Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• T-Mobile doesn't know how to treat its customers

  It looks like T-Mobile dropped their data plan from $29.99/mo to $19.99/mo. I originally thought this was related to the new unlimited rate plans and losing the Starbucks account , but it was actually back in September (on my birthday no less). I must have missed it at the time, given that whole wedding thing. And worse, it turns out you have to actually ask for the new rate . After reading Kevin's post, I logged in to My T-Mobile today to adjust my plan. To add insult to injury, check out the options I'm presented with. For the past 5 months, I've been paying $10 more than I should have for this service. T-Mobile should have adjusted this for me automatically (as Kevin said, you can be sure they would if the price went up). At the very least, they could have told me about it via a pamphlet or during the time I spent talking to a T-Mobile representative as I was trying to get my phone unlocked for the honeymoon. They did neither, and were quite happy to let me pay $10 more a... Posted Feb 24 2008, 10:16 AM by Tim with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Rants, Gadgets, Things that bother me, Business, Marketing

• Net Neutrality, Abuse of Market Power, and Conflicts of Interest

  Craig Newmark on Net Neutrality back in Oct 2006 ( via 37 Signals ): Here's a real world example that shows how this would work. Let's say you call Joe's Pizza and the first thing you hear is a message saying you'll be connected in a minute or two, but if you want, you can be connected to Pizza Hut right away. That's not fair, right? You called Joe's and want some Joe's pizza. Well, that's how some telecommunications executives want the Internet to operate, with some Web sites easier to access than others. For them, this would be a money-making regime. As I've mentioned in the past, I'm generally against regulation on the Internet, but I feel strongly that the Internet should remain neutral. Hopefully, that can be achieved through the market, but if not, then regulation may be necessary. The troubling thing for me here is the power this gives to the gatekeepers. If they decide they like Yahoo! more than Google (e.g., for personal or political reasons), they can make it happen - even if... Posted Apr 04 2007, 07:28 AM by Tim with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Things that bother me, Business, Law, Net Neutrality, Politics

• DHL Sucks

  I ordered a package from Amazon and noticed they now have an option for Saturday delivery with Prime. Excellent... What I did not realize at the time is that this ships with DHL. Every single time something has been shipped to me via DHL, something went wrong. Once, a Bluetooth module for my M200 showed up in a padded envelope that was quite literally shredded and missing half of the screws. Last time I had something scheduled for Saturday delivery it just never showed up. And of course, today was no exception. First, I noticed that the package was shipped to Melville, which is about 40 miles from where I live. I called up to find out the status and was assured that, even though the tracking system was not updated, that the package was indeed with the driver. (This was around 2pm EST - the times below are PST). Needless to say, the package never showed up. I just called up irate after waiting all day for a package that never showed up and the customer service rep told me that there was... Posted Mar 03 2007, 05:22 PM by Tim with | with 15 comment(s) Filed under: Rants, Things that bother me, Business, Marketing

• Trying to Cancel Office Live

  I signed up for the Office Live beta earlier this year in Feb. I never actually used it much - it didn't add much value for me over Sharepoint and I preferred hosting my own site considering there were somewhat private things on there. Now that the beta test is over, my account was transferred over to an Office Live Essentials package priced at $19.99 a month. Obviously, since I'm not using the service, I decided to cancel such to avoid this monthly fee. Unfortunately, there is no way to just close the account. Instead, you have to fill out a web form which gets sent to Office Live Customer Support. A little over a week after I submitted the form (granted this was a holiday week), the fun started. The first response came from Obo, who told me I couldn't cancel because I didn't provide an alternate email address. Tim, are there issues that made you want to cancel your subscription with Microsoft Office Live Beta? If there are, please let us know and we will be more than willing to assist... Posted Nov 28 2006, 07:48 AM by Tim with | with 19 comment(s) Filed under: Rants, Things that bother me, Things that amuse me, Business, Microsoft

• Gartner sends a cease and desist to remove a link

  Scoble passes along that James Governor, an analyst for RedMonk, received a C&D from Gartner for a link . Wow. I obviously haven't seen the letter, but I'm trying to imagine what possible legal recourse they have to linking to a publicly visible URL. Obviously there's no copyright infringement and there are standards you have to adhere to protect something as a trade secret. (Hint: putting something on a publicly visible server is not enough). Oh, and someone should tell Gartner that you can "redact" all the links you want but the Internet is forever . Here's the link - maybe I'll get my first C&D too. This is even worse than C&D'ing someone who is trying to help you . Tags: Gartner , RedMonk , CeaseAndDesist , Stupidity Posted Jul 11 2006, 01:15 PM by Tim with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Rants, Things that bother me, Things that amuse me, Copyright, Business