No Internet for me

/rant

I feel a little like I've insulted the Soup Nazi, only with my home Internet provider. A short time ago, Hutchinson had a little ice storm. Not as bad as the one 7-8 years ago when the ice knocked out power to the library for 3 days, but serious enough to litter the street and sidewalks with tree limbs both large and small. While I never lost power at home, we did lose our cable Internet connection from Cox Communications. And that was when the fun started!

Joking. It wasn't fun. In fact, it was a lot of talking to a series of seemingly well-intentioned customer service reps who had no ability to do anything but empathize. Don't get me wrong, I am 100% sure that these folks would have helped me if they could, they just had no way to do it.

Here are the stories:

First contact the Sunday we lost service: Explain that my cable is out, and the tech support person confirms this. I'm watching, literally, limbs break and fall out of trees while on the phone and yet according to Cox there has been no "outage" declared for my area. Apparently an "outage" must be declared or you get shoved to the bottom of the service call pile. Nothing can be done until a WEEK from Tuesday. Nine days for a service call. What? Are all the repairmen on vacation? Tech support was polite and efficient, but could DO nothing.

Second contact in person at the store: Explain situation and ask if it is really possible that no one is available for 9 days to restore my service. Answer: yes, that is true BUT there is no widespread outage in the area. No reason given for the apparent lack of repair crews.

Third contact mid-week: Tech support person on telephone explains that our area is being "upgraded" to fiber (no explanation available for what that means). No technicians are available to hook customers back up until project is done. So, a weather event occurs that knocks out power to thousands, but the cable company doesn't want to interrupt an upgrade project to get service back to its customers?

Here's what this all says to me: There is no connection between the Cox decision-makers and the Cox customer. There is in place a "screen" of tech support and CSR staff who, intended or not, insulate the decision makers from problems. And there seems to be no way for the folks who are part of the "screen" layer to solve problems for their customers. Were there a choice, I would have already cancelled my Cox subscription.

But, what happens when one large company has, essentially, a stranglehold on a particular service or product? Truthfully, I have two choices for residential Internet service in my town - AT&T or Cox. At the speed level I subscribe to from Cox, AT&T has an advertised download rate 1/4th the speed for about the same price. So, not really any competition. IMO, there is no competition for high speed Internet in my town.

What is the solution? I think two things that lobbying and big corporate dollars will never allow. First, treating Internet service as a utility on the federal level. Second, on the state and local level, encouraging municipal broadband networks.

/end rant

Does the public library matter to you?

Maybe the Hutchinson Public Library or some other public has had an effect on your life. Perhaps you just needed a place to sit and relax, perhaps you needed a source to finish a paper for school, or perhaps you needed to search for a job or needed instructions to repair your car.

Maybe you haven't been in a public library since you left school. You may not feel like something seemingly so "old school" could possibly be useful in a time of smartphones and streaming everything. If you can get all you need information and entertainment-wise by paying for it, you probably can't see the utility in such a "populist" institution as the public library. But there are millions of Americans who cannot afford or even purchase if they wanted, good, high-speed Internet access. Public libraries can help with that - some even lend WiFi hot spots for you to take home!

This is a great article from the magazine The Nation about the value of public libraries. I'd recommend a read.

Science Fiction Discussion: 1632

This month our SF discussion group read 1632 by Eric Flint (beware - that link to wikipedia does contain spoilers to this story and the series story arc). This is an action-packed story about a small West Virginia town from the late 1990's or early 2000's that is transposed in time and place with an area from Thuringia (Germany) in 1632. 1632 you might know, would be smack in the middle of the Thirty Years War which took place mainly in what is now Germany on the European continent.

The resulting tale follows the Grantsville, WV townsfolk through the various trials and tribulations that such a time/space shift would cause. This is definitely more of a free-wheeling tale with combat and real-life grit than the past few books we have read.

All-in-all, I think our group's collective rating was "meh" (in the adjective sense, not the exclamation).

For the next discussion (in January), we are reading Nancy Kress's After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall.

Public Service Announcement

This is an important reminder of why we should all be keeping our software up-to-date and our anti-virus programs functioning:

Hey Reader's Digest: Your site has been hacking people for days

Please make sure all your vulnerable programs are on the latest versions. It seems like the usual culprits in these kinds of attacks are out-of-date Adobe Flash or Java, and things like old versions of Internet browsers in general.

Thank you ars technica for these sorts of alerts!

Some major update sites:

Microsoft

Adobe

Apple

Some free and/or pay virus and malware removal tools:

Malwarebytes (The company mentioned in the ars technica article)

PC Mag 2015 Top 10 antivirus

TechRadar Top 9 antivirus

Tom's Guide Best antivirus 2015

Computers are moving!

We are changing the way we provide public computing here at Hutchinson Public Library. We are moving to the open space on the first floor under the mezzanine area! This does mean some upset and limited or no access during the move, but we'll be back up as soon as we can make it happen.

For years and years we have had a computer lab tucked away on the second floor of the building that served all our public-access computing needs. This was a great way for us to handle a large computing demand and provide some level of assistance in computer use.

We had 21 computers in the area plus a scanner and printing capabilities. There was a staff desk which was manned at all times when the lab was open.

The down sides to this method of computing were how tied the staff member was to the service desk, limiting their ability to help in some cases. Also, because the computers were in such a small space, there was no way to effectively "sit down and teach" a new skill when the lab was even moderately full. The real down side was the fact that the room itself could never be temperature regulated. Way too hot in summer and if the wind blew hard out of the northeast, way too cold in the winter. And let's face it, in the summer the space just smelled bad.

So, the new area is out in the open. This means that our staff (we'll still have a manned IT desk) will be able to get up and have space to help learn new skills. We'll have time-keeping and printing software to take that tracking burden off of the staff members. The computers will be wireless, thus easily movable. The climate will be under control. Basically, we hope that this move will be an improvement.

Those of you with a long memory know that the computers used to be on the first floor. I file this kind of change under the category "what's old is new again" in this case!

I hope you come in to see the changes!

Very much looking forward to this...

I have always been a history reader. Definitely not a historian, but an avid reader mostly of ancient history, and also modern history especially around the World Wars. A couple of years back I read and was amazed by Antony Beevor's account of the D-Day invasion, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy. The book was not an easy read, but it was amazingly insightful and very well written.

Now, Mr. Beevor has a new book coming out that I am anxiously awaiting. It is titled Ardennes: 1944 and is an account of Hitler's last big offensive, the long-shot gamble for Germany to break out in the west and split the allies. The review from The Guardian linked above is quite complimentary, so I'm now even more excited! Hurry up, publisher!

What I'm listening to today (11-27-15)

It's nice to be able to browse close to 10,000,000 songs. Sometimes you start out with a certain artist in mind, expecting a certain set of songs but stumble instead upon a recording you've never heard. Today I'm listening to Carlos Santana and Wayne Shorter: Live at the 1988 Montreaux Jazz Festival. Not only have I never heard this recording, there are several songs that I've never heard period. This is a nice, relaxing listen for the start of the hectic holiday season.

You can chill or rev up, whatever you need too using the Hutchinson Public Library's streaming music service! All you need is your library barcode and an Internet connection. There are apps for Apple and Android devices (search for "Freegal") and get started listening for free today.