Back Online Again

As I mentioned yesterday, we got a replacement modem, but were told that there was an outage in our area. In hindsight, maybe taking the new modem wasn't such a good idea. I'd still make the same choice, though - the old modem could have been bad and if it was that would have cost us another day. We need home access for our business & banking.

Anyway, when we got home around seven or so I hooked up the modem. It still wouldn't connect. Well, they did say there was an outage, so I looked at its diagnostic screen via the web browser to monitor its progress. Almost right away it started progressing through the connection sequence, though much more slowly than normal. Then it reset. It did that a few times then stopped, then finally connected. Yay!

Or not so yay. Nothing would resolve on DNS. Nothing but the comcast.net web site, anyway, which was showing a welcome message and instructions to download installation software. (That link didn't work, by the way.)

I called in and the technician who answered tried to activate the new modem. She said there was something blocking it and she would forward me to billing so they could clear the blockage then send me back to her. I thought that was odd since we currently have a $40 credit on our account, but in a large corporation there's no telling which department will need to stick its fingers in when so what the heck. She transferred me over and after listening to an increasing annoying piano piece that apparently has no ending I got a menu. There was nothing on the menu that sounded like what I was told I was needed, so I hit 0 to try to talk to an operator. After a little while waiting for someone to pick up I hung up and called in again.

This time I had better luck. The woman I got seemed a little slower going through the routine questions, but in a methodical way, not like she was "slow" if you know what I mean. She tried to get the modem activated but ran into an error. Instead of transferring me she contacted the provisioning department and had someone there set me up. While waiting for that to be done I asked where they were located. Turns out she's from New Orleans, but still displaced by Katrina. They're waiting for their electrical system to be inspected so they can put up their drywall. The modem reset itself again, I reset our router and released & renewed my computer's DHCP connection. (See instructions below - much faster than a reboot in such situations.) And it worked! I had my wife release & renew and she was up too. I thanked the woman and wished her luck getting back home soon.

How to release & renew your connection instead of rebooting...
(These instructions are for Windows 2000 and XP.)
1. Bring up the Command Prompt. You'll find it in Start > Programs > Accessories
2. Enter "ipconfig /release" and wait for the prompt to return.
3. Enter "ipconfig /renew" and wait for the prompt.
You're done! You can check your connection by pinging something, like "ping johnssecretblog.blogspot.com"

Again Comcast Sucks

We brought the cable modem in to the local Comcast office today. The woman who helped us said they didn't do testing there, but they could swap us a new one. That was nice and quick. However, when she went in to associate the new modem's number with our account she found that, lo and behold, there was an outage in our area. So apparently either the person I talked to last night didn't know what the heck they were doing, or Comcast's outage alert system is dog slow by any modern standard, or everyone in my area was out all day and evening or else didn't bother to call in about their difficulties until today. That last possibility really wouldn't surprise me much. Cable customers seem to take extended outages in stride, just assuming that somebody else will call in.

Anyway, we went ahead and got the new modem. It won't hurt anything and there's always the possibility that the old one went bad at the same time, maybe due to a power surge or something, or that the outage really didn't happen until today. Hopefully we'll be up and going when we get home this evening.

I called Comcast again to see if they had gotten any more calls from my area, but they hadn't, so it's almost certainly a problem with our modem. We're thinking of bringing it in ourselves tomorrow to get it checked out at their office. Maybe they can give up a replacement right away that way.
Meanwhile, here's a pic of a rhinocerous beetle one of our employees found around Secret Headquarters.

Comcast sucks. :P Still down.

Comcast sucks. :P Still down.

Our cable modem is out.

Our cable modem is out. I called in and they said a tech can come tuesday morning. :P Hopefully they will find and fix an outage.

Is This Progress? or The Post Office Pisses Me Off!

I just mailed out a package. That should be a simple proposition, but in this case I had two different zip codes for the recipient so I had to check which one was correct.

In the past I've just fired up a handy little program called the USPS Shipping Assistant. It's a free program downloadable from the post office web site. I'd been using version 2.2 for a while and it worked great. It was much faster and more convenient than using the web site for such things. This time, however, it wouldn't run. It told me I had to run 3.0 or later.

Okay. It had been a while since I'd had occasion to use it so it was understandable that there was a later version. I'm not so sure why the old one should stop working, though. Anyway, I downloaded the new version 3.1 (over 7M compared to 2.2's 225k - that should have been my first clue) and installed it.

What a piece of crap.

