AT&T, What Are You Thinking?

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Sure, you (Cingular) helped to bring us the iPhone when the other carriers wouldn't put their trust in Apple.  You gave us the fastest 3G data speeds for a while.  You even attempted to give us an unlimited data plan for an unheard of price with the announcement of the first iPad.

But your cell tower coverage is seriously lacking.  I get at least one dropped call a day, and I had to get my own Microcell just so that I could get reception at home.  You took away the unlimited data plan from the iPad less than two months since launch.

Now Verizon has the iPhone too, and their 4G LTE speeds leave your 3G in the dust.  You have just limited your unlimited data plan you promised to us early iPhone adopters by throttling it.  You are threatening to bill us for tethering our data plans.  That's like the cable company asking us to pay for each tv we hook up in our house.  Your cell coverage still sucks. 

Explain to me again why I should stay loyal to you when my contract is up?

Weird Ooma Issue - Can't make phone calls to a particular 310 phone number

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I have two Ooma's - one for Los Angeles and one for San Jose.  I've tested both calling out to a 310 phone number for flight reservations overseas, and both will not connect.  In case you have an Ooma, the number I'm trying to reach is EVA Airways: 310-362-6600.

I get a disconnected tone.  Or a busy tone.  However, when I call using a mobile phone, it connects just fine.

I've contacted Ooma about this and we will see what they say.

AT&T Microcell is driving me nuts!! Its up... no its down. It's up again!

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One of the most frequently occurring things is someone calling me, and getting voicemail.  (Thank you AT&T!  No really, you screen my phone calls for me.  I have an iPhone but really wanted an iTouch with GPS capabilities).  

It seems to go down at random times during the day, but more so after 10 PM PST.  There is simply no warning or schedule to it - it simply goes down and then comes back up when it decides to.  Resetting it / rebooting it seems to have no effect what-so-ever on it.

Right now its up!  Yay!

I should mention that the Microcell was purchased used - hey!  maybe that's why the jerk sold it to me.  j/k.  I'm sure all craigslist sellers have the best of intentions but end up looking shady anyway.

Lately I've been getting "thank you for activating your MicroCell 3G" emails from AT&T.  What's that about?  Maybe it's AT&T's fault?  (Wait wasn't it always AT&T's fault?)

I'm sooo ready to adopt Verizon and Apples upcoming iPhone baby.  Too bad I'm still stuck in contract with AT&T for 2 years...

So that's my experience with the MicroCell so far.  I try to be the glass is half full type of guy, so I like to think of it as a bonus when I DO get reception and 50 angry text messages / voicemails at a time...

When is unlimited, not unlimited? Turns out almost everywhere.

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Unlimited

adjective 

1. not limited; unrestricted; unconfined
2. boundless; infinite; vast
3. without any qualification, or exception 

Home unlimited internet access is limited.  Try uploading at maximum speeds for a while and you will find your access severely throttled.  I should know because I knew for a fact that Comcast did that, as I'm sure Time Warner did for a while.  What they do now is slow the internet down so its near unbearable for anything else after a while.

Cell phone data plans aren't unlimited, even if they were advertised as so.  Well at least now the carriers have done away with unlimited data plans and are starting to charge more reasonable fees for tiered plans.

And really with the comparatively slow speeds of our "high speed" internet access we can't compare with many other countries in speed or affordability so reach a relatively low cap every month in how many movies we can stream or pictures we can upload.

Ooma calling isn't unlimited.  At first the limit was 3,000 minutes per month, but has recently went up to 5,000 minutes per month.  In case you're wondering that comes out to about 2 weeks of straight talking.

My latest pickle has to do with my Pro Phanfare account with unlimited storage.  Turns out I've hit the limit not once, but twice so far this year.  The first time it was because I hit a 50 GB upload limit back in May while I was in Asia.  I'm sure that I wasn't the typical customer who only takes snapshots on vacation with their pocket cams (but hey, most of my shots in Asia this year was with my pocket camera).

