DSLreports.com: Wisconsin Data Shows AT&T’s ‘Franchise Reform’ Was A Joke – Now consumers get higher prices AND no consumer protection laws…

December 3, 2009 at 3:40 pm · Filed under AT&T, DSL, Editorial, Legislation, Michigan, Opinion, Regulation, Telephone, cable, consumer, corporation, customer service, government, issues, video

A long time ago, this blog had a somewhat different direction than it does today.  Part of what I tried to do was expose the abusive practices of the large phone companies, and (among other things) try to stop them from basically writing the communications laws that were supposed to regulate them. One of the reasons I shifted directions was because, basically, we customers lost, and I don’t enjoy beating a dead horse.  And only now, it seems, is the reality of what happened finally dawning on state officials, as indicated in Karl Bode’s article on the BroadbandReports.com/DSLreports.com site:

Wisconsin Data Shows AT&T’s ‘Franchise Reform’ Was A Joke — Now consumers get higher prices AND no consumer protection laws…

We’ve discussed how a significant number of states passed new state level video franchise laws at the behest of phone company lobbyists, but didn’t really realize what they were signing up for. Bills that consumers were told would result in lower TV prices by making it easier for phone companies to jump into the TV business, in many cases were little more than phone company wish lists — aimed at legalizing the cherry picking of next-gen broadband deployment, eliminating local authority (even eminent domain rights) and in some cases eliminating tough consumer protection laws.

The one thing the laws were supposed to do — lower TV prices — never actually happened.

One of the worst of these bills approved by duped lawmakers was in Wisconsin, where AT&T both wrote and lobbied for a bill that essentially gutted all consumer protections in the state under the auspices of cheaper TV. State residents used to have the right to prompt repairs, saw ensured refunds for service outages, mandated notice of rate increases or service deletions, and carriers had to provide a written notice of disconnection. Not any more. Now a new Wisconsin state audit shows that basic TV prices continue to skyrocket:
…..

One Wisconsin legislator (Representative Gary Hebl of Sun Prairie) has introduced a new bill that, he says, “puts people first, not corporations.” Well, if that’s really true, it’s about damn time (pardon my expressiveness, but it is!). All laws ought to do that.  Our Constitution ought to do that. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Rep. Hebl’s bill ever gets passed into law.

Here in Michigan, our legislators have been sold a similar bill of goods. About the only thing that did not happen here is that we did not completely do away with quality-of-service requirements.  But our wonderful Michigan legislators did pretty much eliminate all other consumer protections. They turned the Michigan Public Service Commission from an agency that was able to help consumers solve most any communications-related issue, to an agency that’s pretty toothless with regard to anything telecommunications-related. Unless you are subscribing to one specific landline service that virtually no one has or wants (PBLES), you now have very little protection against abusive practices by the phone company, unless you want to take them to court or file a complaint with the state Attorney General’s office (actually, I think aggrieved customers ought to complain to their state legislators – they made this mess, let them clean it up!).

(Just so as not to mislead anyone, I will say that complaints to the MPSC sometimes do still bring results, but only because the MPSC knows how to reach the top executives at some of the phone companies.  The MPSC usually can’t force the phone companies to help you anymore, but sometimes they can present your case to a high enough official that you’ll still get the desired results.  And, if you actually do have a quality of service issue – your phone doesn’t work and they tell you they can’t fix it for another month – then the MPSC does still have some authority in that type of situation).

One other point:  For nearly two decades, the Michigan Telecommunications Act had a “sunset” provision, such that it automatically came up for a rewrite every four or five years.  The phone companies always saw this as a chance to re-craft the law to be even more to their liking, while consumer groups and legislators that felt they’d been “hoodwinked” the last time around saw it as a chance to restore some previously lost customer protections.  But a funny thing happened on the way to the latest rewrite – a couple of years ago, the Michigan legislature quietly killed the sunset provision, making the current Michigan Telecommunications Act the one we’ll probably be stuck with for decades to come.  This indicates to me that the phone companies got what they really wanted last time around, and had no intention of letting the applecart be upset by disgruntled consumers or legislators in 2009.

Of course, any one of our legislators could, on their own initiative, introduce legislation that would attempt to undo the damage that was done in the last Michigan Telecommunications Act rewrite.  But unless they receive enough complaints from affected citizens, I doubt they’ll want to poke that particular beehive (the bees being the big telco lobbyists and lawyers, which would probably come into the state in full fury if there were ever any serious attempt at reform).

One way consumers could make an effective statement is to “vote with their feet”, and refuse to purchase any service from a large company that abuses their customers (especially when there are any other viable options available). But most customers don’t have that kind of willpower – all the “evil corporation” has to do is dangle a shiny enough carrot off the stick (in the form of a great “limited time promotional offer”) and we, like a bunch of stupid jackasses, subscribe to their services.

Like I said, I’m not into beating dead horses – once they’ve been dead long enough, they really start to stink — kind of like our Michigan legislature (and, presumably, their brethren in Wisconsin) when the big corporate interests come around.

Leave a Comment

Another proof that large corporations are evil

November 28, 2009 at 6:41 pm · Filed under Editorial, Legislation, Opinion, business ethics, consumer, corporation, customer service, government, issues, litigation

It has been my opinion for quite some time that there is no such thing as a “good” corporation. Some are less evil than others, and I might give a pass to the really small corporations that have incorporated only to get the same shield from legal liability that the larger corporations enjoy (although that legal shield itself is often misused for evil purposes).  It is my belief that no country will ever be truly great that treats corporations as we do under our legal system, giving them all of the rights of individuals (and more, because they can afford to hire a whole team of lawyers and you may not be able to afford even one), but virtually none of the responsibilities (EDIT: Other than taxation, of course. The government is more than happy to take their money, although the large corporations can afford to hire a whole team of accountants to make sure they don’t pay one red cent more than they are absolutely required to, and often they don’t even pay all of that).

Today’s example comes to us from The Consumerist.  In an article entitled Delta Airlines: You Need To Pay A Fee To Pay This Fee we are told the story of how an unaccompanied minor is allegedly kept off a flight (and away from Thanksgiving with her family) because a heartless, soulless corporation was apparently more interested in making sure that a certain fee had been paid than in making sure that a five year old child was home for Thanksgiving.

As it turns out, the fee had indeed been paid, but the agent at the counter couldn’t immediately discover that (and I suspect that there was a considerable level of incompetence at that point). And that brings us to the comment by Consumerist reader Chris V, who after reading the above article wrote this:

If a company provides a service and you don’t pay, that’s called theft of service. Companies will call the cops to haul you off to jail if you do that.

However, when you pay good money for a service and the company doesn’t provide it, that’s called tough luck. Just try calling the cops on a company. They’ll laugh in your face. Or, they’ll come and take YOU to jail for wasting their time.

Supposedly we’re all guaranteed equal protection under the law. If they can haul us off to jail for not paying, then we should be able to call the cops for companies not providing the paid service. Someone SHOULD be punished for taking their money and NOT providing the agreed-upon service. Anywhere else, that’d be called THEFT.

And that, folks, is exactly why corporations should not exist in their present form.  When you make a contract with a corporation, and you don’t uphold your end, you can go to jail, or they can ruin your credit. When they don’t uphold their end, the best you can usually hope for is that if you go to court, you might get a refund of what you paid. If they lose, the vast majority of the time no one will go to jail, and their credit rating won’t be touched.

That’s why I think it is so wrong, and inherently evil, to treat corporations as persons under the law.  They are not “persons”, they are “super-persons.” They have all the rights you do, but when they do wrong, they don’t get the same punishments that you would.  Even in the most extreme cases, where someone does go to jail, it’s often the wrong person – usually a lower level flunky (because they didn’t have sense enough to keep their mouth shut and not talk to the cops before consulting a lawyer – that’s a YouTube video link, here’s part 2) rather than the person(s) actually responsible for the evil.

One reason the United States is so screwed up right now is because so many big corporations are using their “super-voices” (lobbyists, sock puppets, astroturf groups, etc.) to drown out the voices of individuals.  Not only to the drown out your voice, but sometimes they even steal it, by setting up or co-opting organizations that purportedly speak for you, but say the opposite of what you might say if given the chance.

If I had the opportunity to write only one constitutional amendment and see it ratified, it would read something like this:

No corporation, organization, association, or other group of individuals shall be granted the legal status of personhood, nor shall it be automatically granted the protections or rights afforded to persons by this Constitution, except for such rights as may be specifically granted by other articles.

Short and to the point. Nothing saying that Congress cannot grant certain rights to various groups, and no reduction of rights specifically granted to certain groups (e.g. freedom of the press). But no corporation would be allowed to automatically claim the rights of persons, and their lobbyists could be limited to speaking only as interested individuals, on the same footing as any other citizen.

I actually think it’s only a matter of time (though not necessarily a time in any of our lifetimes) before corporations are stripped of their special rights (and their ability to avoid responsibility) – I just hope it doesn’t take something like another revolutionary war to accomplish it. But as corporations get bigger and more evil, eventually people are going to find an effective way to push back.  I’d much rather see that happen in a peaceful and orderly way (e.g. the aforementioned constitutional amendment) than through violent means, but that will likely be up to our children and grandchildren, or maybe even our great-great-[etc.]-grandchildren.

The one thing I cannot conceive is that corporations as a whole will become less evil absent any fundamental changes in our constitution and/or our legal structure. Just as our forefathers rebelled against overbearing and evil governments a couple of centuries ago, and against overbearing (and arguably evil) religious leaders before that, the day may come when future generations will rebel against overbearing and evil corporations.  Note that the previous rebellions did not result in the end of either religion or government, but both were improved by the process.

EDIT: One thing I want to make clear: Even though Delta is mentioned above, this article is not intended to single out Delta as being any more (or less) evil than any other large corporation.  Again, I think that ALL large corporations are evil to some degree – every single one of them can at times take actions that no reasonable person, acting on their own volition, would ever take.  The reason individuals behave differently when part of a corporation are many (and probably the subject of many studies and books), but the fact is that individuals working for corporations often do behave as they believe the corporation would want then to behave, putting aside their own conscience and sense of compassion in the process. I’m sure that heartless actions by employees occur at every airline, and at every other major corporation that now exists, or has ever existed.

Leave a Comment

Killing the Golden Goose

November 25, 2009 at 3:35 pm · Filed under Broadband, Editorial, Internet, Opinion, Wireless, cable, consumer, corporation, customer service, government, invention, networking

I wonder how many folks saw this article yesterday on the Stop the Cap! site:

Cable Companies’ Big Internet Swindle: They Charge You $40 For Broadband That Costs Them $8 To Provide

I had sent this article to a friend and his response was, “if all these huge profit margins are true, then why is Charter in bankruptcy?” Well, a possible reason is that even what ought to be a hugely profitable company can be sunk by bad management and horrible customer service (and I have seen allegations of both with regard to Charter).  But in a way, Charter is the reason for this article. As I mentioned in a previous article,  Charter wants to move to what they call “consumption based billing.”

I just want to point out that while people may be slow to react, they are not stupid.  America is littered with the remains of once-great corporations that in their day were at the top of the heap, but then got greedy.  At one time, the American railroads controlled much of the country, especially the in the west.  It took a while, but shippers finally figured out that trucks were less expensive and more practical.  The thing is, the railroads at one time had all the advantages, including friends in government and economies of scale, but they just plain got greedy and priced themselves out of the market.

I’ve previously mentioned Western Union, which at one time owned electronic text-based communications within the U.S.A.  But even as they became more automated, moving away from guys pounding brass keys and into the age of teletypewriters, fax machines, and microwaves, they kept raising the per-word prices for telegrams. At the same time, the price of a phone call kept falling.  Had Western Uninion been a bit smarter, they might have been a major player in today’s world of electronic communications.

Then we have landline phone service.  While this is a bit of a unique story, since in part it’s a story of the landline business being cannibalized by the wireline side of the business, it still is an example of many customers finally getting sick to death of being overcharged for service.

So what do we have today? We have cable companies and phone companies that overcharge for service, particularly with regard to broadband and cable television. The cable companies complain that they are being practically held up at gunpoint by the broadcasters and content providers, who demand higher fees, and therefore they need to pss those fees onto customers – however, they won’t even consider the one easy solution that would virtually eliminate that problem – allowing customers to pick and choose the channels they want, rather than being forced to subscribe to tiers of channels they don’t want in order to get channels they do want.  If customers were allowed to vote with their wallets, a lot of the alleged extortion by content providers would quickly end.  Yet the cable companies fight the very idea of à la carte programming tooth and nail.

As for metered billing for broadband – it’s totally unnecessary and it leaves customers open to possible fraud by the provider (this is sometimes even a problem with utilities where you can physically see the meter, so how much more of a problem will it be when the meter exists only in software, and customers have no possible way to check the accuracy of that meter).

But what I see here is a convergence of a “perfect storm” that’s going to totally reshape communications in the U.S.A. Here are a few, somewhat related points:

  • Many other countries, particularly our competitors in Asia, are providing far higher broadband speeds to their customers, at a lower monthly rate.  Only so much of that can be explained by population density; I think a larger part is that in many of those countries it’s just not socially nor politically acceptable for companies to exhibit unbridled greed, and to gouge their customers for every penny they can get. The U.S.A. simply cannot afford to have its citizens giving up their broadband connections to avoid being gouged.
  • The much-hated Universal Service Fund should be abolished, but instead it’s going to be expanded to include broadband.  However, the possible silver lining is that any time the government doles out money, it gains more control.  If the government used that control in a beneficial manner — by, for example, imposing network neutrality and a prohibition on metered billing on those companies that receive USF subsidies — it could nip some of these gouging attempts in the bud.  That’s not a long-term solution, however, since those regulations can and do change depending on the party in power.
  • It looks like competitive broadband providers are finally going to be allowed to use “white space” (e.g. unoccupied television channels) to provide wireless service.  If the FCC can make sure that smaller providers get a fair shake, this could allow competitive wireless providers to offer broadband service at reasonable rates (note to such providers – PLEASE don’t assume your users will be happy with an upload speed only one-tenth of download speed.  People want to make and share thir own content, and you should allow them to do that without making them die of boredom).
  • Also, when the large cable and DSL companies start gouging their customers, it creates a market for all available competitive services delivered via more traditional means (competitive DSL, current-technology wireless, etc.)
  • Then there is “the ‘x’ factor” (see below).

What do I mean by “the ‘x’ factor”? I mean the new technology that’s not been fully explored yet.  Technology doesn’t stand still, and there may be a breakthrough soon that will cause all existing technologies to essentially become obsolete. Have you ever noticed that the SETI project, and other attempts to “tune in” to advanced civilizations “out there” haven’t met with any success? Maybe that’s because the aliens aren’t using old-fashioned radio waves. Our current forms of electromagnetic radiation are very inefficient and often, very power-hungry. I suspect that the world of quantum physics is going to provide us something much better, if our governments will allow it.

For example, Google “quantum entanglement” – now suppose there were a way to place two particles in a state of entanglement, such that when you change the state of one particle, the other changes instantaneously, withour regard even to the speed of light limitation on traditional electronic communications.  Imagine that you had a box at your ISP, and a companion box at your location, and each box contained two (or more) matched pairs of entangled particles (probably in some kind of plug-in module) – at least one pair of particles for transmitting data, the other for receiving.  These boxes wouldn’t use radio waves or the electromagnetic spectrum, so there would be no bandwidth limitations to worry about.  Furthermore, communications would be totally secure, because only the entangled particles would communicate with each other. That last part is why some governments would hate it – no more intercepting data mid-stream. But if that principle were developed commercially, your ISP could be on the moon for all you’d care, running off solar power and providing communications for half the planet – and if they started gouging their customers, someone else could set up a competing system, anywhere in the world. Maybe you could set one up in your basement, if you wanted to.

Sure, it sounds farfetched now – but so did the whole idea of radio before it was developed. We’re not talking some nebulous idea here, “quantum entanglement” is now a known principle of quantum physics. It’s just so new that either it hasn’t been commercially developed yet (much like the laser in the middle of the 20th century), or it’s being used in secret for totally secure communications, and the governments that are using it would rather you (and their enemies) didn’t know, not that there’s much an enemy could do about it.

My point here is that if today’s communications companies want to be around for the next revolution in technology (which will surely bring about opportunities that haven’t even been considered yet – who could have envisioned the opportunities the World Wide Web would create?), they had better re-think their ideas about alienating their customers. Sadly, American companies are notorious for not thinking ahead – as long as the current C.E.O. gets his golden parachute when he retires, what does he care what happens to the company in the future?  But the stockholders ought to care, and customers ought to care, and the government ought to care if they don’t want America to become a third-rate nation.

It will be interesting to see which companies survive the next few decades, and which ones kill the golden goose to get the immediate big windfall. But if I had to take service from one or the other, I’d rather get it from the one that plans on being around for the next century, and treats their customers accordingly.

Leave a Comment

Why not move Thanksgiving back one week?

November 23, 2009 at 7:15 pm · Filed under Editorial, Michigan, Opinion

It was President Abraham Lincoln that set the date of Thanksgiving in the United States as the final Thursday in November, and since then it’s been moved around a bit. According to Wikipedia:

Abraham Lincoln’s successors as president followed his example of annually declaring the final Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving. But in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with this tradition. November had five Thursdays that year, and Roosevelt declared the fourth Thursday as Thanksgiving rather than the fifth one. In 1940 and 1941, years in which November had four Thursdays, he declared the third one as Thanksgiving. Although many popular histories state otherwise, he made clear that his plan was to establish it on the next-to-last Thursday in the month instead of the last one. With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought an earlier Thanksgiving would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas…. Increasing profits and spending during this period, Roosevelt hoped, would help bring the country out of the Depression. At the time, advertising goods for Christmas before Thanksgiving was considered inappropriate. Fred Lazarus, Jr., founder of the Federated Department Stores (later Macy’s), is credited with convincing Roosevelt to push Thanksgiving back a week to expand the shopping season.[11]

However, many localities had made a tradition of celebrating on the last Thursday, and since a presidential declaration of Thanksgiving Day was not legally binding, it was widely disregarded. Twenty-three states went along with Roosevelt’s recommendation, 22 did not, and some, like Texas, could not decide and took both weeks as government holidays. Critics termed Roosevelt’s dating of the holiday as “Franksgiving”.
1942 to present

On October 6, 1941 both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution fixing the traditional last-Thursday date for the holiday beginning in 1942. However, in December of that year the Senate passed an amendment to the resolution that split the difference by requiring that Thanksgiving be observed annually on the fourth Thursday of November, which was sometimes the last Thursday and sometimes (less frequently) the next to last.[12] On December 26, 1941 President Roosevelt signed this bill, for the first time making the date of Thanksgiving a matter of federal law. See 55 Stat. 862 (1941).

