Archive for October, 2006

I blogged last Friday bout how I was getting slow download speeds, and how – after talking for nearly an hour with some arrogant customer support representative – he said they were going to report it. Well, I called monday to see what had happened, and there was no report made, not even a record of my call with them! So – again I had to go through a zillion tests, and another arrogant customer representative that treated me like an idiot. Until doing all the tests and one hour later the report was submitted. So now I have to wait another (possibly) 2 days before I get it to work ok.
Telmex / Prodigy sucks. Especially if you put in context the amount they charge for the service. Jeeez.

Since we recently moved, we had our ADSL connection moved as well. It was supposed to be the quickest ADSL in Mexico (except for the ridiculously high priced corporate ADSL), at 1380 kbps downstream / 384 kbps upstream. This cost me around 100 USD / month. This connection worked really well at the other house. A normal transfer rate of around 1100-1200 kbps. A totally different story when we moved.
The fee to change addresses was around 25 USD. No problem there. The time it took was an acceptable 1-2 weeks. No problem there either.
The speed, was – however – something to complain about. I would get maximum 600-700 kbps. So I called Telmex to complain. It seemed they eliminated the type of ADSL account I had. It is now impossible to buy a 1380 kbps service. They duplicated the speed on the 512kbps and 1024kbps accounts (the 1024 kbps account cost around 70 USD, but was really unreliable regarding downstream speed, and upstream it offered only 128 kbps. I need more to be able to use VOIP).
So I was suddenly moved down to the 1024 kbps account, thus getting 600-700 kbps… as they advertise their speeds, they say “up to 1024 kbps”, so as not to be liable for any slow connection speeds.
So they lowered my speed, but kept charging me 100 USD. When asking them how they could do that, nobody had a good answer. After a few angry calls, they duplicated my speed to 2048 / 256. It worked so, so. I thought it was a problem with the cabling of the house. I would get good transfer speeds (around 1600-1700 kbps) every now and then, but most of the time, speeds would linger in the low 400′s. Totally unacceptable. Until the whole thing stopped working 2 days ago. My ADSL router wouldn’t find any connection. So there I go calling Telmex again. They said it would take between 24 and 72 hours to fix the problem. Meanwhile I was offered their dial-up service. Jerks.
Got it fixed after some 40 hours. It seems a card in the phone central blew up. Again I was fighting speeds of 0.2-0.6 mbps. So I bought a long phone extension cord (the main jack is in the living room, on the street level floor), and did a connection from that jack to the main bedroom (one floor below). There is already an extension, but I thought it might be oxidated, so I thought I’d better do a new extension. Thinking that would fix the problem, I sat down at my computer to see I had the exact same speed problems as before.
To eliminate possible causes for error (I might have done the extension in a bad fashion or so), I went upstairs, and connected the ADSL router to the main jack, where I’m sitting right now. Speed? 0.2-0.6 mpbs. Seems the problem wasn’t the cabling in the house.
45 minutes later, after doing a number of tests (over the phone with a not so good support tech from Telmex), he solemnly declared that I will have to wait another 24-72 hours while they check this out….
Pretty damn tiresome.

..it’s not anything I’ve done, but I read an article recently in Wired (Sim City: Terrortown ) about a guy (Chris Suellentrop) who did. The simulation took place in a small New England town called Harbortown, and he sat down with the real life police chief, fire chief, etc. They were supposed to try to keep the city and it’s population safe from the cyberterrorists. They couldn’t.
Now, I guess doing these kinds of simulations are good. But has anybody asked himself the question WHY would there be cyberterrorism against the US? Isn’t that a better way to go?
Let’s say you know that somebody is really angry with you, for whatever reason. So angry this person might want to cause you harm. Do you sit still, barricade yourself somewhere and wait for that someone to come and try to kill you? Or do you try to find a solution to the problem (NO, preemptive strikes are NOT allowed)? Try to see what you can do for this guy so that he doesn’t want to kill you? Talk? Maybe?
Big time politics aren’t as monochromatic as pictured above. It may not be as easy as just saying “let’s talk to the terrorists”, but the hatred against the US isn’t new. I think it’s time to take care of two points:
1) What can the US do to “calm” down anti-US sentiment? It’s as easy as going back throughout the US foreign policy to understand why they are hated in some parts of the world (and not quite as hated in other).
2) What can the US do to improve pro-US sentiment? It’s not the same as 1), since 1) implies accepting having failed and doing wrong.

So, instead of sitting down waiting for someone to strike against you, it’s better to defuse the situation… at least I think so…

I once had an Asus Pundit computer, excellent buy a couple of years ago. 1GB RAM, 250 GB HDD, 3.06 GHz P4. Two years ago that was a pretty darn cool computer. Now it’s only so-so. But I’m looking to buy a new SFF PC, maybe a Pundit? I want something with 2GB RAM. HDD size is not really important. 160 GB would do well. And then there’s the processor. Maybe a P4 3.4 GHz? Paybe an Intel Core Duo? Don’t know yet.