It takes forever to load, which is only natural since it's built on .NET and Internet Explorer. (Damn, I hate lazy "programmers". No better that "script kiddies" if you ask me.) Every time a new dialog comes up you can watch it draw all the controls and graphics. I kid you not - it's that slow. From the looks of it, whoever "programmed" it spent most of their time doing graphic design for the interface. I'd characterize it as putting lipstick on a pig, and stand by that as being 100% accurate. If this is the sort of thing the money from the postage rate increase is going to I want a refund!

Also, when I closed it it didn't stop running! It just minimized to a little icon in my tray next to the clock. I had to right-click on that to tell it to finally exit. Why? Do they perhaps know that the thing is dog slow to load and decided that the "solution" to the slowness of loading this bloated piece of crap is to keep it running? Get an actual programmer to actually fix the thing!

I emailed the following to the USPS on their contact page, specifying in the form that it was a technical issue regarding Shipping Assistant:

Please! Please! Please! Reactivate 2.2!

I tried to use it today and it wouldn't run. I had to use 3.1 and it is PONDEROUSLY slow.

Failing reactivation of 2.2, please include the following changes in 3.2 or 4.0...
1. Drop .NET so it won't require so much memory.
2. Drop the IE interface and do some actual UI programming so it won't take forever each time you switch dialogs, or switch fields for that matter.
3. When the user closes the program, close the program. Don't leave it running in the tray.
4. Get rid of the gingerbread/bells & whistles. Fire the designers and whatever postal official let his ditzy trophy wife approve the interface while you're at it too. If the programming & design were outsourced, get someone else this time because the people who made 3.1 padded the project with useless crap.

In other words, get rid of all the crud that just slows the thing down, defeating its purpose of *assisting* our shipping. It doesn't assist if it slows us down. The changes from 2.2 to 3.1 only serve to further cement the USPS's old reputation for slowness.

I doubt it will get any action, but maybe if enough people read this blog, agree, and decide to stop settling for crap software and complain, maybe together we'll make something happen. I will post about this again when and if I get a response.

Meanwhile, I also intend to see if I can't hack 2.2 into thinking it's 3.1 so that just maybe it will work again. If I have any success with that I'll post instructions. If you have already been able to do it, please reply with instructions - no sense reinventing the wheel.

The Problem With Outsourcing

How May I help You?
Exit 9:30:07 AM System
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https://esupport.trendmicro.com/support/consumer/hcmshome.do
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Please wait while we connect you to a customer service representative.
9:31:03 AM System
Thank you for waiting, a customer service representative would be with you in a short while.
9:44:19 AM System
John Kenneth Pangilinan has joined this session!
9:44:20 AM System
Connected with John Kenneth Pangilinan
9:44:26 AM John Kenneth Pangilinan
Thank you for contacting Trend Micro Chat Support. Please wait while we check your problem description.
9:44:31 AM JSI
hello
9:46:34 AM JSI
Tough one?
9:46:34 AM John Kenneth Pangilinan
Hi john, please perform a Windows Update to resolve the issue..
9:46:59 AM JSI
Will that change how PC-Cillin launches the vulnerabiliy info pages?
9:47:04 AM John Kenneth Pangilinan
Please check now your email.. Bye and thank you.
9:47:30 AM JSI
I don't think you quite understood the question.
9:48:20 AM John Kenneth Pangilinan
PC-cillin Internet Security is currently detected a vulnerability from your Windows OS, you need to update your Windows to resolve the issue. Sorry wrong window.
9:48:30 AM JSI
When PC-Cillin lists MS vulnerabilities after a check, the user can doube-click on a listing to see a microsoft.com page about it.
9:49:03 AM JSI
PCC launches the page in IE regardless of what I have set as my default browser. That's the problem.
9:50:02 AM JSI
oops... "doube-click" -> "double-click"
9:51:09 AM John Kenneth Pangilinan
Ok, what risk level of that vulnerability? May I know what is the exact MS bulletin PC-cillin Internet Security detected.
9:51:44 AM JSI
It happens with all of them. It's not associated with any particular vulnerability. It's a PCC behavior.
9:53:44 AM John Kenneth Pangilinan
Does still happening in this time? Can you try to turn off PC-cillin Internet Security then check if problem still persist. Please do this: Right click on the blue pill icon near the system clock then click exit.
9:54:47 AM JSI
Ok... forget the whole vulnerability thing. The behavior I'm describing won't happen with PCC off because it's a behavior OF PCC.
9:55:30 AM JSI
Here's the question: Is there a setting in PCC to make it launch web pages in my default browser? At least non trendmicro.com pages.
9:56:04 AM John Kenneth Pangilinan
There is no option like that sir.
9:56:08 AM JSI
ok
9:56:14 AM System
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