Monday, July 31
More Adventures in ISP
Ok, I got called out to a new client on Monday afternoon. Their ISP had blocked them from sending e-mail via their own POP3 e-mail server because they were detecting SPAM zombies within the network.
They were also having some other problems with the network, and I needed to get into their router and make some changes.
So we called the ISP to get access to the router.
First, the guy who used to work with the ISP quit on short notice, over a year ago, and had used his Hotmail account to handle all the business with the ISP.
The ISP would not give us the router username and password without an e-mail from this Hotmail address. After about fifteen minutes of fighting with the tech, we asked for a supervisor and explained that the guy was gone, so there was going to be no e-mail to the ISP from his Hotmail account.
So the supervisor tells us that the only alternative is for someone from within the domain to send an e-mail to the ISP. "OK," I said, then unblock the customer from sending e-mail."
The supervisor says he can't do that because there are spam zombies in the network.
So, I asked, "Is the only way to fix our network from which you are blocking e-mail is to send you an e-mail is to send you an e-mail that you won't get because you are blocking our e-mail?"
And he said, "Yes."
Completely frustrated, I asked, "Do you speak any language other than English?"
He said, "No, why?"
I replied, "Because I wanted you to say what I just told you in another language and see if it sounded just as stupid as it did in English. Let me talk to your supervisor."
So finally, the third person we talked to seemed to understand that you can't send an e-mail from a domain where e-mail is being blocked and gave us the username and password.
This whole process took over an hour and a half with hold times and hunting down supervisors. Net cost for the ISP being inept for my customer: $225.00
Netifice could possibley be the least useful ISP I have dealt with in a while.
Now, here is the absolutely funniest part of the story. Everyone at the company that had the problem was from India. The ISP help desk was all in the USA. That is the exact opposite of how it usually works.
They were also having some other problems with the network, and I needed to get into their router and make some changes.
So we called the ISP to get access to the router.
First, the guy who used to work with the ISP quit on short notice, over a year ago, and had used his Hotmail account to handle all the business with the ISP.
The ISP would not give us the router username and password without an e-mail from this Hotmail address. After about fifteen minutes of fighting with the tech, we asked for a supervisor and explained that the guy was gone, so there was going to be no e-mail to the ISP from his Hotmail account.
So the supervisor tells us that the only alternative is for someone from within the domain to send an e-mail to the ISP. "OK," I said, then unblock the customer from sending e-mail."
The supervisor says he can't do that because there are spam zombies in the network.
So, I asked, "Is the only way to fix our network from which you are blocking e-mail is to send you an e-mail is to send you an e-mail that you won't get because you are blocking our e-mail?"
And he said, "Yes."
Completely frustrated, I asked, "Do you speak any language other than English?"
He said, "No, why?"
I replied, "Because I wanted you to say what I just told you in another language and see if it sounded just as stupid as it did in English. Let me talk to your supervisor."
So finally, the third person we talked to seemed to understand that you can't send an e-mail from a domain where e-mail is being blocked and gave us the username and password.
This whole process took over an hour and a half with hold times and hunting down supervisors. Net cost for the ISP being inept for my customer: $225.00
Netifice could possibley be the least useful ISP I have dealt with in a while.
Now, here is the absolutely funniest part of the story. Everyone at the company that had the problem was from India. The ISP help desk was all in the USA. That is the exact opposite of how it usually works.
Labels: bad support, isp, work
Tuesday, July 25
Happy 3rd Birthday!
Ok, it was three years ago today that I started Unruly Behavior.
Inspired by guys like Jake and Wil Wheaton, I started my own blog.
So, what has changed in three years ago?
Number of children at launch of UB - Zero
Number of children at third birthday - three
Number of near death experiences at launch - Zero
Number of near death experiences since - one
Car at launch - Ford Contour SVT
Car at thrid - Ford Escape XLT
Number of jobs heald during past three years - two
When I started I was normal, now I'm diabetic.
