Category: Internet

TEHRAN: Iran test-fired a domestically made satellite-carrier rocket on Wednesday, Iranian media said. “Iran successfully launches home-built Kavoshgar-3 satellite rocket,” English-language television station said. It said the rocket carried an “experimental capsule” and that it was the “first Iranian launch into orbit with a living thing”, without giving details. Iranian media said earlier the Islamic Republic would on Wednesday unveil three new satellites and another satellite carrier, named Simorgh. The reports said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended an official presentation ceremony in Tehran.

Meet Stacy. Stacy moved into a new apartment. The person who moved out of the apartment had Comcast. Her neighbors all have Comcast. Stacy, however, cannot have Comcast. Why? A clerical error. And another one. And after that, still another.

Stacy says:

On December 1st, 2009, my boyfriend and I moved into a new apartment in Chicago. Since December 2nd, we have been unsuccessfully attempting to get cable and internet service through Comcast. Where we live, Comcast and DirectTV are our only options, and we prefer cable. Comcast has, of couse, given us a variety of reasons why they haven’t been able to start our service.

At first, we were told that there was already an open account at our address, and a new account could not be opened until the previous account was cancelled, or we brought in our lease. Easy to fix, right? We called the previous tenants of our apartment to remind them to cancel their account. They assured us they already had. We called Comcast back to make sure their records reflected the cancelled account.

Comcast then told us that the problem wasn’t the previous tenants, but a clerical error that they made when the neighbor across the hall started service. Comcast had mistakenly recorded our address on his account, and although they had been aware of the error since October, they had not yet corrected it. Now, we were told, bringing in our lease would do us no good until the clerical error was corrected. Unfortunately, that guy who could correct it was out on vacation. For the next week or two, we went back and forth with Comcast, trying to get the clerical error fixed.

After the address fiasco, Comcast told us that they could not provide service to our building because it was under construction. While our building had been rehabbed a year ago, most of our neighbors have Comcast, including the guy across the hall. Also, the tenants who lived in our unit immediately prior to us, and who had been living there since the construction was completed, had service with Comcast. At this point, we were getting major network stations and a few cable channels out of the cable jack in the wall. We asked if Comcast could just send someone out to the apartment to check, because we were confident they could provide service. We were told that was impossible.

Convincing the support rep that the building was not under construction took another couple of weeks. The delay also involved various key Comcast employees being out on vacation. After resolving the new construction issue, Comcast told us our building had too many units to serve us individually and they needed a contract with the entire building. Again, this was despite the fact that most, if not all, of our neighbors, AND the previous tenants, had cable through Comcast.

On Monday, we went to talk to the landlord, to see if she could straighten the issue out. She was surprised we still were not receiving cable, because Comcast had apparently contacted her early on in the process of us trying to get service, and had attempted to get a contract for the entire building. SInce the building was not large enough to require a contract, the Comcast agent told her he would correct the problem, and the landlord thought the issue had been worked out. Comcast assured us that it was just a mistake, but now, the guy in charge of signing off on service to our building was on vacation until Wednesday. On Monday we also stopped receiving any of the network or cable channels. We told Comcast we were out of patience, and they had until Friday to resolve whatever the problem was.

Yesterday, Comcast called to say they were still in the process of negotiating a contract with the building. We told them we were done. I’m not sure why Comcast tried so hard to prevent us from giving them our money, but starting on Friday we’ll be giving it to DirectTV.

Stacy tried unleashing the EECB, but the Vice President she contacted was still unable to fix the error and hook her up for service.

Stacy writes:

I sent an email to one of the VPs I found on your website. A few days later someone from Comcast called to apologize that service was not available in our building. I tried to explain AGAIN that service was most certainly available both in the building and in our specific apartment unit.

Me: You can provide service to our apartment, the guy who lived here before us had Comcast, and so do most, if not all, of our neighbors.

Him: I’m not sure what the problem is, then.

Me: It’s just a clerical error.

Him: What clerical error?

Me: That you don’t provide service to our apartment!!

