Verizon: The End?

Today was a fairly productive day for Verizon. Sometimes I think that they often do so poorly to lower the standards so that when they actually do something fairly adequately that it is notable. This morning, a Verizon van pulled up to take a look at our crosstalk issue. Wow, a whole five days early! This sounds great until you realize that the service call was placed nine days before. Anyway, it takes Verizon Guy a whole ten seconds to figure out that there is some serious problems with our buried line. The final diagnosis is that there is a serious short in the line. Therefore, as I had deduced long before, the underground line needs to be replaced. Normally, they would run a temporary line just strung across the yard to the pillar so we would have good phone service until they came in and buried the new line. However, the pillar is across the road, so they can't quite do that with our case. Luckily, the cable that ran to the old house (buried in the 1950's) still had the wires strung up in the pillar, and just disconnected. After seeking out the line in the yard, digging down to it, cutting it and testing it, we discover that our 1950's era phone line is in better condition than our 1977 phone line. So, there's a splice in the middle of our yard with a brake fluid bottle over it, and then a bright orange cable strung across the yard and to the box on the side of the house. This provides crystal clear phone service, believe it or not. The down side is that we probably have to have the temporary line across the yard for two weeks before they bury the new line, but at least our line is clear. I made a comment about how that 1950's line was vintage GTE before my dad (resident historian) informed me that I was wrong. That line was vintage GT (General Telephone)! Regardless, it works. So, after Verizon Guy left, I figured I'd tempt fate and try long distance. We called one number that was long distance, but still in our MSA (Market Service Area), and lo and behold, it worked. So, then we tried to call a number that was out of our MSA and we got the three tones of death. I called the 700 number to see what it said, and I got the MCI message and the three tones, so that was a no go. We waited until the official time it was supposed to be fixed, and sure enough, it wasn't. So, it was time to call Verizon again. At this point, we pretty much have the service number memorized. We explained our long distance problem yet again, and they say they'll fix it in eight hours. At this point, we did not believe them. However, three hours later, I gave the 700 number a try, and amazingly, now it says our carrier is Verizon! We gave our long distance a try, and it works. Outstanding! Verizon has successfully accomplished two things today. That has to be a record. So, this may end my Verizon rants for a while, at least until they come out to bury the cable. Who knows what kind of chaos they can cause while they're doing that? Verizon: They just now started sorta working for me... it's about damn time! -- Big Cray: Accept No Substitute

Verizon... Seriously, More Verizon!

I know that everyone is probably tired of my Verizon rants, but good god, they just keep giving me things to rant about! Yesterday, I talked about their little unlimited long distance plan they were pushing that cost the same in this area as everywhere else, despite not being able to fulfill all the features. What I neglected to mention is that switching to that particular plan and dropping AT&T as the long distance carrier will save us some serious money, and at the time of writing yesterday, we had already put in the order for it. Yes, I hate Verizon, but I also hate spending more money than I have to. What a horrible predicament. So, Verizon says that they will take care of everything, and get us switched over from AT&T within 24 hours. They actually called us within 6 hours and said the service was all set up. We took this under advisement, but really had no need to make any long distance calls that day. Today however, we did need to make a long distance call, and guess what. Seriously, guess... OH YEAH, didn't work! Amazingly, Verizon has reached a new level of incompetence. 30 hours after they said the service would be ready in 24 hours, and 24 hours after they actually called us up and told us it was ready to go, it's not. I've gotten ahead of myself though. It's not a matter of when I attempt to make a long distance call that I hear an AT&T tone or something. No! When a long distance call is attempted, we get the three tones of death and the message that the number we are calling from has been disconnected, and that for assistance we should call customer service. Local calls still work fine, as do toll-free and EAS, but long distance doesn't. Wonderful! It's one day into the new calling plan with unlimited long distance, and Verizon has found a way to completely disable long distance. I guess that's one way to guarantee that it is a flat fee. So, we called Verizon. They claim that their records show that everything was switched over successfully, and that our service should be working. Well, their records are wrong. So, they pull the classic Verizon move, and instead of doing anything now, they say they'll get it fixed within 24 hours. They also made reference to the other pending service call which I put in the 17th and they are scheduled to respond to on the 31st. They suggest it may be related. Really? Our poor quality ground lines are the cause of Verizon disabling our long distance service? Wow. After we finished with them, the next course of action was to call AT&T and see what was up on their end. Amazingly, Verizon had never contacted AT&T about us changing our service. So, I had to break it to them that we were dropping their service in favor of the cheaper and vastly inferior Verizon. I also explained what was going on at the current time. She said that she would start the process on their end, but Verizon controls the big switch that determines who our carrier is. She was the most helpful person I talked to all day, and gave me the toll free number 1-700-555-4141. Calling this number will reveal to you who your long distance carrier is. Brilliant! So, I called it up, expecting to hear one of three choices: AT&T, Verizon, or that I don't have a carrier. What I heard was one of the most WTF inspiring moments of the day: MCI! It repeated a message twice thanking me for having MCI One Plus service and then it rang twice before giving me the three tones of death and the error message mentioned earlier. Now, I'm aware of the whole Verizon/MCI buyout deal, but I had Verizon long distance on the line in my trailer in Carbondale in 2002, long before they started their buyout of MCI. Thus, I know they had their own long distance service, so why are they trying to hook us up with remnant MCI, and more importantly, why doesn't it work? So... can anybody lend me two cups and a whole hell of a lot of string? -- -Big Cray: Accept No Substitute

