What I Said Yesterday

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What I said yesterday is totally true. So I waited till like 3PM today to call and check on my cell number move. Turns out the first guy I spoke with last night didn’t actually put the request in. Luckily I had the guy’s name and rep number. They were able to see that he did stuff to my account, but the number port didn’t go in. The new guy I got I got went ahead and put the request through. I am now on hold to check up on his work. This will be call #4. This does not count the time I tried in the T-Mobile store on monday. This is crazy. Does no one know how to do good service?

On a brighter note I was able to return the Treo 600 today. The moron’s at the AT&T store didn’t give me a hard time. Of course the thing was still in mint condition so they really couldn’t say much. When they asked about why I was bringing it back I told them about their network woes. The lady was like, wow that is the first I have heard about it. I was like are you living in a bubble, or do I look that stupid that you can say that to me with a straight face. I got my money back and I await the T-Mobile version of the 600. If Handspring, or Palmone follows their patter, the T-Mobile version will be out in 2-3 weeks. I am waiting…

Technology Is Not All Bad

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Just to show you I don’t gripe about everything, this new iMac rocks. I still cannot get over this huge crisp screen. I was watching the Two Towers on one half of the screen while working on a word document on the other. it is big and I still can see the text even with my less than perfect vision.

The only problem I am having is that I cannot figure out what I am going to do with the free desk space I now have since I moved the other computers out my living room.

AT&T Has To Go

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I tried. I really tried. I gave AT&T some time. I even gave them a second chance by using them again this week. Once again they have failed me. Today GPRS was up and down all day. And phone quality in my apartment sucked even when I had 4 bars of signal. I am a friggin stock holder of AT&T Wireless. Now I know why my stock is doing so bad. This company has some major issues.

I am on hold now with T-Mobile to transfer my coveted AT&T wireless phone number over to my working T-Mobile account.

Well that didn’t work. The person I spoke to said I had to goto the store for them to transfer my old number to an existing T-Mobile account. that goes against everything I heard yesterday. I am about to call back and see if I get another answer. the trick with dealing with customer service reps is call a few times and see if you get the answer you want. it actually works allot of the time. I will return the Treo 600 and wait for T-Mobile to come out with it. What good is the device if it cannot connect to get data anyway?

I know I have been preoccupied with this problem but it is an issue I have wanted to resolve for years and now that I am so close to fixing it I am getting roadblocks everywhere I turn.

Have I mentioned I dislike all telecomm companies???

This entry was written while listening to Satellite from the album “Under the table and dreaming” by Dave Matthews Band

Finally The Day Is Here

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So number portability day is here. Now that it is over, the day didn’t exactly end up the way I wanted it to. I tried to change my number from AT&T to T-Mobile like I had planned on. After an hour at the T-Mobile store with no end in sight, I bailed and went to work. Gus wanted to goto the AT&T store to check out if they had the Treo in stock. I figured they wouldn’t so I went along for the walk. Turns out they did have them. At first neither of us were going to pay the high price of the phone, but then he broke down and got one. I then played with his and broke down and got one. The only problem is that AT&T is having huge system problems right now so I cannot get my new price plan working. It is now 12 hours later and their system is still down. If I cannot get the changes done by tomorrow after work, I am returning the phone and switching to T-Mobile like I originally said I would.

The Treo 600 is awesome though. Speaker phone rocks. It feels good to talk on. It sounds good. Now I have to get AT&T to get their act together.

Cell Number Portability Tomorrow

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After years of waiting, Cell Phone number portability will happen (or so they say) tomorrow. “Experts” say to be warry of making changes tomorrow or for the first month or so. They say that the kinks are not out of the transfer system. I have waited too long and my patience is gone, so knowing the risks I will go tomorrow morning and transfer the number I like away from AT&T Wireless’s poor service T-Mobile who has given me decent service recently. The news articles I have read say up to 25% of all requests made to transfer numbers in the first week will fail. Since I am not currently using the number I am transfering, I can take that risk. I will know in 24 hours if it worked.

Treo 600 Update

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Just my luck that it is availible from everyone (Cingular, Sprint, AT&T) except the carrier I want (T-Mobile). AT&T just announced it friday. I am not happy. The good news is even after waiting for over a month since it has been released I still want to get it whenever I can. Not sure if Gus can resist buying the AT&T version of the Treo 600. He still won’t leave AT&T even after he has huge issues with their service.

