Technology and Society

Now There’s An Improvement

<tone=”sarcastic”>Well, I’m sure glad that AT&T bought Bell South.</tone>

Their POP server has been down much of the day. When I go to the Bell South technical support web page, the link to “Network Status” no longer exists, even though when one does a search on “Network Status” one receives instructions to go to the Bell South technical support web page, and clink on the “Network Status” link…

The only other option is to chat with a representative. So I follow the link (it only works in Explorer, of course, not Firefox), and fill out the form with my name, rank, and phone number. And problem description. Which has a limited text field so it won’t allow me to print out the last letter of the problem. Or a complaint about their text box that does that. I click on the button to “Chat without diagnostics.” I get a new page that says the following:

The BellSouth FastAccess DSL eAgent option is currently unavailable.

The hours of operation to chat are as follows:

DSL Technical Questions 7:00AM – 12:00AM 7 days a week
Billing Questions 8:00AM – 7:00PM Monday through Friday
8:30AM – 5:30PM Saturday
Order Status Questions 8:00AM – 8:00PM Monday through Friday

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for choosing BellSouth FastAccess DSL!

They’re only available during working hours and some hours on weekends. I receive this message at a little after three Eastern time. But note that there’s no time zone. Maybe the scheduled times for chat are in whatever time zone Bangalore is in.

So, no email, no network status, no way to chat, no way to email (because I don’t have email, remember?). All I can do is call 611 and see if I can find a non-moron who knows what a POP server is, and doesn’t ask me to reboot my PC.

I don’t hold out high hopes. And here I was, thinking that Bell South Interweb service sucked before they were reabsorbed into the AT&T borg…

I mean, I am still the number two Google hit for “Bell South DNS problem,” two and a half years later.

[Update a couple minutes after posting this]

The power of the blogosphere! As soon as I put this post up, the server started working again. TM gets results!

[Update a couple minutes after the last update]

Now it’s timing out again. Oh, well.

[Update a few minutes later]

And now it’s working again. But even if it is, that doesn’t excuse their pathetic on-line help setup.

[An update an hour or so later]

OK, I’m only number two for “Bell South DNS problem”, but I’m numero uno for “tech support idiocy.”

Technology and Society

Now There’s An Improvement

<tone=”sarcastic”>Well, I’m sure glad that AT&T bought Bell South.</tone>

Their POP server has been down much of the day. When I go to the Bell South technical support web page, the link to “Network Status” no longer exists, even though when one does a search on “Network Status” one receives instructions to go to the Bell South technical support web page, and clink on the “Network Status” link…

The only other option is to chat with a representative. So I follow the link (it only works in Explorer, of course, not Firefox), and fill out the form with my name, rank, and phone number. And problem description. Which has a limited text field so it won’t allow me to print out the last letter of the problem. Or a complaint about their text box that does that. I click on the button to “Chat without diagnostics.” I get a new page that says the following:

The BellSouth FastAccess DSL eAgent option is currently unavailable.

The hours of operation to chat are as follows:

DSL Technical Questions 7:00AM – 12:00AM 7 days a week
Billing Questions 8:00AM – 7:00PM Monday through Friday
8:30AM – 5:30PM Saturday
Order Status Questions 8:00AM – 8:00PM Monday through Friday

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for choosing BellSouth FastAccess DSL!

They’re only available during working hours and some hours on weekends. I receive this message at a little after three Eastern time. But note that there’s no time zone. Maybe the scheduled times for chat are in whatever time zone Bangalore is in.

So, no email, no network status, no way to chat, no way to email (because I don’t have email, remember?). All I can do is call 611 and see if I can find a non-moron who knows what a POP server is, and doesn’t ask me to reboot my PC.

I don’t hold out high hopes. And here I was, thinking that Bell South Interweb service sucked before they were reabsorbed into the AT&T borg…

I mean, I am still the number two Google hit for “Bell South DNS problem,” two and a half years later.

[Update a couple minutes after posting this]

The power of the blogosphere! As soon as I put this post up, the server started working again. TM gets results!

[Update a couple minutes after the last update]

Now it’s timing out again. Oh, well.

[Update a few minutes later]

And now it’s working again. But even if it is, that doesn’t excuse their pathetic on-line help setup.

