I’m going to start off by stating something that a lot of folks will agree with, Verizon wireless is a good cellular provider.

As a company Meh- They are very much like every other company.  A couple of months ago I went out and picked up a USB wireless Internet card from them. Going with Verizon was an easy choice as I had been issued a Verizon Wireless Internet card (or whatever they are called these days) for my work.  It worked  great and all that so I figured since  I have a little netbook might as well set it up and have a portable where I can work from anywhere and have an always on ISP no more searching out Hotspts and that garbage. So I go to the Verizon store. Once there I talk to a guy who interrogates me as to why I’m there,  and proceeds to ensure that I enter in my name and info into a master computer. All this so I can wait for someone who will help me out with the specifics. Now I have grown up in the Washington DC area and in Virginia our DMV utilizes a similar system.  You go in, wait in a line where a person asks you in a similar accusatory tone “why are you here?” and unlike Verizon actually makes sure you have what you need to have to get your forms and plates that you are there for, then, they print out a number and you go to wait.  Back to Verizon-  I wander about the store for a few minutes  and eventually I hear my name and  I  talk to the guy who will help me. We sort out the details and he rings up the transaction , credit check etc… approval needed and comes after another phone call, I do more  shuffling about. no problem here nor with the subsequent return of said card which for what ever reason my eeePC just didn’t want to play with.  all in all true to the slogan they have about it being haslle free.

I know what you are thinking this article is  BORING!  so what he bought something, Verizon is great company and all that why the title? this is where the controversy is happening right here .. this next part is either sheer genius or utter incompetence. I’ve not decided which nor do I really care but I wanted to write about someting today and this seemed like a good topic.

WHAT HAPPENED?

I got a collection notice from Verizon yesterday. well not from Verizon but from an actual collections company. it was for less than $10 which is why I’m thinking it genius.  granted I’m curious lad so I started calling about and confused as I was about this notice since I don’t currently have Verizon service and didn’t receive any bills from them for the 4 months prior to this rather ominous looking notice going out.  of course my first thought is call the company who sent me the letter. dead-end just a recording reciting the applicable Federal law about how this is an attempt to collect a debt blah blah blah.  so I see they have a verizon account number great I’ll call Verizon and work it out with them.  so I find a customer support number and what is the first thing that the recording tele-bot asks for? my 10 digit verizon phone number. I don’t have one!  so I hit a few buttons which take me to a dead end of muzak and eventually hangs up on me. so I try the number again and this time navigate faster through to tell them I want english and eventually found a way to enter my account upon which I was connected  to pleasant sounding woman who was in their Recovery department.

(PRO TIP: when calling a compnay who thinks you owe them money BE NICE!  the person you are talking to is a lot more like you than you realize. when you treat me nice I act a whole lot more polite and accommodating than if you berate me and have an atitude about the whole thing. If that’s your approach forget it, these companies are set up in such a way that for you to talk to the beancounter who set up the computer system to rape your wallet you would have to hire him as a consultant.in other words you’re never going to get that satisfaction so let it go.)

our conversation went a bit like this

Verizon Wireless:hello how may I help you today
Me: (confused tonalty) I’m a little confused at the moment. I just Received a collection notice telling me I owed Verizon some money but you guys haven’t sent me any bills and I don’t have service, I’m just trying to find out if this is legitimate or not.”
Verizon Wireless: what is your account number?
Me: (reads them acount number from notice)
THe operator Verified the info in the letter. then offers me a phone number to talk to someone in another department to better help me.
Me: that would be great

Verizon Wireless: here is the number XXX-XXX-XXXX is there anything else I can assist you with….
Me: no thanks have a nice weekend

Verizon Wireless: have nice weekend
(end call)
I’ve now spent 15 minutes on this $10 collection notice. but now I’m invested so I’ll call the next number

Verizon Wireless system prompts me for info and I select English – “all agents are busy please wait and your call will be answered.” (wait 2 minutes – then line goes dead)
I call back select English then wait 3 minutes and have a nice conversation (I was not paying attention after being on hold for this time period so I won’t transcribe it) and they look up my account and tell me that since I had returned it within the time period that I don’t owe the money and that they will cancel the collections and that my account is fine now.
so this call took 10 more minutes. so a total of 20 minutes and I was online doing things while on hold so all in all I think it was less time wasted than driving over the Verizon store overall.

