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cancelling landline

July 21st, 2010

I’ve had landline phone service all my life.  I’ve had cell phones for a long time, and Vonage for about 6 years.  Even with Vonage and cell pones, I’d never brought myself to get rid of the landline.  Rationalizing it was not too hard – we occasionally get power outages as well as internet outages, so having a stable line would be at least moderately useful for these minor occasions.  However, the monthly bill got landline service seemed to go up continually each month, regardless of how little we used it each month.

A few months ago the bill started going over $50/month, and this is for *nearly* no bells and whistles – no voicemail, no ‘warranty’ on the line.  Wait, I tell a lie – we had an ‘international calling plan’ package, so that when we called my wife’s family overseas it would only cost 10 cents per minute instead of $1.25 (approx).  That said, we still rarely used the thing.  The base rate was a bit over $30/month, and taxes/fees – even if we made no calls at all, added another $16/month – > 50% tax/fee rate, basically.  So keeping a solid phone connection to the house was $46/month before *using* the stupid thing.

A few years back the taxes seemed lower – I would swear total fees before making any calls was below $40 back in 2006.  I may fish out an old bill and compare if I can find one.  In any event, when bills for minimal usage started creeping over $50, I’d had enough.  We already have a Vonage line, so I looked to port over the existing number (which many of my wife’s customers have used for years) to our Vonage box, and – great! – it was possible. The process took almost two weeks, and the service was working before we were actually notified by email that it was working, but it was fairly seamless all in all.

So, now I’ve come kicking and screaming in to the ‘no land line’ age, and it feels a bit odd.  What was funny, though, is when I called to cancel service.  The *2nd* option on the provider’s phone tree was ‘If you’re calling to cancel your service, press 2′.  *2*!  They must be losing customers right and left.  While I’m paying some taxes via Vonage, I suspect it’s only a few years before we start seeing punishing taxes applied to VOIP systems to make up for lost revenue from land lines.  If the govt was recouping $192/year from me via landlines, and might only be collecting half that from Vonage tax collection.

Scratch that – nope.  They’re still collecting around $16/month from me in taxes already.  My minimum monthly Vonage bill is now $42.94.  Hrmm…. So… I’ve sort of traded one price point for another.  And actually, there’s another $5 on top of that because we have an incoming virtual number from the UK.  So… $47.93 minimum.  About the same as the CenturyLink line we had before.  So why cancel?

Vonage is giving us much more.  Unlimited calling, which many US-based VOIP providers also offer, but *every single ad* I hear/see from TWC, CenturyLink, etc – all focused on ‘unlimited calling in the US!’.  I couldn’t care less, as half my family is overseas – UK and Australia – as are many of my wife’s customers.  Vonage gives free calling to Australia and most of Europe in that $24.99.  We pay $5 month for a UK line which rings in to us for that flat $5, and allows most of her UK customers to call for the price of a local call in the UK.  Voicemail calls transcribed and sent to email for free.  And… a web interface to manage it all.  CenturyLink and other traditional landline monopolies have a long way to go to catch up to the value provided by Vonage.  If we got a Vonage program *just* for the amount of calls we make in the US, and didn’t have international needs, we’d at least $20 off that $47, so, we’d probably be paying $25/month.  And the ability to physically take the phone number (via the physical box) with you around wherever you travel is pretty nice (though I’ve only done it once).

Before Vonage, even using landline ‘calling plans’ to get international calls down to a few cents per minute, our bills were easily over $100/month, sometimes $150.  Now with Vonage, two lines, a third incoming number, and *more* calling than we used to do, $55/month is about average.  *Huge* savings, and more convenience.  Can’t ask for much more, can you?

That’s my rant.  Glad I did those numbers.  It wasn’t specifically the $50/month that was necessarily upsetting, but given how little value we were getting for that $50, that was the breaking point.

2 comments »

Posted in Business, Family, Society, Web

Is email only for ‘old’ people?

May 12th, 2010

I read commentary *yet again* that email is only for ‘old’ people (from this page, tho it was only in the comments I think).

I’ve got younger family members, and I think they do tend to communicate mostly via text messaging, facebook, myspace and the more advanced ones, twitter. The ‘old man’ in me thinks the following:

Text messaging is insanely expensive (sure, yeah, fine, I’ll pay *yet another monthly fee* for the ‘convenience’ of not paying 45 cents when someone spams me with 110 bytes of cellular data – right).