It was so infuriating. We ended up going with satellite and DSL, which I’m not that pleased with. The satellite company installed these wires that just hang off the side of the building and the DSL doesn’t really work that well with my Macbook. Every time I think of our 2 year contact with what I consider an inferior service provider I get angry at Comcast all over again. If they had just bothered to send someone out one time in six weeks we could have straightened everything out. Instead of assigning one person to manage the problem from beginning to end, it just got kicked around from service rep to service rep, without anything actually getting resolved.

Stacy, this exact thing happened to me when I lived in Chicago. In fact, the Chicago branch of Comcast is probably the reason I have this job. Yes, DSL sucks, but it’s better than Comcast in Chicago because at least you do not have to deal with Comcast in Chicago. Living in a cardboard box is almost better than having Comcast in Chicago, but not quite.

In short, Stacy, it may not seem like you are better off — but ask yourself if you really want to deal with this every time your internet breaks. Because it will.

If you didn’t already have DSL and a contract, I would tell you to try Frank on Twitter at @comcastcares, but really, you’re better off.

Any tips to make Stacy’s DSL work better?

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

At a time when the IPO market appears to be loosening a bit, controversial former investment banker Frank Quattrone appeared before a regular meeting of the San Diego Venture Group—and he had a lot to say about today’s outlook for IPOs.

Despite a promising increase in the pipeline of IPO deals, Quattrone told the San Diego crowd, “The IPO market is structurally damaged.” In contrast to the deals Quattrone saw in the late 1980s and early ’90s, when “some of the biggest names in the tech business were taken public by a small firm for less than $10 million,” Quattrone says a typical IPO these days seems to require big numbers and big-name underwriters, “including three co-managers and seven book-runners.”

Addressing the startup CEOs and VC partners in the audience of roughly 450 people, Quattrone said, “You guys think the only ones worthy of running your IPOs are Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.”

Quattrone, who was Silicon Valley’s star banker for more than 15 years, said he yearns to return to a simpler era that existed before the tech boom of the late 1990s escalated into a casino mentality of ever-larger deals. He talked nostalgically about joining Morgan Stanley in 1977, when it was a private partnership with a thousand employees that provided only financial advisory services. Quattrone said that’s what he hoped to recreate when he founded Qatalyst Partners, a small merchant banking firm in San Francisco on March 19, 2008—”two days after Bear Stearns sold for $2 a share.”

In essence, Quattrone told the crowd the financial industry grew too large and too over-extended—with too many VCs and too many underwriters on too many deals—at a time when too many big investment firms had leveraged themselves at 30 or 40-to-1 on borrowed capital. He now predicts that the venture capital industry is going to shrink, “and only the best funds are going to survive.”

Quattrone’s star began shining brightly in 1995, when …Next Page »

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If The Invention of Lying had taken place on the internet, it would’ve looked a little something like this. Seriously, commenters. When are you finally going to tell us how you really feel?

Even more honesty at CollegeHumor. [CollegeHumor]

AReview: MIRANSHAH; At least 10 people were killed when several missiles fired from the US drones hit a suspected militant compound in North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border, Areview reported Tuesday. At least 13 missiles were fired from about five US spy aircrafts on a militant compound in Dattakhel village, according to sources. At least 10 people were killed in the strikes, and the toll is expected to rise. A number of US strikes in early January are reported to have targeted Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, but he then dispelled rumours of his death in an audio recording, also vowing revenge for the drone programme.

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Every once in a while, I sit down with a businessperson who brings a unique perspective to a huge global trend—and helps me see things in a profound new light. In this case, that person is Kelly Jo MacArthur, and the global trend is the explosion of social media and its broader impact on corporations.

MacArthur was the former general counsel, senior vice president, and chief of staff at Seattle-based RealNetworks—and she also did a stint at Linden Lab, creators of the virtual world Second Life—so she has her digital media and Internet technologies down cold. A 10-year veteran of Real, she left the company in 2007 and has been focusing on consulting work with startups, big companies, and other organizations across the fields of social media, networking technologies, cleantech and sustainability, traditional media, and arts.