Oh, and I now run several stores, including the Unruly Store and the Carlos You Suck store.
I've added three more blogs, my XBOX Live! Gaming Blog, Clan Easy Frag, and it's little brother, PGR Car Pics and finally my eBay Grifter ID Project website that I used to expose an eBay theif.
The posts here have been too numerous to list, and I'm having great fun. Hope you folks continue to enjoy.
Unruly Behavior: Yeah, what he said.
Inspired by guys like Jake and Wil Wheaton, I started my own blog.
So, what has changed in three years ago?
Number of children at launch of UB - Zero
Number of children at third birthday - three
Number of near death experiences at launch - Zero
Number of near death experiences since - one
Car at launch - Ford Contour SVT
Car at thrid - Ford Escape XLT
Number of jobs heald during past three years - two
When I started I was normal, now I'm diabetic.
Oh, and I now run several stores, including the Unruly Store and the Carlos You Suck store.
I've added three more blogs, my XBOX Live! Gaming Blog, Clan Easy Frag, and it's little brother, PGR Car Pics and finally my eBay Grifter ID Project website that I used to expose an eBay theif.
The posts here have been too numerous to list, and I'm having great fun. Hope you folks continue to enjoy.
Unruly Behavior: Yeah, what he said.
Labels: birthday, family, other blogs, vehicle, work, xbox
Monday, July 24
The New AT&T
There is no such thing as a good ISP.
They all suck.
AT&T is doing their best to ruin my week, and it is only Monday.
So, here is the deal:
Customer moved from one house to another. Somehow instead of getting a move order on their DSL, they ended up with a new install. Nobody knew about this till Friday, when their DSL just stopped working. They had been using their old DSL login at the new location. It was terminated for being unbillable. Now, this is no ordinary household, they have business lines and about 8 phone lines and a real phone switch. This complicates DSL, and as a result they only have one line that can have DSL.
So, to fix this problem, AT&T cannot just move one DSL account to the number they are using. They have to cancel the new DSL account. Then they have to get the old DSL circuit moved. This will result in about a week of no DSL to their house.
Now on top of this, it is almost impossible to get through to the right person at AT&T to work on this problem.
The first number I tried:
877-722-3755 - this is a support number, they cannot help me getting the account setup properly, they will transfer me to billing for the state of Texas region. After several minutes on hold, they came back to tell me that they are having issues with their equipment, I can call:
866-224-4332 - called this number repeatedly, it is always busy, thus useless.
So I went to the att.com/1299 website and found the following number:
800-464-7928 - They are the ones that told me that the only option is for the customer to be down for 8 days to get this problem resolved. They also gave me a different number to call them back:
888-722-9337 x809 - So I called them back to ask some additional questions. This is a support number in Japan from what little Japanese I know. Great, way to go AT&T. So I called again to find about merging the two DSL accounts into one so that they could keep their old e-mail and just use the new login. Billing couldn't answer this question, so they transferred me to ASI for second tier support.
Fially, someone that knows what they are doing, after 75 minutes on the phone, a tech that can do what I want, even though other techs and billing said it could not be done.
It took ASI about 30 minutes to make the changes. So, all in all, I have nearly 4 billable hours in a ticket where the actual fix took 30 minutes.
At least I'm done with AT&T for now.
They all suck.
AT&T is doing their best to ruin my week, and it is only Monday.
So, here is the deal:
Customer moved from one house to another. Somehow instead of getting a move order on their DSL, they ended up with a new install. Nobody knew about this till Friday, when their DSL just stopped working. They had been using their old DSL login at the new location. It was terminated for being unbillable. Now, this is no ordinary household, they have business lines and about 8 phone lines and a real phone switch. This complicates DSL, and as a result they only have one line that can have DSL.
So, to fix this problem, AT&T cannot just move one DSL account to the number they are using. They have to cancel the new DSL account. Then they have to get the old DSL circuit moved. This will result in about a week of no DSL to their house.