The New Mac

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So I sold the Powerbook like I said. Now what? It is not like I didn’t have another computer to use. In fact I have 1 desktop at home, a server and my Dad’s old desktop that can be built into anything I want it to be. I also have my work laptop and countless desktops to work off of when there. So why did I feel compelled to buy a computer? I missed my Mac. I sort of didn’t want to part with it, but I got a decent deal and I was thinking about a mac desktop for a while. I did the math and figured out what I wanted. I wanted a huge flat pannel monitor at home and a decently powered machine. To get another top of the line powerbook and a 20″ flat pannel would have been super expencive. To get a low end G4 Powermac and a 20″ flat pannel would have been in the mid $2500 range. Then Tuesday Apple came out with the 20″ flat screen Imac. I always said I was not a fan of the all in one computer, but this machine had some nice features. it was also several hundred less than doing a powermac and a large flat screen. Another major selling poing was the fact that it took up very little space (it really does) and it is not loud. The G4 towers are know for the noise they put out.

I tried to goto the Apple store thursday and friday but work would not permit it. I went Saturday and was instantly sold on the imac. the screen is beatiful, it is so small, and it is not a slouch when it comes to power. I think this will do me well for a desktop for the next 2 years. I know they say desktops last 3 years, but I am a realist. I used to go through desktops every year. I am averaging 2 years now, or actually 23 months since I last got my Atholon XP desktop. I go through laptops quicker.

So far the iMac is great. I got most of my software on it. I just plugged in my Lacie firewire drive into it and all my stuff was restored. I also got the Apple bluetooth keyboard. it is nice. I think the usb keyboard that I had before felt better to type on, but this is pretty good also. Now all I need is a wireless mouse. I didn’t like the mac mouse so I need a logitech one.

The jury is still out on if I want a laptop also. I like the thinkpad, but I may at some point in the future get my own small laptop that I can kick around. I will see how things go with the iMac only and my ThinkPad. The iMac purchase revolves around my desire to write when not at my desk, and I don’t like doing it on the thinkpad. I have issues with its keyboard. I know I am nitpicking, but I have to be realy cofmy when I write, especially when my hands react poorly to bad keyboards.

With the new iMac also comes more space at/on my desk. I had a 4 port KVM with 2 desktops setup, along with a space for my powerbook and Thinkpad when I brought it home. That makes for tons of cables and a mess. I ripped out the KVM. I put my desktop in my closet near my server. It is now connected via 802.11g. If I need a windows xp box, all I do is remote destkop into it. It is faster than setting up virtual pc on the mac. I still have some cleaning up of some cables but the desk looks much better now.

My living room is a mess with all the old cables thrown around. I need to put them away neatly, and store my old 17″ flat pannel.

Movie Saturday

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I went to see Runaway Jury Saturday. It was really good. John Cusack is always good, and I didn’t realize that Dustin Hoffman and Gean Hackman were in it also. Very nicely done, and the best thing is that I didn’t guess the ending after 5 minutes.

Busy At Work, What Else Is New

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Work this week has been challenging. I got nothing I planned on doing yesterday completed. I was busy fixing other issue that crept up. Kai from our Kingston office was down for a meeting and also to just work for a day out of NY. He never did that before so we wanted to bring him down.

We are in the midst of several major projects. Remote recording of voice calls, creating a beta test for remote agents, move a mail server, upgrade NYC’s domain controllers, evaluate SMS, build a new service domain, and oh yeah we had 4 people get hired in the past week. My team is just a bit busy. Don’t get me wrong, busy is good. Overwhelmed is not. We are currently busy but quickly moving to overwhelmed. Hopefully we can get everything done without a problem.

Updateathon

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I reinstalled the OS on my ThinkPad last week. I was having some weird issues so I felt it was time to do a refresh. I like to do that every few months. Another advantage of the mac. I never felt compelled to do that on my powerbook unless I was upgrading the OS to a newer version.

With my powerbook gone, and both my home computer and work computer’s just receiving new OS’s I don’t have a single machine that is configured with all my stuff on it. My data is backed up on a firewire hard drive I cannot access since I don’t have a mac. My mail is only on my laptop and almost nothing is on my desktop at home.