I just got some retarded sales call from Charter.
They "thanked" me for being a good customer.

First, I'm not a customer of theirs by choice. Charter is the ONLY provider of high speed Internet service where I'm at. I'm a customer of Charter because I have to be, not because I want to be. Second, I know I'm not a special customer, it's just some generic line they say to all their customers. If he had started the conversation with a line like "I'm sorry you have to use Charter, but perhaps I can offer some services to you to make us seem like we don't SUCK so much."

He said I could get Charter Phone service with like a million features and unlimited minutes for $29.99 for 6 months, and then $39.99 after that (plus like $10 in taxes and fees). I explained that I pay less than $20 (*including* taxes and fees) with Vonage. And that isn't some promotional price, it's their all-the-time regular price. Plus I get WAY more features than I use, with way more minutes than I ever could use, so it's already virtually unlimited for me. I even mentioned how copies of my voice mail go to my Email, and asked if Charter even provided that feature.

He then went on to tell me how VoIP services like Vonage were very INSECURE and anyone could just just listen in. He didn't explain how the encryption used with Vonage was different than with Charter's VoIP service, just that Charter's was "better" and "more secure". Vonage has worked perfectly for me for over half a year. I've had ZERO issues with it.

Even with some stupid scare-tactic, he realized he wasn't going to sell me on Phone service ...

So then he said he had a GREAT deal for me for TV service. I said I don't want Charter TV, especially when they don't even offer all the local channels. Channels that we actually watch. My sister has Charter TV, and she has to tune in some channels over-the-air since Charter has never offered them. She asked me how to find the channels on her TV that was hooked up to Charter cable. Channel 5.2, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, the all-new "Green Channel" 24.2? Charter doesn't have them as far as I know.
The guy on the phone checked some list, and couldn't find any information on the local channels, but said I could get lots of new channels.
I said I didn't want new channels. I already have plenty of channels I get for free, and I don't want to PAY MONEY TO LOSE THEM.

The guy told me that if I didn't subscribe to Charter's TV service, I would LOSE access to those over-the-air channels when the Digital Transition occurs. I explained to him that those are Digital-only channels, they aren't going anywhere, that I have been watching digital TV for years, I only watch digital TV, and that the digital TV standard came out back in the 1990s. I'm not worried about any transition. We have like 11 Digital tuners now. 4 of them support HD even.

He then asked me if I have an HDTV. I said yes, 4 of them. He mentioned their great (insanely-overpriced) HD service. I said I get all my HDTV over the air for free. That I watch my favorite shows in 1080i like CSI, Heroes, and all those "Late Night" shows. I asked him why would I pay for HDTV service when I get HDTV service over the air for free?

I don't know if he was unahppy that he didn't make his sales quota for today, but he thanked me for educating him on the types of service out there. Who knows, maybe I convinced HIM to drop Charter Phone service and tune into some over-the-air free HDTV.

He tried to offer two services to me, phone and TV, and then tried to *scare* me into switching to Character when I didn't express interest in them. How ... what's the word? Unprofessional? Desperate? Retarded?

Minor update:
It looks like Charter does provide access to channels 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, and 5.2. They are channels 107, 108, 109, and 127 on their Digital St. Louis package. If the Charter person I spoke with on the phone knew what the hell he was talking about, he would have come a little closer to making a sale. Putting people on the phone that have no idea what they are talking about is pretty dumb. No equivalent to channel 24.2 though.

I've never been a big fan of Charter. After moving into a new home where Charter was the only service available, I was forced to switch to them after being with AT&T for many, many years.

I had phone service with AT&T for 12 years, and DSL service for 8 years. It was always priced fairly, and the price had even DROPPED since I started using it. It was $40 for 1.5 Mbps, then $40 for 3.0 Mbps, then $40 for 6.0 Mbps. Things dropped even lower after a while. $35 for 6.0, $25 for 3.0, and $20 for 1.5. They even had a 786kbps plan for $15.

Charter? They offered 3.0 Mbps for $50 a month. Twice what AT&T charged. Now they have 5.0 Mbps for $60. Not only did it cost more, but it was shared bandwidth. If your neighbor was downloading tons of horse porn or whatever, it would cause your game downloads to slow down. Nothing better than paying more and getting less. Why would someone choose Charter?

Well, Charter hasn't been in the best shape recently. Their iron-clad business plan of OFFER LESS, CHARGE MORE just wasn't working out for them.
I checked DSLRports today and saw some more Charter news regarding their forth-quarter earnings report. It, of course, wasn't good.

Why doesn't anyone at Charter seem to care? Here's a list of things I've noticed with the company recently. Maybe if someone there takes a look at how the public views them, they may be able to start making some changes.

* Charter posted their forth-quarter earnings report for 2008. They had a LOSS of $1,500,000,000.00. Ever lose a $20 in a pair of pants before? Well, imagine Charter losing 1.5 BILLION DOLLARS in their pants.