The thing to keep in mind here is that there’s no long tradition of having Thanksgiving on a particular date, it doesn’t commemorate any specific event, and there’s no reason it could not be celebrated a bit earlier.  Canada celebrates it a lot earlier, on our Columbus Day, the second Monday in October.  Most Americans would think it quite strange to have Thanksgiving that early in the year, but at the same time, I can think of one really good reason to move it back one week: It would save lives.

There are three things that are different between 1941 and today. First of all, back then we did not have superhighways and cars going 70 miles per hour.  Just a few years earlier, you’d have been more likely to take a horse-drawn sleigh to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving Dinner than anything capable of doing a mile a minute. Second, stores didn’t put out their Christmas merchandise out before Thanksgiving – nowadays, even if some older people disapprove, many stores put out their Christmas wares the day after Halloween (if not earlier) and are already well into the Christmas selling season by Thanksgiving.

And back then, we did not have Black Friday. And herein lies the reason for my thinking.  I have observed that in much of the country, year after year, the week prior to the week of Thanksgiving usually still has reasonably nice weather.  Granted, occasionally winter blasts in early, but except for the real snowbelt areas, temperatures in the northern states (like Michigan) are still typically in the 50’s during the day, and rarely dip far below freezing at night. Then you go into Thanksgiving week, and suddenly old man Winter makes an appearance.  How many years has the truly wintry weather arrived on the day before Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving itself?  How often have Thanksgiving travel plans been ruined by the first blast of ice and snow? If it doesn’t get you on the start of your trip, it still may delay your return home.

But the worst part is, you enjoy a nice Thanksgiving and then, in this part of the country, venture out early in the morning on Black Friday, going out onto icy roads and standing in the freezing cold to get those bargains. Meanwhile the people in the sunbelt states are thanking their lucky stars they don’t live up north, having sucked the last of our warm air down to their part of the nation.  :)

In all seriousness, I’m sure it would save lives to have Thanksgiving and Black Friday a week earlier.  I really hate having my first winter driving experience of the year at 4 AM when I am full of turkey and want very much to go back to sleep. Even when it doesn’t happen much in Michigan, I’m sure there are parts of the country where people slide off the roads (or worse) trying to get to that one big deal on Black Friday morning.  “Black Friday” should not mean people are dying to get to the stores!

In many years, one week would make all the difference between reasonably nice weather and terrible weather. It doesn’t make sense to hold onto a date set back in the days of propeller aircraft, two-lane highways and 40 mph speed limits, and a societal taboo against putting out Christmas displays prior to Thanksgiving, if by moving Thanksgiving up a week we can save lives. Not only that, but it would (in most years) make standing in the dark outside a store far less of an endurance contest.

Think about that if the snow is swirling around your head early on Black Friday morning.  Personally, I wouldn’t even mind moving it back two weeks, but I know how resistant people are to change.  A little change of only one week would be a lot easier for many people to adjust to. Of course, some folks would throw a hissy fit if it were changed at all, but at my age I’ve seen plenty of changes I don’t like, and this one might actually save some lives.

The biggest downside I can see to this idea is that in many retail locations, we’d be tormented by one more week of all those now very long-in-the-tooth Christmas carols… but there also, it seems like many merchants are ignoring the break between Halloween and Thanksgiving, and going right from “Monster Mash” to “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” I’m starting to feel like Halloween’s never actually past, since for the next two months thereafter I’m going to be haunted by the ghosts of Perry Como, Burl Ives, and Bing Crosby! And, for the love of all that is holy, I’d ask the stores to PLEASE stop playing Marilyn Monroe singing “Santa Baby” — there is just something weird and wrong about that song, on so many levels!

 

Comments (9)

More bad news: Government wants to apply USF charges to VoIP

November 19, 2009 at 7:52 pm · Filed under Editorial, Internet, Legislation, Opinion, Regulation, Telephone, VOIP News, VoIP, consumer, government, issues

Those of you who’ve read this blog for a long time know that I’m no fan of the “Universal Service Fund”, a charge added to phone bills that in theory is supposed to support provision of phone service in rural and underserved areas.  I’ve called it “Bizarro Robin Hood” because it takes from the poor (telephone customers) and gives to the rich (large corporations). I also think it’s been one reason that people are dropping their landlines – it’s one of those extra fees that are tacked on to phone bills (generally to traditional long distance charges), above and beyond the advertised price. And I think the USF is a defacto “hidden tax” (because the government determines how it gets redistributed, much as with other taxes), yet you don’t get to deduct it from your gross income (unless it’s a business expense), so it’s in fact double taxation.

Well, since so many people are dropping their landlines and/or moving to flat-rate, any-distance plans, the number of payers into the USF is shrinking.  And guess what, rather than saying maybe it was a bad idea in the first place, your government (or should I say, the government of, by, and for the large corporations) is looking to actually expand the USF program! And guess which industry is in the crosshairs:

Congress targets VoIP again in USF bill (source: Fierce VoIP)

On Tuesday of this week, the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held hearings on a “discussion draft” of the proposed Universal Service Reform Act of 2009. You can read about the proposed legislation, including the position papers from the various parties that participated in the hearings on this page. But, who represented communications service customers? Some may think that role fell to “Gregory Rosston, Deputy Director, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research” (read his testimony here), but is he really playing the role of consumer advocate?  I didn’t really get that sense from reading his testimony, although he does make some points that aren’t parroting the large corporations. Instead, I got the impression he was playing the role of “neutral commentator”, while all the other parties were openly advocating their positions.  It would have been nice if someone there had been openly advocating for consumers of these services (of course, one of the big companies would likely have tried to put their own “sock puppet” in that role).

And, there’s one other thing: They want to start using the USF to expand broadband to unserved areas. Well, that’s just great — not only are we not going to axe this form of corporate welfare, we’re going to expand it to include more companies. BIG companies — companies that, for the most part, don’t need any more of our money (Charter being a possible exception, but they could help themselves by reducing their CEO’s salary to something much more reasonable). But I’d be willing to make a bargain with them: I’d let them have their USF subsidies, provided they would agree to two things — to never again oppose network neutrality, and to never abandon the flat monthly charging model (just say NO to metered billing)! Note I am not suggesting they need to offer a wide open pipe for a single flat monthly rate — they can still offer various speed tiers as they do now, and they can still temporarily throttle speed (without discrimination against particular services) to relieve actual congestion, as long as they remove the throttle when the congestion dissipates. But I don’t want them blocking access to services that might compete with services they offer (e.g. online video or VoIP services), and I definitely don’t want any surprise charges on users’ monthly bills because someone supposedly used “too much Internet” (based on a meter that the customer cannot see, or have checked for accuracy).

Of course, that’s the type of proposal a consumer advocate might make, and I don’t see where any of those were invited to testify.

One other point: One of the proposals for applying the USF “tax” is on a per-phone-number basis. This is favored because it’s simple to understand, but of course what they are not telling you is that it will actually shift the burden much more toward the individual consumer than the large corporation.  If this goes through, you can bet your bottom dollar that many companies will go to having just a few “outside” numbers — maybe only ONE — and an IVR (Interactive Voice Response, meaning those automated voice menus you sometimes get when calling a company, that direct you to speak or press certain digits to further direct your call) to route incoming calls.  Prepare to be even more infuriated by IVR’s that don’t get you to the person you really need to speak to without you first tearing your hair out.

Meanwhile, how many families now have multiple phone numbers, because every family member has a cell phone, and maybe they also have a landline or VoIP line, or even a fax line? By the way, did you know that many phone companies actually assign a phone number (for billing purposes) to DSL service, even when the customer is paying for DSL only and not telco dial tone? Will that cause DSL customers to get hit with yet another USF charge?

Compare that to the past, when many businesses had multiple numbers from the phone company (if they had Centrex service, then every extension had an outside number) while most home users had only one line.  Isn’t it funny how the government always considers doing the thing that will shift more of the burden to you, rather than the large corporations?

As for VoIP users: Many VoIP companies have offered extra “virtual” numbers for a small monthly fee (or even free in some cases), so that if you had friends or relatives in another city you could give them a way to call you for free, if they still were hanging onto old-fashioned PSTN service.  Will you be charged an extra USF fee for each such “virtual” number?

It just makes my blood boil sometimes to see how our government colludes with large corporations to come up with new ways to pick our pockets.  The USF should be abolished, and if they just can’t bring themselves to do that, they should at least have the decency to call it a tax and to attach some serious, pro-consumer strings on the disbursement of these funds to those corporations that dip into this particular well of taxpayer money (again, starting with net neutrality and no “excessive use” charges, or in other words, no meters!). Is that really too much to ask?

Leave a Comment

Parts of Michigan may soon be in a “broadband ghetto”

November 19, 2009 at 1:46 pm · Filed under Broadband, Editorial, FCC, Frontier, Internet, Michigan, Opinion, Regulation, Telephone, VOIP News, Verizon, VoIP, business ethics, cable, consumer, corporation, government, issues

There are places in the United States that have wonderful broadband connectivity, such as the fortunate residents of eastern states (and a few select places in former GTE areas) that receive FiOS (fiber to the home) service from Verizon.

There there are those places, including many in Michigan, where there is no broadband service at all.

But in many areas of Michigan, the situation has been happier. Many customers have a choice of service from two providers, the phone company and the cable company. Unfortunately, in many parts of the state, particularly in the less densely populated areas, there may be a real problem in the near future. Those areas are served by Charter Communications for their cable service, and Verizon (soon to be Frontier if the planned sale goes through) for their phone service. And areas served by those two companies may be in for a double whammy.

Rather than try to write my own explanation of why this is so, I’ll give you the headline and the links. For Charter, the headline comes from BroadbandReports.com:

Charter Eyeing ‘Consumption Based Billing’

This is not only bad, but unnecessary. Both BroadbandReports.com (a.k.a. DSLreports.com) and the appropriately-named Stop The Cap site regularly run articles explaining why this is so. In fact, the very next article on the BroadbandReports.com site is this one:

Again: Metered Billing Is Neither Necessary Nor Inevitable

Here’s Stop The Cap’s headline on Charter’s plans:

Charter Cable Wants To Emerge From Bankruptcy And Overcharge Customers: Rate Hikes & Limits Under Consideration

The problem is that almost nobody (other than certain backward-thinking broadband company executives) really wants a meter running on their broadband connection. Think back to the old days of long distance calling, when you paid by the minute for long distance – you rationed your usage because you didn’t want to run up a huge phone bill. Nowadays, about the only people who still used a landline and metered long distance to make long distance calls are those who don’t have a cell phone (with unlimited calling, or a generous bucket of minutes) or some form of VoIP service, both of which provide unmetered long distance. In fact, I have read that studies have shown that people will pay more for unlimited service even when their actual usage would allow them to save money by using a metered service, simply because they want the security of knowing exactly what their cost will be each month. I firmly believe this, because I feel exactly the same way.

Now, some are probably thinking that if Charter goes to metered billing, you’ll just switch to Verizon. But Verizon doesn’t love you anymore – they want to dump you off on a company called Frontier Communications. Want to know what that will likely be a very bad thing? Well, while Michigan’s been sleeping on this issue, the state of West Virginia (particularly the Consumer Advocate division of the state’s Public Service Commission) has not. They’ve been doing their homework, and the resulting headlines from the Stop The Cap site are these:

Frontier DSL: “Slow, Low Quality, and Priced Significantly Higher Than Verizon” Says Expert Hired By WV Consumer Advocate

Strong Opposition Erupts in West Virginia Opposing Frontier-Verizon Deal: “Too Many Risks” Says State’s Consumer Advocate

One thing to note is that Frontier reserves the right to charge customers extra if they use more than 5 GB in a month (that is a limit only a Scrooge would love – even Comcast allows 250 GB of usage per month before they raise an eyebrow) and their prices for comparable levels of DSL service are much higher than Verizon’s.

Anyway, here’s the problem I’m seeing. Michigan is already in an economic slump, and the thing we are trying to do is attract technology companies to replace those jobs lost because of the downsizing of Michigan’s automobile industry. But what company in their right mind would move to a broadband ghetto? If all you can get is costly, metered broadband service, wouldn’t you rather live someplace else?

There are large areas of Michigan where the phone company is Verizon and the cable company — assuming cable service is available at all — is Charter. Michigan should not just give rubber-stamp approval to the Verizon-Frontier deal, even though in the past they have pretty much given the phone companies whatever they wanted. And the state needs to do everything possible to make sure that as many residents as possible have alternatives other than Charter and Frontier for their broadband service. If that means encouraging cable companies to overbuild each other (that is, having more than one cable company serving the same area, which just about always results in lower prices and better service from both companies), so be it.

If you are reading this article, you need to realize something. This is a very small blog on a very big Internet. The people who might be able to make a difference on this issue are probably not going to read this unless you send it to them. I’m getting older, and my days of “fighting the powers-that-be” are drawing to a close. I VERY much appreciate the fact that guys like Phillip Dampier (of Stop The Cap) and Karl Bode (of BroadbandReports.com), as well as many others, are keeping this issue alive.  But they cannot do it alone.  If you have the ear of a policymaker, or a legislator, you need to address this issue with them, particularly if you care about Michigan’s future.  Places like Muskegon County (where the northern and eastern parts of the county are served by Charter,  and nearly the entire county will be served by Frontier if the sale goes through), along with several counties to the north and east of Muskegon County ought to be particularly concerned, because this is the sort of thing that could cripple their economic recovery.

At risk of this becoming too long, I’ll just add this: What are you getting your children or grandchildren for Christmas (or whatever December holiday you may celebrate)? Many of the newer gaming systems require a broadband connection, and guess what, those use bandwidth too.  Right now we have a problem with kids doing excessive texting, and although that’s a service that costs the phone companies next to nothing to provide, parents still get hit with huge bills because the kid didn’t realize he was texting too much, and the phone companies can charge absolutely outrageous rates for text messages.  Well, do you want to suddenly start getting huge bills because the cable company claims your kid, or someone in your family, used too much Internet? And that brings up the other point – how can you trust their meter? What’s to keep them from pulling an arbitrary usage figure out of their, er, hats, and billing you for it? At least 99.9% of customers would not have the foggiest clue how to verify that the cable company’s meter is accurate (given a choice, would you buy gasoline from a pump if you knew it was never inspected for accuracy?). Metered billing is a very, very bad thing.

EDIT: Of course, certain people in the broadband industry disagree, and keep coming up with outrageous and nonsensical arguments as to why they should be allowed to overcharge you, and why you should even welcome being overcharged. The BroadbandReports.com and Stop the Cap sites do a pretty good job of refuting those, but given our very broken system of government (which nearly always seems to favor the very large corporations over “we the people”, at least until a corporation does something so outrageous that it cannot be ignored), I wonder if anyone is listening.  I will warn anyone who will listen: If the broadband providers get their way on metered billing, there will be a very direct economic cost, because many people will drop their broadband service entirely, while others will self-limit their online activities so as not to incur “excessive use” charges.  If you do business on the Internet, that impacts YOU, right in the bank account. Here’s a link to the latest refutation of industry B.S., courtesy of Stop the Cap:

The Internet Overcharging Express: We Derail One Limited Service Logic Train-Wreck, They Railroad Us With Another

Comments (2)

Opinion wanted on Hulu Desktop application’s End User License Agreement

November 13, 2009 at 12:02 am · Filed under Mac, business ethics, consumer, corporation, privacy, software ·Tagged ,

(I resisted the urge to make the headline read: “Hulu EULA meant ta fool ya?”  You’re welcome.)

I’m aware that some people have raised an eyebrow at a portion of section 2 of the Hulu Desktop application’s EULA, where it states (in part):

2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions. Hulu grants you a license to install and use the Hulu Software on your personal laptop or desktop computer (“Personal Computer”) for the sole purpose of streaming content that is available on Hulu’s site located at www.hulu.com (“Hulu Content”) on your Personal Computer. You may not download, install or use the Hulu Software on any device other than a Personal Computer including without limitation digital media receiver devices (such as Apple TV), mobile devices (such as a cell phone device, mobile handheld device or a PDA), network devices or CE devices (collectively “Prohibited Devices”). You may not use any hardware, software or service other than the Hulu Software to stream, re-encode, project or transmit Hulu Content. …

But, that is not the part that concerns me.  I’m far more concerned about section 5, which states:

5. Consent to Use of Data. You agree that Hulu and its subsidiaries may collect and use technical and related information about your computer, including but not limited to system and application software and peripherals that you use to access the Services. This information is gathered to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support, and other services to you (if any) related to the Hulu Software. Hulu may use this information to improve our products or to provide services or technologies to you. (Emphasis Added)

First of all, why should I be required to tell Hulu anything at all about my computer?  Is this so they have a way to enforce the restrictions in Section 2? While this paragraph would concern me even without the inclusion of any “weasel words,” including the words “but not limited to” seems to change the entire tone of that paragraph. Let me put it this way: If you happen to read down this far, what I suspect they want your eyes to see is something like this:

You agree that Hulu (blah, blah) may collect and use technical and related information about your computer (blah, blah) software and peripherals that you use to access the Services. …

And that alone ought to put you on your guard, but many people wouldn’t notice. But if I am reading correctly (and bear in mind that I Am Not A Lawyer), what I think this really means is more along these lines:

You agree that Hulu and its subsidiaries, whoever they are may collect and use any damn thing they want to know about your computer.

So, again if I am reading this correctly, this license in effect gives Hulu and its unnamed subsidiaries blanket permission to take whatever information they can find on your computer.  Now, I have no idea what information they actually look at, but no way in hell would I knowingly give Hulu or anybody else blanket permission to let their software rummage around my computer and “phone home” with anything they happen to find interesting.

I’m really surprised that this hasn’t apparently hasn’t been noticed (yet) by those people who regularly look for this sort of thing.  Anyway, if anyone from Hulu happens to read this, my advice is that you strike Section 5 of your obnoxious EULA. Or, at least run it by someone who understands that users do not intend to give you the keys to their computer (or the right to take the keys at whatever future date you like) simply because you induce them to use your software, and then revise that section to explicitly state what you will collect (with no “weasel words”), and exactly who will have access to that data.

So my question is this: If we have any legal experts in the crowd, does this EULA section seem as offensive to you as it does to me? Or am I just taking this entirely the wrong way?

As for the Hulu Desktop software itself, I cannot comment on whether it’s any good or not, because I’ve never gone past that EULA screen!

Leave a Comment

Does UPS stand for “Unreliable Power Supply”?

November 12, 2009 at 6:34 pm · Filed under consumer, electronics, hardware

I hope this is not the start of a disturbing trend in low-cost “Uninterruptable” Power Supplies.  The idea is, these devices are supposed to provide relatively constant power to devices connected to them, even if the commercial power fails, or the line voltage fluctuates outside of certain specified parameters.

However, it seems that in some cases, when the batteries reach their end-of-life and can no longer hold a charge, the exact opposite happens.  In that case, even though the commercial power is perfectly fine, the UPS will shut down, or worse yet, will start cycling on and off, continuously applying and then removing power to the “protected” devices.

