Opuscula It isn’t easy Saying good-bye To some vendors

KERMIT THE FROG sang “It isn’t easy being green.”

If he ever tried to close out technology accounts, he would find that “being green” is the least of his worries.

 

We — my Spouse and I — are relocating.

We’re going to move closer to the grandchildren.

We have accounts for (alphabetically)

Electric
Internet
Mobile phones (2)
Water

We also are selling a car. In Florida, the plate stays with the seller, an inconvenience implemented in the 1970s.

Finally, we have to get an OK from the homeowners’ management association. (The buyers have even more association hoops to clear.)

Closing proof

In order to terminate our account with the city’s Water Department, we have to PROVE we sold the house. Present a copy of the closing papers.

Just to turn off the WATER!

What if we were leaving for our vacation home in the UP of Michigan. Seems fair; the snowbirds come south every winter. Turn off the water for “n” months. What do I have to do to prove I’m leaving town and I don’t want to chance a water pipe might break?

What is the Water Department going to demand of the buyers? ANOTHER copy of the closing?

Ridiculous.

Our homeowner’s insurance carrier also wants a copy of the closing document.

Perhaps I simply don’t want to pay for homeowner’s insurance. The house is free and clear. I am not obliged by law (so far) to have homeowner’s insurance.

People would be foolish not to have homeowner’s insurance — never mind that it fails to include flood insurance and that every time a hurricane comes ashore in Louisiana or Texas the insurers raise OUR rates in south Florida.

I thought this was 2011, not an Orwellian 1984.

Our mobile phones are with Consumer Cellular. Normally it is a “so-so” company. That’s probably the “norm” for phone companies in the 20s (2000, 2001, etc.).

The Spouse called Consumer Cellular and told Customer Service we want to cancel service on a specific date.

CSR replied: We can’t do that. You have to call us on the day you are canceling service.

Hopefully we will be able to call Consumer Cellular from the airport to get the service stopped.

Alternatively, we could just ignore bills from Consumer Cellular, but I was not brought up that way.

I may have to remember to bring a Consumer Cellular statement with us so I’ll know what to cancel — in case our phone numbers are insufficient.

One would think we were Consumer Cellular’s only customer and that our bill is in the hundreds of thousands every month. (We are not and our bill is not.)

AT&T only asks that we return a modem/router we had for internet connectivity. I’ve had the device for a number of years and, frankly, I cannot conceive of a reason AT&T would want it back. Maybe AT&T techs can salvage or scavenge parts from it.

To AT&T’s credit, it is proving pre-paid FedEx service back to a company address. It also is allowing sufficient time for one of my sons to get to a local FedEx to get the device on its way.

AT&T told my Spouse that the device could be returned by either UPS or FedEx, but it sent a document to ship via FedEx. Both work for me.

What AT&T apparently was unable to accomplish was a change of address so we will have to trust our highly unreliable and oft complained about letter carrier to get the bill forwarded.

I’ve lived all over the U.S. and I NEVER had such lousy mail service. There are days when no one on my city block gets mail — the carrier simply doesn’t deliver or collect mail and nothing can be done to replace the carrier.

Florida Power & Light, FPL, was the easiest of all to terminate.

The Spouse called FPL — I prefer email; she’s great on the phone — and asked that the power be turned off on a specific date.

FPL said no problem; the power would be turned off one (1) day after the requested date. The helpful clerk even gave my Spouse a “guesstimated” bill.

USPS The Post Office now charges for a Change of Address: US$1.05.

I’ve moved a lot and I never had to pay for a change of address. USPS is happy to bill my credit card.

Of course, the “modern” Post Office (that may or may not deliver mail, ibid.) also has a steep surcharge for Stamps By Mail. Almost like buying stamps from a vending machine (do they still have those?).

I could understand if the surcharge and the postage to get the stamps to me were about the same, but they are far from that.

We got a Change of Address form from the USPS and mailed it — postage free — at a free-standing mail box (almost an anomaly anymore, akin to corner pay phones).

If we waited for the lazy letter carrier to collect the card — the alternate carrier is great — we would be well settled in into our new residence.

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Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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Opuscula I like “cheap”

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, I prefer to pay less for something.

If it meets my needs why spend more?

My flivver is a 2008 Hyundai Elantra. I get the oil & filter changed every 3,500 miles or so. The vehicle is MECHANICALLY in great shape; the interior no so much, but it gets me from Point A to Point B just fine.

Could a Caddy do better? Do I need the speed of a souped up (do people still use that expression) pony?

It’s pretty good on fuel as long as I stray within the legal limit and its fairly comfortable — all-in-all, I consider it money well spent.

I’ve had Fords, Lincolns, Oldsmobiles, Buicks, and even an American Motors Rebel wagon — another good vehicle — but the Hyundai does the job and I’m happy with it.

