Archive for the 'Research' Category

Review: Magic Jack Feedback Revisited – Updated

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The High and Mighty Oz  Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal loves Magic Jack.

It kills him to admit it, but admit it he does…

To my surprise, it worked pretty much as advertised. It has a few drawbacks, and extra fees for added services, such as vanity phone numbers. But I found magicJack easy to set up and easy to use, and it yielded decent, if not pristine, call quality. I even tested customer support—a source of complaints online—and found it friendly, fast and responsive.

magicjack
It’s been quite a while ago since I first installed Magic Jack. I use Magic Jack for a couple things: when the other phone line is busy, or when I need to make a long distance call to Bangalore to ask Boompa to help me undisunfigure my .dll or some other silly tech support issue.

The first Magic Jack review got hundreds of comments – running about 50/50 good/bad. I never had a bad experience with Magic Jack.

Here’s a site that describes all the features.

I’ve been through some harrowing times with my computer. I got the Antivirus 2009 trojan virus on my computer and it took me about 36 hours (including all the downloading and restarting) to remove it.

Aside: Use Malwarebytes if you get this virus.

I have installed and uninstalled dozens of applications. My point is that every time I booted the computer, Magic Jack came back and worked like a charm.

St. Todd DeCubbville (my BATV installer) purchased one recently from Radio Shack because of the ease of returning it to the store after the trial period.

He never returned it. He is about to go without a landline entirely.
As soon as he gets Google Voice set up and distributed to everyone, he will depend solely on Magic Jack and Sprint for his phone service.

He’s convinced too.
Magic Jack is still rock solid. And I would tell you differently.

This site offers a second opinion on the Magic Jack and it’s future.

Post to Twitter

U.S. Internet Connectivity is Pathetic

speed

I just ran a speed test on how well I am connected to the internet.

Better than my cousin-sister in Hazard, KY, and better than my daddy-uncle in Pikeville, KY, but 1/2 the speed of my friend Elin Woods, in Sweden, and 1/12 the speed of my long-lost friend Danny Choo in Japan.

Right now the government is deciding the future of the Internet in the United States.

The Federal Communications Commission is crafting our national high speed internet strategy, which will determine how fast the Internet is and who has access to high speed connections.

Help shape this policy in just two minutes.

Take this Speed Test, and help  update data and help make universal broadband a reality.

Take the Speed Test now:

http://www.speedmatters.org/speedtest2009

Then fill in the form to send a letter to your feral (no typo – little or no contact with real people) representatives. I personalized my letter because Speedmatters.org was just too nice in their letter.

The United States ranks just 15th among industrialized nations in broadband access — and this is costing our economy billions of dollars every year.

Every day, American businesses are missing out on opportunities to sell their goods and services in the global marketplace. Every day, the American people are missing out on important health and educational benefits. And every day, the American economy is missing out on good jobs created by high speed internet access.

That’s because the U.S. has historically invested relatively less on telecommunications than most other major countries. Consumers are charged more for slower speeds, and our current high-speed networks don’t even reach millions of American households.

Like Bubba-Louise, my cousin-sister in Hazard can’t even watch Keyboard Cat, because it won’t download.
H/she needs to see this stuff:

Post to Twitter

What Are Old People Thinking?

Thanks to What the Hell Are Young People Thinking?
what-old-people-think-about1

Post to Twitter

Going to Satellite TV? Make It Direct TV and Let Me Know.


We changed from Dish Network to DirectTV when we had St. Todd DeCubbville install our BATV. I actually made the decision based pretty much on price. We got a good price with some free premium channels for a few months free.

But now that we have it, I’m finding that DirectTV is a lot better than Dish Network. We can’t get HiDef on our local network affiliates. Insight Communications, our cableco, just couldn’t figure out how it could be done via Tivo, DirectTV, or their own damn cable.

Actually, the cable guy didn’t even know what Tivo is. Serious. He. Didn’t. Know.

Anyhoo… when the U.S. Open was on NBC, we lost the chance to see it in HiDef. Once you have seen HiDef you know how I was suffering.

BUT: DirectTV had an interactive channel for the U.S. Open (maybe you have seen the commercials for some tennis tournament coming soon?) So I had a choice of four HiDef options:

  • four screens at once
  • hole #17
  • featured pairing
  • golfers in depth (features)

The other advantage is the DirectTV DVR records about a tritillion hours of programming. I think Tivo will only record 8 hours.
Plus I could get the leaderboard anytime I wanted, and some other cool junk.

If you are getting satellite television, or would would dump Dish Network for something better, Direct TV will give you $100 off. If you use my secret passcode: 82408932… then I also get $100.

Help fund the Going Like Sixty Dinking Around Foundation. You get $100, I get $100.
All God’s chillen’ get $100.

Buy Direct TV – use this number 82408932.

Give them your DIRECTV account number and tell them to order online at directv.com/refer or by calling 1-800-507-4045. They must have your DIRECTV account number when they order.

And thank you for your support.

Post to Twitter




Web Analytics