Facebook, twitter, myspace, etc – all are the walled gardens of today. Twitter is probably the least walled, but I still need to have a reciprocal relationship with someone to send them a direct message – something private, not meant for public consumption.

The new mantra today seems to be ‘there is no privacy – get over it’, yet I don’t think advocates of ‘no email’ really understand just how large that implication is. Tying your communication vehicle to your public identity outlet is forcing yourself to play by those rules only.

I’d discussed with friends a few years ago the ubiquitous “mybizname@aol.com” practice we’d seen at the start of the web boom. We’d all criticized that, saying how shortsighted it was to tie yourself to AOL for your identity. But now some of them proudly have linkedin, twitter, facebook, foursquare and many other logos on their profile pages, and this seems to be the *only* way to get ahold of some people – no concept of private email at all. My view was that putting your persona in the hands of another company is bad, and I think their view was more focused on the untrendiness of AOL at the time.

Yes, I do maintain presences on the major social media networks, but it’s not the primary way (or even necessarily a *good* way) to get ahold of me. Need to contact me? Phone or email are still the best. And while I use gmail for many things, I still do quite a bit with my michael@kimsal.com email and will continue to do so for as long as email is around.

I think a degree of serendipity is lost when we shut ourselves off in our very closed social networks. I totally ‘get’ the spam issue for people – inundated with hundreds or more spams per day is wearing, timewise and mentally. But by closing ourselves off, we lose more chances for serendipitous connections.

8-10 years ago it was pretty easy to find someone’s blog and reach out to them via email, and perhaps get a response. Now often the only way to connect is to leave public comments. Sorry, I don’t want to live that much of my life in public. And this trend of everything in public has had a chilling effect on my ability to connect with others. I suspect it’s had the same effect on that of many other people, and possibly in ways younger people aren’t even aware of.

I don’t think I’m doing a very good job of organizing my thoughts on this, and I suspect I may be viewed as ‘just some old dude ranting about the good old days’. Hopefully there’s a bit more takeaway than that.

3 comments »

Posted in Society, Web

Airport security idea

December 26th, 2009

My recent thoughts turned to airline security last night after learning of the flight coming in to Detroit in which a man tried to blow up the plane. (link and link, though I’m sure there’s thousands more now).

I’ve never subscribed to the theory that our US airport security did all that much in terms of preventing actual threats.  I’m old enough to remember pre 9/11 flying, and the security measures don’t seem to be doing that much better at stopping potential violent threats.  In the past two years I’ve flown to San Francisco, Miami, London, Copenhagen, Sydney, Shanghai and probably a couple other places I can’t recall right now.  Most of these trips had several layovers, so I’ve seen security measures at many more airports than just these.  A few things initially surprised me soon after 9/11, but fail to surprise me now:

1.  How differently my carry-on bags are treated during screening every single time I travel, even at the same airports.  I travel with a wide variety of stuff – often a laptop, ipod, chargers, cables, headphones, microphones, video camera, small microphone and other assorted electronic goodies.  Sometimes I pack them in checked luggage, but often there’s not room (or I don’t quite trust TSA bag handlers to not take something of value).  So it comes on as hand-luggage.  A couple of times the cabled mess has triggered a thorough hand search of all the bag contents.  While annoying, I understand their need – it’s not clear what the materials are, and if something’s unknown, it’s better to check it out.  Annoying, but reasonable.  Why that particular mess of cables and such doesn’t trigger the same response at different airports is what’s troubling to me.  Each checkpoint area seems to be having their own guidelines as to what is ‘suspicious’ and what isn’t.  To be certain, it may be the experience and judgement level of those involved, but based on the behaviour I witness of security checkpoint personnel (see below), I’m not convinced that’s the reason.

2.  How lax the staff appear at various screening areas.  I don’t particularly want hard-nosed drill sergeants barking orders at me, but I also don’t want people falling asleep.  It seems I generally find both extremes at security checkpoints, which annoys me.  I’m not saying these are the *only* people – there’s also typically a mix of seemingly decent, diligent people staffing these areas.  But that’s not enough.  I’ve watched my bags going through x-ray machines, showing a vast array of weird cables and devices (I travel with a lot of weird stuff!) and watched as the person sitting at the x-ray machine simply let it pass right through *without looking at the screen*, either with their head turned while talking to a colleague, or eating.

