Some Tips for Charter Communications

Today I had my first experience using the online chat with Charter Communications. I figured since I had a very simple question, it would be easier and faster than calling them and going through a rather painful automated system (I found out that if I just press '0' a few times I'll eventually get a human). Anyway, let's jump into it and I'll interject some tips. My question: What do I have to add to my cable service to get the NHL Network, and how much will it cost?


Thank you for choosing Charter Chat Live! A Customer Care representative
from Sales Support will be with you shortly.
You have been connected to CVW FA Charles .
CVW FA Charles : Hello, this is Charles, with Charter Communications. How can I help you today?

Point 1: Good start, I was only waiting about 10 seconds. So far, so good.

Fred Yingling: I am interested in getting the NHL network, what do I have to add to my cable service to get it and how much will it cost?
CVW FA Charles : Oh ok, we have a team here at Charter that is specifically trained to handle requests like yours. Let me transfer you to our video support group who can help you with your nhl inquiry.
CVW FA Charles has left the session.
Please wait while we find an agent from the CHAT - DUMA - Video Support department to assist you.

Point 2: Here is where things start to go wrong. When I click the Help Chat link on the page about pricing, shouldn't someone that can help me with that be on the other end?

You have been connected to TTD Gregory .
TTD Gregory : Hello! Thank you for contacting Charter Communications. My name is Gregory. How may I assist you today?
Fred Yingling: I am interested in getting the NHL network, what do I have to add to my cable service to get it and how much will it cost?
TTD Gregory : No problem! I would be more than happy to assist you with the cost of adding the NHL Center Ice package on your account.

Point 3: Please read the question I asked before you try to answer the one I didn't

TTD Gregory : For verification purposes, may I have the full name on the account, contact number, complete address, the last four digits of the account holder's SSN, and PIN code or Security Code? You can find your Security Code at the upper right corner of your paper bill.

Point 4: Why do you need my specific account info for this? Wouldn't just a street address work? I only asked for pricing, not to add it to my account.

Fred Yingling: not Center Ice
Fred Yingling: I already have that
Fred Yingling: the NHL Network is not part of Center Ice
TTD Gregory : Are you referring to the channel?
Fred Yingling: yes
TTD Gregory : Okay.

Point 5: Now we're up to speed.

TTD Gregory : Please give me the information.
Fred Yingling: I don't want to add it yet, I just want to know how much it costs.
TTD Gregory : Yes.
TTD Gregory : I will not add it on your account.
TTD Gregory : I'll just need to pull up your account so that I could check it.

Point 6: See Point 4.

Fred Yingling: I don't have the bill in front of me, so I don't know the code and the account is under my fiancee's name
TTD Gregory : Please give me the rest of the information. After I pull up the account, I will check if there is any other verification available to replace the Security Code or PIN.

Point 7: Didn't I just tell you that I don't have the info in front of me? Secondly, see Point 4, again.

Fred Yingling: the name on the account is my fiancee's name
Fred Yingling: address: my address
Fred Yingling: my name should be a secondary on the account
TTD Gregory : Thank you for the information.

Point 8: So that is all the info you needed? Then why did you keep asking me about the account number, SSN, PIN?

TTD Gregory : I checked the channel lineup in your area, and I see that NHL Network is available on channel 320. It is included in our Sports View. The Sports View is for $5.00 a month and it has 16 channels all in all.
Fred Yingling: And this is standard definition, right? I do not have an HDTV.
TTD Gregory : Yes. This is standard definition.
Fred Yingling: Thanks, that's what I needed to know.
Fred Yingling: One more question
Fred Yingling: Is it possible to call on a Saturday to place that order?
TTD Gregory : Yes. We are open 24/7.
Fred Yingling: Thanks

Point 9: Ends on a high note. I got the info I needed and was told they are open 24/7. That is a good thing.

Truth be told, it wasn't a terrible experience. I got what I needed and was pleasantly surprised by the price (which rarely, if ever, happens when speaking about a telecom company). The whole thing didn't take terribly long and it was bookended (probably not a word) by two solid pieces of customer service. They just need to work on the middle part, you know, finding the info in a quick and concise manor.

The takeaway from all of this is that it could have been worse, but it certainly could have been better had the Customer Service Representative listened to what I was asking.

Getting to the bottom of XP Mode

This morning a coworker sent me this article from TechRepublic entitled "10 Reasons Why Windows 7's XP Mode is a Big Deal" and asked me if I found it to be correct.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=926

Since I've been using the Windows 7 Release Candidate from the day it was made available on my home PC, he wanted my take. Here was my reply on the question of correctness:

Yes and no. The “It solves compatibility problems” point is only half right. You are actually running an entire virtual machine in the background when you launch a Virtual XP application so there is a ton of overhead involved and no direct access to the hardware such as your video card. That means if you have a stack of old games laying around and you think XP Mode is going to let you play them, you’d be wrong. Anecdotally I would say that application compatibility was greatly improved with Windows 7 anyway. It was designed for IT departments so that they can get away from supporting XP on their network just to keep compatibility with old productivity software.

The upgrades to Virtual PC points are pretty accurate.