I personally had this happen about a year ago with a low-end CyberPower unit that I had purchased a few years back (it was out of warranty, so I’ve since recycled it).  Today on Twitter, Karl Fife (@karlfife) seemed to be having an issue with an APC unit. He made three Tweets in quick succession, as follows:

[@karlfife] APC brand UPS failure again, Again, AGAIN. Our 3rd APC failure WHILE CONNECTED to mains! ‘Because’ batteries at end of life??!! PLEASE!!!
[@karlfife] Doing it POORLY can be expected. NO excuse for doing THE OPPOSITE of its DESIGNED PURPOSE. APC: Fire your marketers and hire some engineers!
[@karlfife] APC: Five nines? NO. More like nine fives! 55.5555555% Uptime!

I replied, mentioning I’d had a similar issue with a CyberPower UPS, and he replied:

[@karlfife] @MichiganTelepho What do they think the U in UPS Stands for? Unreliable? Unpredictable? Unerengineered? Undermine? Underpants? Uh-oh?

I wonder that, too. I’ve had several UPS units over the years (in part because it’s often cheaper to buy a new UPS on sale than to replace the batteries in an older unit) but it seems to be a relatively recent phenomena that a UPS will fail in the worst possible way.  This is just poor design — as long as the commercial power is fine, the UPS should never kill the power, regardless of the battery state.  And if some power problem causes the unit to attempt to go to battery backup, and there isn’t enough of a charge left in the batteries to keep the connected equipment powered up, then the unit should have the option to fail by shutting down and STAYING off, until the user pushes a button on the unit or takes some other action to restore the power.  Under no circumstances should the unit fail in such a way that it repeatedly power cycles on and off, with the potential for damaging the very equipment it’s supposed to protect.

Fortunately, when my UPS failed, I was right there and was able to turn it off within several seconds of when it started, and none of the equipment appeared permanently damaged (also fortunately, that particular UPS only handled a computer that was powered down at the time, plus some networking equipment and VoIP adapters, and although I’m sure that equipment doesn’t benefit from unnecessary power cycles, at least there was nothing powered up that had a hard drive spinning at the time). But I can well imagine that this type of failure could be the cause of equipment failure, especially if no one happens to be around to catch the problem for several hours (or days).

Apparently this only happens with certain units – I bought two of the aforementioned CyberPower units at the same time, and one is still in service and seems to be working fine, so maybe it’s just the luck of the draw.  Still, UPS makers need to realize that people buy their product because they want RELIABLE power.  What’s the point of even buying a UPS if it’s not reliable?  If these products gain a reputation of being unreliable, consumers will stop buying them and it will kill their whole industry.

By the way, the best UPS I ever owned was the first one I ever bought, back in the early 90’s.  I bought it from an auction site (NOT eBay – this was actually back when there were competitive auction sites!) and paid about 70 bucks for it, if I recall correctly.  That thing just kept working and working.  Even after I bought a larger unit, I hooked that one up to a TV set and it kept the TV on through several short power interruptions. The battery finally gave out completely a couple of years ago, though I’m sure its capacity to hold a charge had been greatly diminished for several months prior to that — still, it worked quite well for about a full decade! I’m not certain, but I think it was made by Eveready (like the battery company) and it sure looked like the type you used to see connected to medical equipment in hospitals. You’d think batteries would have gotten better (if not cheaper) since then, but maybe not. If UPS makers are cutting corners on the batteries, that’s a VERY bad idea for the future of their industry!

Is this a common problem, or a relatively rare one? Have you had a similar problem with a UPS? Feel free to leave a comment!

Comments (3)

Will conservative and pro-life Christians still be fooled by the Republican party?

November 8, 2009 at 1:27 pm · Filed under Editorial, Legislation, Opinion, government, issues

I just want to make a quick point here.  You may recall my recent post, “Is slain anti-abortion activist a martyr or a nutjob?“, in which I wrote:

In the political arena, the Democrats pander to the pro-abortion crowd, and the Republican pander to the anti-choice crowd.  And make no mistake, it IS mostly pandering.  They will make speeches at “prayer breakfasts” and other gatherings and make it sound like they’re really concerned about the issue.  Then they go back to Washington and do pretty much nothing – maybe a few token gestures, but nothing has really changed since Roe vs. Wade.  The very mis-named “religious right” (who in reality, are not all that religious and seldom right) in particular seems to live in the fantasy world where if only the Republicans had a majority in the government, they would end abortion once and for all.  They just don’t get it that for most Republican members of congress, abortion is probably less of a concern than who won that 2004 Super Bowl. Meanwhile they continue to help put lousy candidates in office just because that candidate will proclaim that they are “pro-life.”

Well, I wonder how many conservative Christians actually noticed that it was a Democrat, none other than Michigan’s Bart Stupak, who successfully pushed to eliminate coverage for abortion in the health care legislation passed in the House of Representatives. Today, many liberals are crying that this almost makes abortion illegal in the United States (actually it doesn’t, but it will make an abortion a lot harder to get if a woman is poor). You’d think that all the Republican legislators who’ve been pandering to the pro-life, conservative Christian vote would have got behind this, right?

Um, no. ONE Republican vote, and already the right-wing nutjobs want to tear that legislator apart. That type of attitude (as exemplified in the reposted Twitter “tweet” shown in that article) is exactly what has turned me against both the Republican party and organized religion in the past decade.

So, when will you conservative and fundamentalist Christians learn that the Republican party doesn’t care about abortion and doesn’t care about you? To them, you are useful fools. You give them your votes (and in some cases, your adoration) and they don’t deserve it.  They are using you.  I’m sure Jesus would have seen right through them – why don’t you?

Jesus preached love – love your neighbor, turn the other cheek, pray for those that use you.  Conservative Christians may want to pray for the Republican party (since the Republican party has certainly used them), but hate should have no place in the Christian religion, and yet more and more, both fundamentalist Christians and Republicans are becoming known as people of hate.

Sorry if the truth hurts, but somebody needed to say it.

And for those who think this sort of commentary doesn’t belong in this blog, read this.

Leave a Comment

Men: Does your workplace (or your current relationship) seem like the lowest level of Hell?

November 7, 2009 at 2:56 am · Filed under Blog, Editorial

If so, I have a blog recommendation for you:

A Shrink for Men — A blog for professional men in complicated relationships and dissatisfying careers combining psychology, insight, humor, irony, sexuality, and social commentary.

Don’t be put off by the “professional men” part, especially if you are caught up in a relationship that leaves you feeling like you’re a victim of war.  And also, while the blog is written primarily for men, women can likely find some good advice in the articles on workplace bullying and mobbing:

Workplace Bullying and Office Politics: What is Mobbing?
How to Avoid Bullying and Mobbing at Work
How to Recognize 7 Personality Types in Office Politics
6 More Office Personality Types

As for the bad relationships… if you’re a man and you really need some support on that issue, start with the most recent articles on the blog and work your way back, or start at the first article and work forward from there. Definitely read the comments left by readers on some of the articles (they often offer additional insight on the article).

How do you know if you are in a truly bad relationship (since the perfect relationship is, after all, pretty much a myth)? Well, here are a few articles from the blog that can help you figure out if you are in one:

When Love Hurts: The Emotionally Abused Man
13 Signs Your Wife or Girlfriend is a Borderline or a Narcissist
Relationship Roller Coaster Ride: The Cycle of Abuse
Is Your Girlfriend or Wife a Professional Victim?
10 Signs Your Girlfriend or Wife is an Emotional Bully
Traumatic Love: Is Your Narcissistic or Borderline Wife or Girlfriend Making You Sick?
25 Signs your Narcissistic or Borderline Wife or Girlfriend is Traumatizing You
12 Signs You Should Break Up With Your Girlfriend or Boyfriend or Spouse

Believe it or not, I found this blog linked from another page that I found via an only slightly-related Twitter link (sometimes it pays to follow links and see where they lead you). I’ve known more than one guy who stayed in an abusive relationship for years, then finally got out but at great cost (both emotionally, and in some cases, financially). If you are in such a relationship, the healthy thing to do is GET OUT as soon as possible. Note I did not say “get help” or “get counseling” with the intent of trying to “save the relationship” (or marriage), because this type of abusive relationship can NEVER be saved — it can only be prolonged, but the longer you prolong it the worse it gets. If only information like this had been available 35 years ago, it might have saved some friends of mine from considerable grief.

The interesting thing about this blog is that it is written by a woman with a PsyD degree, who apparently has seen a lot of men that have been emotionally abused (or worse) by their bosses or significant others.  Yet this is a segment of society that seems mostly invisible — while battered and emotionally abused women get a lot of press and sympathy, when it’s men on the receiving end they are often either ignored, or it’s “blame the victim” time.  Just to put it in perspective, name me one city in the world that has a special facility for battered and abused men.  “Homeless shelters” that provide shelter for drug abusers and winos don’t count (people who don’t abuse alcohol or use drugs really don’t want to sleep in a room full of people who do, if there is any other alternative, and that’s true regardless of gender).  Seems like nearly every county of any size has a shelter for battered and abused women these days, but when a man is the victim he’s expected to just fend for himself, and the cruel irony is that he’ll probably be at least suspected of being the actual abuser.  And if there are minor children, they will only very rarely be left with an abusive father, but how often do the courts award custody to an abusive mother without even looking into the situation? Talk about discrimination…

And yes, I do realize that battered and abused women do exist, and when that happens it’s despicable. But there is also a certain percentage of females that know that the police and the courts tend to assume that whenever physical violence or emotional abuse takes place, it’s the male who started it, so these women use that unwarranted assumption to their advantage to manipulate the system (and whether you are a male or a female, you’ve probably known a few women like this.  Guys tend to use a word to describe such women; it rhymes with “itch”).

I really hope that everyone reading this is in a healthy relationship (if you are in a relationship) and in a great workplace (if you are employed), and can honestly say “none of this applies to me”, but if that’s not the case and you are a man, there is a lot of good advice and support to be found at this blog. Oh, and if you are in law enforcement and/or the court system, and you are at all interested in being fair to those you serve, it wouldn’t hurt if you read a few of the articles on this site — it might open your eyes just a bit.

Comments (1)

The affordable housing option you may have never considered – but perhaps should

October 27, 2009 at 7:16 pm · Filed under consumer

Maybe I should have written this article a year ago… but anyway, it seems there are a lot of people who have been forced to move out of their homes for one reason or another. Very often they go looking for an apartment and unless they are really fortunate, they often find that apartment living is nowhere near as desirable as their prebvious living arrangements.

For many of these people, there is another option they may have never considered, but probably should. Today, it’s called manufactured housing. When I was younger, they were called mobile homes. Very old people may still think of them as trailers. But a trailer is to a manufactured home as a beat-up VW from the 60’s is to a luxury car of today. Manufactured housing has gotten MUCH better over the years, yet far too many people can’t stop thinking of them as “trailers.”

So, let me explain to you the advantages and disadvantages of manufactured home living:

The biggest advantage is that whether you currently own a home or are renting an apartment, you can get far more bang for your buck with a mobile home. Single wide mobile homes (even ones of recent manufacture) can often be had for under $10,000 used, in a mobile home park. As with any home, some folks don’t take care of their homes, while others keep them immaculate, so if you look at used manufactured homes, don’t be surprised (or put off) if the first one you see looks like a dump – just say “no” and move on. In any case, when you find one you like you will almost certainly find that even with the lot rent (or property tax, if you buy one on private property), you will be paying less per month for your home payments than you are paying for your current living arrangements – and if that’s not the case, then I can pretty much assure you that the manufactured home will be a step up for you!

Another advantage is that you are building up equity in your home. Granted, it may not be all that much, but then again if you keep up your property and don’t overpay to begin with, when you move out you may be able to recoup much of what you’ve paid. EDIT: Don’t read too much into this – it is very true that many types of manufactured homes, particularly the older single-wide mobile homes, depreciate in value over the years.  However, if you buy one that’s nearly fully depreciated, fix it up and improve its appearance, and then resell it, it is possible to actually make a little money on the deal – and by “a little” I mean “maybe enough to fill your gas tank a few times”, not “enough to make a down payment on your next home.” My point here is that when you do decide to move, unless the place is a real dump you can probably get something out of it, whereas with an apartment you might get your security deposit back, if you’re lucky.

And one other BIG advantage for some is that, because you own the home, you have more control over it. This is particularly true when it comes to pets. Whereas many landlords won’t allow pets at all, most mobile home park owners tend to be much more lenient – after all, since you own the home, they won’t get stuck cleaning up after your pet when you move out. So if you are being forced out of your home and your kids are crying at the prospect of having to give up Fluffy (particularly if Fluffy is a cat or a small dog), you really should start looking into manufactured homes.

Speaking of kids, in many areas with mobile homes the streets are dead ends or cul-de-sacs, or may have speed bumps or other mechanisms to slow down cars. You may actually be able to let your child ride their bike on the street in front of your home without worrying that some idiot will come tearing through and mow them down. And in a mobile home park, your kids will almost certainly be able to find other kids to play with (of course, if it’s not a nice mobile home park, they may not be the kind of kids you want yours playing with).

One other thing to consider is that most mobile homes, whether new or used, come with appliances (if you are buying a used home, ASK the seller to state which appliances are included, and be sure those appliances INCLUDING make and model/serial numbers are listed on the the bill of sale or purchase agreement. A member of my family bought a mobile home once that contained a nice refrigerator – when they came to move in a couple days later, that new refrigerator had turned into an old, single-door wheezer that sounded like it was about to gasp and die. They called the local police, who paid the previous owner a visit and informed them that it would be illegal for them to sell or dispose of the refrigerator until the matter had been settled in court. When said previous owner realized they were probably going to get hauled into small claims court, it took them about half an hour to show up with the new refrigerator and make a swap. YOU may not be so lucky, so be sure you and the seller understand EXACTLY what you are buying, and get everything listed on some kind of document relating to the sale, and signed by the seller!). You may get furniture too, but if it’s furniture that originally came with the home when new, it’s probably not real high quality.

Now, the fact that you own (or are buying) a home can also have its disadvantages. Unlike an apartment, you can’t just walk away after giving 30 days notice. If the home is in a park, you may be responsible for either selling the home to another person, or moving the home out of the park. Until you do one or the other, you will still be responsible for paying lot rent. If it’s on private property, you will have the same hassles as you would in selling a house (although if you don’t overprice it, a mobile home should be a lot easier to sell in today’s market).

You will have maintenance costs. On a newer home these will likely be minimal — remember, a manufactured home is built to go down the road at 70 miles per hour, so if it survives that intact, it will probably take quite a bit to damage it. But when something does need to be fixed, it may be a bit more costly that the same repair in a home because even today, manufactured home makers sometimes use weird parts (like non-standard sized doors). It’s not that replacements are unavailable, but they will probably cost you more than you’d like. If you’re careful not to damage your home, these expenses will hopefully be minimal. With an older home, you may be faced with replacing a water heater or even a furnace at some point, and those are expensive repairs. If in doubt, have those big-ticket items checked out before you buy.

The bad: Who has seen the wind? Well, if you see a tornado, you don’t want to be in a mobile home, new or old. So if you live in “tornado alley”, make sure that there is a tornado shelter (or an accessible basement) in the park or on your property. By the way, it’s not really true that tornadoes are attracted to mobile home parks, but it is true that when a tornado his a manufactured home community it generally leaves a real mess, and what that attracts is news crews and their cameras.

The ugly: Before you even think of moving into a mobile home park, there are some things you absolutely want to do. The first is to talk to the park management and ask for a copy of the park rules, and find out what the monthly lot rent is, and find out if you will be changed for utilities such as water, sewer, electricity, garbage removal, Cable TV, broadband Internet, etc. Also find out who provides those services or utilities – if it’s the park, and you will have to pay extra for a service provided by the park, you can just about bet they are adding a surcharge above what you’d pay if you were buying the service directly. And if you are looking at a particular manufactured home, make sure that if you buy it the park management will allow you to stay in the park (unless you want to move it to a different park, which is of course your prerogative, but moving a manufactured home sometimes causes unanticipated damage to the home, and in any case you’ll want to find out how much that move is going to cost you.  And in some states, their may be exit fees in a mobile home park, although those are illegal in other states such as Michigan). Also ask about your pets, if you have any – you don’t want to move in and THEN find out that the management has a problem with your pets.

There are a lot of mobile home park owners that are just great folks, but then again, there are a some that are horrible people and scam artists. To make sure that you don’t get one who thinks their park is their own personal version of a mini-Nazi Germany, and they are taking the role of a little Hitler, go to the park on a weekend (preferably a pleasant afternoon) and stop and have a chat with a few random residents – preferably those who appear to be about your same age/gender/race etc. Ask them how they like living in the park, and if they’ve ever had any problems with park management OR with their neighbors. If they seem hesitant to respond, or appear to be choosing their words carefully, that’s a bad sign. And if the management actually shows up and berates you for talking to residents in the park when you don’t yet live there, drive away and never come back!

EDIT: I forgot to mention, though I had intended to, that there is a wide variance in the quality of manufactured homes. Some are mass-produced in such a way that the construction is rather poor, whereas other brands have a reputation for much higher quality.  Another possible reason for visiting a mobile home park, if you’re considering the purchase of a used home, is to try and talk to people who own a similar model to the one you’re considering (or an even older model from the same manufacturer) and see how they feel about their homes.  Also, if you find that the park managers seem like reasonable folks that you can chat with, you can ask them their opinion of various manufactured home brands that you might be considering.  The caveat here is that they might be in cahoots with a local dealer (or they might even be a local dealer), and thus may have some incentive to talk up whatever brand that dealer is selling — even so, they can often help steer you away from a brand that’s got a reputation as having really poor construction. Now back to the original article…

Definitely read the park rules, and discuss them with your spouse/children/anyone else that may be living with you in the home. Some parks will have rules that sound okay at first glance but when you think about them a bit more, you realize that they’re something you can’t live with. For example, if you are a bit absent-minded, you don’t want to live in a park where you are penalized for forgetting to cut your grass on a particular day, or to take in your garbage cans by a certain hour. If the rules seem a bit unreasonable, the park owners might be very unreasonable. And if a park looks extra nice when you drive in – almost like a garden spot – it might be that way because the park management is quite anal about forcing residents to make their properties look that way (or the management will do it, and send the negligent resident a big bill!). Can you live with that?

The upside of a nice park is that it may be less attractive to those you might not want to live close to. Just as you are looking for inexpensive housing, so are many other people, for various reasons. Some want inexpensive housing because they’d rather spend their money on alcohol or drugs. This is why it pays to take some time to talk to existing residents – you can get a pretty good idea of what the park is like, and if you ask the right questions you can find out if there are residents that are likely to try to sell drugs to members of your family (which, hopefully, you want to avoid — or at very least, you’d want to be in a different part of the park).