* They reported to their creditor that they will be failing to make yet another scheduled debt payment.

* Mark your calendar, Charter files for Bankruptcy protection on April 1st.

* Because of recently announced retarded bandwidth caps and low speeds of Cable internet they have been lying about (5mbp Cable vs 6 mbps DSL?), lots of people with DSL or U-verse available keep switching to that.
(Of course anyone who has noticed satellite dishes on every roof already knows people have been dropping cable TV by the millions for YEARS).

* Charter's monthly caps are low enough to be hit in a SINGLE day. Charter's "fine print" then gives them the right to disconnect your service or further throttle your speed down even slower.

* After 10+ years of working on their network infrastructure, users of cable internet STILL complain about slow-down during the evening (check DSLreports.com).

* Apparently Charter stopped offering all local channels several years ago. You can't pay more to get them, they simply aren't offered.
My sister asked me how to get her Charter-connected TV to show the same channels her rabbit-ears TV gets in the other room. There are around 5 or more channels she gets over the air that Charter doesn't offer. I loaded up charter.net to check TV listings, and I didn't see the channels listed. And that is just the St. Louis area. How many channels are they missing in bigger markets??
Didn't the cable companies use to boast that they offered local channels when satellite didn't?
One of my daughter's favorite channels isn't even available on Charter, but is over the air. Why would I pay for their over-priced TV servive to NOT get the channels we want?

* How is their phone service working out for them? They are still charging $40+ (not counting all the taxes and fees added on top of that) when competitors like Vonage offer similar services that are UNDER $20 *including* all the taxes and federal fees. Many cell phone users are opting to not even have a house-line any more. How does Charter expect to compete with the $0-$20 services people get at home by offering their $40+ service??

* Do I even need to talk about Charter installers? I was given a 6-hour window for install. "Between Noon and 6PM" I was told. Well, after waiting at home all day, I called at 6:30PM asking where the guy was. He got there around 7:30 to install the service.

* DSL installation? You give them a call and they priority-mail you a free modem. You plug it in and you're online.
Cable installation? You call them, someone HAS to come out, you get the all-day install window, and then they try to CHARGE you for a modem. How much do they charge you? Their monthly charges are enough to cover the cost of several modems. They had been charging customers $5 a month ($60 a year) for a modem that costs $25. That is $60 a year, every year. They've since reduced the price to $3 a month ($36 a year). That is still $36 every year for a modem that costs $25.

I haven't posted in a while. I've been pretty busy the past few months.

Some info that may help some people get Cisco VPN access if they are using 64-bit Windows:
Use Cisco VPN under Vista x64

Some info/files for getting some PC video cards to work in a Macintosh:
Flash PC video cards for use in a Mac

After long wait, Vista SP1 is officially out.

Vista x86 / 32-bit Update (~435 Megs)

Vista x64 / 64-bit (~727 Megs)

Overview of Vista SP1 (overview, release notes, etc)

I've been using the pre-paid phone service "Virgin Mobile" for around 5 years now. I've had a lot of issues with them in the past, partially because of service issues but mostly the huge cluster of customer service.

No one keeps track of issues. No one communicates. No one can be held accountable when something goes wrong. They pass issues around and promise to call you back when its fixed - which is never. Seriously, I had an issue opened in November 2006, and as of February 2008, it still was not resolved.
The only fix for any service issue is to close your account and get a new phone. That has been the only un-official solution I've received from people working for the company. They admit they can't fix things and recommend just starting over.

One of the services they offer is called Studio V.

It is a site where users can submit their own wallpapers and ringtones. Companies don't make a lot of money off people making phone calls, but they make a TON of money off wallpapers and ringtones.
Studio V lets you submit your own work, and you actually get a bit of money each time someone downloads your work.

I created a few images with Paint.NET for the site. I drew some colored lines, applied some images filters, swirled things around a bit, and posted an image called "Purple Vortex."
It was immediately downloaded by a lot of people. It even showed up on their "most popular" page for a while.

I then submitted another version of the image that was a slightly different color. People started downloading that even faster than the original version.
I watched my cash balance slowly increase over the next few days instead of decreasing.

Today I log in and see my balance has hardly moved over the past several days. I then see that my wallpapers have been BLOCKED from being shared any more.
I clicked them to find out why.

There is a note on them:
"Your content was denied for sharing with others because:
Copyright issue
Your wallpaper was not approved because we believe the image, or photo used in your wallpaper is owned by someone else. Please make sure to upload only photos, or images that you created and own."

What? Seriously?

*I* make an image from scratch, post it, it's reviewed and approved by someone, gets shared, downloaded a lot, and then pulled because they believe it is owned by someone else? What??

What can I do? Seriously? There is no help. No technical support. No one to talk to.

My most popular images have been removed, so you can't help out by getting them.