Around twenty years ago when I was at MIT, I spent far more hours than I care to contemplate combating anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist and anti-Israel propaganda on Usenet. This was back before the Web took off, and Usenet was the happening place for bigots, racists and nutjobs of all sort to spread their filth and lies. … Read More »
As I’ve discussed at length, I recently switched from Comcast internet & phone to RCN + Vonage because of dissatisfaction with Comcast’s business model (i.e., rip customers off at every opportunity), pricing (i.e., not at all competitive) and customer support (i.e., awful). I thought this afterthought might be amusing to some… When the RCN installers… Read More »
I file my email in different IMAP folders, grouped by topic rather than the “received messages in one folder, sent in another” model imposed nowadays by most mail clients. It’s easy to keep the messages I receive organized by topic — when I’m done handling a message, I simply move it into the appropriate folder.… Read More »
I’ve been using Vonage for telephone service for a couple of months, and I’m quite happy with it. Their feature set is quite competitive, and I’m paying them significantly less than I’d be paying Verizon, Comcast or RCN for equivalent service. (Shameless plug: if you’d like to give Vonage a try, send me email and… Read More »
Recently, I wrote about trying to figure out what to do about my gutters. Ned Stevens says three of them needed to be replaced at a cost of $600. New England Gutter Kings says that they can be repaired for only $400, and for $1,360 I could install gutter covers that will be warrantied against… Read More »
I share my home office with my kids, an unfortunate necessity in a house with five bedrooms, five children, and no dedicated office space (the “office” is actually one of the bedrooms). All the kids are fully aware of the “never, ever touch anything on Daddy’s desk” rule, but apparently the stuff on my desk… Read More »
I’ve just encountered a new (at least for me) scam in the ongoing quest by retailers and manufacturers to make rebates more and more onerous to apply for and therefore less likely to cost them any money. While applying on-line for a $10 rebate on an ASUS motherboard I purchased recently at Micro Center, I… Read More »
I’m hoping that someone out there who knows more than I about rain gutters, who has done work on their own gutters similar to what I’m considering, or who has used one of the companies I’m considering, will be able to provide some helpful insight and advice… We use Ned Stevens (NS) to clean our… Read More »
I’ve just sent the following letter, with minor variations, to Sen. Kerry, Rep. Capuano, State Sen. Tolman, State Rep. Honan, and Martha Coakley (who will almost certainly soon be Sen. Coakley). If you’re as fed up as I am with this state of affairs (the incident described below is not the first time we’ve been… Read More »
Today, I received a commercial email message from Sears Home Services, a.k.a., Sears Holdings Corporation. They got my email address when I made a service appointment through their Web site, which I subsequently canceled when it became clear that they were going to charge me more than a local repair man. The email message contained… Read More »