Let’s take a trip back through time to recent history, about 2 years ago…

M and I are preparing to move into a new apartment. Two weeks before our move we call AT&T to get everything set for moving our phone and DSL service to the new apartment. They point out that they have a new service, UVerse, that will give us faster speeds, phone, and cable TV for about the same as we were paying for just phone and DSL. Sounded good to us. Our move in date arrives. The AT&T tech arrives, 3 hours late, spends the next 4 hours trying to get UVerse working. She, who is actually very nice and courteous, is unable to get a clean enough signal to support UVerse. I ask if we can get our old service then, since we obviously can’t get UVerse. She calls customer support and, sure! we can get our old package… in two weeks. Two weeks! (but would we like to sign up for AT&T cell phone service?)

Two weeks rolls around, our phone service is finally reinstated, but no DSL. So we call AT&T customer support, apparently connecting DSL wasn’t on the service ticket. Why wasn’t it? I asked for it at the same time. Oh, that will take two weeks before they can send someone out to get that hooked up. Two weeks! Again!? So now it has taken AT&T a month to get phone and DSL working in our apartment.

Fast forward to two months ago. Our DSL has been working reasonably well since moving in and we’ve had no reason to call AT&T for anything. However, about two months ago our connection speeds start falling off. When the speed tests stopped going above 3Mbps (on a 6Mbps package) we called AT&T to report the problem. They called back twice while we were out (but left no callback number or other instructions). The third time they called I was home, did pick up the phone (on the second ring), but as soon as I answered they hung up. We heard nothing more from them.

We waited a couple weeks to see if they were going to fix the problem on their own. We did explain quite clearly what our issue was. No such luck. Proactive is apparently not on their to-do list. Our internet connection has now degraded to speeds no faster than 1.5Mbps, but only in very short bursts and the average sustained speeds are only .25Mbps. So M calls AT&T again. This time the CSR is rude, condescending, interrupts her constantly while she is explaining the problem and what steps we have taken to diagnose, and when she is done he acts like he hasn’t heard a thing she’s said. He accuses her of having a virus and to make sure she has anti-virus installed (even though she has explained that the problem is affecting all machines on the network, that antivirus in installed on all machines, and that no viruses are found), then he suggests that someone is probably hijacking our wireless network and using up all our bandwidth and that we should probably secure our wireless router (even though she has already explained that our router is locked down and that there is no traffic at all on the wireless network since all our wireless devices are powered down and not on the network), then he suggests that he can send a tech out, but since it is probably our fault we WILL be charged for the service call.

I would like to point out two things here: one, I work in IT, know how to secure a network and maintain my computers, and that I instructed M on all the information she needed to give the CSR to resolve the issue and two, the CSR has not at any point offered to check to actually check the line, to deign to suggest that the problem might actually be as M described and be on their end.

So M is now fuming. The CSR has been badgering her for a half hour, ignoring everything she has told him, and even threatened her with being charged for a service call. M finally demands that the CSR check the line. He does and (holy shit!) there is obviously something very wrong with our line. He’ll schedule a tech to come out, when would be a good time. M tells him that she works the rest of the week and can’t take any time off on such short notice so a time next week would be better. Would Thursday of this week work? No, she has to work the rest of this week. Would Wednesday morning or Friday work? No, she has to work the rest of the week, how about Monday of next week? Oh! Yes, they can send someone out next week.

M was so frustrated after the call she asked if I could be home to deal with the technician. So I stayed home. Andrew, the technician, arrived promptly when he said he would, called beforehand to let me know he was on his way, and was in every respect very pleasant. Not only that but he was able to find the trouble with our line (the line coming from the building into our apartment was corroded). He fixed the line, which cleaned up the connection completely and he informed us that our line was so clean now that if we wanted to upgrade to UVerse we could since the issue he just fixed was probably the reason we couldn’t get UVerse working 2 years ago. He explained everything he was doing the whole time and showed me the numbers on his line meter before and after so I could see and understand what was going on. He was great.

Our internet connection speeds shot up to 5.3Mbps and stayed there.