A far better alternative in many cases is to find a relatively new mobile home in good shape on private property. These do exist in many areas, but are hard to find. Real estate agents hate them (and often will use every trick in the book to talk you out of buying one) because their commission isn’t nearly as high on a mobile home as on a stick-built home. And if a real estate agent does accept a listing for one, they will often jack up the selling price far beyond what the home and property is worth (in one case I know of, the real estate agent priced the home and property at just under $70,000. You could have bought land in the same area, had well and septic and concrete pad installed, and a brand new mobile home placed on the property for about $40,000 at the time).

Which brings me to another point – if you know what you are doing, sometimes the best thing to do is buy a piece of vacant land in an area zoned for mobile homes, and develop it yourself, then place a new or used mobile home on the property. Be sure to talk to your city or township officials before attempting this, as you will need to be concerned about things like proper zoning and minimum lot sizes. You’ll also want to know what utilities are available in the area. Buying real estate is tricky, so you may want to hire a real estate agent to act as YOUR real estate agent (to protect YOUR interests, not the seller’s) during the process. On the other hand, if you can use some property that’s been in your family for a long time, and there are no zoning issues, that may be a way to go.

EDIT: Keep in mind that newer manufactured homes (the type that come in two or more sections, sometimes called “modular homes”, that are virtually indistinguishable from stick-built homes after they have been placed on the property) can usually go anyplace that a comparably-sized home can go, depending on local laws.  Those units generally aren’t limited to areas zoned for mobile homes, but the cost will be higher because the original purchase price is higher (generally at least $10,000 or more higher than a brand new, comparably-sized double-wide mobile home) and they generally have to be placed on a regular house-type foundation (not just placed on a concrete slab and supported by cement blocks, as is often the case with mobile homes).  Depending on how well-made the home is, this is the one type of manufactured home that actually can increase in value, although to a large degree that can depend on the condition of the property and the surrounding neighborhood. In some areas you can buy these homes and have them placed on a lot for only a fraction of what a similar contractor-built home would cost, and considering that not all contractors do the best possible job when building a new home, you may actually be happier with a factory-built modular when all is said and done.

[Tip: What's the difference between a double wide mobile home and a modular home? Look under the home. If you see long I-beams that span the length of the home, and metal framing, and maybe axles where the wheels would be attached (although those are often removed after the home is delivered) then it's a double wide mobile home. Also, if it's sitting on a cement pad and supported by concrete blocks, with vinyl or metal skirting hiding the underside of the home, then it's more than likely a double wide mobile home.  However, if when you look under the home you see wood framing (similar to what you'd see in the basement of a home that doesn't have a finished ceiling), and if the home is sitting on a regular house-type basement or a foundation with crawl space, it's probably a modular home. If it's in a mobile home park, it's almost certainly a double-wide mobile home, except under very special circumstances (e.g., it was previously the park owner's residence).]

Often, a great way to find a manufactured home, or property where you can place a manufactured home, is to drive around in places where there are already such homes, be it a mobile home park or an area where you see manufactured homes on private property. Look for “For Sale” signs, and use all the normal caution you’d use when buying a regular house or piece of property (particularly with private property, do not assume that the zoning laws have not changed since the homes you see were placed there! You can often keep using an existing home as a residence, but you may never be able to move a newer or better home onto the property, or onto adjacent vacant property you might purchase. Don’t assume anything!).

You can also look for manufactured homes for sale in newspaper classifieds, in the free “real estate” throwaways they pass out in some cities, and even online in places like Craigslist or eBay. Note that when buying from a private owner, you want to be extra diligent in looking for needed repairs. If possible, take someone with you that has lived in a manufactured home for several years – they may spot problems that you wouldn’t think to look for.

Unless your only other option is sleeping in a tent, never buy a manufactured home that was built more than about 20 to 25 years ago. Prior to that, the same construction standards used today were not in effect, and you may find homes that have very thin walls, non-standard fittings, and lots of other problems. Never buy a home with windows you have to crank to open, unless you are in a very temperate area – those windows lose heat in the winter like you would not believe.

This is just a suggestion for those who may need affordable housing. Newer manufactured homes can be quite nice, especially when compared to some of the overpriced, run-down apartments being offered in some neighborhoods, and many people don’t even consider the option because all they think of is drafty trailers with next to no insulation, and tin roofs, and bathrooms so small you can wash your hands in the sink while sitting on the john. You may still find some of those things (particularly in used homes) but very often people are VERY pleasantly surprised when they walk into a newer manufactured home, and find it’s nothing like what they imagined. You can, of course, buy a brand new mobile home (in which case the dealer almost certainly knows of several mobile home parks where you can place it) but be aware that mobile home dealers are very much like automobile dealers – some will give you a fair deal and a wonderful experience, and others will give you an experience that you’ll regret forever (there is nothing like talking to previous customers to find out about a particular dealer).

Also, if a dealer offers to do the prep work on your private property before delivering a manufactured home, make sure that it is clearly understood and that you have it in writing who is responsible if anything goes wrong.  For example, if the dealer hires a contractor to install a septic tank and drain field, and then the plumbing inspector refuses to pass it because it’s not up to code, do you really want to be on the hook for having it done over?  You probably will be, if you’re not very careful about how the contract is written!

In any case, if you are looking for housing, good luck in your search!

EDIT: I am pleased to note that The Consumerist found this article, and that many of their readers made comments on their site. While many of the comments there are quite valid, I take personal offense to the one guy who suggested that this might be “a spam blog grabbing stuff from Associated Content.” I want that person to know that every word of this “most obvious garbage” was written by myself.  And yes, my blog is on WordPress.com – so what, at least it’s not Geocities! ;) Also, I will note that my comments were primarily based on what I know about mobile home living in the Great Lakes area. If people in the SF Bay area are paying $200,000+ for a mobile home then all I can say is that some enterprising Californians ought to start buying mobile homes from the factories in Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, etc. and hauling them out to the Golden State – even after the transportation charges, there’s got to be a huge profit potential there, if they really sell for that kind of money.  Now, if we are talking newer manufactured (modular) homes then that’s a slightly different matter, although even then I still tend to think somebody’s making a HUGE profit out there!

Comments (4)

Why I will (probably) never buy another Mac

October 19, 2009 at 2:46 pm · Filed under Apple, Mac, OS X, Review, consumer, software

I’ve learned that one should never say “never” — after all, circumstances may change, and the thing you thought you’d never do becomes the very thing you feel you must do — in my case, leaving my religion would be the most prominent example. But while many Mac users may leave one with the impression that owning a Mac is somewhat akin to belonging to a cult, not everyone who buys a Mac is all that enchanted with it. I’ve had my Mac Mini for about two years now, and I just can’t see myself ever buying another Mac. What follows is solely my opinion, and nothing in the following paragraphs should be taken as statements of fact — it’s all just my opinions and my experience.

I had high expectations when I got my Mac Mini a couple of years ago. My son had a Mac and was quite happy with it. Notice my use of the word “was”, as in the past tense — my sense in talking to him is that while he’s nowhere near as down on the Mac as I am, he’s still a bit disappointed by the direction that Apple’s been taking with OS X. He originally got his Mac when the “Tiger” version of OS X was being shipped, and under Tiger things mostly just worked. Leopard brought problems, and from what we are reading, Snow Leopard is bringing even more problems, though not to all users.

Anyway, I had been using an underpowered box running Windows 2000, and basically wanted something that would play video smoothly and generally run a lot faster. I realized the Mac Mini was no speed demon, but at my age I’m not playing interactive games or anything like that. But if I go to a site like Hulu, I want the video to play without unexplained pauses, and in that I was disappointed — the Mac Mini just can’t seem to pull that off. If I play a 45 minute show, I’ll probably have half a dozen incidents of the picture just freezing up for several seconds, while the sound may or may not continue on.

But even that I could live with. The real problem with the Mac is the hidden cost of owning a Mac. Yes, you can buy a relatively inexpensive Mac, but the cost to get it working the way you want it to may be higher than you expect.

One of the reasons I bought a Mac Mini was because I don’t like the idea of an integrated display. As long as the display and the computer are separate, if the display goes bad I can grab a backup monitor and I’m back in business. But also, I wanted to use my own peripherals. Several articles I had read indicated that the Mac “just works” with most peripherals. Sadly, I have found that is not the case.

The first thing that wouldn’t work is a Memorex scanner that I’ve had for a few years, that I really liked because it could clearly scan a small three dimensional object without totally losing focus, as long as the depth of the object wasn’t over an inch or so. That meant that, for example, text near the spine of a book scanned clearly even if the book wouldn’t lay totally flat. Unfortunately, this scanner only had a Windows driver. Fortunately, when I got the Mini there was a free-after-rebate deal on certain accessories, among which was an all-in-one unit that included a scanner. So in order to get a scanner that is a bit faster, but that doesn’t scan three-dimensional objects quite as well, I had to do a free-after-rebate deal on a clunky five-function unit, out of which I only use one of the functions. But, okay, I’m told that my old Memorex scanner might not work under Windows 7, either, so I’ll give them a pass on that one.

Then there was my Samsung laser printer. The Mac ships with drivers for some Samsung models, but of course not the one I have, even though it’s a very popular model (ML-1740). It turned out that the only way to obtain a Mac driver was to go to Samsung’s Australia site. Well, okay, that worked, but it was hardly “out of the box” support for my printer, and to this day the Mac doesn’t natively support that model. I now wonder if my printer would stop working if I were to upgrade to Snow Leopard — it’s a real concern because some other users have lost the ability to use certain peripherals after upgrading.

My keyboard had a PS2 plug. Can’t use that; the Mac only supports USB keyboards, although you can get a cheap adapter on eBay. That works, but on about one out of three reboots the keyboard is not recognized. Of course I could have sprung for an expensive genuine Mac keyboard, but I don’t have money to burn. My son finally got me a USB keyboard for my birthday, and that works great as long as it’s plugged directly into the Mac Mini and not into a USB hub (I also had other keyboard issues that I described in previous articles).

And so it went. We found that not all USB hubs would work reliably with the Mac — you have to get one that is known compatible. Plug the Mac into a wired network, and it’s a crap shoot whether it will see the other machines on the network, or whether users at those machines can see your shared directories.

But the thing that really was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was my webcam. I had TWO perfectly good webcams that worked great under Windows, but the Mac wasn’t having either of them. So my son went online and found that many users said that the Sony EyeToy was compatible with the Mac. And he got me one, and it does work — with every program except iChat and PhotoBooth. Use it in Macam (third-party webcam software), and it works great. Under Skype, check. In fact it works beautifully in any NON-Apple program. But iChat and PhotoBooth simply refuse to recognize that there’s a camera there.

Now, every time I make a post like this, some Mac fanboy will come along and say something like, “Well, you can just buy program XYZ and then it will work!” Well, in case you haven’t figured it out, I don’t have spare cash to burn. That’s why I got a Mac Mini (on sale) and tried where possible to re-use peripherals. That’s why I try to use only free software whenever possible. In the Mac world, that really limits your choices.

I’m told — and I don’t know if this is true or not — that the only reason the webcam won’t work in iChat is because some internal preferences are set incorrectly. In the Linux world, or even in the Windows world, someone would likely publish an article telling you how to reset those preferences, so you could get your hardware to work. Of course, with Windows (and probably in many Linux distros), it’s likely that the webcam would just work from the get-go with all software capable of using it. But from were I sit, it almost looks like perhaps Apple DELIBERATELY cripples iChat and PhotoBooth, so if you try to use anything other than an overpriced webcam with an Apple logo on it (assuming you haven’t purchased a high-end Mac with a built-in webcam), you might have issues. And then some turd figured out how to fix the problem and rather than publish the information to help other users, they decided to create their own add-on software and sell it, and now that’s the only solution ever offered to someone experiencing this problem.

In other words, whether because of malice or neglect, some third-party webcams won’t work with Apple software.  And Apple apparently seems to think the only solution is to buy their overpriced hardware (virtually ALL Apple hardware is overpriced, in my opinion), or buy some third party software that fixes whatever preference or bug exists in those programs that stops them from recognizing the webcam.

And THAT is what I hate about the Mac world – everything has a price. Well, not everything, but far too many things. I look at software like Asterisk and FreePBX and realize that if these had been written to run on the Mac, it’s likely that each of these programs would be priced at several hundred dollars (rather than given away free) AND there would be additional charges for each module, codec, etc. People wouldn’t write helpful how-to articles that show how to accomplish a task in four or five lines of dial plan; instead they’d write a small program to inject those lines of code and then charge $10 or $20 for it. And, I guarantee you, if that model were used, none of that software would be nearly as popular as it is today.

That’s not my only problem with the Mac, of course. You know how Windows sometimes freezes up and you get to watch the spinning hourglass? On my old Windows box, it rarely spun for more that a few seconds, although occasionally it might go on for a minute or two. On the Mac, you get the “spinning beach ball of death” — it may freeze up just one application, but far too often it freezes up the entire system, to the point where keyboard and mouse input is either totally ignored, or it takes anywhere from several seconds to a minute or two to respond to user input. This is one of the most frustrating things about owning a Mac — you never know when this will strike (usually at a very inconvenient time). I’d say it happens to me at least once a week.

Of course, I could reboot the system. On my old, slow, Windows box this usually took about three to four minutes, including the time required to start up the software I always had running (e-mail program, IM client, etc.). On the Mac, it seems to take ten minutes or more for the system to get into a fully stable state after rebooting. With early versions of Leopard, on at least a couple of occasions when I had to reboot, the system simply would not reboot and I wound up having to do a process called “Archive and Install”, which is sort of like reinstalling the operating system under Windows, except that all your existing data and most of your software settings are preserved (but not necessarily all your drivers for your hardware). Fortunately, whatever caused that problem seems to have been fixed in later versions of Leopard!

Then there’s Mac software. Some of it’s okay, much of it isn’t (again, just my opinion). Safari doesn’t hold a candle to Firefox, with one exception — if I highlight an entire article and drag it to the Mail program in order to send it to someone, coming out of Firefox it will only get plain text — no embedded links, and no graphics or photos. Coming from Safari, it gets everything. I have wondered if this is something Apple has done to sabotage the functionality of non-Apple web browsers — I sure wouldn’t put it past them, but have no way of knowing. Even when their software seems to work okay otherwise, it seems to always have strange limitations, like the aforementioned problem with iChat and PhotoBooth not recognizing my web cam when all non-Apple software does.

Another example: Apple’s Mail program is pretty good, though I liked Eudora on my old Windows box a bit better.  But it has one irritating flaw:  If it fails to connect with the POP server, it sometimes pops up a box asking you to re-enter your password.  Since I don’t know the password off the top of my head (I use a secure password, after all), usually I’ll just click cancel, assuming that the server problem will resolve itself shortly and my password will again be recognized. But when I hit cancel, Mail locks out the account (that is, it won’t check it for mail again) until you specifically right-click on the account and tell it to check for new mail.  Other e-mail programs can gracefully handle temporary server issues; why can’t Mail?

The ONE thing I really like about OS X is that you don’t have to worry about running an adware/spyware checker, and if you don’t want to use an anti-virus program it probably won’t matter (other than if you do use one, it may slow your system down even more). The Mac actually has a security model that works. This is not an insignificant thing — I used to really resent the amount of wasted time and resources I had to spend running software to avoid viruses, adware, etc. under Windows. However, I’ve read reports that lead me to think that this happy situation on the Mac may not persist forever, particularly if the Mac ever gains significant market share and thus becomes a much more appealing target for hackers (the bad kind). But then again, I wonder if I could achieve the same level of security by running a good desktop Linux distro, such as Linux Mint or Ubuntu Linux (but then I wonder, would I have the same hardware compatibility issues under Linux that I have under the Mac)?

So if you are wondering whether to get a Windows box with Windows 7, or a Mac with Snow Leopard, my advice to you — as a Mac user of almost two years — would be this: If you are wealthy, if the recession hasn’t affected you, and if you don’t mind being nickled-and-dimed to death for software that could likely be obtained for free on other platforms, then buy a high-end Mac and get AppleCare and bitch like hell (to the Apple “Geniuses”) whenever something isn’t working — you are the sort of customer Apple apparently wants (you have money to burn) and maybe they will take care of you. On the other hand, if you are not wealthy, and/or if you want to use free software whenever possible, and/or if you want your existing hardware to just work, you are probably going to want to stick with Windows (I say this with the caveat that Windows 7 will very likely “break” some older pieces of hardware, as often happens with new versions of Windows). If you REALLY like free software, try to pick up a gently used (one or two year old) PC, or if you are able, build your own PC from components (there are sites and videos that show how to do this) and then install a user-friendly Linux distribution – Ubuntu is the most popular, but check out Linux Mint as well — supposedly it’s basically Ubuntu with added support for playing various media types, and other tweaks to make it a bit more user-friendly.

Having said all the above, I will add this: My plan is to try and get at least a couple more years of use out of my Mac Mini — yes, it can be a royal pain in the posterior sometimes, but I just can’t afford to run out and buy a new computer every year or two. And in a couple years, a lot could change. Maybe Windows 7 will turn out to be a real dog (although it would have to be better than Vista — wouldn’t it?).  Maybe Snow Leopard is better than initial reports have led me to believe. And maybe, just maybe, Apple will finally realize that it has to start being compatible with a wider range of hardware if it wants acceptance.  Trying to lock users into buying only your products never works in the long term; either people figure out ways around it or they start to avoid your products altogether.

But right now, today, if my Mac Mini stopped working, the last thing I would do is buy a brand new Mac. I’m just not happy with it, nor am I ready to join the cult of Apple (the fanboys who’ll buy anything with an Apple logo, and when Apple suggests they buy something, they obediently whip out their credit cards). What I’d really like to find is a good, relatively inexpensive computer with approximately the same footprint as the Mac Mini (I really do like the compact size) but with low power consumption and enough horsepower to play videos without skipping or unexplained pauses.  If it came without a bundled copy of Windows (so that I could use a Linux distro without allowing Microsoft to make money on an OS that I might never use), that would make me even happier, though if it came bundled with Windows 7 at a low enough price, I might be tempted to go with it (I would not buy a computer with Vista at any price).  I’m hoping that Moore’s Law will kick in, and that within the next year or two, such computers will become available, maybe even commonplace.

EDIT: Two newer computers that could, in some situations, possibly replace a Mac Mini (and that are usually sold with Windows 7 in the USA, though you can also sometimes buy them with Linux preinstalled if you’re willing to deal with a seller in Taiwan) are the Acer Aspire Revo AR3610-U9012 and the ASRock ION 330 NVIDIA ION. Both are available for less than $350 from several online merchants, but you have to be careful to compare specs and make sure you’re getting the newest models — as with the Mac Mini, there are older, less powerful versions of these machines, with slower or less efficient CPU’s, and less memory and internal hard drive storage. Interestingly, both of these have HDMI outputs, so either could be the basis of a small (and relatively quiet) living room PC that is used to play media on a HDTV set.