I’ve observed that behaviour at least 4 times over the last 12-18 months of travel.  Coming up with extremely conservative numbers, those particular screeners might be letting 3-5% of the baggage go by essentially unchecked.  If 5% of the bags can get by unchecked at a checkpoint, what’s the purpose of having it?  The only substantive answer I can arrive at is “theater for the masses”.

My idea centers on this carry-on bag checkpoint process.  Specifically, my idea would be to have the bag images be fed to an internet site and allow multiple people to judge whether something was ‘suspicious’ enough to warrant a hand investigation.  However, the speed of this might not be enough to work in real time.  So, the next step would be to associate a passenger picture with the bags specifically at the checkpoint, and if it’s determined through the ‘crowdsourced’ site that a particular bag should be inspected, the bag’s owner could more easily be tracked down in the airport.

While this seems like it might be a lot more work, personally, I’d trust the accuracy of dozens or hundreds of people of varying backgrounds giving their votes on a bag rather than one person who might not even be *looking* at the bag to pass judgement.

Lastly, is there a way to *report* on TSA or security staff who appear to be negligent at their post?  I’d try to take pictures, but I suspect I’d be labelled a terrorist rather than someone who’s simply trying to report on someone not doing their job (which, incidentally, is supposed to be about securing my life and safety).

3 comments »

Posted in Business, Ideas, Society, Travel

Web Development Job Hunter classes (raleigh)

September 10th, 2009

I’ve been working with a couple local people on developing a short term plan for them to get in to or move around in the web development job space, and I was wondering if there’s a need for something perhaps sightly more formal in the Raleigh area.  Here’s my initial sketch…

Weekly classes (probably Saturday morning) 2 hours per class for 6-8 weeks

Class would consist of

  • reviewing web development options (technologies, focus – front end or back end, etc)
  • deciding on a particular technology to focus on
  • developing a short term game plan for achieving certain tasks – small projects to connect to a database, do flash animation, handle user authentication, etc.
  • work with participants to keep them on schedule, answering questions that may come up
  • have in speakers from local hiring companies to do presentations about their work environments and what they’re looking for in entry-level positions
  • have in guest presenters from the area who specialize in one tech (.net, ruby, flash, etc) to answer specific questions
  • general support and motivation when learning the new technology.

For some people getting in to new tech can be rather overwhelming because there’s so many choices, and often conflicting advice about what’s “best” to get in to.  What I’ve found is that there’s isn’t one “best” that’s right for everyone.  Learning PHP just because that’s where the jobs are, but you hate it – that’s just pointless.

Is there a need for something like this in the Raleigh area?  Would you be interested in participating?

4 comments »

Posted in Business, Development, Job, Society, Software, Web

US Federal government to change cookie policy?

August 18th, 2009

I stumbled on an article recently about the government’s plan to change its cookie policy.  There wasn’t a whole lot in the article other than that the new federal CIO Vivek Kundra has proposed that federal websites be allowed to use persistent cookies to track visitors.

It’s *about time*.  Give me, the tech savvy end user, the *choice* to be able to interact with the gov’t on my own terms.  If I’m comfortable with cookies, I should be allowed to use them, and get a better experience from the federal agencies I deal with.

Some good that will come out of this is that it will give federal web developers better insight as to how their sites are being used over time by the same people.  As it stands, with no long-term persistent cookie support, it’s completely a guess.  Long-term cookies can, of course, possibly be used for ‘bad’ purposes, and tracking my behaviour across some federal sites (perhaps).  So what?  If you don’t like it, block cookies in your browser.  Browsers like Firefox are making it easier to be ‘anonymous’ online when one wants to be (with the built-in privacy mode), so people who want to be anonymous can be.

A potential problem will be users at state and local agencies who have no control over their browsers using federal sites where the federal cookie policy may be at odds with state-level internet privacy policies.  I realize that’s a bit of a stretch, but I can see it being a problem that’ll hit someone, somewhere.

Either way, I applaud our CIO’s effort to move our federal-level web experience forward.  Privacy advocates – turn off your cookies.  You have a choice.  For those of us that want a smoother experience, I say ‘bring on the cookies!’.

No comments »

Posted in Business, Society, Web

I’m a hypocrite, sort of (phones)

August 4th, 2009

I’m finding that I will likely end up purchasing a new phone – with a contract/agreement – in the next week or so.  I’m fighting the urge to consider myself ‘caving in’, and have ended up thinking about it differently.  If I end up needing to pay an early termination fee, I just won’t care.  The thought isn’t a fun one, but ultimately, if that’s the only thing keeping me from trying out something new, it’s basically a bit silly.