I’m on the fence as to what happened here, as a Technology Professional I understand all the things that have to go right to prevent this kind of hting from happening. I also wonder if Verizon is hoping to make a few bucks off of sending for collections accounts that are not really due in the hopes that people will see an amount under $10 annd just pay it. since it’s being done by ano outside company and it’s got to do with a collections agency people will figure it’s an old debt and just pay it out of shame or guilt or just simply because it’s easier to go online and anonymously pay the money and go about your day. Imagine if it’s just a dumb screw up and it nets a few hundred Grand for Verizon. Makes a little part of me want to own the stock.

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So now it’s been declared that a medium size dog has the same carbon footprint as a 4×4 SUV per year.  WHAT?

here is the link

Sometime I think this stuff is made up.  In fact I’m going to continue to resist what I’m being TOLD by a Consensus.  This whole thing is still only an Idea.  I’m all for getting off Fossil Fuels.  It has been drummed into my head since I can remember that Coal is Bad (although the word on the street is that plug-in hybrids are not. Wait- isn’t 70% of that electricity made from coal. Oh wait  never mind there is a consensus that it’s better to drive a hybrid )  I wish I could make my own car run on coal, I think it might be funny. Just think how much more efficient it would be since I don’t have all that wiring to send the electricity through. it’s actually insane the idea that electric cars are a good idea. So bad in fact that now  I actually hate both sides of this issue.  The resisting types for just wanting to do nothing at all and the Zealous Profiteering holier-than-thou types who have made global Warming such a Religious issue.  Yeah climate change is no longer science as I myself  define science.  It’s become a Religion.  I feel this when I attempt to become better informed  ”Either you believe or you are not worthy”  is how all the comments seem to come across when reading.  I feel like  I’m opposing the angry Mob from a South Park Episode with all their pitchforks and Torches. (although this crowd is gonna need to update that to blinking solar powered lights so as to be Climate protective)

Hey there is a new idea Solar-Powered torches with Patented ”  Simulated Fire” for those earth Sensitive angry Mobs.

Both sides are acting like babies and well I am not too happy with the prospect that energy costs are going to potentially increase by 50% or more. But then again maybe some eyes will be opened to the fact that a consensus is just the loudest voice being agreed to.  After a time though and there are far too many human conflicts that will verify this in our nature we have long forgotten the cause of the conflict   but the fight remains.

Let’s hope that someone somewhere has the ability to Yell Loudest of all and get the Zealots and the non-believers to listen to a reasonable batch of solutions on this Gloabal Warming Idea. otherwise a new class of Deca-Billionaires will be created in the name of Saving Mother Earth and a new Slavery will have been cemented into human history.

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So it’s the holidays and thanks I get it that I’m late to the party but with the PS3 at $300 now it’s  a no-brainer to tell everyone to get one.

I love mine.  But not just for game play. in fact Sony will be happy to know that I think I might still be costing them money as I have yet to buy a NEW game and all I’ve gotten this thing for is the Blu-Ray Player.  I had just bought a new 46 Sharp LCD last Spring and had an old Dvd player but once it was announced that Blu-Ray won it was time to decide what Blu-ray player to get.  of course had I waited till Christmas time last year I would have bought 2 $100 Blu-ray players at Target but alas I am an impatient type so I had to get one in October.

So I paid the $400 for it, took it home plugged in the three wires, HDMI Power, Ethernet for internet – I had the network  cable run already so I set it up with 1/Gb ethernet it also does wireless  if you’re not a total wire junk like I am. I  added a  fiber optic into my surround sound system and was blown away by how easy it is to hook stuff these days (HDMI makes this stuff really easy)  not to mention the picture quality. Movies look amazing in blue Ray but also the Games way more detail than I was used to and better then my tired old Graphics card in my PC.  Get this  according to this article here the new 3D standard has been announced and if  Sony is smart my PS3 will just need a Software update to recognize the new format and I suppose some kind of glasses. The only crappy part is the possibility that I will need a new LCD Set. (unless they can figure out something at 60Hz – after all Blue Ray at 24Hz looks awesome at 1080p. ) but “compatible 3d display” is the lingo at the moment I suppose we will have to wait and see.