Verizon: The Never Ending Saga

Yes, Verizon still sucks.
As I mentioned in the previous entry, Verizon, continued, I mentioned an offer for an unlimited calling plan that came in the mail as I was typing it. I ridiculed their slogan and some of their presumptuous and just plain incorrect claims.
Well, I looked into their little calling plan, just for fun.
The key to it is the unlimited long distance, but there are also three other key components to the package: caller ID, call waiting, and voice mail. So, one would assume if they pay for the service, they would get all the advertised features, right? WRONG!
Yep, it actually turns out that Verizon does not offer voice mail here. So, seeing as they can't fulfill the entire advertised package, they'll give a discount to make up for the missing services, right? WRONG!
Of course not! They're Verizon! Without the misery of their customers, how would they power their cell network? No greedy, evil, monopolistic corporation would ever give a discount for anything as simple as not being able to actually provide the service the customer is paying for.
I have found a fun game to play with Verizon, though. When you write the check to them, mix it up month to month in the "pay to the order of" section.
Here are some past examples that cashed out just fine:
"Verizon Monopoly"
"Verizon Evil Monopoly"
"Verizon Pennybags"
"Verizon: Almost as good as a cup & string"
"Veribadservice"
and, for some reason:
"Lifelong Virginz"

I think next month, it needs to be written out to "Anyone BUT Verizon".

Of course, this mentality I have when it comes to my sub-par phone company is nothing new. Once, when I was in college, we actually burnt the corners of the return envelope, smeared motor oil on it, wadded it up and stomped on it a bit, dipped it in butter and then drug it through some dirt. Ah, good times. Now, before one says I brought their wrath upon myself, I must say in my defense that this occurence was after Verizon had double billed us and we had to work our butts off to get them to fix the error.
So it has been, for years on end. Verizon screws with us, and we screw with Verizon. Sadly, when it all comes down to it, it's not working in our favor, and it seems that whatever we do, we are the ones who will end up screwed.
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-Big Cray: Accept No Substitute

Cray's Tech Journal: Zone Alarm 6.5

This is the first post [to Cray's Tech Journal], so it will work to give you an idea of what I'll be getting at. It's pretty simple. I tell you what the user reported as the issue, what my more professional diagnosis yielded, and the solution(s) employed. I'm sure many of the problems I'll be covering have been covered elsewhere, but I'm just posting as I come to them. Some posts will not be in this style, I'm sure, but I'm aiming to make this the general style.

Report: User cannot change home page in Internet Explorer on one machine. Machines cannot "talk to each other."

Equipment: Two computers connected on south side of DI-524, both machines XP Pro SP2 with Zone Alarm. One machine has Zone Alarm 6.1.744.1, while other has 6.5.731.0.

Diagnosis: Both machines still successfully access internet. Zone Alarm settings for trusted Zone are correct. Program access rules seem correct. Upon changing home page in IE, after applying, leaving internet options and returning to internet options, home page has reset to previous setting. No known home page locking softwares on machine.

Troubleshooting: Lowered firewall on machine with ZA 6.1 with no improvement. Lowered firewall on machine with ZA 6.5 and achieved connectivity. Reraised ZA 6.1 on other machine and connectivity continued. Rechecked settings on ZA 6.5. Despite matching ZA 6.1 settings on other machine, ZA 6.5 has blocked communication between the machines in the trusted zone, although I'm not sure why this has occured all of the sudden after functioning correctly for so long.

Solution: I went ahead and uninstalled ZA 6.5, figuring on a corrupted install, and, just for the hell of it, attempted to change the homepage in IE. Amazingly, it now works correctly. Reinstallation of 6.5, however, once again locked the home page, although trusted zone connectivity remained intact. In the end, I uninstalled ZA 6.5 again, ran Regscrub, and installed ZA 6.1.744.1. All reported issues now seem to have been resolved. I set ZA 6.1 to manual updates to avoid it asking user to be updated to 6.5.

After working on this, I did some googling, and sure enough, ZA 6.5 seems to be troublesome. It bothers me a bit that it has been out for so long, and yet these problems remain. I actually noticed a little later that one of my personal machines has ZA 6.5.722.0, and sure enough, my IE home page is locked. I never change it, so I hadn't even noticed. Hopefully, Zone Labs will fix this issue in later releases, or at least add a control so you can disable the home page lock.
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Big Cray: Accept no Substitute

Get out of my head!