We were talking recently about the future of companies like Twitter and Facebook, and what struck me was the way MacArthur thinks of social media as an inevitable—and inherently predictable—evolution of communication technologies on the Internet. That means smart entrepreneurs and executives should be able to anticipate how all of this is affecting societal behavior, and what the new opportunities will be. What’s more, she’s finding that these technologies are forcing big companies and organizations to completely rethink their core strategy and value proposition—indeed, their very existence.

Here’s an edited transcript of our conversation:

Xconomy: So what are you hearing from companies out in the field?

Kelly Jo MacArthur: In my own work as a strategic advisor to CEOs, various boards, and executives on their corporate strategy, the inevitable conversation is, “What should we be doing with social media?” I’m not a marketing person—they work with their advertising and marketing agencies—but it leads you to the conversation that each business, especially in more traditional, entrenched industries, should be thinking about how they’re relevant in the future. And how we as citizens and consumers are demanding more, and also participating more, in the offerings and opportunities that these businesses have.

There’s a huge opportunity, no matter what business you’re in, if you’re constantly thinking ahead about how we as societies are shifting. Versus focusing on, “Should I be using this tool, or should I have a Facebook page?” You should be using these tools for your …Next Page »

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Thanks Steve for the news tip! Steve Elliott writes in the Toke of the Town:

If you voted for marijuana as a CitizenTube question, then your vote didn’t count. Yes, questions about marijuana were the most popular in the CitizenTube voting Monday afternoon.

But YouTube, in a gutless move, decided at the last minute not to present the highest ranked questions to the President. Initial reports that the President had ignored the marijuana questions were inaccurate; YouTube took pot, the top vote getter, out of the running.

President Obama never even got an opportunity to answer the most popular question of all.

Wait, what? “We’ll let you vote, but don’t expect it to actually MEAN anything.”

If they were going to ignore the questions that got the most votes, then why, exactly, did YouTube ask viewers to…

Do you have a Google Alert set up for your content?

Every Monday I get two Google alerts sent to me to monitor certain content. One of the reasons I started doing this was because of my regular contact with the Library of Congress as the Assistant Copyeditor of Kaplan Financial (before it moved to Wisconsin). I would regularly register books and content to prevent plagiarism, and reading through those contracts taught me quite a bit about fair use versus publishing violations.

There was also the matter of being employed with two other companies as the Web Editor, where I regularly went to other Web sites to notify them when they were taking content from my employers’ Web sites. These other sites would put my employers’ articles on their sites without contacting me or the reporters and finance managers. What bothered me was not that I had to constantly look for these legal issues but how often it would happen. Even worse was when it was constantly happening to me.

I write for quite a few different Web sites and work on freelance projects on a project basis for some additional Web sites, so my material can be found in countless places. As much fun as it is for me to write, it’s a double-edged sword because I have to monitor my work that much harder. When you give a Web site exclusive rights to your content, that means anybody who wants to use this content must go through the proper channels from that Web site to purchase reprint rights. Or, if the work is non-exclusive, then the site owner should contact you first before posting any of your work. 

Some of you may ask, “What’s the problem? It’s a compliment if they want to use my work.” Yes, it is flattering to have another site use your work, but if you’re writing professionally, that’s taking visits and money away from the site you’re writing for. If another Web site is taking your content and you’re paid per visit or paid solely from this content not being on another Web site, that outside site is basically bootlegging your work. They’re getting the visits and the possible ad revenue while you get nothing. Today I actually had a site owner accuse me of spamming the Web site by stating in the comment area that content I’d written for another Web site needed to come down. The Web site owner nor I were ever contacted before the information was posted on this other Web site. The worst part was the Web site Customer Service rep was so defensive about their actions and accused me of being a spammer for contacting them about it, never once apologizing for using my content without my permission. Professionalism is underrated and this was the first time a Web site has been so angry about their own mistake, but that’s another blog. 

So how do you know when someone is using your content without you knowing? One of the most beneficial ways to track this is to set up alerts to see who is using your name, your alias or your content.

Now this may get a little difficult if the site is plagiarizing your work and doesn’t use your name. However, I’ve found on a consistent basis that several Web sites I’ve had to contact for freelance and full-time employers, as well as my own work, did indeed use my name. And when they didn’t, I could pretty much filter out when it was mine by phrases I’m notorious for using or repeatedly quoted sentences.

