Category: Techspeak

Get it while it’s hot!
I did a clean install of the Xubuntu Jaunty Jackelope release candidate last night, and it went very smoothly.?The install ?was quick and easy, and I like the themes and default apps that come with Xubuntu.?On the small screen and limited hardware, I am liking XFCE more than GNOME, which seems bloated by comparison.
This morning I did an apt-get upgrade, which updated 70 packages, and that was it.?
I haven’t yet gotten Compiz working (because I can’t find a button to turn on desktop effects… lame, I know), and it’s taking me a little time to find thinks in locations other than where I expect them to be, but that seems to happen any time I try a new ?remix / respin / distro / desktop, so I won’t hold that against it.

This week I launched a new blog over at http://blog.paradigmcc.com. This is to be the “official” blog of my company.
Nikolaidis.com isn’t changing, and there will definitely be overlap between the two – I envision a lot of cross posts. But the other blog will have other contributors and will also be a tad lighter on the rants, heavier on the business.

This weekend, after finding out just how easily one can accidentally invoke the option to “recover” a Windows partition on an Asus eeePC (hint: “too easily”), I decided to take the opportunity to try out a couple of different Ubuntu distros for the eeePC. Continue reading “Crunchbang, Eeebuntu, and an Etch to Lenny Upgrade”

Today, we are working with Fair Point on yet another outage. This time it’s a T1 line from Brandon to Middlebury, Vermont. After the standard “It’s customer
equipment” line (which we now believe is a standard response), and a full day of down time, Fair Point finally dispatched a technician…. to the wrong end of the T1. I realized this only when he was asking about “the other T1 line” in the router. When I said “there’s only one line” I realized he was looking at the Brandon router, not the Middlebury one.
Here’s how I imagine their troubleshooting process looks:

Today I decided that, since we never use it, it was time to ditch our toll-free phone number. Why should I continue to pay $30/mo for something we never use? So I called Fair Point and after re-reading the account number twice was able to get the account canceled “on one end.” However, I was told I needed to call another number to finish up the cancelation.
First question: why do I have to call two numbers?
So I called the second number and, when it asked what number I was calling about I keyed it in. Of course, there was no record of the 800# in their system.
After being on hold for 16:55 minutes, and repeated “Thank you for holding. Someone will be right with you,” messages, I finally got through to someone. I was very careful not to give out my main phone number, for fear of them disconnecting that instead.
Conclusion: Fair Point is overworked/whelmed by the northern New England Verizon acquisition.

Something about this post seems really familiar, but I can’t place my finger on it. No really, it reminds me of something. I could swear I’ve ranted against the phone company, whether it was Verizon or Fair Point, before… why could that be? Continue reading “Fair Point and Noise on the Line”