Of course, I will also honestly say that my opinion of the Mac might be a lot different if a Mac Mini sold for, say, $199 or even $299.  But I know better than to suggest that — I don’t want members of the “cult of Mac” on my doorstep with pitchforks and torches!

(Disclosure for the FTC: Neither Apple nor Microsoft (EDIT: nor Acer or ASRock) have ever paid me or given me anything for free, and in any case, I doubt that anything in this article could be construed as an “endorsement” for either company’s products, and this article isn’t intended to endorse anything).

Comments (7)

Link to “Interview with the FTC’s Richard Cleland” on new rules for bloggers, and my comments

October 5, 2009 at 10:40 pm · Filed under Blog, FTC, Regulation, Review, consumer, government

Quoting from this blog post by Edward Champion:

This morning, the Federal Trade Commission announced that its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials would be revised in relation to bloggers. The new guidelines (PDF) specified that bloggers making any representation of a product must disclose the material connections they (the presumed endorsers) share with the advertisers. What this means is that, under the new guidelines, a blogger’s positive review of a product may qualify as an “endorsement” and that keeping a product after a review may qualify as “compensation.”

These guidelines, which will be effective as of December 1, 2009, require all bloggers to disclose any tangible connections. But as someone who reviews books for both print and online, I was struck by the inherent double standard. …

I strongly urge you to read the entire article (Disclosure: I’m not being paid to endorse that article, and I have no connection of any kind to the author).  I can understand why the FTC would want disclosure in some circumstances, but to some degree this strikes me as just plain silly.  On three occasions now I’ve reviewed books after receiving a free review copy of the book from the publisher.  If you read those reviews, you’d note that although I didn’t savagely trash any of the books, I don’t think I went out of my way to offer undeserved glowing praise either.  What I can tell you is that just because I receive a free book does not mean I’m going to bend over backwards to say nice things about it.  I can’t be bought in that manner, but even if I could be bought I certainly wouldn’t sell out my credibility for something with as little intrinsic value as a free book.

To put this in perspective, this sort of strikes me as saying something akin to “every radio station that accepts a free disc from someone in the music industry is guilty of taking payola.”  Of course the FTC doesn’t say that, because that would be ludicrous.  Yet that’s sort of what I feel is being implied here — the idea that a small value item (a free book in this case) would cause someone to pump up a dog of a book just seems ridiculous to me. However, having said that, I don’t object to disclosure per se, but here’s my issue with it:  Let’s suppose I were to buy a book (or DVD or computer game or whatever) and I really liked it and wrote a glowing article about it – would the FTC consider that an “endorsement” and, because I did NOT include a disclosure (since in this hypothetical case, I bought the item with my own money), consider that grounds to begin an investigation?

What I’m getting at here is that you have the classic question, “How will they know?” If a blogger includes a disclosure then presumably all is fine.  But if that blogger feels there is no need for a disclosure because there was no “compensation” received, could that under some unknown set of circumstances trigger an investigation that could seriously impact that blogger’s life (and finances, if he or she has to hire an attorney)? I assume that in some cases the evidence will be more obvious that in others — the blogs that I somewhat derisively refer to as “sunshine pumpers”, because they never have a negative thing to say about any product or service they mention, should probably be a bit worried that they will come under intense FTC scrutiny sooner or later. But what about the rest of us?

I’ll probably take the safe approach and disclose on everything that might even look like an endorsement, unless some other standard develops out in the blogosphere and the FTC seems okay with it.  Even if I just say that I’m not being compensated in any way for the content of a particular article — I may actually choose to actually say that and leave no doubt in anyone’s mind, rather than leave the FTC thinking that I forgot to disclaim and therefore should be fined.

But then again, if it looks like the FTC is clamping down really hard on this and innocent bloggers are being harassed, I probably will just stop blogging.  I can’t afford a potential $11,000 fine for possibly not wording a disclosure in just the manner the FTC might want to see it.

There is a larger issue here, though.  I’ve read a few articles from time to time that indicates that sometimes the major media, or even your local TV station or newspaper, will go out of their way to publish or broadcast any good news that comes their way that may involve one of their advertisers – and at the same time, they may scuttle bad news that potentially may offend a large advertiser (there was a consumer reporter that was fired recently because they reported some negative news about an advertiser, though I don’t recall the details anymore). Unfortunately, I didn’t save any of those links so you’ll either have to take my word for it (or not), or research the subject on your own. Still, I suspect there’s a lot more examples of hidden “compensation” influencing your mainstream news than of it making a huge difference in what bloggers write.  Most bloggers tend to be a fairly independent bunch, and those that aren’t — the aforementioned “sunshine pumpers” — are usually pretty quickly recognized, and thereafter ignored.

So why are bloggers being singled out here? To me this smells to high heaven — it’s almost as though the big corporate media can do no wrong (or the FTC for some reason feels obliged not to mess with them) so they pick on the little guy that probably (in most cases) will innocently violate the rule because he or she doesn’t know any better. Of course, there also the matter of how vigorously the FTC will enforce the law — if they use the same standard they seem to apply to “Do-Not-Call” list violators, where only the largest fish get fried (that is, only those phone spammers with a record of numerous violations), then maybe we have nothing to worry about.  Still, it’s just one more regulation hanging over the head of bloggers, and I’m just concerned that innocent bloggers doing nothing more than using their freedom of speech and freedom of the press (if you consider a blog a form of “the press”) may innocently step on the FTC’s tripwire. Nope, can’t say as I like this much, but for now I’m just going to take a “wait and see” stance and see how this plays out.

EDIT: An article at the Law.com Legal Blog Watch entitled, “The FTC Blog Rules: Overbroad or Overblown?“, seems to indicate that this is not as big an issue as I may have originally thought.  That article gives a very good perspective on the situation. If I am reading correctly, it seems that as long as you disclose that you’ve received a freebie you’re probably okay (but please read the original article, because I’m probably over-simplifying that a bit, and in any case I am not a lawyer so you shouldn’t be looking to me for legal advice). I really don’t object to disclosure as long as as other bloggers are required to do it as well. It only looks bad if one blogger is admitting he gets an occasional freebie, while others are taking free stuff without disclosing it, leading you to believe that maybe they actually went out and purchased the product or book with their own money (and that therefore, their reviews are somehow more “objective”). I think that what the FTC is really wanting to weed out is sites that offer glowing reciews on a quid pro quo basis, where the blogger gets paid (either with money or with free stuff) for writing reviews in which “never is heard a discouraging word.” That is a different situation from a blogger that may accept occasional free stuff but then writes about it honestly.  In some cases it may be hard to tell the difference (particularly if the reviewer genuinely likes a product or book) but hopefully what the FTC will be looking for is patterns — if every product or book is written about as if it’s the greatest thing ever, then one probably should wonder about that blogger’s integrity.

Leave a Comment

Review of FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions by Alex Robar (Packt Publishing)

September 23, 2009 at 7:15 pm · Filed under Asterisk, Book, FreePBX, Internet, Review, Telephone, VoIP, education, software

Cover of FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions

Cover of FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions

FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions by Alex Robar (Packt Publishing) explains how to set up, configure, and maintain a powerful VoIP PBX using FreePBX.  For those not familiar with FreePBX, it’s a “front end” for the Asterisk PBX software. Asterisk can be thought of as the “engine” that runs the PBX, but FreePBX is the user interface.  It basically saves you the effort of writing Asterisk configuration files and dial plans by hand.  Instead, you enter all the requisite information in FreePBX’s web-based GUI, and then when you apply the configuration changes (by clicking an orange bar at the top of the screen), FreePBX (re)writes the Asterisk dial plan and configuration files on the fly. This means that making significant changes to the call flow within the PBX, or adding new extensions or trunks, can be accomplished in a matter of seconds or minutes. It also means that you can have a fully functional PBX up and running in a few hours (perhaps even less than an hour if you’re exceptionally quick and it’s not your first installation).

As I like to do in reviews, before I begin I’ll give you a thumbnail description of what’s in each chapter (condensed from information on the Packt Publishing web site):

  • Chapter 1: Installing FreePBX – Installing FreePBX on CentOS 5.2 or Ubuntu Server 8.10
  • Chapter 2: Module Maintenance – how to install and update modules
  • Chapter 3: Devices and Extensions – explains the difference between Extensions mode and DeviceAndUser mode, and explains how to set up extensions and users. Also explains the different types of endpoints, and how to set up voicemail for a user or extension
  • Chapter 4: Trunks – discusses trunk types, setting up a new trunk, and checking trunk status
  • Chapter 5: Basic Call Targets – explains various ways to terminate calls on a FreePBX system, including Extension and Voicemail, Ring Groups, Conferences, Day Night Mode, and Phonebook Directory
  • Chapter 6: Advanced Call Targets – discusses Queues, Time conditions, and the setup of an IVR (Digital Receptionist)
  • Chapter 7: Call Routing – discusses Inbound routing, Follow Me and the VmX Locater, and Outbound routing and Least Cost Routing
  • Chapter 8: Recording Calls – focuses on everything you need to know about recording calls that pass through a FreePBX system
  • Chapter 9: Personalizing Your PBX – discusses Custom Music on Hold, Custom voice prompts, Directory search options, Customizing feature codes, Callback, Direct Inward System Access (DISA), CallerID Lookup Sources, PIN Sets, Misc applications, and Misc Destinations
  • Chapter 10: System Protection, Backup and Restoration – how to protect your system against failure, discussing both hardware methods (a good UPS and redundancy) and backups and restoration
  • Chapter 11: Security and Access Control – explains how to upgrade your operating system and Asterisk, plus various ways to secure your system against attacks

There are also four appendices:

  • Appendix A: FreePBX Modules
  • Appendix B: Feature Codes
  • Appendix C: Voicemail.conf Options
  • Appendix D: Common Trunk Configurations

I’m coming from a slightly different place in my review of this book than with other books I’ve reviewed. In this case I’ve already very familiar with the subject material, having helped set up and configure a FreePBX system that belongs to another member of my family. I was a bit afraid that because I’m already so familiar with the subject, I’d find several glaring errors or oversights. Happily, that proved not to be the case – this book is a good, solid treatment of setting up and configuring a FreePBX system. In fact, the title should have been “How to set up and maintain a FreePBX system”, because that’s exactly what this book explains.

The first thing that impressed me about this book is that there was no “filler” material. Very often, with technical books, the author really only has about 75 to 100 pages of actual material, but because publishers like to publish books that have somewhere around a couple hundred pages, the author will flesh out the book with a history of the software, a profile of the developers, comparisons with competing products, and (if they are really desperate for material) a history of the Internet. :) That is not the case here. After a very short preface, the author jumps right into the subject material, starting with how to install FreePBX and then continuing through subsequent chapters with virtually everything you need to know about configuration. While not every chapter may be meaningful to every reader (personally, I’ve never had the need to record a call — so far — but it’s nice to know that FreePBX can do it), the book at least touches on all the major features of FreePBX.

If I had to make one criticism of the book, it’s that in some places it reads a little bit too much like an instruction manual. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because FreePBX has badly needed a good manual to assist first time users in getting it set up and running. This is the manual that should have come with FreePBX. That said, the author really doesn’t touch some of the problems frequently encountered by new users. For example, in the discussion of SIP endpoints, he notes that “SIP can be problematic when traversing firewalls and other NAT devices” and that “Configuration can be particularly troublesome if both the endpoint and the FreePBX system are behind their own firewalls” (p. 44). And there he leaves the reader hanging. There is no discussion of how to overcome the problem, nor is there a pointer to the FreePBX FAQ’s or How-To’s anywhere in the book. While many readers may not encounter this issue, a fair number will, and it would have been nice if they’d been thrown a bone, if only in the form of a pointer to the FreePBX page that addresses the issue.

In my opinion, perhaps the biggest omission is in the discussion of Trunk setup in Chapter 4. This was really the only chapter in which I got the distinct feeling that the author may have been in just a bit over his head, and perhaps did not fully grasp the subject matter covered in the chapter. Not only are there errors in his examples of dial pattern usage (p. 81 – under no circumstances would you use two pipe characters in the same dial pattern, as is shown for some of the toll-free number examples), but when discussing IAX2 and SIP trunks (p. 83), only cursory information is given about how to populate the PEER details and USER details fields. Nor is it explained that with many commercial VoIP providers, the USER context and USER details fields are not used, and should be left blank. However, in the author’s defense, I suspect that I understand why this may have happened — there probably aren’t ten people on the face of the earth that can give you a full explanation of all the options that could possibly be used in the trunk PEER and USER details fields, and when and how each option should be used. Trunk configuration is probably the most difficult part of setting up FreePBX, precisely because there’s no definitive guide on how to do it correctly. In most cases, I suspect that finding the correct options to use with any particular provider is a matter of trial and error — you make educated guesses about which options might be needed and how they should be configured, and if you find a combination that works, perhaps you post it so that others can use it. Some of the known working trunk configuration settings appear in Appendix D of the book, but there are more sample configurations available at the FreePBX web site.

I only mention this because I was hopeful that maybe someone would finally provide a really good how-to on setting up FreePBX trunks, since this is something that almost always confounds new users, and even causes experienced users to get a few (more) gray hairs on occasion. Had I been writing such a book, and had I really understood the subject, I might have given several pages to the subject of trunk configuration in general, and PEER and USER details in particular, not just a few cursory paragraphs. On the other hand, most users will probably seek out a tested and working trunk configuration for whatever provider(s) they use.  It’s not as though there isn’t any online help on the subject, but — and this is another minor criticism — for some reason the book barely mentions the availability of online help (for example, unless I missed it there is no specific mention of the FreePBX How-Tos that address several of the issues encountered by new users). This is why I say that at times the book reads like an instruction manual — it gives you all the basics, but seldom touches the “edge cases”, the little quirks and problems that may be encountered by a significant subset of users, but not by all.

However, I don’t want to leave you with the idea that this book is simply a rehash of information that could be found online — even if that were the case, it presents that information in a logical manner that is easily understandable by the reader. But, many essential functions of maintaining a FreePBX system happen outside of the FreePBX interface. For example, you cannot update your operating system or Asterisk from within the FreePBX GUI, but the book explains how to do both.  Chapters 10 and 11 (on System Protection, Backup and Restoration, and Security and Access Control) deal with functions that are at least partially handled outside of FreePBX.  In some instances the author provides useful shell scripts that automate particular tasks (for example, deleting old, outdated backups to avoid filling up the hard drive). And in many cases, the book does explain things that new users need to know, but might not know that they need to know — for example, the explanation of Codecs and the penalty involved (both in terms of system performance and call latency) in transcoding between codecs.

Anyway, the bottom line is this: Let’s say your boss wants you to set up a new office phone system using Asterisk, and gives you a couple of weeks to do it. If you have no prior experience with Asterisk, you will almost certainly want to use FreePBX (the alternative is writing dial plans and configuration files by hand, and trust me, you don’t want to do that unless you are the sort of person who enjoys writing source code for major projects, and even then you probably don’t want to do it if you’re under any sort of time deadline). And if you’re going to use FreePBX, and you don’t want to spend hours and even days ferreting out information on the Internet, you need this book. Get your boss to buy it (there’s even an e-book version if you need it right now), then just follow the instructions, chapter by chapter. In a few days time, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a FreePBX expert.  That’s partly because FreePBX is so easy to use in the first place, but also because the book tells you pretty much everything you need to know, in a very understandable manner. If you get stuck, help is available at the FreePBX web site and at other various locations on the Internet.

If you are a long-time FreePBX user, you may find that you already know much of what’s in this book, but then again it might surprise you how much can still be learned.  For example, I found several good suggestions for adding additional security to a FreePBX system in Chapter 11 of the book — and let’s face it, many of us are probably a bit lax about securing our systems to the greatest possible extent (and that could be a very costly mistake).

One other point I should make — as the title of the book implies, it deals with a particular version of FreePBX, namely version 2.5.  Of course, as so often happens with a book about software, the ink is barely dry on the paper when a new version comes out.  FreePBX 2.6 has already been offered as a release candidate, and beta versions of FreePBX 3.0 are being made available.  From a user’s standpoint, version 2.6 will be nearly identical to 2.5 – there may be a few added options and such, but for the most part they are not things that you would need to worry about, or that would detract from the accuracy of this book.  However, FreePBX 3.0 will be a major rewrite, but it’s only available in an early beta version, and unless you are an experimenter that wants to be on the bleeding edge, you don’t want it yet.  Whenever you do move to FreePBX version 3.0 — and I’d be very surprised if a full release version is much closer than a year away — much of what you’ve learned about FreePBX 2.5 and subsequent versions will still be applicable (and also, I suspect that people will be using FreePBX 2.x versions for quite some time to come).

FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions by Alex Robar (Packt Publishing link)

Disclosure:  I have not been and will not be paid anything for writing this article, and I do not receive any commission or other compensation from sales of this book, and the links in this article are not affiliate links (that is, I do not get paid anything because you click on a link, even if the link goes to the publisher’s site).  I did, however, receive a complementary (free) review copy of the book from the publisher, for which I am most grateful – but apparently the Federal Trade Commission considers that “compensation”, which bloggers are now required to disclose. I can only say that I would not write a good review of a sucky book just because I got a free copy (I can’t be bought in that manner, and even if I could, I wouldn’t sell myself out that cheaply!) but still, the FTC apparently wants you to know that I got “compensated” with a free book.

Comments (1)

Is slain anti-abortion activist a martyr or a nutjob?

September 17, 2009 at 12:32 pm · Filed under Editorial, FCC, Michigan

I guess it all depends on your point of view.  If you read this MLive.com article, you’ll get the background on this story, in case you haven’t heard it already (it was fairly big news here in Michigan, but I don’t know if it played across the nation). You might also want to skim the comments left by readers of the article, which actually give you a better idea of why this guy was so controversial.

The anti-choice people have a real problem here.  On the one hand I’m sure they’d like to portray the victim as a martyr, if only to discourage any future attacks against pro-life/anti-choice protesters.  At least in theory, it’s a deterrent to harm from your opponents to say that “if you kill one of ours, you make us stronger.” The problem in this particular case was that the victim, by many accounts, allegedly wasn’t a particularly nice guy. For those who like to ask “What would Jesus do?”, I somehow can’t imagine Jesus shoving graphic photos of aborted babies in the faces of small children going to or from school. Every movement has its looney fringe, and if the pro-life folks every hope to be taken seriously, they ought to distance themselves from those whose actions harm their cause.  Unfortunately, we seem to be living in an age when those on the fringes seem to get all the attention, due to the apparent lack of any sort of journalistic standards in this country.

