A Surprise Gift From Charter Internet

Here's a short and sweet post: I’ve been getting calls from Charter Communications (my internet provider) in the past week and since I’ve been at work when they called I couldn’t answer. They finally got hold of me Tuesday night and I told the agent on the other line that I’ve missed a few of their calls. Anticipating an offer for bundled services and before he could start his spiel however, I told him that first, I don’t need cable TV or telephone service over the internet, but to go ahead and tell me what special offers they have so I can say no thanks to him afterwards. We had a quick laugh at that. Well, he bypassed the specials that I told him I didn’t need but let me know that they are upgrading my internet speed from 12 megabits per second to 15 megabits per second at no extra charge. Who could refuse such an offer or did I even have that option? I thanked him and his company. What he didn’t mention is the upload speed was increased also to almost double the 1.7 mbps I originally had. I only found this out when I tested the speed the next day. Once again, thanks, Charter Communications! I forgive you for charging me a couple of week’s worth of extra fees for renting your modem < http://aboutlifeandrunning.blogspot.com/2011/09/tricks-of-cable-tvinternet-trade.html> when I didn’t have to. Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas Charter Communications!

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Recent Changes In This Blog

***I just need to write an addendum here. While I was writing this entry, Google Adsense was still working but right after I posted this, it suddenly disappeared. I don't know what happened or if Google suspended my account again for whatever reason.
If you have visited this blog lately, you may have noticed that I got advertisements from Google Adsense back. They suspended my previous account for clicking on my own ads which was a no-no with their terms of service. So I lost the $10.00 I earned on that account. However they allow you to use another account by using a different email address. Since I’m getting a few more hits on the blog in recent months (thanks to my Facebook friends), I hope the people who read it find some ads interesting and click on them. I’ve also been using Infolinks for advertising. They are the ones you see highlighted in green and ads pop open when you put your cursor on the word. I started using Infolinks after Google suspended my account.

I’ve also added some widgets. If you notice on the left column, there is an area to share the blog on Twitter and Facebook, a list of people I follow and people that follow me, plus something named Feedjit which tracks where someone came from when they visited my blog. It is interesting to see what part of the world the readers came from, how they found you, and if you click on the Feedjit website, you can also see what browser and operating system their computers have. You can see it for yourself here: http://live.feedjit.com/live/noeldlp.blogspot.com/ and you will probably see your city and country of origin on the topmost of the list.

What hasn’t changed are the archives and the useless knowledge widget. I’ve read some running blogs recently and their pages are all enviably much better dressed up than mine. Maybe if I can find nicer templates… For now, everything is all good because I don’t want to clutter the page too much that it distracts from what I’m writing about.

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Computer Frustration

Computers are at times so quirky, fickle, and unpredictable. On Saturday my Uncle called me so many times asking questions about his computer that I started answering my phone “tech support, how may I help you?”. He was having problems getting on the internet again because his computer was not connecting with the wireless router even though he moved the router closer. Well it turns out the USB dongle receiver had detached from the computer. Not knowing this, Verizon advised him to just hard wire the DSL modem to the computer’s Ethernet connection. That should have taken care of the problem, but nooooo…He called me again to ask about this and I told him to turn off the modem for about a minute, then turn it back on. Still no luck. I thought maybe there was a brief interruption of service in his area so I advised him to wait about an hour and try again. An hour or so passes by and I get another call saying there was still no internet connection. I was out of ideas so I looked it up on the internet and called my Uncle back to give him step by step directions. Turn off the modem, unplug it from the electric socket, turn off the computer, plug the modem, turn it on, start up the computer, and BAM! The heavens parted and the internet came down and showed itself to my Uncle.

On Sunday I had computer problems of my own. I started up my back up laptop so I can update the antivirus software and Microsoft Windows. However, while the computer would connect to the router, it could not connect to the internet. Despite several Microsoft suggestions in the Help and Support section of Windows Vista on how to fix the problem, still no cigar. So I tried something that Microsoft did not suggest. I turned off the DSL modem, turned off the wireless router, waited a minute, then turned everything back on again. Problem solved.

My co-worker just bought a new computer and will be getting a wireless router soon, and she needs help. Noel’s tech support at your service, ma’am.

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