October 2006 Archives

Earlier I was searching myspace for "Georgia Bloggers". Pretty fucking useless search there. That's how I came across the aforementioned site.

Technorati : Internet, Myspace

I guess that today is Judgmental Wednesday or "Asshole Hump Day" although that might carry other connotations. :) I am just being very judgmental today. I am pissed off about work today so it is carrying over into everything else.

I have a MySpace account. I very rarely update it, but I set it up because my 17 year old has one and I wanted to be able to visit it, and also for a couple of old friends to find me if they so need to.

I will not link to the profile, not feeling like that much of an asshole, but I came across one today and she called herself "Blogger Extraordinaire" and listed Professional Blogger in her profile. I decided to visit her site.

I have to say, I definitely consider myself an amateur. I've blogged for about three years or so and kept a frequently updated website, almost a blog, for six or seven years before that. Prior to that I ran my mouth on pre-www days electronic BBSes. Michelle Malkin and Instapundit, to name two, are professional bloggers. Definitely not me.

Neither is this chick. Her myspace layout is not the most irritating, but it is pretty fucking close. I decided to pay a visit to her "professional" web site. It's at blogspot, which was first clue that she's not a pro. The ultra ugly background on the page as well as the fact that it would not display properly in IE were a couple more. Then there is the fact that she has posted four times since August 12th. Of course, being an amateur, I can post drivel after drivel all day long. I guess the quality of her posts makes up for doing one every ten days. Not.

Maybe I just have my Andy Rooney shirt on today or something, but just because you spend 18 hours a day sitting your fat ass in front of the computer, that DOES NOT MAKE YOU A PROFESSIONAL BLOGGER.

Technorati : blogs, internet

I've gotta get me one of these things for the hood of my car.

Technorati : weapons

...are fixed. I sent emails to several different contacts at Charter (not tech support) and apparently it was fixed today. It was a real pain in the ass having to log in to AOL first and then surf through their software.

Technorati : Internet

Well, after getting treated like a fucking dumbass tonight, I have sent an email to several different people at Charter. I can't get here to post to my blog, or even access ANYTHING on my sight, unless I log on to AOL via their software first (they use their own DNS servers). I didn't look very hard tonight, but if I don't receive an answer by tommorow morning, or the problem is not resolved, I am sure that I can find some of their VP's email addresses on their investor relations page. Here's the email for those technically inclined. Perhaps the issue really is on my end, then I need to have been treated like a dumbass, and an asshole to boot, but I just don't think so.

I am hoping that you can forward this to the appropriate department. I attempted to use your web chat for my issue and was told that the tech support options were limited, so I needed to call tech support and get my matter escalated. I did so, and went through various troubleshooting that I had already done, with the same results. I ended up getting disconnected, and I don't know if it was on my end, or yours. I do know that before I will spend another 40 minutes on hold so that I can go through the same troubleshooting yet again, I will call someone else and set up service through them.

The matter pertains to my not being able to access a couple of particular websites.The sites in particular are www.shadowscope.com (my web site), and www.livingdot.com (my web provider). I cannot reach them via ip address either, 72.34.32.113

When I try to ping my website I get:

Pinging shadowscope.com [72.34.32.113] with 32 bytes of

Reply from 63.223.8.77: TTL expired in transit.
Reply from 63.223.8.77: TTL expired in transit.
Reply from 63.223.8.77: TTL expired in transit.
Reply from 63.223.8.77: TTL expired in transit.

Ping statistics for 72.34.32.113:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

63.223.8.77 looks like it might be a router at wvfiber.net, the full name resolves to atl-c00.pos-1-16-1.OC48-atl-nshl3-pos2.wvfiber.net

When I try a traceroute to any of the above I get:

1 1 ms <1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms 10.135.48.1
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.

It finally gets to the default 30 hops and times out on all of them.

Using a proxy (America Online) I am able to log on to their service and hit the sites with no problems whatsoever, since they use their own DNS servers.

WV Fiber is based out of Atlanta, so it is a problem either on one of their routers, or your DNS servers, as far as I can tell.

I would appreciate it if this matter would be looked into in a timely manner, I particularly hate having to spend 40 minutes to an hour of my time on hold just so that I can be treated as if I am a dumbass. I do understand that the techs have to do some troubleshooting, as I worked in tech support for an ISP several years ago, but with all of the automated questioning that we have to go through before we are actually allowed to speak with one of your representatives, you would think that there would be a couple that would at least give them a slight hint as to our level of computer expertise.

Thak you for your help,

Richard Miles

I am getting ready to upgrade to Vista Release Candidate 2, so if I don't post for a couple of days it's because I have hosed my computer. That and the fact that it's beer thirty.

Update - Apparently it worked with no problems, as I am back online. I will try and post some of my experiences with Vista later this week. I also have a review of BeyondTV as well.