As a side note, it amazes me that the FCC is still mulling over whether that half second shot of Janet Jackson’s breast during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show was indecent, because kids might have seen it, but they don’t seem to have any problem with kids seeing ghastly photos of violence of any kind, whether real or manufactured. We REALLY need to have a serious dialog about what is truly indecent in this country. I don’t notice European children becoming particularly maladjusted because they live in areas where it’s not considered gross indecency to see certain parts of the anatomy.  In any case, if it were up to me, I’d say that showing pictures of dead babies (or dead kittens or puppies, for that matter) to small children is indecent.  If letting a child see a female breast might, in theory, cause them to grow up to be a sex pervert, then doesn’t it follow that letting them see photos of aborted babies might cause them to grow up to be child abusers? Just asking — I’m trying to understand the logic here, and as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, the debate over abortion is not one that is likely to go away soon, despite the fact that the Supreme Court supposedly settled the matter decades ago.  Most thinking people have their views on the subject, and many are confused.  A while back, the Gallup Poll reported that 51 percent of Americans now identify themselves as “pro-life” rather than “pro-choice.” I suspect that as the “religious right” falls out of favor, more people will be willing to voice their qualms over abortion.  I’ve thought for a long time that the far right crowd has actually done a disservice to the pro-life cause, because people who would normally feel queasy about abortion (but who don’t hold a strong view – that is, it’s not a major issue for them) have been a bit reluctant to speak their viewpoint, for fear of being lumped in with the lunatics and terrorists that are on the fringe of the anti-abortion movement.  As the loonies become more marginalized, I think people will be more willing to say, “hey, maybe that really is a baby that’s being killed” – at least when it’s a late-term abortion.

The real problem is that the subject cannot be discussed openly and honestly because the two sides each have extremists that have a financial interest in their respective positions.  Consider this:

On the pro-abortion side, there are abortionists that are making a career out of ending the life of unborn children.  They certainly want to see abortion legal.  Then there are all the organizations like Planned Parenthood, who get money from various sources (maybe you, if you contribute to the United Way and your local United Way supports Planned Parenthood) to offer “family planning” services, which include abortions and/or abortion referrals. And there are other pro-abortion organizations as well.

On the anti-choice side (yes, I am deliberately using the terms most pejorative to each position) you have many of the churches and religious organizations.  The interest of the church should be obvious – the more children a churchgoing family has, the more potential church members in a couple decades or so. For the church, banning abortion (and perhaps birth control) is like an investment in the future – more folks to warm pews and put money in the passing collection plate. But in addition, many church organizations and other anti-choice organizations share an interest with some of the more militant pro-abortion folks.

That interest is fundraising potential.  Every fundamentalist televangelist knows that a mailing with pictures of cute children spared from “the evils of abortion” is a goldmine – the sheep will mail in their money and sign the “petition opposing abortion.” After the mail arrives, the checks are cashed and more often than not, the petitions go into the nearest dumpster (probably after being shredded, lest “20/20″ or “60 minutes” find them).  On the pro-abortion side, invoking the image of coat-hangers and back alley abortions is a sure fund-raiser. Both sides take the most extreme positions and refuse to admit that there could ever be any middle ground – either all abortions must be legal or all abortions must be banned.  They know how to play to their respective audiences. Of course, the average American is nowhere near as sure about the subject, but then the average American probably isn’t writing checks to either of those types of organizations.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that there’s no moral issue involved here – what I do mean to say is that when the people at the fringes are doing all the shouting, it’s no wonder we can’t broach the subject without it becoming a red-hot issue. And worse yet, each group tries to inject themselves into the legislative process, throwing their support behind candidates based only on this one issue, as if it were the only issue that mattered.

Well, I have a news flash for the extremists – there ARE other issues that are far more important.  Like war, for example, or hunger, or health care.  Do you really think it’s moral to fight to bring a child into the world, only to see them maimed or hungry or diseased and not give a damn? And do you think it’s right to fight for the right of a woman to choose abortion as a form of birth control without giving any consideration to the serious psychological damage that many women suffer post-abortion (not to mention that in some cases, women have suffered actual physical injury – remember, if a doctor is willing to take the life of an unborn baby, chances are he doesn’t really care all that much about the life of the mother, either).

In the political arena, the Democrats pander to the pro-abortion crowd, and the Republican pander to the anti-choice crowd.  And make no mistake, it IS mostly pandering.  They will make speeches at “prayer breakfasts” and other gatherings and make it sound like they’re really concerned about the issue.  Then they go back to Washington and do pretty much nothing – maybe a few token gestures, but nothing has really changed since Roe vs. Wade.  The very mis-named “religious right” (who in reality, are not all that religious and seldom right) in particular seems to live in the fantasy world where if only the Republicans had a majority in the government, they would end abortion once and for all.  They just don’t get it that for most Republican members of congress, abortion is probably less of a concern than who won that 2004 Super Bowl. Meanwhile they continue to help put lousy candidates in office just because that candidate will proclaim that they are “pro-life.”

I’m not saying that we don’t need to have a serious discussion of this issue… but I just wish the news media would stop running to the extremists for the sound bytes.  The fundamentalists and the abortion-rights groups do NOT represent most Americans, and in my opinion they do what they do mostly for the money, and because it gives their leadership a sense of power (just because you get to hobnob with politicians doesn’t make you right!).

There is one other point that is seldom brought up in the abortion debate.  That is, abortion would probably not be nearly so popular these days if the family courts weren’t so anti-male.  Ask any guy that’s ever been through a divorce and unless he was extremely lucky (or there were no minor children at the time of the divorce) he’ll have horror stories about how the family court and/or the mother of his children screwed him over.  Almost every guy has heard these stories – young men hear them from the older males in their families, or from other older men they know – so if their girlfriend gets pregnant, many times the young man will encourage her to have an abortion, out of fear of financial ruin (and the possibly of having to do jail time, and/or live in squalor if the court demands more than he can provide).  For the prospective father, it’s often (at least in part) a financial decision – but before you think too harshly of him, remember that it takes two to create a child, and the family courts seldom penalize the mother to the same degree they do the father.  If the anti-abortion organizations really cared about these unborn children, they might set up funds to at least help take some of the burden off the young fathers – but of course that would come into conflict with some of their other values, which basically seem to be that once you’re born they don’t care what happens to you, because they certainly won’t lift a finger to help. Not to mention that those running the anti-abortion organization might not be able to live the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed.

Now of course, if you have ever been involved with an anti-abortion organization you will know that their answer is adoption.  So rather than putting a poor woman through the psychological trauma of abortion, they’d rather see her go through the trauma of giving up her baby.  I will grant that most folks would say that the latter is far less traumatic, and I’d tend to agree although I speak from an uninformed position, because I’m not a female. But here’s the point – who’s likely to adopt the child?  Well, many of these pro-life organizations will try to get the child into a good “faith-based” family unit (that’s an euphemism for “fundamentalist religious nutjobs” in too many cases).  So guess what – the child is likely to be raised in such a way that he or she will because a pew-warmer and collection-plate contributor when he or she grows up.  Yes, folks, there’s a reason church groups get behind those organizations – an unwed mother might not raise her child “in the faith” but the rich fundamentalists who can afford to adopt a baby probably will. I don’t mean to imply that all children that are adopted through these agencies wind up in the hands of religious fundamentalist parents, but that may be only because there aren’t enough to go around.

In this article, I have deliberately tried to paint a somewhat negative picture of both sides, just to cause you to think.  I will tell you what I believe, but it shouldn’t matter what I believe because I am not trying to be anyone’s moral authority.  That said, I believe that the Bible is entirely silent on when “life” or “the soul” or whatever you want to call it enters the body of the unborn baby – you can torture some verses to try and make the Bible take a position, but I can give you a more plausible alternate rendering for any of the verses commonly used (whether you might accept it or not is another matter).  So basically, the fundamentalists are arguing their beliefs, and it’s a belief system that’s been imposed by the church and not by the Bible, which (to them, anyway) ought to be an important distinction. That said, the fact that we don’t know for sure ought to give us pause – if we feel we can destroy human life for the sake of convenience, that cheapens all human life. So I do think adoption is preferable to abortion, and that abortion should be very rare, an option of last resort for a serious medical problem, not something to be done lightly or as a matter of convenience.

However there is also the question of whether any one particular group’s beliefs on the subject ought to be the law that everyone is obliged to follow.  The fact that the religious fundamentalists are so adamant that protection of life ought to be codified in law scares me a bit, because if they can get that part of their beliefs imposed on everyone, what else will they try to impose on us? Some Christian fundamentalists are nearly as bad as the most extreme fundamentalists in the Middle East, and think that anyone who does not believe as they do is not worthy of any rights, and certainly not any respect for their conflicting beliefs.  I understand that they believe that abortion is murder, and that you don’t compromise on murder.  But just because they believe that doesn’t necessarily make it so! Many others believe that a soul is eternal, and that it cannot be destroyed, and that every human soul experiences multiple lifetimes.  Therefore, if deprived of the chance to take human form because the mother has an abortion, the soul will either move on and be born of another mother, or in some rare cases will actually wait until the same mother is ready and come back again at a later time, to be born in a different body. You can understand that those who hold to the latter beliefs would not see abortion in the same way as those who might believe that a soul only gets one chance at life – and neither group can “prove” they are right.

The purpose of this article has been to cause you to think more deeply about the subject.  Personally, I would wish that abortion were very rare, something that most women would never even consider.  But you cannot legislate what someone believes, and when you try to legislate morality you often run into trouble because not everyone agrees what is moral, therefore resulting in (usually) the “tyranny of the majority”, where the majority imposes its will and beliefs on the dissenting minority, or (sometimes) the imposition of the beliefs of a vocal minority on the majority. I also wish that the protestors on both sides would try to be considerate of those on the other side — if Jesus said to love your enemies, doesn’t that mean you should not be shoving offensive photos in their faces? And doesn’t that mean that maybe the prospective mother ought to be fully informed about what might happen after an abortion (including having dreams/nightmares about the baby they carried) instead of whatever propaganda the pro-abortion folks are handing out?  And shouldn’t the pro-abortion organizations be more upfront about the history of their movement and the real reasons it was started, including the beliefs of some of the founders?

There are times you want to say “a pox on both your houses” but then I realize that you can’t judge any movement by its most extreme supporters.  But in case you have been hiding under a rock during the last week, the lack of good old-fashioned civility is becoming a real issue, and I think it’s high time that the news media stop portraying the outspoken extremists as if they were representative of the majority of the members of a movement. And, in my opinion, if a person is on the extreme fringe of a movement, then that person’s untimely death should not cause him to attain martyr status. Unfortunately, parts of the media seem to have been taken over by lying scoundrels who’ll say anything, and give air time to any extremist in order to get ratings, thus pouring gasoline on the smouldering fire of emotions in this country. But that’s another issue, perhaps for another post someday.

Comments (3)

Recording Calls in FreePBX 2.5

September 10, 2009 at 4:27 am · Filed under Asterisk, AsteriskNOW, Book, Elastix, FreePBX, PBX in a Flash, Review, Telephone, VoIP

I did not write the following article – it’s extracted from the book “FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions” by Alex Robar, published by Packt Publishing. You can tell I didn’t write it because of all the fancy formatting in the article (including one table that I simply can’t get to render as intended on this WordPress blog – it’s still readable but looks a little funny)! Packt Publishing provided it and gave me the okay to publish it, and I did feel it might be of interest to at least some readers of this blog. But I will tell you up front that you should not read this article if a) you have an objection to small embedded ads for the book in the article (these were included in the article, and while I don’t object to including them I think maybe three copies of the same ad is a bit excessive, but they’re small and fairly unobtrusive so I let it slide this time), or b) if you feel it is a conflict of interest that I might receive a copy of this book for review purposes, though I have not so far. I’ve been waiting for this book to come out ever since I heard (via the author’s Twitter feed) that it was under development, hoping to be able to review it, because there is just so much functionality built into FreePBX and Asterisk, and I think many potential users just don’t understand how capable FreePBX really is.

One reason I thought this article might be of interest is because we’ve all been in the situation where we’ve wished we had a recording of that phone call we just completed.  Asterisk and FreePBX allows you to make such recordings easily, but few people actually use that built-in ability, I think primarily because many of us don’t know how to set it up. This article tells you just about everything you could possibly want to know about recording calls under Asterisk and FreePBX, and also provides a sample of the type of information you’ll likely find in the book. I don’t want to pre-write my review here (assuming I will get a copy of the book at some point) so that’s all I’ll say for the moment, but if you use FreePBX I hope you learn something from this article. So without further ado…

Recording Calls in FreePBX 2.5

Asterisk has a wonderful, built-in ability to record calls. No additional software is required to make this happen. When Asterisk records a call, both sides of the call are recorded and written out to a file for playback on a computer. Call recording is often performed in call centers to ensure call quality, or to keep calls for later review, should the need arise. Asterisk provides the ability to record all of the calls, or to selectively record calls.

In this article, we will look the following:

  • General recording options
  • Recording calls to extensions
  • Recording calls to queues
  • Recording calls to conferences
  • Maintaining call recordings

Before enabling call recording for your PBX, make sure that you are aware of the legalities surrounding call recordings and privacy laws. Call recordings are prohibited in certain places, unless the caller is told that the call will be recorded. For example, in the state of California all of the parties on the call must consent to the call being recorded before it begins. Playing back a message stating that the call is being recorded prior to the call being answered is considered a valid form of consent.

Recording formats

FreePBX allows calls to be recorded in the following formats:

  • WAV
  • WAV49
  • ULAW
  • ALAW
  • SLN
  • GSM

Each format has its own ratio of file size to recording quality, and certain formats will not play on all of the computers. A comparison between all of the available formats is as follows:

Format

Description

WAV

Uncompressed WAV format recording. Sound quality will be very good, but the file will be very large in size (roughly 1 megabyte per minute of the recording). WAV format recordings are natively playable on nearly all of the computers without additional software.

WAV49

WAV format recorded using the GSM codec. As GSM is a compressed codec, the sound quality is compromised. Sound quality on a GSM recording is usually equivalent to the quality that is achieved during mobile telephone calls. File size is much smaller than a standard WAV (roughly 100 kilobytes per minute of the recording); WAV49 files are often difficult to play on computers without additional software that understands the GSM codec.

ULAW or ALAW

G.711 codec recording. The recording quality is excellent, and should sound exactly like the call did to all of the parties who were on the original call. File size is very large (similar to the WAV format at about 1 megabyte per minute). ULAW and ALAW recordings are very difficult to play on most computers. There are very few computers that will play the recording without additional software that understands the G.711 codec.

SLN

Asterisk native SLINEAR format. Recordings that are in SLN format will have the same quality and file size as WAV recordings. SLN recordings are raw WAV, little endian 16-bit signed linear (PCM) format recordings. Most computers will play these files, although some software packages refuse to play them unless the extension is renamed to .wav from .sln.

GSM

GSM codec recording. As with WAV49 calls, the quality of GSM recordings is less than that of ULAW/ALAW or WAV calls, but is generally acceptable for most purposes. GSM recordings weigh in at around 100 kilobytes per minute.

FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions
FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions
  • Configure, deploy, and maintain an enterprise-class VoIP PBX
  • Fully configure an Asterisk PBX without editing the individual text-based configuration files
  • Add enterprise-class features such as voicemail, least-cost routing, and digital receptionists to your system
  • Secure your PBX against intrusion by managing MySQL passwords, FreePBX administrative accounts, account permissions, and unauthenticated calls
  • Packed with step-by-step instructions, examples, screenshots, and diagrams

http://www.packtpub.com/freepbx-2-5-powerful-telephony-solutions/book
One very important aspect of call recording to keep in mind is that if the recording uses a different codec than the original call, transcoding must occur. For example, a call that uses the G.711 ULAW codec that is being recorded using the WAV49 format will need to be transcoded into the GSM codec before being saved. Transcoding recordings place additional load on a server’s disk I/O and processor resources. On high traffic systems, it is possible to max out all of the available resources if the transcoding recordings are not accounted for.

In general, the rule of thumb for recording will be the same as it is for selecting the codec that a trunk or extension will use: try to make everything match. If all of the calls are using the GSM codec, then it would be safe to record those calls in the GSM format. A system that has all of the calls in G.711 ULAW format would be put under an unnecessary amount of stress to record in GSM format. If transcoding is required (for example, limited disk space dictates the use of GSM recordings), be sure to size the resources of the system accordingly in order to allow the additional load.

General call recording options

FreePBX has several settings that govern the global operation of call recording. These settings determine if call recording should be globally enabled or disabled, which format to record calls in, and a command to run after a call has been recorded (if desired).

In order to access the global options, click on General Settings in the navigation menu on the left as shown in the following screenshot:

The Call Recording section has the settings that we are interested in:

The Extension Recording Override option allows all user-level automatic call recording to be disabled. A user can be set up to record all of the calls (which will be discussed shortly). If this option is set to Enabled, all of the user settings will be ignored and calls will not be recorded automatically. Note that this option neither affects recording settings for queues or conferences, which can be set up in order to record all of the calls, nor does it affect on-demand recording. This setting only affects users who have been set up to automatically record all of the calls. If this field is set to Disabled then the user-level recording options will be respected.

The Call recording format field allows us to change the format of the call in which it will be stored. The default value is wav, but can be changed to WAV (WAV49—a GSM file stored as a wav), ulaw, alaw, sln, gsm, and g729. More information on recording formats can be found earlier in this article in the Recording formats section.

Recording calls to extensions

FreePBX allows all of the calls to a particular user to be recorded, or for calls to be selectively recorded. FreePBX allows the choice between recording only incoming calls, only outgoing calls, or both.

In order to set up call recording for a particular user, click on Users or Extensions in the navigation bar on the left (this depends on the operational mode in which FreePBX is running.

Click on the name of the user you wish to edit and scroll down to the Recording Options section:

The Record Incoming and Record Outgoing settings can be configured as On Demand, Always, or Never.

When the On Demand option is selected, the user can dial *1 during a call to start recording the call. *1 can be dialed again to stop recording the call. The on demand toggle only lasts for the current call. In order to record the next call, the user would have to dial *1 again.

If these options are set to Always, then all of the calls in the selected direction will be recorded. When Always is selected, pressing *1 will not stop call recording.

If these options are set to Never, then no calls in the selected direction will be recorded. When Never is selected, pressing *1 will not start recording.

Be sure to click on the Submit button, followed by the orange-colored Apply Configuration Changes bar at the top of the screen in order to save any changes made to the recording settings.

Recording calls to queues

All the calls to a particular queue can be recorded. This is often used on larger call queues for later call review by management, or to resolve disputes about what was said on a particular call. In order to record all of the calls that are picked up out of a particular queue, click on the Queues link under the Inbound Call Control menu on the left as shown in the following screenshot:

Click on the name of the queue in the menu on the right, which needs call recording enabled:

Under Queue Options, the Call Recording drop-down menu can be changed to wav49, wav, and gsm.

Select the desired recording format, click on the Submit Changes button, and click on the orange-colored Apply Configuration Changes bar in order to enable recording on the queue.

Note that queues tend to have a high volume of calls. It is important to select an appropriate call recording format, and to ensure that recordings are maintained and cleaned up periodically. More information on recording formats can be found earlier in the Recording formats section of this article. Recording maintenance is discussed later in this article in the Maintaining call recordings section.

FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions
FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions
  • Configure, deploy, and maintain an enterprise-class VoIP PBX
  • Fully configure an Asterisk PBX without editing the individual text-based configuration files
  • Add enterprise-class features such as voicemail, least-cost routing, and digital receptionists to your system
  • Secure your PBX against intrusion by managing MySQL passwords, FreePBX administrative accounts, account permissions, and unauthenticated calls
  • Packed with step-by-step instructions, examples, screenshots, and diagrams

http://www.packtpub.com/freepbx-2-5-powerful-telephony-solutions/book

Recording calls to conferences

All of the calls to a particular conference room can be recorded. All of the members of the conference will be recorded and merged into a single file. In order to enable call recordings for a particular conference, select Conferences from the Internal Options & Configuration menu on the left as shown in the following screenshot:

Select the conference room that should have recording enabled from the menu on the right:

Under Conference Options, the Record Conference drop-down menu will turn recording on or off:

Selecting Yes will record the entire conference (from the time the first member joins) in WAV format (more information on the WAV format can be found earlier in this article in the Recording formats section). Selecting a different format to record the conference in is not currently supported. Once Yes has been selected from the Record Conference drop-down menu, click on the Submit Changes button followed by the orange-colored Apply Configuration Changes button in order to enable call recordings for the conference.

Maintaining call recordings

It is worth noting that call recordings can be quite large. If left unattended, a PBX that automatically records all of the calls will eventually fill up the entire available hard disk space and stop processing calls. It is important to have a maintenance strategy for dealing with call recordings in order to avoid this. While third-party tools exist to maintain recordings, adequate maintenance can often be performed with simple shell scripts.

The most common way of maintaining call recordings is to automate the deletion of recordings that are older than a certain time frame. The following script called OldRecordingDeletion.sh will remove all of the recordings older than 14 days.

#!/bin/bash

# Change this path to reflect your recording storage
# location
RECORDINGS=/var/spool/asterisk/monitor

# Change this number to reflect the maximum age of call
# recordings
RECORDINGEXPIRY=14

# Change this number to reflect the maximum age of the
# deletion logs
LOGEXPIRY=365

# Current date
DATE=`date`

# Delete recordings older than $EXPIRY days
find $RECORDINGS -mtime +$EXPIRY -exec rm -rfv > removal-$DATE.log

# Delete log files older than $LOGEXPRY
find . -mtime +$LOGEXPIRY -exec rm -rf

It is best to run a script like this once a day. Adding the following line to cron will execute the script from the /etc/recordingdeletion file once daily at 5:00 a.m.:

0 5 * * * /etc/recordingdeletion/OldRecordingDeletion.sh

More information on using the cron system can be found later in this article in the Using cron section.

Another possible method of maintaining recordings is to find the longest calls, and only keep them (since the longer calls are often the calls that prove problematic). The script below (SmallRecordingDeletion.sh) will delete all of the recordings under 15 MB.

The following script is written for maintaining recordings of a single format, and defaults to removing recordings that are less than 15 megabytes in size. This is equivalent to about 15 minutes of calls that are recorded in WAV, ULAW, ALAW, or SLN format. For WAV49 or GSM formats, recordings in a 15 megabyte file would contain over two hours of call time. For these formats, the equivalent value for 15 minutes of talk time is about 1.5 megabytes. If recordings are in multiple formats (for example, queues are recorded in GSM format while conferences are in WAV format), the script would need to be modified to only remove a specific format.

#!/bin/bash

# Change this path to reflect your recording storage
# location
RECORDINGS=/var/spool/asterisk/monitor

# Change this number to reflect the minimum size of
# recordings
RECORDINGSIZE=15

# Change this number to reflect the maximum age of the
# deletion logs
LOGEXPIRY=365

# Current date
DATE=`date`

# Delete recordings older than $EXPIRY days
find $RECORDINGS -size -$RECORDINGSIZE M -exec rm -rfv > removal-$DATE.log

# Delete log files older than $LOGEXPRY
find . -mtime +$LOGEXPIRY -exec rm -rf

This script should also be run once per day. Adding the following line to cron will execute the script from /etc/recordingdeletion once daily at 5:00 a.m.:

0 5 * * * /etc/recordingdeletion/SmallRecordingDeletion.sh

Using cron

The cron system allows scheduled executions of any command that can be run from the server’s command line. The easiest way to add an entry to cron is to edit the crontab file using the following command:

crontab -e

If the crontab file has not been edited previously, crontab manager may ask which editor to use by providing a numbered list such as the one below:

Select an editor. To change later, run 'select-editor'.
 1. /usr/bin/vim.tiny
 2. /bin/ed
 3. /bin/nano <---- easiest

Press the number that corresponds with the desired editor and then press the Enter key. If crontab has not previously been used, then a blank text file will be opened for editing. If the file has previously been edited, then all of the existing entries will be shown in the text editor.

In order to add a new entry to the file, simply place your cursor at the end of the file (below all other text) and start typing. A crontab entry should use the following syntax: (min) (hour) (day) (month) (dayofweek) (command). Each token can be replaced as follows:

  • (min) can be replaced with the minute when the command should be run. For example, if the command is to be run at 2:30 a.m., enter 30 for the minute. Valid values are any whole numbers between zero and 59.
  • (hour) should be replaced with the hour when the command should be run. For the previous example, running a command at 2:30 a.m. would replace (hour) with 2. Valid values are any whole numbers between zero and 23.
  • (day) should be replaced with the day of the month that the command should be run on. For example, to run a command on July 20th, enter 20. Valid values are whole numbers between one and 31. Note that the system will not generate an error if the entered date does not exist (for example, entering a cron job to run on September 31st will not generate an error). If an invalid date is entered, the command will never run.
  • (month) should be replaced with the number corresponding to the month that the command is to be run in. For example, to run the command on July 20 enter 7 (because July is the seventh month). Valid values are whole numbers between one and 12.
  • (dayofweek) should be replaced with the number corresponding to the day of the week that the command should be run on. For example, to run a command on a Thursday, enter 4 (because counting from Sunday as day zero, Thursday is the fourth day of the week). Valid values are whole numbers between zero and seven. Sunday can either be zero or seven, cron will recognize both.
  • (command) should be replaced with the shell command that is being run. As cron does not run under a particular shell, it has no environment variables and does not know the path to various system executables. The full path to a command must be entered. For example, in order to reboot the system each time the cron job is executed, the command would be /sbin/reboot now.

For any of the timing values (minute, hour, day, month, or day of week), an asterisk (*) can be used to represent all of the possible values. For example, the following cron entry would reload Asterisk’s configuration on the fifteenth minute of every hour:

15 * * * * /usr/sbin/asterisk -rx "reload"

A range of values can also be specified in order to execute a command within a specific time frame. For example, the cron entry below would reload Asterisk’s configuration once on the fifteenth minute of every hour, but only on business days:

15 * * * 1-5 /usr/sbin/asterisk -rx "reload"

It is also possible to specify a set of values using a comma (,). For example, the cron entry below would reload Asterisk’s configuration once per hour on the fifteenth minute of the hour, only during business hours (excluding lunch hour), and only on business days:

15 9,10,11,13,14,15,16,17 * * 1-5 /usr/sbin/asterisk -rx "reload"

The previous entries are a single cron entry and should be typed on a single line.

Finally, the forward slash (/) can be used to specify what is known as “step values”. Step values allow a command to be run a fraction of the amount of times it would be normally within a given time frame. For example, specifying 9-17/2 for the hour field would execute the command every two hours between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. instead of once per hour during that time frame. The following cron entry would reboot the server on the first day of every third month at 2:00 a.m.:

0 2 * */3 * /sbin/reboot now

Once the entry has been completed, save the file and close the text editor (the method to accomplish this is different based on which editor is being used). A message will be displayed indicating that the cron file has been updated with a new version:

crontab: installing new crontab

The schedule for cron entries can be changed any time by reopening the crontab file for editing.

FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions
FreePBX 2.5 Powerful Telephony Solutions
  • Configure, deploy, and maintain an enterprise-class VoIP PBX
  • Fully configure an Asterisk PBX without editing the individual text-based configuration files
  • Add enterprise-class features such as voicemail, least-cost routing, and digital receptionists to your system
  • Secure your PBX against intrusion by managing MySQL passwords, FreePBX administrative accounts, account permissions, and unauthenticated calls
  • Packed with step-by-step instructions, examples, screenshots, and diagrams

http://www.packtpub.com/freepbx-2-5-powerful-telephony-solutions/book

Leave a Comment

You call yourself a ham radio operator? Can you do THIS?

September 8, 2009 at 4:29 am · Filed under electronics, invention, nostalgia

I never got into amateur radio, originally because of the Morse Code requirement, and by the time they finally dropped that ridiculous nonsense, I no longer had any interest (nor, frankly, the cash to buy the equipment, antennas, etc.). But I have friends who are hams, but I’ve never seen any of them doing anything like this (you’ll need to click on the link because I can’t seem to embed this video – either I’m doing it wrong, or there’s a bug in WordPress):

Yes, the subtitles (and what little bit of spoken audio can be heard) are in French, but you don’t have to understand the language to appreciate what’s being done here. This is the sort of thing that ham radio operators used to do waaaay back when, back in the days when they built most of their equipment at home rather than buying it from some equipment manufacturer (of course it probably helped a lot if they had access to a machine shop and other equipment). I think vacuum tubes were the last bit of technology I really understood (not that I would ever attempt to build one at home), although I’m not THAT nostalgic for them, since they had this nasty habit of burning out just when you were settling down to watch TV (and creating a whole service industry of TV repairmen – and yes, they were almost always men). Still, I have a feeling that if we are ever subjected to a major EMP (or perhaps a killer solar flare) that knocks out all the silicon-based electronics, the only equipment that will still function is the old stuff that uses vacuum tubes and discrete components, with nary a transistor or integrated circuit in sight!

Leave a Comment

How to use fiber optic cable for short runs between buildings (and why you should)

September 7, 2009 at 12:40 pm · Filed under Internet, fiber optics, networking

Have you ever been in a situation where you want to extend a local network (or maybe an Internet connection) from one building to another that’s separated by some distance, say anywhere from several feet to a few hundred feet? Many people use wireless in this situation, and that’s a perfectly acceptable solution if it works, but it also brings with it a host of security issues. Any signal that is put into the airwaves is one that can potentially be intercepted, particularly if you’re not really familiar with wireless security. I’m not saying you should or should not use wireless, but I do know that some folks aren’t crazy about the idea. Also, there are distance limits on wireless links that can mean that no useable signal will be available where you want it.

Unfortunately, the only alternative to a wireless link between buildings is a physical link (if you ignore more esoteric alternatives that depend on both buildings getting their electrical service from the same power transformer) and there you have two choices, copper or fiber. Assuming you are going to bury a line between the two buildings, how do you know which to use?

I know there are people who would never recommend copper under any circumstances. The reason is that during electrical storms, there can be a difference in electrical potential between two buildings.  This can cause serious amounts of current to flow, especially if lightning strikes nearby, damaging equipment (and in an extreme case, possibly even starting a fire).  Even in cases where the equipment at the endpoints doesn’t seem damaged, the connection can turn very flakey after a lightning strike, with very high packet loss.

The only situation where you might get away with running underground Cat5e (or Cat 6, if you can find it) is to a very nearby building, and then only if you put very good approved lightning protection at both ends of the cable.  The further away the building, the more important that the lightning protectors become (and if the buildings get electrical power from different sources, such as different electrical transformers, then the lightning protection becomes even more essential), and of course good lightning protection costs money.  And even then, if lightning hits very close, it can fry the lightning protectors, meaning the Internet connection will likely be out of service until you can obtain and install replacement protectors.

One other problem to note:  You have probably heard that the theoretical maximum distance for a run of Cat5e/6 cable on a wired network is 100 meters.  That may be true indoors, in a dry environment.  It’s not always true when the cable runs underground and/or is partially exposed to outdoor climatic conditions.  On a run that’s close to the theoretical maximum in length, you may find that a connection that works beautifully during the cold winter months suddenly starts showing high packet loss during the heat and humidity of summer.

The alternative to Cat 5e/6 cable is fiber optic cable.  Fiber is a great alternative because it uses glass fibers rather than copper wire to carry the signals.  Since glass doesn’t conduct electricity, the only way lightning could ever affect it is in a direct strike, where it heats the ground so hot that the glass melts (this actually occasionally happens in areas with sand dunes, where the lightning creates glass sculptures by melting the sand into glass, but it’s very unlikely to happen on regular flat land).

The trouble with trying to use fiber is that just about everyone with any networking experience knows how to use Cat 5e or Cat 6 — you just plug it in to your equipment at each end, or if it doesn’t have plugs then you either use a tool to attach them, or your bring the wire to a modular jack and use a punchdown tool to make the connections (some lightning protectors have punchdown terminals as well).  You can cut the cat 5e or 6 cable to the exact length you need. It’s something many people are familiar with, whereas fiber may as well have been pulled out of an alien spacecraft for all anyone (outside of those in the telecommunications industry) seems to know about it.  If you go searching for pages on the Internet explaining how to install a fiber link between two buildings, good luck in finding anything useful!

Part of the probable reason there aren’t too many general how-tos on the subject is that there are so many variables — there are many types of fiber available, each of which is good for certain specific uses, with many different types of end connectors.  And then you need equipment at each end to connect the fiber to the wired network, and you can’t just run down to the local office supply or big box electronics store to find that. But don’t despair, because I’m going to tell you one way to set up a short range fiber optic link. The caveat here is that I am by no means an expert on this — I’ve been involved in an installation ONCE, but I learned a lot in the process.  Still, if you have questions that aren’t answered on this page, I’m probably not the guy to ask. But I figure that if you’re searching for online information on the subject, any information is better than none!

So let me start by telling you some things you need to know about fiber optic cable:

This fiber still worked! (Photo credit: Paul Timmins)

This fiber still worked! (Photo credit: Paul Timmins)

It comes in two varieties (that you are likely to encounter), singlemode and multimode.  Singlemode fiber usually has a yellow jacket (plastic coating, like the insulation on a copper wire) whereas multimode cable generally has an orange jacket.  For most short run applications (by that I mean distances measured in meters or feet, not kilometers or miles) you’ll use a paired multimode fiber (two fibers side by side, in a jacket that looks a bit like the type of electrical cord used with a table lamp, except the jacket is bright orange and it’s a lot smaller). If you’re a phone or cable company (or connecting to one) then you might have occasion to work with singlemode, but that’s not what we are talking about here. Singlemode is a lot more fragile than multimode – you can do this (photo at right) with multimode and it will probably still work (although anything remotely close to this tight of a bend is definitely NOT recommended – remember this is glass fiber that you’re bending, and if it breaks the cable becomes worthless!)

You can’t cut and splice fiber (unless you buy some really expen$ive supplies and equipment, and learn how to use them).  You buy the length you need, with the connectors at each end already attached.  If it’s too long, you coil up the excess (not TOO tightly) but you never cut it nor try to splice it, unless you have the specialized equipment that allows you to do so.

At each end, the fiber plugs into a device called a media converter. The media converter (or the SFP module that plugs into the converter — more on that in a moment) contains a laser, and a receiver.  It transmits on one fiber of a pair, and receives on the other.  The one thing you must never do, if you value your eyesight, is look into the laser while the unit is operating.  That also means you can’t plug a fiber cable into the media converter, then look into the other end of the fiber to see if it’s working.  If you think you might forget this important safety precaution, just try to remember that not looking into the laser is as important as not touching a live electrical line — and if that doesn’t scare you, take a course in reading Braille, because you’re probably going to need it.

It’s also possible to buy gigabit switches that can directly accept fiber.  This eliminates the need for a separate media converter at one or both ends, but such switches tend to be a bit on the expensive side, although they also tend to offer more ports than most typical home switches (24 ports, for example).  But there is sometimes a cost in terms of power consumption – for whatever reason, standalone media converters often tend to draw far less power than switches that have fiber ports.

Fiber is somewhat fragile, and it can break (and be rendered useless) if it is subjected to too much strain.  You can’t just pull it over a very long length without taping it to something else (that you’ll also be pulling) at regular intervals to relieve the strain. You can buy special, relatively inexpensive network pull string for the purpose, or if you don’t have any of that you can use any high tensile strength string (not twine, it breaks too easily, and avoid stretchy string because that sort of defeats the purpose – you want the string to help pull the fiber, not the other way around). The fiber I’ve seen needs to be inside something to protect it (no direct burial) – you can use cheap irrigation pipe for the purpose, as long as it’s large enough for the connectors at the ends to pull through (don’t try to be thrifty and undersize the pipe, but at the same time realize that fiber with the small LC connectors has plenty of room inside a standard one inch irrigation pipe, assuming you’re not pulling several multiple fiber pairs or other wires and cables). Also, you should use pulling lubricant on long pulls to prevent damage to the fiber jacket.

When you buy the fiber, it will have connectors attached at each end (at least it had better have, if you want to actually use it — don’t buy bulk cable that doesn’t have the connectors attached!).  These connectors usually have two-letter designations.  Popular types are LC (the smallest you’re likely to encounter, which makes it very popular these days), SC, and ST. The media converter (or switch) has to be able to accept the type of connectors your cable has. If your media converter has an ST connector and the cable has LC connectors, you’re out of luck.  Sometimes you can buy cable with different connectors on each end, so be careful that it matches your media converters.

If you want to know more about fiber on a technical level, see the Reference Guide To Fiber Optics.

SFPs and GBICs

According to Wikipedia:

A gigabit interface converter (GBIC) is a standard for transceivers, commonly used with Gigabit Ethernet and fibre channel. By offering a standard, hot swappable electrical interface, one gigabit ethernet port can support a wide range of physical media, from copper to long-wave single-mode optical fiber, at lengths of hundreds of kilometers.

The appeal of the GBIC standard in networking equipment, as opposed to fixed physical interface configurations, is its flexibility. Where multiple different optical technologies are in use, an administrator can purchase GBICs as needed, not in advance, and they can be the specific type needed for each link. This lowers the cost of the base system and gives the administrator far more flexibility. On the other hand if it is known that a switch will mostly have one port type (especially if that port type is copper) purchasing a switch with that port type built in will probably be cheaper and take up less space per port.

The GBIC standard is non-proprietary and is defined by the SFF Committee in document # SFF-8053i.

A variation of the GBIC called the mini-GBIC or SFP exists as well. It has the same functionality / modularity but in a smaller form factor.

(Source)

and

The small form-factor pluggable (SFP) is a compact, hot-pluggable transceiver used for both telecommunication and data communications applications. It interfaces a network device mother board (for a switch, router, media converter or similar device) to a fiber optic or copper networking cable. It is a popular industry format supported by several network component vendors.

