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It always takes longer than you expect...
Apr. 8th, 2006 09:41 amFriday was a good day, headache aside (yes, still there - it's part of life now. Next Doctor's appointment Tuesday for MRI results).
First stop was the tax account, who was beaming when I arrived. "I have good news" she said - and she did! She'd managed to write off against various things a large chunk of my profits from the sale of the house in San Jose. Why is this a good thing? Well, I'd incurred all the other costs anyway, and had set aside an appreciable chunk of change to deal with the tax implications of the house sale - so today I'm feeling like I won (a very small) lottery.
After mailing off my checks to the various tax organizations, it was off to Santa Fe to visit my friend/client Joe. He's a gifted artist, but quite unworldy about anything technological. I'm currently redesigning his website, but in the meantime he wanted to: upgrade to digital cable, get cable Internet service, dump his AT&T phone, and get Vonage VOIP. He also wanted to upgrade his computer and learn how to transfer digital images. This was clearly NOT going to be a one day job. I told him we'd upgrade his Windows ME to XP and I'd do some training for him on image work.
The day started with a HUGE argument on the phone with AOL. I'd expected it. Now that he had cable Internet, he had no use for AOL; but the very last thing they'll do is cancel your account. I'd been through the process before, so I knew what to expect. Having told Joe they'd be difficult, he asked me to call them! I spent around 20 minutes on the phone being VERY forceful with an un-deterred retention specialist. Twice I thought I had her to the point of actually closing the account, only to hear her say "but before I do that..." The very last time she said "I have flagged the account to close but it won't close for 20 days. If we don't hear from you during that period, we'll assume you want to continue". At this point I was way past being rude. I finally got her to the point where I think she was genuinely about to cry, and she closed the account. I really don't want to be mean with people. And I don't see how this can possibly be good for their business. Don't they know I'm going to blog about the experience? Joe was visibly shaken just listening to one side of the conversation! "I could never have done that" he said. And I guess that is the point. Some customers will never be able to get rid of AOL because they won't bring themselves to be so rude to another human being.
Having ordered Vonage (that bit was easy) we moved on to the Windows XP upgrade. That was a hassle from the start (no surprise there) but after a while it settled into the main part of the update, and we left to go have lunch. We returned to find the install had progressed for about five minutes before discovering a 'problem with the video driver" and had paused to ask one final question. So much for "unattended update".
The upgrade did finally finish, and the video card seemed to be working flawlessly - so much for the error message. One last item - download and install XP drivers for his HP combo printer (printer, fax, copier, scanner). Finding the driver wasn't difficult, and there's even a helpful companion program which you can download from HP that will take over the download and installation process. And I DO mean take over. Once I started it, it warned me that the keyboard and mouse were now disabled; I could do nothing further until it was finished. Then it proceeded to download a software bundle of 385MB. That took 20 minutes, but the subsequent install took over an hour! I have no clue what it was doing - there were no informational messages. He did after all that have a whole range of new applications, and an endless set of solicitations to add new services...
Well, that was it for the day. No time for training on image manipulation. My next trip will install the Vonage adapter and complete his training.
First stop was the tax account, who was beaming when I arrived. "I have good news" she said - and she did! She'd managed to write off against various things a large chunk of my profits from the sale of the house in San Jose. Why is this a good thing? Well, I'd incurred all the other costs anyway, and had set aside an appreciable chunk of change to deal with the tax implications of the house sale - so today I'm feeling like I won (a very small) lottery.
After mailing off my checks to the various tax organizations, it was off to Santa Fe to visit my friend/client Joe. He's a gifted artist, but quite unworldy about anything technological. I'm currently redesigning his website, but in the meantime he wanted to: upgrade to digital cable, get cable Internet service, dump his AT&T phone, and get Vonage VOIP. He also wanted to upgrade his computer and learn how to transfer digital images. This was clearly NOT going to be a one day job. I told him we'd upgrade his Windows ME to XP and I'd do some training for him on image work.
The day started with a HUGE argument on the phone with AOL. I'd expected it. Now that he had cable Internet, he had no use for AOL; but the very last thing they'll do is cancel your account. I'd been through the process before, so I knew what to expect. Having told Joe they'd be difficult, he asked me to call them! I spent around 20 minutes on the phone being VERY forceful with an un-deterred retention specialist. Twice I thought I had her to the point of actually closing the account, only to hear her say "but before I do that..." The very last time she said "I have flagged the account to close but it won't close for 20 days. If we don't hear from you during that period, we'll assume you want to continue". At this point I was way past being rude. I finally got her to the point where I think she was genuinely about to cry, and she closed the account. I really don't want to be mean with people. And I don't see how this can possibly be good for their business. Don't they know I'm going to blog about the experience? Joe was visibly shaken just listening to one side of the conversation! "I could never have done that" he said. And I guess that is the point. Some customers will never be able to get rid of AOL because they won't bring themselves to be so rude to another human being.
Having ordered Vonage (that bit was easy) we moved on to the Windows XP upgrade. That was a hassle from the start (no surprise there) but after a while it settled into the main part of the update, and we left to go have lunch. We returned to find the install had progressed for about five minutes before discovering a 'problem with the video driver" and had paused to ask one final question. So much for "unattended update".
The upgrade did finally finish, and the video card seemed to be working flawlessly - so much for the error message. One last item - download and install XP drivers for his HP combo printer (printer, fax, copier, scanner). Finding the driver wasn't difficult, and there's even a helpful companion program which you can download from HP that will take over the download and installation process. And I DO mean take over. Once I started it, it warned me that the keyboard and mouse were now disabled; I could do nothing further until it was finished. Then it proceeded to download a software bundle of 385MB. That took 20 minutes, but the subsequent install took over an hour! I have no clue what it was doing - there were no informational messages. He did after all that have a whole range of new applications, and an endless set of solicitations to add new services...
Well, that was it for the day. No time for training on image manipulation. My next trip will install the Vonage adapter and complete his training.