Now on top of this, it is almost impossible to get through to the right person at AT&T to work on this problem.
The first number I tried:
877-722-3755 - this is a support number, they cannot help me getting the account setup properly, they will transfer me to billing for the state of Texas region. After several minutes on hold, they came back to tell me that they are having issues with their equipment, I can call:
866-224-4332 - called this number repeatedly, it is always busy, thus useless.
So I went to the att.com/1299 website and found the following number:
800-464-7928 - They are the ones that told me that the only option is for the customer to be down for 8 days to get this problem resolved. They also gave me a different number to call them back:
888-722-9337 x809 - So I called them back to ask some additional questions. This is a support number in Japan from what little Japanese I know. Great, way to go AT&T. So I called again to find about merging the two DSL accounts into one so that they could keep their old e-mail and just use the new login. Billing couldn't answer this question, so they transferred me to ASI for second tier support.
Fially, someone that knows what they are doing, after 75 minutes on the phone, a tech that can do what I want, even though other techs and billing said it could not be done.
It took ASI about 30 minutes to make the changes. So, all in all, I have nearly 4 billable hours in a ticket where the actual fix took 30 minutes.
At least I'm done with AT&T for now.
Labels: bad support, isp, work
Thursday, July 20
Wow, that's really high...
Whoops, looks like the blood sugar is really high today. Guess the stress and business of twins is getting to me.
This explains why I am so tired.
Lunch Dump
Had a little wipeout at lunch today. Went to the Chinese resturant by the Ice Rink in the Galleria. When they handed me my styrofoam carton, the lid was not secured, and the food made a run for the border.
Labels: dining
Wednesday, July 19
Vonage With a Router
This is more informational for myself, but this is a link for using Vonage phone service with the adapter inside your router.
Vonage - Ports to forward on your router.
Vonage - Ports to forward on your router.
Labels: tech
Tuesday, July 18
Vending Nirvana
Ok, if you work in Information Technology like I do, you know the demands of the job often put you out of synch with the real world. Crashed servers, stupid users and general equipment failures can all conspire to keep you away from meals, family and the other things in life that you desire.
So, I'm always on the lookout for something cool that could help with this problem.
Three weeks ago tonight, I was at Texas Women's Hospital, where my wife was in labor with our twins. I had lunch that day, but went straight to the hospital at 5:30 PM. Our twins were born at 6:55 PM. The hospital cafeteria closed at 7:00 PM. Needless to say I missed dinner. So, armed with just a five-spot and my wits, I headed to the cafeteria to get something from the vending machines.
I was looking forward to another wonderful meal of a Coke Zero, bag of chips and a candy bar.
But when I walked into the cafeteria, I came upon the Holy Grail of vending, the Kraft "Carry Out Cafe", a machine that advertised it would dispense Pizza, Hot Wings and Chicken sandwiches.
So after getting over my initial disbelief and shock. I had to decide what was for dinner.
I decided to go with something tried and true, a Tombstone Pepperoni Pizza.
At the low, low price of just $3.00, I could afford a Coke Zero and a candy bar as well to make it a balanced meal.
So in went my five-spot, out came two Sacagawea Golden dollar coins in change, and the countdown began. I was off to the Coke machine while I waited.
Once my pizza was done, I got the standard warning about it being hot.
And out of the serving bin it came to the table.
The back of the box tells the story of this pizza, it is beyond tiny, only 340 calories. That's not even close to a snack in my diet. We'll have to see if it is at least tasty.
Yeah, that's my cell phone, and it's not one of the old ones that is huge, that is a nearly new Motorola V325 from Verizon. This pizza was freaking tiny, about six small bites.