What I will *not* do is end up being one of the people who orient their purchasing life around this idea of “hey, i’m *eligible* for an upgrade!”.  You’re *always* eligible – it’s called buying something that you want when you want it.  “Oh, but I don’t get a discount!” – then move to another carrier.  They’ll more than likely give you better deals to snag you away from someone than your own carrier would to keep you.  We’re still back to ‘only certain carriers have certain devices with certain features’ – that sucks, and possibly will never change in my lifetime short of some specific court case.   Even then, when govt gets involved in stuff, it often makes things worse rather than better…

No comments »

Posted in Society

cell phones beyond infuriating

July 28th, 2009

So – I’m all set to buy a used Palm Pre from someone off Craigslist.  I got the ESN and called to verify that it was ‘clean’ – didn’t want to buy it then find out if was stolen or something that prevented it from being activated.  “ESN is fine” I was told.  So I said “let me just clarify – I’m going to be able to activate the phone and just purchase month-to-month service, correct?”  “Oh no – you have to purchase a 2 year service agreement” and she rambled on with some bullshit rationale.

I called the local Sprint store and got the same answer, but slightly more coherent.  “Any new line of service requires a two year contract agreement.  There is no month to month service.”

I hung up, and started to think of all the questions that flow from this.

That’s patently crap, because clearly there *IS* month to month service – they don’t turn your phone service off after two years.  This is purely business/accounting from cell phone carriers who want to lock you in and guarantee their profits.

So, why do they offer phones like “Palm Pre” for $550 – $800 (depending on where you look) then say “oh, only $199 with a 2 year service agreement”.  If there’s no way I can use the phone without service from them, and service is 2 years, who are they marketing to with those list prices?  I know, it’s all smoke and mirrors, etc.

I don’t know if AT&T and Verizon and such have the same policies.  Do they?

The line about “it’s subsidizing the cost of the phone” is utter crap too.  I didn’t buy the phone from them.  They got their money (and likely early termination fee) from someone else.  And apparently, this is nothing to do with the Pre – it’s any new service.

I will probably be relegated to the land of prepay phones for the forseeable future – this cell phone racket is probably way too profitable for the oligarchs to relinquish voluntarily.

I know why they don’t do it, but they might as well advertise new phones as “$2000!  Easy 2 year financing!”.  That’s the long and short of it for most people, we (as a culture) just seem to lap it up like hungry animals.

3 comments »

Posted in Society

Palm Pre and hopeless cell phone marketing

July 26th, 2009

So, Best Buy is dropping the price to $99 for a Palm Pre with a 2 year contract.  As much as I want to get one, I still don’t want to get tied in to a contract – I may buy a used Pre from someone later (I want GSM if possible, not CDMA).

I wonder if anyone wonders why the Palms aren’t selling as well as expected, and why iPhones keep continuing to gain marketshare.  Might it have anything to do with the fact that you can’t find a working demo model anywhere?  I’ve been to three Best Buys around here, as well as a Radio Shack, and none have *any* working models of the Pre.  Actually, none of them have working models of *any* phone – except the iPhone.  Hell – even WalMart – notoriously cost-cutting cheapskates Walmart – have *working* *pluggedin* iPhones for people to mess around with.  And people still wonder why iPhones are selling more than most other phones?

The Pre was supposed to be the second coming of smartphones.  Yet even at a Sprint store, I could not find a working model.  I’ve been to two area Sprint stores.  One had a plastic handshell case, but it wasn’t a working model.  The other had *2* units that were *on* – screens were on and you could touch them and interact – for about 5 seconds.  Every 5-8 seconds, the screen would go in to a 3 second movie of flying through an open field – then cut back to where you were.  It was horrible, because it took me about a minute to realize I was not in control of the thing at all.

Why why why is the state of cell phone marketing and sales so abysmal?  Stores are asking people to part with *thousands* of dollars per year, yet can not be bothered with giving us an actual ‘test drive’ of the product before we use it?  What other industries get away with treating their customers so poorly?  I’m not even talking about the generally lousy customer service once you’ve purchased, but this it the pre-purchase courtship phase, where they should be wooing us.  Instead, we (consumers) tend to act like sheep and just blindly take whatever’s shovelled our way.