Now I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest no Web site should be able to put up a few sentences of your blog to help bring you traffic. This is a way that site wins and you too. They have enough information (about three to five sentences) to bring interesting content their way, but then the site says something like “To read more, click here” and it goes to the site you wrote the article for. But not every Web site will do this. I’ve only had one Web site that posted my work without my name, alias or link to get the information out there, but as soon as the site was contacted, it immediately corrected the posting. So how do you protect your content?

Set up a Google Alert by completing the following steps:

1. Visit Google Alerts.

2. Type “Search Terms.” Make sure they’re not too detailed to the point where Google would have to match these words up specifically. For example, I use “Shamontiel,” “Message from Montie” or “Maroonsista.” The last two are aliases I’ve gone by for several years, and when these words are tracked by Google, I’m automatically notified. You can also use subjects, but beware of doing that because if other writers are constantly writing about this topic, you’re going to get a long list of content.

3. Choose what type of alert you want to get and from what category: News, blogs, Web, comprehensive, video, groups. I choose “Comprehensive” to see anything that has my name on it.

4. Choose how often you want these alerts to be sent to your email address.

5. Choose how many alerts you want in one email. You can have up to 50 results. If you’re like me and tend to comment on blogs or articles regularly, you may find more of your comments than you will outside content.

6. Choose an email address that you regularly check, but make sure your spam filter is not on so you miss the alerts. 

AReview: NEW YORK: The trial of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani scientist charged with shooting at her US interrogators in Afghanistan, moved into the final stage on Monday, with defence lawyers highlighting in their final arguments the lack of coherence in the accounts by prosecution witnesses. After both the prosecution and defence delivered their closing arguments, the 16-member jury went into deliberations to reach a verdict but could not finalize their views, now, the jury will re-deliberate over the case on Tuesday. According to experts, the verdict could come early next week, although there is no fixed timeframe for the judgement. The defence’s main argument was that evidence by the prosecution witnesses lacked coherence and their varying accounts were, in fact, contradictory – not only to each other but to themselves. Besides, the defence argued emphatically that there was no physical evidence produced by the prosecution to substantiate charges against Dr Aafia. The prosecution, they stated, tried to create an “atmosphere of fear” by producing handwritten notes by Aafia. During her deposition, Dr Aafia clearly told the court that she recognised some of the notes but not all of them and that they had been put in a handbag given by her captors, who were threatening to harm her children. Defence lawyers also focused on the fact that there were no fingerprints on the rifle allegedly used in the shooting incident and there were no holes in the walls created by the bullets allegedly fired. Nor was there any residue on the curtain that partitioned the room between Aafia and the US personnel in Afghanistan. The prosecution pressed their charges by stating that there were six witnesses to prove the alleged incident. Aafia’s trial began in the US District Court on January 19. She is accused of grabbing an M4 rifle and firing at US soldiers and FBI agents who had gone to a police station in Ghazni, a day after her arrest in that Afghan city in July 2008.

Erin Kutz wrote:

BlueKai, a Bellevue, WA-based Internet data exchange company that connects companies with information on the behavior of their customers, has wrapped up a $21 million Series C funding round, the company announced today.

New investor GGV Capital (formerly Granite Global Ventures) led the round, which also included previous BlueKai investors Battery Ventures and Redpoint Ventures. BlueKai has continued to pick up customers and revenue since its Series B round in December 2008. The newest equity investment will go toward the company’s effort to transform how companies use customer data to tailor their ad campaigns, says CEO Omar Tawakol.

BlueKai enables websites to sell data on consumer demographics or buying behavior to companies that wish to use the information to target their advertising more directly and efficiently. The example Tawakol gives is that airlines looking to market to travelers for a specific destination can use BlueKai to buy data from travel websites on the user traffic surrounding that destination. BlueKai’s data providers include retail, auto, travel, and finance companies, while the data buyers account for 70 percent of the top 30 Internet ad networks and portals, according to its website.