Sony is still loosing money on each console (still $40 on the new Slim model)  according to this article I would imagine that for them it’s going to make far more economic sense to work out a firmware update then force a ton of folks to buy new consoles.  But then again I could be wrong. In any case not only does my PS 3 play games, I can also buy and download  content using the Playstation store both free game demos and a couple of HD movies which are priced  the same as VOD  on cable here It does  take time to download  which is why I did this one time out of curiosity  to see how it worked.  You do get a bit of leeway in that you have 14 days to start the video but then once started you have 24hours to watch.  So the verdict is out on this as to whether or not it catches on as a revenue generator for Sony.

I also have been able to paly my music from my PC through my surround system and some video clips as well using the media server connection that is built in to the PS3  so overall it’s a fun device has been quite reilable and I’m happy with it.  if you have a good library of video,audio and photos on your PC and want to see them in your living room through a console awsome picture quality with Blu-Ray discs and being ready for the next generation of what sony comes up with you will probably enjoy a PS3 Like I do.

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So the Droid came out this Week and since AT&T correctly lost in the legal action to pull Verizon Wireless’ Factual Ads about 3G networks. But that’s not what this article is about, what has been talked about since shortly after the Chome browser was released last year.

Google has finally given a preview of what will likely be the new model for computing in the future.  I’m not a Google Fanboy but I do enjoy all the tools they provide for free. hmmm Wonder where else I saw this business model before…. OH yeah “The Wire” Now I’m not really being that harsh, finding data and getting kids hooked on an addictive substance are ..oh wait …nevermind……. some History though

Google was a company who started out as a tool to organize information on the web. The web is publicly accessible information and Google’s task was to organize and make this massive hodge-podge os files and data useful with their search algorithm, Which I don’t think many people will disagree with. Google has been a great help in my life personally and I know my life got easer for researching  and I’m sure that folks who wrote informative articles that were now indexed and able to be found by a much larger audience now.  This was a good time for Google who was growing stronger and had a loyal following with their uncluttered and unassuming appearance.  It’s like the guy who gets into trouble and when the news people interview his neighbors they all say the same thing, ” he was a quiet guy unassuming” now

I’m not accusing Google of wrongdoing just reminding my readers that they are trusting a company with all of your personal information.

It’s more about informed consent than anything else. sure I’m going to use Chrome OS as soon as I can and will I know for a fact that my data is encrypted and  thus inaccessable to google enginers or researchers? well unless I work for google in every position I couldn’t 100% say that. But I do know this much Google is one of the most Valuable corporate Brands on the planet and they simply Can not afford to loose the trust of their users by even a Perceived breech of trust.

So What does it mean for everyone out there.  I don’t know. If you just have to believe in conspiracy theories don’t use Chrome OS.

If you like me feel that there is simply no good reason for Google to damage the trust and value of hundreds of Billions of dollars over a few more pieces of data then I’ll see you in the Cloud.

Don’t forget that if you are travelling this Holiday season Google is providing free WiFi in a bunch of US Airports.  and Virgin American flights. Look out Microsoft.

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Windows 7 was released last week and while I wanted to write sooner about it I’m glad I waited. according to the windows7eeepc.co.cc site windows 7 still needs anti-virus software to be safe. While one could look at this as a failure of Microsoft ( again) to secure their software the problem is really the complexity of modern operating systems and the sheer number of virus and malware writers. Apple and Linux claim to be more secure however they are a small fraction of the market and as such they are not targeted by the scammers because they know the profit is much lower because fewer targets exist. but if you’ve upgraded to Windows 7 or bought a new computer with Windows 7 on it make sure to keep the anti-virus solution up to date on it I recommend AVG anti-virus personally. if you are running a computer on the internet today no matter what operating system you have it’s a bad idea to not have an anti-virus installed and protecting you.

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