It’s a pretty sad state we’re in when a company can come to dominate a market *simply* by sucking less than other competitors.  I’ve had dealings with Apple for over 5 years now, with mixed feelings.  Generally overpriced equipment, generally middle of the road service (with the exception of my laptop keyboard), computers that still lockup and crash (sorry, I need to multitask on a ‘lowly’ white macbook with ‘only’ 2.5 gig – what am I thinking?!) and yet this company will end up dominating many markets they get in to, simply because everyone else is so much worse.

Truly depressing…

5 comments »

Posted in Apple, Society

Amway @ Panera

July 16th, 2009

I had the opportunity to listen in to bits of an Amway recruitment pitch at Panera today.  I was in a jam and needed long term net access while on the road, and Panera turned out to be the best option.  So, I’m sitting there and 3 people came to the table next to me.  One looked at my laptop and made a comment about how he’d not seen one like it before – I have a pink case for my white macbook.

“Did you make design it yourself?” I was asked.  “No, it’s just a pink cover on it.  The woman I bought it from had it on there and I’ve not taken it off.”.  “Oh, that must have cost a lot!”  “No, I got it used from Craigslist.”  “Do you mind if I ask how much you paid?” he asked.  “$700 last October.  I’m all about saving money!”  He replied in a stilted, rehearsed-but-not-yet-smooth “I’m in a business that helps people save money.”  I politely nodded and said “Sounds good.  Nice to have met you.”  I turned to continue my work and he tried to make some comment about me looking like I must be able to afford the iPhone too, to go with my mac.  “Nope, I don’t have an iPhone,” I replied, and left it at that.

About 5 minutes later another man came up to join the original three, and after some pleasantries (it was obvious none of them knew this man as a friend, just as an early acquaintance, if that) they all sat down.  I immediately started hearing about “no stock levels” and “great opportunity”.  I knew it was an Amway pitch, even though I’ve not heard one in 20 years (wow – that long ago?!)  The man was told about how great prices were on things you’d be buying anyway, and becuase you’re in business for yourself, things like the miles you drive and other expenses were tax deductible.

About 15 minutes in to this one of the guys got a phone call from “Dan” (I think it was Dan).  “Hey Dan – nice to hear from you!  I’m talking with someone right now …. yeah, OK”.  And with that the first man handed the phone to the prospect.  “Dan” continues to ask the guy rather personal questions about his love life, career, goals, etc.  The prospect had a long term girlfriend, but apparently split up right around the time marriage came up, and he felt it was a lucky escape.  He was a general contractor, working part time when he could get hired.  Didn’t have long term goals, but did consider himself the kind of guy who was open to make extra money, etc…

Dan hangs up, and then the first guy starts talking about the stuff Dan must have told him about – how rich Dan is, his ‘lifestyle’ and the toys he can afford because of the ‘business’. I though to myself “If Dan is so rich, why does he spend his time talking to strangers who are sitting at a Panera?”  But what do I know?

Truthfully, I know I missed some bits of the conversation, and some of the Amway pitch may have changed slightly from 20 years ago, but I don’t think much has.  Showing slides on a laptop is certainly different than it was in the 80s, but the main points are all still there.

I couldn’t tell if the prospect was being polite or not.  I have to say, for all the pressure they were putting on him, I was a bit surprised they didn’t offer to buy him dinner.  They were at a Panera, it was dinner time, and that would have seemed to be both a polite and possibly sneaky thing to do (polite because he’s giving up his time and sneaky because it might further guilt him in to considering things more).

I was doing my own work, fixing some emergency stuff, but was drawn to watching ‘the plan’ be presented yet again, and found it oddly fascinating that this still goes on.  There was some comment made about how this was a better way of shopping than going to Target.  I just can’t believe people really believe this stuff, but did notice that all the pitchers were *young* – none could have been over 23-24 max, and were probably much younger.  Having said that, I’ve known older people in Amway too, so perhaps age doesn’t have as much to do with it as I think.

2 comments »

Posted in Society

Atheism in Arkansas

February 21st, 2009

Just found this interesting tidbit from the Washington Post:

Arkansas is one of half a dozen states that still exclude non-believers from public office. Article 19 Section 1 of the 1874 Arkansas Constitution states that “No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court.”

The “as a witness” part is interesting to me, as it seems that an atheist could still be charged with a crime, but not be allowed to testify on their own behalf.  I may be misconstruing this.  Certainly none of their atheist friends or family members would be able to testify on their behalf, though. 

There’s a bill in the Arkansas legislature to repeal this insanity.  I pray to God it passes quickly.  ;)

4 comments »

Posted in Religion, Society