I've been driving myself crazy today, and it is from the craziest thing. Never underestimate the effect that even the smallest, stupidest things can have on a person. Things can get deeply imprinted in one's memory, and then torture them endlessly.
Today, I'm driving around, taking care of business, and for some reason, out of nowhere, with no provocation, as if I suffered from turretts, I said out loud "Thank you Quicksilver!".
Now, before any of you call the guys in white coats that have the rooms with padded walls, hear me out. I didn't just say it normally. I said it in a fashion mimicing the wonderful 16-bit sound of the Sega Genesis. I had just quoted the classic Genesis game "Captain America and the Avengers." After chuckling to myself about the randomness I had just uttered, I then continued with the obligatory "Captain America!", "Ironman!", "Vision!", "The Aveeennnnngerrs!", and for some reason "OH, MY KNEE!" from "Super High Impact."
At this point, my passenger is looking at me like I am completely insane. She may have been right. I'm actually, right now between typing sentences, drumming two fingers on my desk to the tune of the classic NES game Jackal. Ahh, I can even hear the "weeeeeeeeoooo" of the grenades and the "kapop!" of the barracks exploding to release the POW's.
This all is very odd to me for one reason: I have not played any of these games for probably 3 years or more. Why is it coming back to me now? Why is it haunting me? Why do I sometimes, when seeing someone do something incredibly stupid, think to myself "What'd you do that for? What a bonehead move!" or "Dunno, think we might have a little brain fade here." Both of these were things one would hear when ramming the pace car in Papyrus' "NASCAR Racing 2" for the PC.
Perhaps all of this roots back to some video game trauma at a young age, such as never figuring exactly what the f*** I was supposed to be doing in NES' "Star Voyager." I still, to this day, have no clue what the point of that game was. You floated through space like a lump of crap, got into firefights with random fleets of baddies for no apparent reason, and then eventually got killed. Yeah, I'm going with the trauma theory.
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Big Cray: Accept No Substitute

Verizon, continued

First off, I'd like to apologize for the layout here at the time of this writing. I just registered this blog, and simply haven't had time yet to get into modifying the template into something more presentable. I'll get to it... trust me.
Secondly, for those of you who don't know who I am, you may need to read up on some of my former writing to get up to speed with some of the things I'll talk about. I am a computer technical professional, as it is made apparent at cray.atspace.com. I'm also a bit of a loudmouth, as it is made apparent by my writings at Andyville. This particular entry is a continuation of my recent rant on Verizon. Now that you're up to speed, we can move on.
When I last spoke of the evil corporation that is Verizon, it was regarding their refusal to offer DSL in certain smaller markets where they have a monopoly on landlines. This, along with a gross lack of broadband services offered in our area combine to leave me with dial-up... in 2006... friggin' dial-up!
Well, after that wonderfully refreshing rant, some time goes by, and sure enough, the Karma for torturing old Stan came around and bit me in the butt because my two phone lines started crosstalking to an unacceptable extent, not to mention picking up what sounds like a ground loop.
I have two phone lines: one for normal phone operations, and one for data. Recently, if I pick up either line, especially for about three days after it rains, you can hear, sometimes quite clearly, the activity on the other line. This is accompanied by a loud buzz and sometimes some crackle.
This plays serious havoc with the data line. I've had days where the best internet connection it could achieve was 4.2kbps. Most days it is connecting around 21.6kbps. However, a few months ago, it connected 38-42kbps. Also, it has gotten to the point that one can hear the modem talk so loudly when listening to the normal phone line that they can barely hear the person on the other end of the conversation. In addition to this, ringing of the main line seems to be disconnecting the modem on the data line now.
On a dry day, when the problem was not too severe, I tested at their network interface box on the side of the structure, effectively disconnecting the house wiring, and plugged in two phones, one on each line. I then hit a key on each phone to silence the dial tone, and held a button on one phone while listening in the earpiece of the other. The touchtone was clearly audible in the earpiece. I've also done a similar test on a wetter day, and gotten the same results, in addition to the ground loop sound and crackle. Therefore, I've deduced that it is somewhere in the line coming into the box, and not associated with the in-house wiring. What I'm guessing is that some of the vintage 1977 line has began to leak, and it's grounding out when it rains. Of course, that's just my guess.
So, I finally decided to call Verizon about it. I explained the problem, and then explained the tests I had performed. Despite my explanation that the problem existed when the house wiring was not even connected, she mentioned that we had "inside line maintenance" on our plan, so there wouldn't be a charge for the visit they would make. That's good, but why does that matter? It's in their line, not our internal line!!! Regardless, Verizon says they will come out and look at it. However, the date they gave me that they would be here by: two weeks from the date I called. Wow, talk about service....
The irony knows no bounds, because, as I was typing this entry, the mail arrived, and in it was an offer for an unlimited calling plan from Verizon. Now, for fun, I'm going to quote parts of this that just make my head hurt.
"Talk all you want -- with service you can count on."
"And of course, you'll get it all with the reliable service that you've come to expect from Verizon."
"Everything you want is right here. So why go anywhere else? From phone service and high-speed Internet to home entertainment, no one gives you a greater range of services at a better price than Verizon."
Ok... they're not paying attention. The service sucks. The reliability is non-existant. They don't offer any type of internet service or TV here... hell, they barely offer phone service... AND THEY OWN ALL THE LINES! Verizon: They never start working for me.
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Big Cray: Accept No Substitute