wait and a customer service rep would be with me shortly.

That rep never came after a few seconds.  Instead, I was greeted, again, by the computer operator.  This time, she told me that all lines were busy and to try my call again.  End call.

Yes, the call ended.

If I was calling about tech support, they’d simply keep me on hold for however long as needed.  But instead, they knew I was cancelling my service, so they just cut me off.  I have a funny feeling this situation will get worse.

Here’s to a successful cancelling later this evening.  Cheers.