Companies that buy data from BlueKai currently have to buy into a specific data campaign to access the customer information, and build their advertising strategy around it. To expand, BlueKai is looking to automate companies’ connection to data on the BlueKai marketplace, making the creation of banner ads on websites as immediate and targeted to the relevant consumer as the ads that appear on search engine results pages are.

“It’s almost that the banner ecosystem wants to become automated to the same degree that the search engine marketplace is automated,” Tawakol says. “And we’re going to make sure that the data component of that becomes automated.”

BlueKai has now raised about $35 million in venture capital dating back to March 2008. Battery Ventures led a $10.5 million Series B round for BlueKai in December 2008, which also included cash from Redpoint, while Redpoint led a $3.2 million Series A round that closed in March of that year.

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Alex from Rochester, NY, says every year around this time his Road Runner high speed access slows to a crawl, and stays that way until April. It occasionally happens at other times throughout the year, too. Unfortunately, Time Warner won’t fix the problem. Alex says one technician who came out to look at the issue told him, “The wires were installed when Adelphia provided service, and they haven’t been upgraded since.” Another one told him, “The problem has been going on for years, and management knows about it, but enough people don’t complain.”

Alex writes, “Well, please note this as a formal complaint. I’m definitely complaining.”

Each year, just after the holidays, our Road Runner service grinds to a crawl. We experience typical speeds of between .5mbps and 3mbps. This continues from mid-January until (usually) the beginning of April.

Last year, I worked with the local TW office, and after many hours on the phone, and several “service” visits to the my house, spoke with the manager of the WNY office. He explained that the wiring in my area (the wiring that brings the internet signal to my street) is “very old” and that at times it becomes “overtaxed” and “can’t handle the traffic.” Several of the technicians that visited my house explained to me the same problem, noting that “the wires were installed when Adelphia provided service, and they haven’t been upgraded since.” One technician explained “the problem has been going on for years, and management knows about it, but enough people don’t complain.”

Well, please note this as a formal complaint. I’m definitely complaining.

Cumulatively, I’ve spent about 100 hours over the past year (at least two hours a week, sometimes many more) “administering” my TW internet connection to my house. The manager of TW WNY graciously “upgraded” us to Road Runner with powerboost for three months “for our trouble.” The powerboost gave us speeds of about 5mbps until June. Then our internet abruptly slowed again. This fall, it was back up to about 5mbps, on average.

This past autumn, Verizon began to open FiOs service to our neighborhood, and many of my immediate neighbors switched (they are thrilled with their service, and less expensive bills.) I was hesitant to switch, for two reasons: first, TW employs a LOT of people from WNY, and that’s important to me. Second, TW provides availability to (for the most part) round-the-clock service. The service is lousy and formulaic, but at least I can speak with a human. I called TW WNY and explained my concerns, particularly the value of the service I’ve been getting for the past year or so, relative to the value that FiOs was offering.

TW WNY worked out a plan that I could “price lock” my services, and decreased the amount of my monthly bill. (Still not as good of a value as with Verizon, but it was good enough, and helped to support a company that supports my local community… so we were OK with it.)

Part of the “price lock” package included powerboost for Road Runner.

Since the price lock contract became effective, our speeds have never topped 5mbps—this is a far cry from the 10mbps advertised, and it’s well below the 6mbps peak speeds were were seeing earlier this fall.

The bottom line is that when powerboost is “on” our internet is slow. When powerboost is “off” our internet is unusable. Moreover, the lines in the area are a problem, and should be upgraded.

I’m beginning to feel strongly that TW is in breach of the contract terms set out in our “power lock” agreement. I’d like this issue fixed immediately, without my involvement—I don’t want to: troubleshoot, turn my modem off and on, drive down to TW to get a new modem, be home for service people to visit, install new electrical wiring to the modem so it’s on it’s own circuit, clean out my “cookies” and “temporary files”, restart my computer, or spend another second on the phone with TW tech “support”, nor any of the other millions of inane tasks I’ve been asked to do by TW over the past year. I’m done.

I’m asking you, Time Warner, to please: fix it, make it work. I’ve supported your company, now please live up to your end of the commitment.

Alex, I have to say that you’ve given the “support your local team” angle a good try. If Time Warner doesn’t fix this, move to FiOs and find other ways to support the community.