My daughter gifted me with a smart phone. It’s a Redmi 6A. Hardly a top of the line Motorola or Samsung, but it turns out it sounds better than the Spouse’s more expensive (and slightly bigger) LG.

All the reviews I’ve read are that it is a very good phone for the money.

It meets my needs as a phone, a text message exchanger, and a platform for WhatsApp.

What’sApp for anyone who doesn’t know, is a free, international voice/image service similar to Skype but sans the heavy hand of Microsoft. The “better performance” mentioned above is via WhatsApp.

The daughter got the phones as part of a wireless plan. She also got one for her 7 year old daughter, a/k/a My Favorite Grand-daughter. (She’s my only grand-daughter so no one will have hurt feelings.)

The Princess & her Twin Princes

The phone is a “little” small for my fat fingers, but the Spouse gifted me with a stylus from a neighborhood dollar store. The $1 stylus includes ! a flashlight (torch for those from across the pond) and a red (ruby?) laser pointer. Both work on a replaceable battery — and all for one U.S. dollar.

Actually, styluses — to be correct, “stylii” — are 10 for $10 on line, but with a flashlight AND laser pointer?

Our phone service — smart phones and pseudo-landline — are from Consumer Cellular.

Consumer Cellular, hereafter “CC,” is a pretty good service. I have a ZTE “wireless home base” that converts cell phone signals to something my ancient Uniden cordless system (of two stations) can use.

The Unidens are often more comfortable to use than cell phones of any type, especially when on hold.

CC just sent me an email telling me it was upgrading the service to four or five “G.”

I’ll have to swap out a SIM card and hopefully the card will match my account. Fortunately, CC has “pretty good” customer support; it’s better technically than the billing unit.

The combined CC bill — two cell phones with voice, text and data, and the ZTE (voice only) is less than the bill for our former landline-only service.

Since 90% of all data — including WhatsApp — is via our modem/router, our data usage with CC is minimal. (We still have the ISP to finance.)

My name is not Benjamin Kubelsky (right) and I am not “cheap.” It is just that I hate to pay for a “name” that the only benefit it carries is snobbishness.

True, a Caddy may be better built than my Hyundai — then why doesn’t it have Hyundai's 10 year/100,000 mile factory warranty? — and a Moto smart phone may have a better camera — but does it compare to my 4*5 (inch) technical camera or my old Canon F-1?

My Spouse drives a Benz 350 that is so technologically advanced she can’t use many of the goodies. We had a Jaguar X40 (a/k/a XJ6) — in order to change a headlight the whole front end had to be removed ! — and neither vehicle was as reliable as the Hyundai.

I won’t buy something because it is inexpensive if it is cheap.

“Cheap” meaning “shoddily made” or “made of inferior materials.” That is throwing good money after bad (or something); in the end it is wasteful.

But, when I find something that has good value for the money (even if it is manufactured in China such as are the cell phones and the stylus — the Hyundai is from South Korea), if I have a need for the item, I’ll buy it.

There is a difference between being frugal and being Benjamin Kubelsky cheap.

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PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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Opuscula Microsoft and Win 10: Arrogance on a field Of Bovine excrement

I HAVE MICROSOFT’S WINDOWS 10 (WIN 10) running on two laptops.

My spouse has one; I have the other. I also have a Win 7 machine that the grand-daughter can use during her visits.

The grad-daughter plays with Word – she holds down a character key and watches it fill the screen. She also plays Solitaire. All this between occasional blue screens. (The Chinese computer is about 5 years old; well past it’s prime. It came with Win 7 installed.)

The Spouse, with a newer Chinese computer has so far managed to avoid blue screens.

So what is the Problem Du Jour with Win 10?

There are many, but the most aggravating is Microsoft’s shutting down Win 10 WITHOUT WARNING to install upgrades.

Yesterday she was reading her emails when, sans warning, the WeSaySo Corporation¹ – a/k/a Microsoft – interrupted her reading and took over the computer for an hour.

No “we’re going to take over your computer in 10 minutes.” No “we’re about to install an update because …: nothing. Just boom and the screen went dark for a few seconds before Microsoft announced it was installing a update.

I foolishly thought that when a customer buys a product the customer should have some say in use and maintenance.

Imagine if Ford, Chevy, or Chrysler shut down your flivver as you travel over the speed limit on an interstate highway? There you go, whizzing along when, without warning, the vehicle comes to a screeching stop because the car needs an oil change. Explain THAT to the cops that come to investigate the 20-car pileup that started when the vehicle behind yours slammed into the rear of your transportation. (Just hope that vehicle slamming into yours isn’t an 18-wheeler or a cement mixer.)