Here is the again, compared to my Coke Zero. Good news, it tasted a little better than it looked. But it didn't taste that good. The biggest problem was it's consistency. The end on the right was overcooked, and very hard and too hot to put in my mouth comfortably. The middle was a little too hot, and the left side was just right. This might be good for some people, but I'm not into Goldilocks food when it comes to meals, even ones eaten quickly on the run.
The pizza taste was good, it could have used a little more cheese, and the pepperoni chunks could have been distributed more evenly. All in all, not bad for food when there is none other available. But I would not expect to walk away for full for less than twenty bucks either.
So, I'm always on the lookout for something cool that could help with this problem.
Three weeks ago tonight, I was at Texas Women's Hospital, where my wife was in labor with our twins. I had lunch that day, but went straight to the hospital at 5:30 PM. Our twins were born at 6:55 PM. The hospital cafeteria closed at 7:00 PM. Needless to say I missed dinner. So, armed with just a five-spot and my wits, I headed to the cafeteria to get something from the vending machines.
I was looking forward to another wonderful meal of a Coke Zero, bag of chips and a candy bar.
But when I walked into the cafeteria, I came upon the Holy Grail of vending, the Kraft "Carry Out Cafe", a machine that advertised it would dispense Pizza, Hot Wings and Chicken sandwiches.
So after getting over my initial disbelief and shock. I had to decide what was for dinner.
I decided to go with something tried and true, a Tombstone Pepperoni Pizza.
At the low, low price of just $3.00, I could afford a Coke Zero and a candy bar as well to make it a balanced meal.
So in went my five-spot, out came two Sacagawea Golden dollar coins in change, and the countdown began. I was off to the Coke machine while I waited.
Once my pizza was done, I got the standard warning about it being hot.
And out of the serving bin it came to the table.
The back of the box tells the story of this pizza, it is beyond tiny, only 340 calories. That's not even close to a snack in my diet. We'll have to see if it is at least tasty.
Yeah, that's my cell phone, and it's not one of the old ones that is huge, that is a nearly new Motorola V325 from Verizon. This pizza was freaking tiny, about six small bites.
Here is the again, compared to my Coke Zero. Good news, it tasted a little better than it looked. But it didn't taste that good. The biggest problem was it's consistency. The end on the right was overcooked, and very hard and too hot to put in my mouth comfortably. The middle was a little too hot, and the left side was just right. This might be good for some people, but I'm not into Goldilocks food when it comes to meals, even ones eaten quickly on the run.
The pizza taste was good, it could have used a little more cheese, and the pepperoni chunks could have been distributed more evenly. All in all, not bad for food when there is none other available. But I would not expect to walk away for full for less than twenty bucks either.
Tuesday, July 4
Patriotic Interlude
I grew up in Friendswood, Texas. They have one of the oldest 4th of July parades in the nation. My wife and I took the wild man there last year, I took him by myself this year while she went and fed the twins. Here is a clip of the Friendswood High School Marching Mustang Band at the Parade. Enjoy. Happy Birthday USA!
Labels: birthday, family, parade
Um, yeah, well, OK
Ok, I'm going to be cleaning out my Blogger folder today when I have a spare minute.
Saw this sticker on a Kia Sedona minivan one day, and the only things I could think were:
1) Dog can't be too smart, it hangs out with you.
2) It will be hard to identify the biggest bitch in your vehicle.
Monday, July 3
Weiner Mobile & More
Wow, to call things crazy around here would be the ultimate undersatement.
My wife is home from the hospital and doing well. The twins are in NICU, getting stronger and learning to eat.
Our firstborn has become a little terror due to the strange schedules and such, he is really upset.
I've got lots of cool stuff to add to the blog once things settle down a bit. Right now I just need a clone.
Time Warner Cable did fix my cable modem, turns out my idiot neighbor dug up the cable. That makes 3 CATV cables and 4 phone cables they have dug up back there. What a bunch of morons.
Oh, and I've been seeing the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile parked in the same spot for about two weeks now.
Labels: commute, dining, vehicle
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