Month: April 2006

Categories
politics

Fi Fie Fo Fumblers

A friend of mine has brought the following rant to my attention. There’s little point in arguing with an organisation whose sole purpose is to criticise the views and statements of another organisation (the FI) but I’d like to make a few points:

  • FFFF’s listing of Gaisan as a pro GOP blog is misleading. Gaisan isn’t pro/contra anything political. The opinions on this blog are personal and have nothing to do with Gaisan.
  • I have never said I was pro-Bush in any of my blog posts. I have however endeavoured to illustrate the idiotic fallacies of those who are blindly anti-Bush as childish ramblings. The man isn’t perfect but it’s not fair to say he’s an idiot.
  • I would not have voted for Bush Sr. or Jr. had I been given the opportunity to do so. This is substantially different from the reductionism of a “goodies versus baddies” approach which characterises most of the personal attacks from Fi Fie… I liked Clinton & Al Gore. Equally I have huge respect for Colin Powell who I believe should have been the US’ first black president. He has the intellect and integrity that becomes a great statesman.
  • There isn’t any great crusade on this blog to do anything except air an opinion. I live in a democratic country and I’m therefore free to do that.
  • I like Richard Waghorne’s Sicilian Notes although I do not necessarily agree or condone all opinions expressed. It’s called freedom of choice and Richard Waghorne understands that, unlike some.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest I can go back to hacking software.

Categories
Uncategorized

Springs eternal and infinite

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Categories
humour

Irecom ADSL is TOO FAST for my router

While installing a VoIP network for a client today I noticed that the ADSL network wasn’t working properly. Yesterday we replaced the Netopia box provided by Eircom with a nice shiny new Linksys WAG54GS box. It’s not that we dislike the Netopia boxes but they tend to reboot more often than several other DSL router products we’ve tested. When you’re trying to run VoIP applications over it you take precautions to ensure reliability so it was the least we could do. We configured this box on our own connection which is an Eircom business package which tests tell us provides 384kbps up and 3Mbps down. It worked a treat, it was stonkingly fast and stable. So we moved it the customers site. The customer was running on an home plus ADSL connection and told Eircom to transfer them to a business plus package. For a whole day it worked beautifully and then Eircom changed the ADSL connection. Well, lo and behold they did. The line started to become very unstable, disconnecting every few seconds. I called up Eircom to say that we were experiencing a problem and was told the following
Why did you report a problem on the line if it’s an ADSL issue. (I didn’t, our client did) We do not support linksys products. Our Netopia router with the latest firmware is capable of handling our super high speed broadband connection, I doubt your linksys box is. I responded by saying I was a telecommunications engineer and I knew this to be simply untrue. The tech support guy became hostile and said I should reinstall the Netopia box, that the problem must be with our unsupported router. He wouldn’t confirm any of the router configuration settings like PPPoE, LLC etc. but I informed him I already knew the router worked because I’ve tested it before on high speed networks and it’s actually rated as a very fast ADSLv2+ router. He became increasingly stroppy and told me that I’d slowed the process down by reporting a fault on the line. He even had the cheek to call me “mate” in a sarcastic voice. Fucking hell, bona fide masochists just need to call Eircom tech support when they need a verbal flogging!
Now I must be honest, I got off the phone and thought to myself the following:

  • The tech support guy acted like an asshole. He was obnoxious to somebody who was ultimately trying to help an Eircom customer to use their ADSL connection properly
  • If the Netopia product was satisfactory I’d still have used it. I wasn’t on a crusade to badmouth a product associated with Eircom. However, I was scolded by some eircom underling because I didn’t understand their tech support process.
  • Would this be behavior tolerated if they weren’t a monopoly? I think not

I’ll let you all know what happens in future but I was so angry with another experience of the arrogance and disdain with which this company treats its customers that I had to tell my readers. By the way, there’s nothing wrong with the Linksys router, I tried it again against our own eircom business ADSL connection and it operated fine so it’s probably a line/wiring problem.

Categories
philosophy

Thought for the day

“The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly coloured and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: “Is this real, or is this just a ride?” And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, “Hey, don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.” And we kill those people”. – Bill Hicks.