At that time they told me they had just raised the limit to 100 GB upload which I just hit yesterday while uploading pictures from this past week's touristy romp around So. Cal with friends.

I fit the profile of 1% of their customers I'm told, and my current storage costs them about $600 per year not including any bandwidth usage since they use Amazon's S3 storage service.  Click here to see their rates.

My advice.  Read the fine print - there's always fine print.  They re-define what unlimited is, and typically state that no matter what, they can change what 'unlimited' means at any time without notice.

IT is very important - but why do companies keep cutting back?

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Ask any business executive how important IT has been to their business over the past 5 years and chances are they will agree that not only is it crucial, but it's becoming more important than ever.

But if you talk to accounting and get an idea of the company's IT budget, you will see a completely different story.  It seems that businesses are cutting back on IT expenditures, and overall money spent on IT innovation has been steadily dropping.  From the years 2005-2009, IT innovation has dropped from 20% to the 14% of the typical IT budget expenditure according to a study done by A.T. Kearney It Innovation and Effectiveness.  

What is astounding to me is that there is the attitude that while the technology portion of their business is important, the IT department isn't.  It's now only there to merely keep things running.  This past year we have seen cuts of over 25% across the board and more businesses that are just asking for contract IT to come in to repair, not even perform preventative maintenance - much less innovate or upgrade IT infrastructure.  And if anything with the way the economy has been going I've been seeing IT cut-backs so that even maintaining company IT infrastructure is a challenge.

These same companies are leaving IT out of the loop.  They are taking a do-it-yourself attitude and trying to take IT innovation in their own hands.  This ranges from buying their staff a complete new set of android based smart-phones, to new computers, all the way to complete new servers without consulting IT.  Naturally when compatibility issues come up, and things don't work (as wass as the advertising campaign where the business owner is standing next to a simple server box with a smug look on his face) - they blame IT for their downtime.

Business executives, please let us do our job.  Dell computers does not know your business like we do.  Best Buy is not selling you computers that will work in your corporate environment.  Consult with us.  Listen to what we have to tell you.  Don't cut back on your IT budgets because in the long run, your business will suffer.

12 hour blackout in Los Angeles area - cause? Trees.

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Yes you read that right.  Our power grid was brought down by trees.  The trees came in contact with the power lines and somehow shorted the system.  I knew this was coming when a few days ago I posted about how power outages are going to occur more frequently and to protect your equipment!

Well, my equipment was protected - it wasn't until the beeping started from my UPS systems that I realized there was an outage.  I would have kept some of my systems running the entire duration of the blackout (phone and internet service) except for the fact that I can't stand the annoying beep!

Next goal is to find a UPS system that's affordable with a beep that can be disabled with a switch or software configured.

 

Growing outrage at Blizzard's Starcraft II restrictions, and limited gameplay

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Starcraft II was most definitely a huge launch worldwide.  We already know it's going to be a great game since Blizzard had spent the past 11 years working on it on and off.  But what is the deal with all the limitations?

Here they are in a nutshell:

1. You are completely tied to the internet.  You can't login without internet connection to battlenet.  You have the register the game.  You can only play with your friends if they are connected to the internet.

2. Its 1/3 of a game!  You only get to play the Terran campaign, but yet you pay $60+ for it!  Expect about 20-30 hours of gameplay for the campaign on normal difficulty.  Yes, multiplayer is really where it's at, but at the same time it feels as though you need to play through those campaigns to get a feel for the other races.

3. Network multiplayer requires everybody to own a copy of the game.  You can't just 'spawn' guest copies for your friends to play with you like you used to be able to do with the original Starcraft.

4. Product activation will happen again and again with each new update.

Still, if you can stomach all that, it gives you guys all that you've been craving since Star Craft I and expansions.  It's still 'relatively' cheap entertainment and there's no monthly fees to play on battle.net.  Just make sure you save up the cash for the 2 other future expansions. I'm going to guess its going to be priced at about $40 a piece.