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

San Diego-based Concerro, a venture-backed provider of software-as-a-service-based systems for hospital shift and emergency workforce management, says today it acquired RES-Q Healthcare Systems of Calabasas, CA, for an undisclosed amount. RES-Q provides similar software applications for healthcare management and scheduling. RES-Q president Michael Meisel is joining the combined business as vice president of product management and marketing, and all RES-Q employees will be retained.

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Glenn Thrush has a keen, insightful post on how “Republicans are absolutely killing Democrats when it comes to leveraging the web to go negative,” using the spinning of David Axelrod’s Sunday morning remarks about turning the interrogation of the Christmas bomber over to the FBI as an example. Read the whole thing, but note that the catalyst was Steven Hayes of The Weekly Standard, author of “The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration With Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America,” not usually counted among the most influential books on the Iraq War.

AReview: PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court’s Barrister Bacha requested Pakistan Bar Council’s Executive Committee for the ineligibility of Supreme Court Bar Association President Qazi Muhammed Anwar, Areview News reported Monday. Talking to Areview News, Bacha said Qazi Anwar was sentenced nine months in jail for possessing explosives in 1979, adding Lahore High Court curtailed his punishment; however, his charge was kept unchanged. Bacha said a convicted person cannot be the representative of the lawyers; therefore, he demanded the removal of Qazi from his office. He said the PBC’s executive council directed Qazi Anwar to appear before the body on February 14 for explanation in this connection.

LOS ANGELES: Following are the big winners at the 52nd annual Grammy Awards on Sunday. A complete list of winners in all 109 categories can be found at the website of Grammys. ALBUM OF THE YEAR – Fearless – Taylor Swift RECORD OF THE YEAR – Use Somebody – Kings of Leon SONG OF THE YEAR- Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) -Thaddis Harrell, Beyonce Knowles, Terius Nash ChristopherStewart, songwriters (Beyonce) BEST NEW ARTIST -Zac Brown Band BEST FEMALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE- Halo – Beyonce BEST MALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE- If You Don”t Know Me ByNow – Seal BEST POP PERFORMANCE BY A DUO OR GROUP WITH VOCALS – IGotta Feeling – The Black Eyed Peas BEST POP VOCAL ALBUM- The E.N.D. – The Black Eyed Peas BEST DANCE RECORDING – Poker Face – Lady Gaga BEST TRADITIONAL POP VOCAL ALBUM- Michael Buble Meets Madison Square Garden – Michael Buble BEST SOLO ROCK VOCAL PERFORMANCE – Working On A Dream -Bruce Springsteen BEST ROCK ALBUM – 21st Century Breakdown – Green Day BEST RAP SONG – Run This Town – Jeff Bhasker, Shawn Carter, Robyn Fenty, Kanye West Ernest Wilson, songwriters (Jay-Z, Rihanna Kanye West) BEST FEMALE COUNTRY VOCAL PERFORMANCE- White Horse – TaylorSwift BEST MALE COUNTRY VOCAL PERFORMANCE – Sweet Thing – KeithUrban

AReview: CIUDAD JUAREZ: Gunmen drove up to a house where a high school party was in full swing and opened fire killing 13 people and wounding 17 others, the city public safety agency said Sunday in Mexico’’s murder capital, Ciudad Juarez. Most of the victims were “youngsters,” said the Chihuahua state attorney general’’s office. Witnesses said the gunmen drove up to the house in several cars, first shooting at people gathered outside the dwelling, then pursuing some of the youngsters who jumped over a fence to get away. “A young man was celebrating his birthday with his schoolmates… and when the host of the party came out to drop off his girlfriend” the shooting broke out, a neighbor told media. Local press reports said the party host’’s father was among the dead. Other sources said the young people were members of a local soccer team celebrating a championship victory, a local daily said on its website. The shooting took place in Ciudad Juarez, the city on the border with the US state of Texas that holds Mexico’’s record in bloodshed, with more than 2,500 people killed last year in drug-related gangland crimes. It was the third mass shooting of youngsters in Mexico since September when, within two weeks, 28 youths were killed in two separate shootings at drug rehabilitation centers.