“It’s a way to modernize XP” is way off, the XP virtual machine is exactly the same as a regular XP installation with the exception that you would have to get through the Windows 7 firewall first. That’s assuming the user has it enabled (it is by default, but some people turn it off).

The rest is mostly about support for XP coming from Microsoft which is again way off. The end of life date for XP still hasn’t changed and this just provides a stop gap solution for IT so that they can get away from the old and insecure XP. It gives a larger window of opportunity for them to find a new product or have the developers update their software to be compatible with Windows 7. There is a small grain of truth to everything here, but it seems mostly like a fluff piece. Another thing that he fails to mention is that XP Mode will only be available to Windows 7 Professional and higher, otherwise you will need your own licensed copy of XP to install into a virtual machine yourself if you want that functionality.

Bottom line:
Is XP Mode a big deal? Yes.
Is it a big enough deal to warrant 10 bullet points? No.

Uncle Fred!

Got word from my Dad yesterday that I'm officially an uncle. How weird is that? According to my sources Leo David Yingling arrived at 1:58 PM on July 28, 2009. Weighing in at 7 lbs. 0.5 ounces and 19.5 inches long.



That brings me to some weird questions. Why do they say "x inches long" instead of tall? I suppose it's because the kid isn't vertical yet, but when do you make the distinction between long and tall? Call me a noob when it comes to babies, but seriously, what gives? I'm 5'8" tall, I'm sure that if I had pondered this during my single, bar-going years I probably could have gotten a few more dates if I had just told drunk women I was 68 inches long.

Also, (in fear of sounding like Jerry Seinfeld) what's the deal with the weight thing? From my understanding they use it as some kind of measure for how healthy the baby is. That's all well and good, but here is my suggestion: let's use some kind of relative scale with things we know are heavy and can be envisioned to an approximate size.

Example:
About the size of a bread box; weighs less than a watermelon but more than my cat.

Any thoughts?

I hate iTunes

So I have an 80 GB iPod Classic. I don't have an obsession with Apple or anything like that. Steve Jobs is not my personal hero, but at the time it offered the best mp3 player capability to me. On a daily basis I bring my iPod to the office to listen to music and I choose not to sync it to that PC. Rarely do I have any problems with the exception of the occasional iTunes crash. Being as it was Mac software that was ported to Windows, I just shrug it off and restart the application. However, today not only did iTunes crash, it would not respond to even ending the process with Task Manager. WTF? I actually had to reboot so that I could kill the dam process so that Windows could eject my iPod cleanly. When my PC came back up I didn't bother plugging in my iPod since I still had a few TWiT podcasts on which I had to catch up. On my way home around 5 PM I found nothing good on the radio and plugged in the iPod so that I could rock out to 21st Century Breakdown only to find that during the crash, iTunes decided to wipe out 40 of the 60 GB worth of data on my iPod. Sometimes I hate technology. At this point I hate iTunes enough that my next mp3 player might be a Zune. Yeah, it's that bad.

Movin' Along

Just finished moving from an office upstairs to one downstairs. I personally like the move as it gets me away from the noisy kitchen and into quiet corner. Still get a window and now I have a desk that faces toward the door so no one can sneak up on me. I just have a few more things to set up in here and then it will start to feel like home. Is it bad that I just referred to my office as home? I suppose it is where I spend 8-9 hours per day. If I split my average week day up into three 8-hour periods, I spend one of those sleeping, one at work, and one at home. This excludes driving and miscellaneous other things but this is just an estimate. So I guess my office is almost as much of a home as my actual home.

So I was just messing with my phone about 5 seconds ago trying to get the camera to work so I could take a picture of my new office (the camera on my Samsung SGH-A747 has been slowly dieing) and the thing rebooted. Not only that, when it came back up it told me I had missed my 8 PM appointment for tonight... which is actually an appointment for tomorrow. I can't wait until I am eligible for a new phone. AT&T has me listed at Sept. 27th (which is Ashleigh's birthday) and that is about a month before my wedding. I'll probably just wait until after we get back from the honeymoon to get a new one. I am looking at an iPhone since you can get a 3G for $99 but being the cheapskate that I am, I don't want to pay $30 for a data plan on a device that has WiFi. The other tempting entries are the Nokia e71x and one of the many RIM Blackberry devices. I think if I could get the Pearl 8120 it would be a done deal since that one has WiFi, but apparently AT&T only carries the 8110 for non-business customers. Either way, look for an unboxing/crappy review of whatever I get in about 2-3 months.

More stuff

Just put up a new Set on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/internetattic/sets/72157621752934088/
It's basically random pics from my phone, but there are some pretty neat ones on there. Also, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, here is a picture of an actual Saturn V rocket that is on display at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL.

I feel strangely motivated...

Somehow this "blogging" thing has motivated me to organize my Web 2.0 life. I may actually start using my Flickr account and should I somehow end up with a phone that can do video, YouTube here I come. Don't look for that one any time soon... or most likely ever since my motivation to do such things will probably drop off before I get such a phone or portable video camera. We'll see how this goes though. Stay optimistic, I may catch up to the trends yet!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/internetattic