M pays the phone bill, but I was curious how much we were paying for the land line. I’d been contemplating getting a cell phone for a while (I work in front of a computer all day so have very little need of a phone) and figured that if I got a cell phone then we could get rid of the land line and M would save some money each month. Turns out she was paying more for the landline than a monthly cell plan would cost me (she has a cell phone so doesn’t really need the land line). We decided then to drop the land line and keep the internet. This leads us to our current imbroglio.

M calls AT&T again to have the phone disconnected and to switch our plan to an internet only option. This should be pretty straight forward: turn phone off, leave internet on. Everything there is fine and they will send someone out on Tuesday. Great! Tuesday comes around and we still have phone. Wednesday, still have phone, Thursday, still have phone, Friday phone is gone (yay!) and so is the internet (boo!). M calls AT&T to inform them that they have disconnected our internet. She spends the next 63 minutes on the phone, gets bounced between 6 different people, 5 of whom made no effort to actually help her and chose instead to put her on hold while they bounced her to the next person. The last person told her that everything was fine, they showed everything was fine, but that we were currently showing as having two lines and would probably be charged for that. Then M, now incandescent with rage, explained that as of yesterday we had a perfectly functional internet service. Then he gave her some BS metaphor about how the internet is like a tree, and that the wiring in our building was probably bad and that we’d have to contact the complex owners and get the building rewired (seriously, WTF?). But if they had to send a tech out we would be charged for the service call (because it was so obviously our fault that our internet service wasn’t working). Then the CSR changed his story, saying that there are two parallel lines coming into the building and now that they’ve turned off our service on the one line, they might not be able to reconnect our internet service at all (but would we like to upgrade to UVerse?), however he’d look into it and call us back before 5 to let us know.

Five o’clock comes and goes and we’ve had no call and have no internet still. Saturday arrives and we still have no internet. Now M is livid. She’s had enough. As a person who works in customer service and has worked in customer service for 15 years, nobody treats her that discourteously and retains her business. She calls Comcast. The CSR from Comcast is incredibly nice, very helpful, listens to her story about dealing with AT&T, sympathizes and waives the usual installation fee, gives her his full name, telephone number and extension, and has scheduled a tech to come out to our apartment on Monday afternoon, and that if for any reason over the weekend we decide to change our minds we can call and cancel the service ticket. Sunday M receives three calls from Comcast (only one message) just calling to confirm that we still want them to come out on Monday. M is jubilant.

This morning I walk into the office and the router shows we have internet service again. AT&T calls a couple hours later. Is our problem with the internet resolved? M informs them that she was waiting for the CSR to call her on Friday and that since they left us without internet all weekend and gave us no indication that they were going to fix it we were dropping our service with AT&T completely. The CSR who called gave her the number to cancel our service and hung up. That’s it. No apology for our difficulties, no offer to make right, no concern at all. Just an invitation to the exit and a dial tone.

Does AT&T have so many customers that they feel it necessary to divest themselves? Have they become so big and important that customers no longer matter? I have never encountered a company that demonstrated such a brash neglect and disregard for their customers. The only way AT&T could have possibly been worse would have been to yell at M, call her stupid, tell her to fuck off, and then charge us triple for having had the nerve to contact them at all.

Really, we don’t ask for much. From the phone company we ask only to turn phone on or turn phone off. AT&T has been doing the phone thing since 1875, one might reasonably expect them to be pretty damn good at it by now, but from what I’ve seen they are completely flummoxed each and every time they have to deal with it. I really do not understand our treatment by them. It will probably be a very long time until we willingly put ourselves back into a relationship with them. Starting this afternoon we will be AT&T free and most likely will be as long as they have competitors.

As I’m walking up to the doors into my apartment building from my carport, this guy on the second floor sitting out on the balcony, leaps from his chair and rushes to the railing, bracing his arms and leaning way over, staring at my car. This is the second he has done this, the first time was a week ago and the situation played out very much as it did today. He leans way out over the deck and hollers, “Is it really that quiet?!” By ‘it’ he means my car and his amazement is explained in his next exclamation, “I can hear every other car pull in except yours!” and again he asks, “Is it really that quiet?!” I answer politely that, yes, it really is that quiet, but that it is only two years old and shouldn’t be particularly noisy yet. He turns back to staring at my car and I walk inside, amused and a little curious at his apparent astonishment.

