Seek Nuance

(Read parts I, II, and III.)

Yesterday, I did another speed test with CLEAR‘s level 1 tech support. (I.e., the reps you get by dialing 1-888-888-3113.)

CLEAR’s support rep said they had done no work on my ticket, but they wanted to do another speed test anyway. Hrm. No work at all? None.

The results: My bandwidth is now about 5Mbit down, 1Mbit up. I no longer have a basis for a complaint, so I asked them to close my problem ticket.

Why is it now 5Mb/1MB, when three weeks ago it was 1/10^th that? There’s no explanation. CLEAR claims they did no repairs that would have affected my connection. And I didn’t do anything here to affect it. Yet it’s much faster. It’s a mystery of God’s creation.

Read more…

The next installment in my continuing saga…

CLEAR contacted me. There’s no new information about my problem, and they didn’t say they fixed anything. But they want to do another speed test.

I’ve scheduled it for tomorrow evening.

My first installment described CLEAR‘s Terms of Service horror show. My fun continued when I finished my account activation and got on the net.

Uh-oh

I quickly noticed a time lag in my surfing. Speedtest confirmed that the bandwidth was not what CLEAR had advertised.

CLEAR had promised me 7Mb/1.2Mb when I signed up. I was seeing 650Kb/30Kb, at best. I’d have faster bandwidth by etching bits onto rocks and throwing them at passing cars.

Read more…

I’ve been quite satisfied with my Qwest 7Mb/894Kb DSL service. It had occasional bandwidth hiccups, but none were major. Their customer service was great and the service reliability was rock solid.

A man may choose to tinker with something that’s not broken, and look for “better” alternatives. I’ve done that to my Internet access. Woe is me.

I’ve occasionally thought about switching to home WiMAX. The reasons include mobility, if we add on mobile service; fewer phone cords in the house; more latitude in configuring our home offices; and maintaining our Internet access if we move. And so last week, I made the switch: I cancelled Qwest, went to the CLEAR website, and signed up for their “Home Internet” premium service. It’s $40/month, and promised 7Mbit down (or 6Mbit, depending on the sales document) and 1Mbit up. All the stock image photos had smiling faces. What could go wrong?

My experience with it has been terrible. So much has gone wrong that I’ll have to spread the bad news across multiple posts.

Let’s talk about signing up, setting up, and the Terms of Service.
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If you wonder why some of us consider Portland far more supportive and embracing of technology innovation, and of open-source, take a look at just two reasons: CivicApps and Portland Ten.

I had a revelation this morning: I learn about news events mostly from Twitter. This seems obvious, and almost natural, in hindsight. But even three months ago I didn’t expect this.

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Some technology humor from Joey deVilla at Global Nerdy:

We discuss, read, and tweet computer technology every day. But we’ll occasionally have a delightful “Oh wow!” moment that demonstrates how much technology has advanced, and what it might enable in the future.

I was lucky to have had two of them last week.

Moment 1 of 2

The first was when I realized that typical desktop disk drives are now $100/TB. For example:

Some results for WD 1.5TB disk search

Higher-performance and/or smaller-profile devices will cost more. But these Western Digital drives (available in .5TB – 2TB sizes) are at the knee of the curve for desktop and small server storage. They’re “green”: The smaller models have fewer parts (higher storage densities allowed WD to eliminate a platter); and they all use variable speeds, spin downs, and other tricks to cut power consumption.

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I upgraded my wife’s 24″ 2.8GHz iMac memory to 4GB. This required replacing the two 1GB DIMMs with two 2GB DIMMs.

So. I now have two spare 1GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM modules. What to do with them?

A quick perusal of eBay indicates they might fetch $20 each. Maybe. Is it worth the effort to sell them?

I can’t believe this is even a question. There’s 2GB of fast memory sitting on my desk! And I’m wondering if it’s worth the hassle to photograph them, compose the eBay listing, answer e-mails from prospective buyers, and then take them down to the post office. All to net $30 (probably) or $40 (if I’m lucky).

$30 wouldn’t even cover dinner for two at The 5 Spot.
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I just bought a new iMac for my wife. Like my flash drive post, I’ll try to compare what’s in our home today against our first home PC.

I won’t make the same mistakes I did in that post. But I may make different ones.

Our first system was a standard PC with a Nanao 19″ monitor. It ran Windows 95, 98, 98 second edition, Me, and then I replaced it. Our current systems are a 17″ MacBook Pro and a 24″ iMac.

I don’t have our first system to benchmark against, but I do remember some salient hardware specs.

For our first system, I don’t recall (and so cannot compare) disk caches, processor caches, motherboard I/O bus performance, graphics processor performance, or system MTBF. It was an ISA bus system, with then-standard serial, parallel, and video connectors out of the case. Today’s system are festooned with USB and FireWire connectors, a DVI connector, and an ExpressCard connector.

After helping a family friend catch a Downtown Airporter to Sea-Tac airport, I had breakfast at the Warwick Seattle Hotel at 4th & Lenora. Their men’s restroom provides a Dyson Airblade for drying your hands.

I’ve read about the Airblade, but never used it until today. It’s great! I’m normally skeptical about company propaganda marketing, but in this case, I believe the company’s claims about the Airblade being fast, cost effective, energy efficient, and hygenic.