How dumb can ISP technical people be?

The answer to the subject line is VERY DUMB. I'll explain.

As you know, I recently moved and had to switch from Cablevision (Optimum Online) to Comcast.
Cablevision was rock solid, and I only had problems when my aging 3COM cable modem bit the dust, but the Comcast picture isn't so rosy (well for me anyway).

I had it in for a few days and the upload speed was reduced to 50Kbps. I first noticed this because my Vonage calls became inaudible because they need at least 100 Kbps up (well 96Kbps but add a bit for overhead and latency). I called Comcast to report this and they told me that it was a problem on their end and that they would monitor it over a 48 hour period.

I called the next day because it was just too slow. This new "technical expert" had me power off the modem and my Linksys router for 1 minute and plug it all back in. I asked her why this was necessary and I was told something very similar to the following:

"Because I am using a non-Comcast router, it is causing the signal level to drop below the spec.". I told her that I have been doing networking since 1989 and that this explanation made no sense. I told her that the signal stops at the cable modem and fro mthe cable modem to the router is pure IP running over Ethernet. Nope she insisted. My router takes the signal and distributes it to all of my devices on the networks and this is what causes it to degrade.

I argued with her for a while, telling her that it is all IP over Ethernet and that the cable modem has absolutely no idea what is grabbing the IP. She disagreed.

Now, for those of you who know networking, can you believe that they put people like this on support lines to help people fix their problems. These people have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how networking works.

Anyway, so far, my upload speed has stayed above 360Kbps now, the down is around 3Mbps.

Enough about crappy ISP support lines and on to something that I thought I'd never watch on TV, Mad Money. I was on a trip somewhere and was channel surfing in the hotel when I stumbled across this program. I was riveted! Jim Cramer is very fascinating to watch. The Lightening Round is the best. He routinely ignores the commercial time slots to get in just a few more calls (he must have a really easy going Producer). I have seen a few comments on blogs that during the Lightening Round it is like watching a heart attack waiting to happen and I must agree. Jim really gets into it, but man does this make for excellent TV, plus it seems to be useful information. Do yourself a favor and watch it sometime. I think that this will be adding a Season Pass for this on my TiVo. And no, a DVR is only LIKE a TiVo, but as clever as one.

Now to Ford Mustangs and Cadillac's. Some of you may know that I was a proud owner of a 1998 Ford Mustang GT that I bought new in December 1997 and gave back at the end of the least in 2001. When the new 2005 Mustang came out I vowed that I would get one but this time I would get the convertible because after all, isn't that the coolest way to travel, top down, feeling the wind in your hair (as long as you have some that is), etc?

Well, I tried my very best to buy one but was faced with Ford dealerships bold, in your face, blatant, rip off schemes. First, every dealership adds $5,000.00 to the MSRP of the 2005 Mustang GT Convertible. Next, since Ford offers NO incentives of any kind of decent interest rate for this car, if you lease it, you end up having to pay about $800-$900 per month even with a few thousand down. I really tried to shop around. I called and called, and even called Malouf Ford that was close to my house, and who I took my old Mustang to for ALL services and repairs. I was met with VERY BAD ATTITUDES as soon as I said the words Mustang GT Convertible. They basically didn't want to speak to me, let alone further discuss the car.

I even went down to the Malouf dealership after I was told that they would wave the $5,000.00 if I ordered a 2006 model. When I got there, I was met by a belligerent sales person who was TOTALLY uninterested in discussing this car. He also told me that the previous offer of dropping the $5,000.00 was off (even though I was told this was done for me for being a loyal Malouf Ford customer and bringing my vehicle in there for 6 years). I called Ford about this but they just blew me of and told me that dealerships can do whatever they want.

I think that Ford is chasing away loyal (and I'm a VERY loyal Mustang customer) customers by allowing dealerships to screw people as hard as possible. Ford, if you are listening. You have now pissed me off so much (and I bet other Mustang loyalists who don't want to be screwed by dealers) that I now do not want another Ford vehicle. This has left such a bad taste in my mouth. You absolutely cannot treat people like dog shit a and expect them to come back.

So, on to what I ended up buying. In January we bought a 2005 Cadillac CTS for Karen. At the time, I was still dead set on buying my Mustang GT Convertible. When I couldn't, and GM started offering employee pricing, the Cadillac CTS-V came down to basically the same as what we paid for Karen's CTS. So, after much deliberation between a new BMW 3 series (which ended up to be too expensive with options that are offered on a CTS for free), I bought a 2005 Cadillac CTS-V. This vehicle is the same as the CTS, but has a Corvette engine in it. It is the LS6 and is 400 horse power (298 Kilowatts for you metric weenies). It is a 5.7 Liter V8. This is a step up from the 3.6 liter V6 in the regular CTS which pumps out 255 horse power (190 kilowatts).

Other feature differences on this car is that it has Brembo brakes, different exhaust pipes, and is only available in manual (stick shift). This proved to be challenging to me because the last time I drove a stick was in 1994 when I owned a BMW 316i. Since then it has been auto all the way. This stick shift has one extra "feature" which causes the transmission to force you into changing from 1st gear to 4th gear to save fuel. I wasn't actually aware of this when I bought the car (I didn't RTFM of course) and wondered why I couldn't get it from 1st to 2nd under certain conditions. Since RTFM'ing I now change more smoothly (expecting the 1-4 change).

This car is awesome to drive! Harder ride than the regular CTS, but that is only evident when hitting silly tar humps caused by people covering a trench without smoothing it out, or shrink humps caused by temperature differences, but otherwise on the highway, it is silky smooth.

I do like the extra displays that shows tire pressure on all tires, lateral g forces, etc. I like seeing how many lateral g's I can pull :-)

Instead of the real wood insert on the door handles, the CTS-V has brushed aluminum. The wood insert on the regular CTS steering wheel is absent on the CTS-V.

Book and Move

Book

While I have yet to see actual sales figure, I am guessing that my book is selling well.
It hangs in the Amazon Top Ten Handheld book sales and also in the Bookpool Top Ten Gadget book sales.

Today I received my complimentary author copies which I will be sending to family members. I am also hanging out at the Wrox P2P forum for my book to see if there are any questions or comments relating to it. So, pop by if you have a minute.

Move

The move to our new house was sort of traumatic because we were ripped off by the moving company. A Professional Movers gave me an email quote for $85 per hour and estimated that it would take about 7 hours to move. This is after I repeatedly asked if they didn't want to come to my house and do a more realistic estimate. Nope, they said, we can figure it all out.

The only other extra charge was for packing materials. Since we packed everything but the TV, we figured that the packing materials charge would be low. They had also bumped up the cost to $105 per hour without my knowledge.

Come the day of the move, I signed the packing materials list (how could I refuse at this point - it was move day) and noticed that the items were pricey, but still I thought, how much packing material could be used to pack my TV.

They loaded the truck and before unloading asked me to pay up. The packing material charge was $1,300.00!!!!!! Can you imagine someone spending $1,300.00 on bubble wrap, tape, and boxes? Well they had managed to. I watched them spend 2 hours wrapping up the TV. One guy just wasted as much tape as he could by unrolling a roll of tape right against the TV.

They also took 12 hours to move and had to make 2 trips, even though I stressed that I had a lot of stuff.

They apparently do this all the time because when I confronted the owner, he just shouted at me over the phone and told me that I couldn't do anything about it. I later came to find out that in New Jersey, moving companies are not regulated and so they can pull this kind of thing off without recourse. So, if you are contemplating a move in New Jersey, DO NOT call A Professional Movers unless you want to get the bait and switch.