It should be noted that I love my car. No, I’m not a gearhead or enthusiast. I don’t own a garage stocked with every tool imaginable where I spend countless hours tinkering with my vehicles. I do like driving. I like responsive steering and tight suspension and grippy tires. I take corners too fast and drive a little more aggressively than perhaps my passengers enjoy. That being said, I do not drive a sports car, or even a sporty car. I drive a Civic. It is my first new car and the first car I’ve owned that was not either given to me by family or purchased because it was a really good deal. I spent two years researching which car to buy and delayed buying by a year so I could save up a little more money to get the EX trim. It is not the Si nor the hybrid. The Si I wanted, but it was more than I could afford and it had the same mileage and fuel requirements as the Maxima I traded in, not really a step down (up?) in economy or cost of ownership. The hybrid was simply too expensive and sorry, Mother Nature, but I wouldn’t have recouped the extra cost in the time I’ll own the car in either fuel savings or goodwill. So there it is, my 1.4 liter 5-speed black Honda Civic which is apparently so quiet it has my neighbors in awe of its decibellessness.

While making dinner I was still thinking this pair of encounters with guy on the second floor. It has never occurred to me that the car is really any quieter than any other car of its age. Then it dawns on me: he hasn’t heard it except when idling. My building is about 50 yards off the main road and when I pull off the road I take the car out of gear and coast into the parking lot and into my carport. I’m not sure if I should tell him or let him keep thinking that Honda Civics are some kind of acoustic marvels.

On a completely unrelated note, the new shaving cream I ordered arrived today. Yes, shaving cream. Take a moment to be impressed and envious. I’ve been using Edge gel since… well since they’ve been making it I think. Anyway I suspect that it may be partially responsible for my complexion not being as clear as I’d like it. Now while my personal grooming habits are such that I make a reasonable effort to not offend people they do not quite fall into the fastidious category. The extent of my skin care regime involves a bar of soap and ample hot water. Which leads into the other cause of my complexion woes: my soap. I replaced the soap a week ago with a Dove product and it’s working quite well so far, I’m happy to say. Today the second part of my dermatological experiment arrived: Taylor of Old Bond Street Gentleman’s Shaving Cream Eton College Edition. Today was a shaving day, so it will be a couple days before I get to try it out, but if it works even half as well as it smells it will be well worth the price. You can’t smell it without wanting to smile, it’s that good.

Moving on, tonight I will make attempt number three to get in contact with someone at AT&T customer service. The first time was a month ago, but despite having a service ticket, nobody from customer service ever contacted us. I tried again this weekend, but got bounced around their labyrinthine online support system until it just gave up and knocked me back to the support home page. Over the past month my internet speeds have gone from capping out at 3.5Mbps to barely hitting 1.5Mbps and averaging less than 1Mbps with frequent dropped connections. I’m on the 6Mbps plan. Something isn’t right, besides AT&T’s customer service.

Download UPS Rate Request Class – PHP

Several months ago a project came to me to add UPS shipping to a client’s online store. Up to that point they were charging a single flat shipping fee for all orders. As a merchant who sells everything from decals to racecar chassis, the one-size-fits-all approach to shipping was cutting into profits. So I went in search of some sort of PHP code, a class or library or something, that I could plug into the store code. At the time there wasn’t much out there.

Maybe most online stores out there are using OS Commerce or Magento or some other pre-packaged solution. Unfortunately that really wasn’t an option and I ended up writing my own class based off the UPS Developer API. It worked pretty well, so this week I’ve cleaned it up, wrote a simple form and supporting code and packaged it up for your consumption. Feel free to download it and use it in your application.

The iframe below contains a working example of the class. The class handles both rate requests for specific rates (if you know you want to ship UPS Ground for example) or rate comparison requests (if you want to see what different services will cost). It also handles international shipping.

