Tag Archives: Rants

Poor Design

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I’m a Mediacom subscriber. They’re the only cable modem choice in town and DSL just doesn’t have the speeds that I want out in my area. So, for internet, they’re the best option I have. They have a customer portal that is less than impressive. In fact, every time I use it I want to cancel my account. It annoys me that much.

Why I hate the Mediacom portal

  1. One of my biggest pet peeves is that I cannot setup my credit card to be charged on a monthly recurring basis through the portal. They can accept a one time payment, but not recurring. In order to set up recurring payments, I have to call a customer support representative. When you call them, they cannot take your information either. Uh…what? Instead, they send you a form to fill out and send back in. If the process is to fill out a form and send it in via snail mail, let me DOWNLOAD THE FREAKING FORM ONLINE!!!!!
  2. I can however place a one time payment at any time. However, you can place a one time payment multiple times and the owed amount never gets updated. For example, I apparently paid my bill online multiple times last month. So this month I owed a pathetic amount of $11.08. Which I paid several hours ago. Yet, when I go back to look at my balance, lo and behold, it appears that I still owe $11.08. Maybe I should pay it again.

Mediacom Pay Bill Screen

An olive branch

While I appreciate being able to pay my bill online, I get extremely frustrated by the design and meager abilities of the portal. As a programmer, I find the whole site frustrating to use and annoying that it hasn’t been updated or fixed in quite a while.

If someone from Mediacom happens to find this post, please feel free to contact me about a consulting engagement (use the Call Me option on the right). Not only will I be able to help you identify what is wrong, I can probably just fix the problem for you as well. It will be better for both you and your customers.

You’re not a snowflake!

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As I was checking in today on the latest tech news, I found out that Twitter has announced that they are building their own data center.

Death to the fail whale they are calling it. Maybe so, but what really got me was this.

Twitter will have full control over network and systems configuration, with a much larger footprint in a building designed specifically around our unique power and cooling needs.

Uh, what?

What could possible be unique to your power and cooling needs opposed to well, ANYONE ELSE RUNNING A FUCKING DATA CENTER?

Sure they have a metric crapton more users than you or I will ever have. But unique cooling and power needs?!?! Bullshit!

Yes you have servers, routers, SAN cabling, racks upon racks of gear. We get it, you’re a big site. But that doesn’t make you suddenly special. Just because you have a lot of cooling and power needs doesn’t make you suddenly unique to the rest of the world.

I work for a company that has several large data centers. We host more companies than I probably even know about. And you know what, we use a LOT of power and cooling. Why you ask, we’re a freaking data center, its what we do.

While building a data center gives you other benefits which you have listed (customization and flexibility), its doesn’t make you special so stop acting like it.

The convenience of the internet

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I recently ordered tickets online for a Broadway show that’s coming into town this fall. I was expecting the price to be fairly pricey seeing as this is a pretty hot show and its the first time that it is coming to our town.

There are some fees that I don’t really care about. Restoration Fees to keep the facility looking nice and operating well is fine by me. However, $4.75 for the convenience of ordering via the internet?!?! PER TICKET!!!! Are you freaking kidding me! If anything, it should be EASIER for me to order via online. Sure I get that there are costs for hosting, bandwidth and software. But c’mon, that has to be cheaper than additional phone lines, personnel, benefits, overtime, etc.

picture-10

Behold the convenience of the internet. If it was going to somewhere other than the Civic Center which I know can always use the cash to bring in great shows (and Wicked is GREAT from what I hear!!!), I might be a little more upset. But seeing as this is supporting the performing arts at its highest caliber, I’ll let it slide this time. But good grief!