Month: July 2006

C|Net's News.com is reporting that US high-speed internet access adoption increased 33% in 2005 over the previous year.  According to the article, over 50 million broadband lines are now in service.

The split between cable and DSL broadband did undergo a change during that year, however.  While cable broadband still accounted for over 57.5 percent of last year's new connections, they did drop 3.5 percent from last year's new activations.  DSL, with only 40.5 percent, gained 3.3 percent over the same time.

This isn't too surprising, as many consumers new to the market are being tempted with the lower-priced DSL service, despite those packages having an average slower download speed than entry-level cable packages.  New services in areas where cable was the only broadband option available have helped the increase as well.

For most consumers, though, the differences between cable broadband and DSL mean little, and therefore DSL will continue to grow with it's current package offerings that are generally equal or even cheaper in monthly costs than most major dial-up services such as America Online or Earthlink.

I've been using the Ubuntu distribution of Linux for nearly two years now, and during that time I've only used the upgrade utilities to update my install to new versions across the Internet.

A new motherboard and hard drive, however, gave me an opportunity to try out a fresh install of the operating system using the latest install disc from the group.

I have to say I'm impressed, as the install disc automatically boots into a "live" version of the distribution.  This allows you to preview the OS and try it out on your hardware without making any changes to your system.

All of my hardware was auto-detected, from sound card to video and networking, and the example applications available from the desktop include multimedia players and web browsers, all ready for testing.

If you want to proceed with the install, you  just click on the "Install" desktop icon and the process begins. 

Computers fail.  It's happened to everyone in some form or another, from a program that simply won't run to a computer that absolutely refuses to start at all.  It's at these trying times that most people turn to the technical support options available to them and rightfully expect a solid attempt at solving their issues Unfortunately, not every technical support solution is created equal. 

Telephone technical support, by it's very nature of coming from a remote location with the only form of communication being voice, can be very limited in how well it can troubleshoot and solve issues using the client as the technician's eyes and hands.  I know this as someone who has worked in a call center for a national corporation.

However, the problem is made even worse when the parent company that hosts the telephone technical support center decides to cut costs and hire individuals who seem determined to shift any blame away from the company and onto the consumer.  For an example of one of the more extreme cases of this phenomenon, take a read through this blog entry entitled "Woe betide my Dell" on just one such service call.

Most of the time I spent with these three techs seemed to be centered on (a) proving that I was not an idiot and (b) trying to convince them that I was not solely responsible for breaking my computer. Every interaction and thing they tried seemed to be aimed at blaming me for the problems.

The blog entry goes on to mention that an on-site technician was dispatched, who was then able to get a better idea of where the trouble was coming from.  Unfortunately for the blog author, that technician had to deal with the very same telephone technical support team to order replacement parts.

He actually suggested that she install only one of the four memory modules, close the box, determine quickly if that module was okay, and then leave, telling me to continue installing Windows and call tech support if I had any more problems! He actually suggested to her that she LEAVE OUT 1.5 GB of my memory, memory I paid for, presumably without telling me what had been done.

In my opinion, it is exactly these kinds of everyday interactions with telephone technical support that are driving the growing success of third party in-store and on-site repair solutions such as the Geek Squad , Circuit City's IQ Crew or Staples Easy Mobile Tech service.