My Archives: August 2003
Saturday, August 16, 2003
PBS's Robert X. Cringely has some very good insights on why the Apple Macintosh still hasn't made in-roads into corporate IT. I think his theory has merit: that IT departments choose PCs because they're harder to support, guaranteeing more work for the IT department, and therefore, continued employment. I don't think it's a conscious thing, though.
Posted by Rob @ 12:12 PM ET [Link] [No Comments]
My Vonage phone now works, no thanks to Vonage. After a week of enduring polite and friendly but impotent and lackadaisical customer service, they once again told me that I needed to contact my local phone company to determine why local calls wouldn't go through to my new number.
I bought this phone service from Vonage. It's reasonable to expect that, should I have problems with the number working, I would contact Vonage, and they would coordinate with any other involved phone companies to make sure their product works as advertised. My experience seems to show Vonage doesn't share that expectation. [more]
Posted by Rob @ 12:04 PM ET [Link] [No Comments]
Sunday, August 10, 2003
Given the poor state of the economy, and the dismal job market for senior UNIX administrators in my area, I've decided to start my own business. I'll be helping people with their Macs (and UNIX boxes), doing Web design, graphic arts, etc.
To get the business off the ground, I needed a business phone number and a fax line. I'd heard good things about Vonage, a Voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephone company. When I was at Global Crossing, we had VoIP phones from Cisco, and they worked pretty well. I'd heard that their support wasn't stellar, but their price was just where I needed it to be. I thought I'd give it a try.
Unfortunately, it seems that they took Lily Tomlin's old "Ernestine" SNL skit to heart: "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company," Lily said. That's the impression I've gotten from Vonage's "dedication" to customer support. [more]
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