This morning I was working on a project – Win 10, LibreOffice Writer (in preparation to move to the Linux Operating System (wonder why??) when, in the middle of a search and replace function, good ol’ WeSaySo Corporation takes over the system.

Imagine if this happened in a business with multiple computers – not at night, but in the middle of the business day.

Warning? Don’t be silly. This is Microsoft. It’s worse than the government (pick any government level). It’s worse that a financial institution.

FORTUNATELY, LibreOffice Writer (equivalent to Microsoft Office Word) managed to save almost all the work I had spent a couple of hours creating.

Knowing that WeSaySo Corporation would take it’s own sweet time to update MY system, I went for toast and coffee and some time in front of the tube watching horse opera reruns. When I returned the unasked for update(s) – who knows WHAT was installed; Microsoft isn’t telling – was almost finished.

HP – the company whose logo is on the newest Chinese laptop – at least

(a) tells me it wants to install something
(b) what the something will do for the machine, and
(c) allows me to decide if I want the upgrade installed or not.

After all, I paid for the computers and that cost included a Microsoft Operating System.

(I understand computer maker Dell will install a non-Microsoft Operating System (Linux, Ubuntu, etc.) if a customer requests. Bravo for Dell. Maybe I’ll find a way to meet Dell’s prices for a new laptop when I need to replace the HP.)

At this point, I am ready to copy all my critical files to an external drive and install either Linux or Ubuntu, letting it wipe out the Microsoft Operating System and the Microsoft Office I purchased.

I confess I’ve been unhappy with WeSaySo Corporation for some time – primarily because it insists on changing the User Interface with each iteration of each product.

Now, with its unmitigated arrogance to take over the machine for which I paid, I’ve reached the end of the road with the Redmond giant. I’ve used Microsoft products for years, but there comes a time when there is no option but to cut the cord.

We already did that with Ma Bell, switching to Consumer Cellular for both mobile and landline (via a ZTE Wireless Home Phone Base²) talk, text, and data. (The only function I lack with Consumer Cellular is fax; I can get that on the rare occasion I need it at a FedEx or UPS store.)

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Sources

1. WeSaySo Corp: http://tinyurl.com/yako7axw
2. ZTE: http://tinyurl.com/y8d723hl

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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Opuscula Phone company pop-up Sends user looking For alternative provider

THANKS TO FRANCHISE laws that prevent open competition, in my area there are basically three options to access the internet:

1.   Telephone company
2.   Cable company
3.   Satellite dish

While in theory there is competition and in theory that should mean competitive pricing, in truth any claim of competition is a farce.

My Internet service is via the telephone company, an 800 pound gorilla.

To be fair, the service is, for the most part, reliable and it “pretty much” provides the service for which I pay.

My problem with the service is the all-too-frequent pop-up questionnaire that takes over the Internet site I am viewing.

If the questionnaire was small and offered a way to close it when it popped up, I probably would not complain. I might even honestly complete the questionnaire.

But it is not small; it fills the monitor’s screen and substitutes itself for the material I called up.

It’s a virus that my Avast anti-virus program apparently has no power to block. (Avast does a fine job blocking most invaders.)

What the questionnaire HAS accomplished is that I am now looking at alternatives, even those that cost as much as the phone company, even if the alternative only matches the phone company’s speed and promised reliability.

I had another phone company’s service when I lived elsewhere. No pop-up questionnaires. I had a cable company’s service in yet another location (I was a consultant), and again, no pop-ups.

I admit I don’t like the 800 pound gorilla, mostly because I feel it runs roughshod on its customers. Raise the rates? The government falls in line and, consumer be damned, the rates are raised. (This is one benefit for utility franchisers.)

I eliminated the phone company’s residential telephone service, replacing it with Consumer Cellular’s ZTE cellular-to-home phone converter. This accomplished two things, one good and one not so good:

1.   I drastically lowered my monthly phone bill.
2.   I lost my fax capability. (ZTE does not accommodate facsimile transmissions.)

Even with two cell phones and a former landline cordless phone arrangement connected to the ZTE device, the total bill is less than the bill for the same service from the phone company.

The 800 pound gorilla offers me a “reward” for taking time to respond to the pop-up questionnaire. The “rewards” are things I never would buy and certainly do not want.

It is patiently obvious to this scrivener that the phone company’s questionnaire software developer failed to write code that states “If this computer was queried within the last n days, do not query again..” Two days in a row I suffered the interruption of the phone company’s invasive questionnaire.

The only way I know to end the phone company’s unwanted invasions is to cancel all business with the company.

Inertia kept me with the phone company until now, but the questionnaire is forcing me to get off my posterior and re-examine my options.

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If the links fail to work, see http://tinyurl.com/y82lye4d to learn how to find/access them. It's a Google problem.

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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