SFP transceivers are designed to support SONET, Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and other communications standards. The standard is expanding to SFP+ which will be able to support data rates up to 10.0 Gbit/s (that will include the data rates for 8 gigabit Fibre Channel, and 10GbE. SFP+ module versions for optics as well as copper are being introduced. In comparison to Xenpak, X2 or XFP type of modules, SFP+ modules leave some of the circuitry to be implemented on the host board instead of inside the module.[1])

(Source)

Okay, in case you weren’t following along, a mini-GBIC, also known as a SFP, is a module that plugs into a media converter or a compatible switch.  What this means to you is that you can buy a media converter, then plug in the SFP that matches the type of fiber and connectors that you have.   So let’s say you have fiber with LC connectors – you get a SFP with LC connectors to match.  Now suppose that at some point you need to replace that fiber with some that has ST connectors – you don’t have to throw out the entire media converter or switch, but instead you just get a new SFP.  Not all media converters accept SFP’s, but many of the newer ones do.  Also, not every manufacturer’s SFP will work with every media converter – if you buy an SFP you have to make sure it’s compatible with the media converter (or switch) that you own.

If you go the SFP route, you have to make sure of three things:  That the connectors match the connectors on your fiber cable, that it’s intended for use with multimode rather than single-mode fiber, and that it’s for intermediate or short reach use (IR or SR — you may also find the designation SX or 1000Base-SX used to indicate a short to intermediate range SFP).  In particular, you don’t want one with long reach optics because unless you use fiber attenuators you’ll overload and probably burn out the receiver at the other end (also, there’s a much greater chance of eye damage if you accidentally glance at the laser). To give you an idea of the difference, the short range optics are generally specified for runs up to a few hundred meters in length, while long range optics have distances specified in kilometers (sometimes as much as 80 km or more!).

So lets say that you want to run a fiber optic cable between two buildings that are a reasonably short distance apart — what do you need?

The first thing you need is a pipe or conduit of some kind between the two buildings.  Irrigation pipe (the stuff you find at any home improvement store, or anyplace that sells underground lawn sprinkling supplies) is fine – remember you aren’t running anything electrical if all you are running is a fiber cable! The main thing is that the pipe or conduit that you use should be relatively smooth inside to minimize pulling resistance. Try to keep bends in the pipe to an absolute minimum. And yes, the pipe could be above ground as long as it’s sunlight resistant and not in a place subject to physical damage (but be aware that black pipe could get VERY hot in direct sunlight, so keep it out of the sun if at all possible). The purpose of the pipe or conduit is to protect the fiber. The pipe must be large enough for the connector (at the fiber cable’s end) to fit inside, with space to spare. If you have to splice sections of pipe together, the connectors may have a smaller inner diameter, so plan accordingly – you don’t want to get halfway through a pull and realize that the diameter at the splice point is too small to continue!

This article isn’t about burying pipe, but I will just suggest that you think about routing it far away from anyplace that people might be digging in the future, if at all possible — and if that’s not possible, then consider burying it as deep as possible, to minimize risk of backhoe failure (or on a farm, of getting plowed up!).

You need network pull string and electrical tape.  The string must be longer than the fiber cable – if it’s twice as long then you could pull just the string through the pipe to use for pulling (a good shop vac and a small wad of paper tied to the end of the string is often enough to get the string started through the pipe), and still have enough left on the far end to tape the fiber cable to the string for the entire length. Do that every few feet, making sure that there’s a little slack in the fiber (not too much) when the string is pulled tight. Be sure to tape the leading end of the fiber connector (with the protective cap on) firmly to the string so it can’t try to flip over or do something equally undesirable during the pull. Note that if you are also pulling any kind of wire through the pipe on the same pull, you could tape the fiber to the wire rather than a string, assuming the wire is strong enough to not stretch during the pull.

You need pulling lubricant — any electrical supply store sells this stuff. But note that this stuff can dissolve the adhesive on electrical tape (we found this out the hard way), so when you tape the cable to the string, try not to leave the adhesive side exposed.  The trouble is that to really do it right you should use plenty of pulling lubricant, yet at the same time if you do, if you taped carelessly then you may have issues with the tape not holding as it should. That’s not a reason to apply less lubricant, but rather a reason to use a little extra tape and to make your tape wraps nice and tight, so the lube can’t get between the layers of tape (especially at the very start of the pull).

We used some blue gel stuff called Ideal Aqua-Gel II and used a paintbrush to apply it liberally to the fiber cable, after first using a funnel to dump some down the pipe. You can get a gallon pail of this stuff for between $15 and $20 at most electrical supply stores (the places the electricians shop), though you might wind up with another brand. We found that a gallon was really excessive, we could have easily got by with a quart of the stuff (on a 100-meter pull). On the other hand, it was much easier to dip a paint brush into the gallon pail, then slop it onto the fiber cable and down the pipe. You really don’t want to be stingy with it, since friction in the pipe can damage the fiber jacket.

You need the fiber cable itself.  The type of multimedia fiber cable that we are talking about here comes on a ridiculously small spool (and to me, it always looks larger in photos than it really is, which for years led me to think that it wouldn’t fit through the existing pipe that was used in this situation) — this is what 100 meters of dual fiber looked like before the bubble wrap was removed:

Fiber cable with LC connectors

Fiber cable with LC connectors

The fiber we used was described as “Advanced Interconnect 100 Meter LC-LC Duplex MultiMode Fiber Optic Cable. This Advanced Interconnect cable part number 038-001-964 REV A. Cable is 50/125 OFNP Micron Fiber.” It was obtained from eBay seller isellcables. If you are wondering what a dual LC connector looks like, there is a good photo here. Note that the connector comes with a protective cap, which should be left in place during the pulling process.

You need a couple of fiber media converters, one for each end, and if they use SFP modules you’ll need a couple of those as well.  They look like this:

Fiber media converter

Fiber media converter

Fiber media converter

Fiber media converter

Notice (if you can actually see it in these photos) that the fiber cable is plugged into the SFP module, which in turn is plugged into the media converter — here’s an enlarged closeup, where you can just see the end of the SFP (the small chrome part) sticking out of the media converter:

Fiber connects to SFP module, inserted into media converter

Fiber connects to SFP module, inserted into media converter

This media converter was described on eBay as “Gigabit Fiber media converter multimode MM, 1000Base SX” and “The FIB1-1000ES MM is a Gigabit Ethernet copper to multimode 850nm LC connector fiber media converter. It has an SFP (Small Form Pluggable) slot occupied by an MM 850nm multimode module, Ethernet 1000Base-SX compatible. The Copper interface is an auto negotiating 10/100/1000 BaseT RJ45 interface with auto MDI/MDI-X detection. …” I would point out that it’s important that it actually says 10/100/1000 BaseT if your network runs at anything less than 1000BaseT speeds, because not all media converters will handle multiple speeds or speed conversions. As Paul Timmins told me, “it’s VERY possible for something to ONLY support Gigabit. When you get down to media converter territory, the reason they get cheaper is they have less guts to convert stuff between 1000T and 100T (you need buffers, ability to send gigabit pause frames when your buffers are full, etc).”

As it happened, this eBay sale included a LC SFP with each converter, so those didn’t have to be purchased separately. The seller on these was sales_fo4all.

Below is an individual SFP in its packaging – you can’t see the model number but it’s SFM-7000-S85, which is described as a “1000Base-SX, multi-mode, 550m, 850nm SFP transceiver” and additionally, that “The capacity of SFM-7000-S85 module is 1.25Gbps (Gigabit rate). The transceiver extended range allows operation on either 50/125um or 62.5/125um multi-mode fiber for up to 550m distance. (Note: for 62.5/125um fiber, maximum operating distance is only 275m).” Since our cable was the 50/125 stuff, we could have gone a much greater distance (about 1800 feet) if necessary, and if we’d had a cable that long! In the picture below, the black part on the left is a small protective cap that is removed before you plug in the fiber cable.

SFP module

SFP module

A better picture of a SFP module can be found here.  If you are observant, you may note that both the fiber converter and the SFP module shown above are made by the same company (CTC Union Technonlogies in this case).  You may wonder, as I did, if you can use one manufacturer’s SFP with a different manufacturer’s media converter or SFP-compatible switch.  According to Paul Timmins, “they’re theoretically universal but there’s absolutely nothing preventing them from vendor lockin (they’re active devices with internal serial numbers, etc, that help negotiate the capabilities of the optics with the device itself, and many vendors will refuse to work with another vendor’s GBIC/SFP).”  I’m also told that a certain big name networking equipment manufacturer takes measures to prevent you from using competitor’s SFPs (which can often be overridden with undocumented commands). So if at all possible, when buying new equipment try to buy the media converter and SFP module as a matched set, or failing that, make sure that both the media converter and the SFP module come from the same manufacturer (unless there is some guarantee of compatibility, or the cost difference is great enough that you are willing to take the gamble that it will work). Then all you have to worry about is whether the SFP has the correct connectors to match your cable, and whether it’s the correct power level for the range you are using (again, don’t get anything that’s rated for use with cables of multiple kilometers in length, unless your cable really is that long!).

After you pull the fiber cable, connecting everything up is fairly straightforward. The SFP plugs into the media converter or switch, and the fiber cable plugs into the SFP. You then simply connect the media converters to your existing network at both ends using a Cat 5e or Cat 6 patch cable. Then apply the power to the media converters at both ends (if you don’t apply the power until everything is plugged in, you can’t accidentally look into the laser!).

If you happen to get the type of media converters shown above, you may notice that there are dip switches on the unit.  There are for manually setting the port speed, and full or half duplex mode.  We left these in the factory default position (all up, which is indicated as “UDP/NWAY” mode) and it works fine. Another thing you might wonder is whether you can connect a computer directly to the media converter at the distant end of the connection, and of course the answer is yes, though many people will prefer to connect a switch so that multiple devices can be used. And remember, you do have the option to buy a switch that accepts one or more SFP modules directly, which may mean you won’t need the standalone media converter at that end — but before you do, check the power requirements.  As mentioned above, I found that such switches tended to be a bit power-hungry compared to the standalone media converters shown above.

What about the cost?

The upfront cost of running fiber is more expensive than using Cat 5e or Cat 6 underground, although if you add in the cost of good lightning protection at both ends (or replacing equipment that gets fried by lightning if you don’t use great lightning protection) then the cost difference is less significant. Today you can get 100 meters of fiber optic cable on eBay for about $80, including USPS Priority Mail shipping. The media converters and SFPs are still the expensive items — as I write this, they are going for $127 per set (media converter and SFP) on eBay, plus shipping. Add in the price of incidentals (pipe or conduit, pulling lubricant, network pull string) and you can expect to pay around $400 or perhaps a bit more for a 100-meter run (less if you can re-use existing pipe or conduit, more if you have to pay someone to dig a trench or otherwise run the cable through a difficult place). Of course you would have these same costs when running Cat 5e or Cat 6 underground, except for the media converters, so as a rough rule of thumb the price difference is the added price of the media converters and SFPs, minus the cost of the excellent lightning protection that you won’t need because fiber optic cable doesn’t conduct electricity.

I figure that in practice, the fiber install will cost an extra $150-$200 compared to an equivalent Cat 5e/Cat 6 install (again, we’re talking a 100-meter run here), but it will be worth it the next time you have an intense electrical storm nearby and realize that you’re probably not going to lose a lightning protector, computer, or router because of a surge coming in over the network cable.  It will also be worth it if the run is long enough that every hot and humid day results in a degraded connection when using Cat 5e or Cat 6 underground.

I do expect that the use of fiber will become more common in the future, since we will want ever-faster connections and there is a theoretical maximum on connection speed using copper.  At some point, I expect the prices of fiber equipment to fall (the day they start selling it in the big office supply chain stores is the day you will see the price drop to more reasonable levels). But for now, the prices aren’t that unreasonable (especially compared to a few years ago). By the way, if you want to be the next millionaire, design a system that allows people to reliably attach their own connectors to bulk fiber cable, and that sells for under $100. It’s ridiculous that anyone should have to pay four-figure sums just to be able to attach ends to fiber cable.

One other thing I think would help with fiber acceptance is to make an ultra-strong fiber cable that’s designed for difficult pulls – something with enough integral strength that you could pull the cable itself and not have to worry about breaking the glass fibers, and with a thick enough and tough enough jacket to withstand pulls over rough or uneven surfaces.  Basically, fiber cable that could take a lot of abuse without breaking (not that the stuff we used is all that fragile, but still, it would be nice to not have to worry that it can be easily damaged, especially when you’re paying eighty bucks for a 100-meter roll).

Thanks and acknowledgements

I want to thank Paul Timmins (the creator of the very useful TelcoData.us Telecommunications Database) for his help and patience in helping me understand all this stuff.  This article could not have been written without his assistance.  Also I want to thank my oldest son, who probably doesn’t want me to mention him by name, for his help and for letting me photograph some of the components in a recent installation.

My purpose in writing this article was to try and help de-mystify some aspects of using fiber optic cable in place of Cat 5e/6 for runs between nearby buildings. Again, I am NOT an expert in this, and I may have left some questions unanswered.  If you have questions or need clarification on some point, or if you see where I’ve made a glaring error, feel free to leave a comment. If I don’t respond, it probably means that I don’t know the answer, but maybe someone else with more expertise than I will chime in and help.

Comments (4)

Forgotten company/commercial: Fox Foto

September 4, 2009 at 3:25 am · Filed under Michigan, nostalgia

You know how you can go on YouTube and find old video dating back to the 1950’s and even earlier, including classic commercials? Well, there is one I remember, probably from the early to mid 1970’s, that I’ve never seen anywhere – in fact, you would never know the company ever existed if you searched for it on the Internet. It was called “Fox Foto” (or possibly “Fox Photo”, but I seem to remember it the first way) and they were a competitor to Fotomat and other similar “photo developing kiosk” operations. While Fotomat is remembered (possibly in part because of the reference in the “tornado episode” of WKRP in Cincinnati), Fox Foto seems to be forgotten. Which is a shame, because they had a great commercial.

Basically it was an all-male chorus line with a female lead, all dressed up in top hat and tails and singing and tap-dancing their hearts out, while holding flash cameras and occasionally taking flash pictures.  And the jingle (which still pops into my head occasionally) went like this, to the best of my recollection:

(Female lead:)

My pictures they are taken and I’m looking for some prints,
But I haven’t got forever and I’m looking for some hints…

(Male chorus response:)

Fox Foto makes a promise that’s a written guarantee,
You get your prints tomorrow or they give them to you free!

(Entire Chorus):

Tomorrow… Tomorrow…
Your pictures tomorrow or they’re free!

(Spoken by female):

Fox Foto!

(Chorus):

Look for the fox
Look… for… the… fox!

Does ANYONE else remember this commercial?  Perhaps Fox Foto only operated in Michigan, I don’t know, but in any case I would have thought this commercial would have been preserved as an example of “most entertaining” from back in the day. It probably just predates the introduction of home VCR’s, which may mean there are no remaining copies, which would be a shame if true.  Anyway, it’s funny how certain commercials from one’s youth get stuck in your head and pop to the surface every now and then, even when the company’s been out of business for decades. And now, I can’t find any mention at all of them. Very strange!

Leave a Comment

YHINW – Your Help is NOT Wanted

August 16, 2009 at 2:34 pm · Filed under Editorial, Internet

I would like to propose a new online shortcut, an acronym that can be used at appropriate times: YHINW

It stands for “Your Help is NOT Wanted” and the “Y” is intended to refer to a specific person, not everyone on the channel on group or forum you’re using.  Just the one person that’s being kind of a jerk.

For example, you ask a question about some piece of software, and you get this: RTFM — which, as we all know, stands for “Read The Fine Manual” (okay, I know F doesn’t really stand for “Fine”, but I try not to drop the F-bomb unless somebody or something really ticks me off.)  Often, what they are really saying is, “I don’t know the answer offhand (or I’m just too lazy to type a couple of meaningful sentences that might help you along), but I think maybe it might be in the manual, if an actual manual even exists — maybe it’s just one of those awful MAN pages that tells you everything you DON’T want to know, but only maybe touches on what you do want to know, if you can decipher it.  In any case, I’m much too superior/busy/arrogant to give you any real help.”  YHINW.

See, if you’re going to tell someone to RTFM, the very least you can do is assume they might have already tried that, and maybe give them a bit more specific information.  For example, “Look at the MAN page, search for the phrase {whatever} and it’s right under that.”  That would be actually helpful, and doesn’t take that much more time – unless, of course, the person making the RTFM comment has never actually looked at the manual/man page himself, and has no idea where the information might be. Anyway, let he who has read every page of every manual for every piece of software, every hardware device, every household appliance and every vehicle he’s ever owned — and understood every single word of those documents — be the first to cast a RTFM.

A similar situation is where you ask how to do something, and some jackass replies, “F***ing Google It.”  YHINW.  Telling someone to use Google to find something is actually a perfectly valid response, but maybe you should assume they don’t have your searching skills, so offer something like “Try Google using these search terms (or phrases)” and make a couple suggestions. It’s pretty daunting when you try to Google to discover how to do something, and you get 5,000,000 possible results, and none of the ones in the first five or ten pages of results give you anything remotely close to the answer. If you can’t even suggest some good search words or phrases, then maybe it’s you that lacks intelligence and imagination, not the person who posted the question.

Then there is the breed of jerk that haunts forums related to non-Windows machines or software.  You ask how to do something that is easily doable in Windows, and they give you a lecture about how you’re not using Windows anymore and you shouldn’t be trying to do that anyway.  Or they propose some “solution” that isn’t even close to what you asked about, and suggest that’s how you ought to be doing things, and if you don’t immediately take their advice with sufficient gratitude they flame you into oblivion as not being worthy to use that particular software, operating system, or computer — and if they’re in a particularly lousy mood, they may cast aspersions on your general character and intelligence.  Oh, puh-leeze — YHINW.  If you really don’t know of any way to do what I’m asking, than why not just STFU (if you don’t know that acronym, it’s sort of the written equivalent of “shut your pie hole”) instead of taking the opportunity to prove you’re an arrogant bastard that acts as though he was born with a computer keyboard in hand, and infinite knowledge in his brain (leaving no room for manners or basic social skills).

Even good advice, given with too much attitude and arrogance, will not usually be appreciated.  You might even be right, but come off like a jackass and the recipient of your advice will not thank you (that’s particularly true when it’s unsolicited advice — keep that in mind at your next family gathering).

I really don’t tolerate these types of people well.  My theory is, if you can’t offer something helpful and constructive — or if you can’t offer it without exhibiting a serious attitude — then just keep your fingers off the damn keyboard.  Let someone else answer, or let everyone ignore the original poster if no one knows the answer or wants to help.  There is no shame in keeping silent, rather than coming off as an arrogant jerk.  There have been times you’ve needed help — would you have appreciated a smart-ass comment instead of real help?  And if that actually happened to you, I’m sorry — the world can be a cruel place sometimes — but why not try making it a better place instead of passing on the misery to someone else?  Remember, karma is a bitch!

Comments (1)

Older Posts »