[An update an hour or so later]

OK, I’m only number two for “Bell South DNS problem”, but I’m numero uno for “tech support idiocy.”

Technology and Society

Now There’s An Improvement

<tone=”sarcastic”>Well, I’m sure glad that AT&T bought Bell South.</tone>

Their POP server has been down much of the day. When I go to the Bell South technical support web page, the link to “Network Status” no longer exists, even though when one does a search on “Network Status” one receives instructions to go to the Bell South technical support web page, and clink on the “Network Status” link…

The only other option is to chat with a representative. So I follow the link (it only works in Explorer, of course, not Firefox), and fill out the form with my name, rank, and phone number. And problem description. Which has a limited text field so it won’t allow me to print out the last letter of the problem. Or a complaint about their text box that does that. I click on the button to “Chat without diagnostics.” I get a new page that says the following:

The BellSouth FastAccess DSL eAgent option is currently unavailable.

The hours of operation to chat are as follows:

DSL Technical Questions 7:00AM – 12:00AM 7 days a week
Billing Questions 8:00AM – 7:00PM Monday through Friday
8:30AM – 5:30PM Saturday
Order Status Questions 8:00AM – 8:00PM Monday through Friday

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for choosing BellSouth FastAccess DSL!

They’re only available during working hours and some hours on weekends. I receive this message at a little after three Eastern time. But note that there’s no time zone. Maybe the scheduled times for chat are in whatever time zone Bangalore is in.

So, no email, no network status, no way to chat, no way to email (because I don’t have email, remember?). All I can do is call 611 and see if I can find a non-moron who knows what a POP server is, and doesn’t ask me to reboot my PC.

I don’t hold out high hopes. And here I was, thinking that Bell South Interweb service sucked before they were reabsorbed into the AT&T borg…

I mean, I am still the number two Google hit for “Bell South DNS problem,” two and a half years later.

[Update a couple minutes after posting this]

The power of the blogosphere! As soon as I put this post up, the server started working again. TM gets results!

[Update a couple minutes after the last update]

Now it’s timing out again. Oh, well.

[Update a few minutes later]

And now it’s working again. But even if it is, that doesn’t excuse their pathetic on-line help setup.

[An update an hour or so later]

OK, I’m only number two for “Bell South DNS problem”, but I’m numero uno for “tech support idiocy.”

War Commentary

The Case For Bombing Iran

Norman Podhoretz makes it.

And no, before you ask, I don’t know whether he does it well or not. I haven’t had time to read it yet. I link as a favor to my readers who may wish to. But it’s generally worth reading Podhoretz, one of the original and self-admitted “neocons,” if just to provoke thought and discussion. And I will say that I agree at least with the first two paragraphs.

[Update in the late afternoon]

Bernard Lewis, who is cited by Podhoretz in his piece, has further thoughts in the WSJ today (Ron Paul should read it):

During the Cold War, two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: “What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?”

…From the writings and the speeches of Osama bin Laden and his colleagues, it is clear that…dealing with America, would be comparatively simple and easy. This perception was certainly encouraged and so it seemed, confirmed by the American response to a whole series of attacks–on the World Trade Center in New York and on U.S. troops in Mogadishu in 1993, on the U.S. military office in Riyadh in 1995, on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000–all of which evoked only angry words, sometimes accompanied by the dispatch of expensive missiles to remote and uninhabited places.

Stage One of the jihad was to drive the infidels from the lands of Islam; Stage Two–to bring the war into the enemy camp, and the attacks of 9/11 were clearly intended to be the opening salvo of this stage. The response to 9/11, so completely out of accord with previous American practice, came as a shock, and it is noteworthy that there has been no successful attack on American soil since then. The U.S. actions in Afghanistan and in Iraq indicated that there had been a major change in the U.S., and that some revision of their assessment, and of the policies based on that assessment, was necessary.

More recent developments, and notably the public discourse inside the U.S., are persuading increasing numbers of Islamist radicals that their first assessment was correct after all, and that they need only to press a little harder to achieve final victory. It is not yet clear whether they are right or wrong in this view. If they are right, the consequences–both for Islam and for America–will be deep, wide and lasting.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!