I am back from four days in Mackinaw City, my first real vacation in about 5 years, and my first break from work since starting my current job almost a 15 months ago. It’s amazing how short a time four days can be when you are on vacation and how long it seems when you really need one. I went up with high hopes of taking my bike out on the Mackinaw City to Cheboygan bike trail and generally going comatose the rest of the time. Those plans didn’t quite work out.

I left on Friday and the weather spat rain the whole way up, not quite making up its mind whether it wanted to stop or go. When I arrived it had settled on a steady misty drizzle and that meant my evening would be take out dinner, grocery shopping, and taking stock of the house I was staying it. The house, Sinclair House, is a nice 4 bedroom done in semi-rustic decor with three of the most floppable couches I have ever enjoyed. My brother and his wife own the house, so I will thank them publicly here for the generous donation of their summer house for my weekend use and allowing me to break in their new couch (it was magnificent). It’s not a large house, but it is open and very conducive to rest and recuperation and stocked with all the amenities of home, except for Internet access.

The house sits right in the sweet spot of about ten wifi networks, like the center of a huge Venn diagram. Nine of those wifi access points are labeled as public, one private. Of those, I was not able to connect to a single one. In most residential places you can sort of count on finding at least one LinkSys or D-Link access point, someone who bought a base station and didn’t configure even the most basic security settings. Not Mackinaw City, every access point was locked tight, even the public ones. There are a lot of hotels, restaurants, and stores around town, most of which advertised free wifi. I did manage to find a strong signal in downtown Mackinaw City, courtesy of the Court Plaza Inn. Thanks to them for having the best wifi signal in town.

In addition to biking, I had hoped to spend a bit of time working on this website: getting the portfolio and resume sections finished and maybe setting up some other sections and maybe writing some entries too. That didn’t quite work out either.

It rained on Saturday, which once again washed out my biking plans. Not that I was too upset, it proved more difficult than expected to sleep in a bed that wasn’t my own and the sun coming through the windows at 8am woke me up several hours too early. Instead I cooked, played with the new iPod Nano I bought before going on vacation by making walkthrough videos of the house to send to my girlfriend, and watched a Star Wars anniversary marathon on cable until the rain finally stopped in the early evening. So I went for a drive to find a good pastie (that’s with a short ‘a’, by the way) shop, picked up a few for lunch and dinner on Sunday, and took advantage of the good wifi downtown to attend to email.

After getting back to the house and putting away the groceries I decided to walk to the bridge and enjoy the scenery for a bit, since the sun was setting and there was a heavy fog bank pushing across the straits, I figured it would be quite pretty down on the beach. The fog had mostly fallen apart by the time I walked the two blocks to the beach, the wind had kicked up off the lake and it got quite cool. The sound of the cars on the bridge, the waves lapping against the rocks, and the other tourists talking quietly as they moved along the walkways and sand gave the whole visit a rather lonely quality, but in a good way, lonely but peaceful. I took this video while out. I’d hoped the lights on the bridge would be more prominent, but they kind of got lost.

The weather forecasters had been calling for 80 degrees and humid on Sunday and not being a particularly warm weather person, I decided to stay in until later in the evening, before venturing out to find the bike trail. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to sleep much the night before either and the vodka grapefruit juice I had the night before to help me sleep left me with a monster headache. I ended up watching a MythBusters marathon for nearly the entire day, except for when I took a video of the outside of the house and did my nightly wifi and email run. I was feeling better after dinner and decided to investigate Cheboygan since they had a Walmart and Walmart would have a cable to connect my iPod to my car stereo. That was the third time I’ve been in a Walmart and by far the most depressing, but they had the cable I needed. And now I’ve been to Cheboygan. One more thing added to my list of things to do and promptly checked off. The rest of the night was cleaning up and putting the house back in order before leaving the following morning.

Slept better the previous night, but the lawn people showed up early and I woke up to a lawn tractor and weed whip buzzing outside the window. When I left it was 65, clear, and breezy. As I drove south for the first 15 miles the temperature rose 1 degree for each mile and progressively more humid. It got 10 degrees warmer over the next 3 and a half hours of driving and when I arrived home it was steamy and 90. I kind of wished I’d stayed up there a while longer.