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Having a status page forced Comcast to fix my internet

TL;DR: Comcast had a local area issue. I set up a status page for my house after many outages. The status page actively monitoring connectivity forced Comcast to look outside our home for a fix after several visits. Forced switch to Comcast Business The pandemic hit, and our lives became 100% “virtual” last year. As a family that “cut the cord” years ago and I’ve been working from home for quite some time, our internet consumption was pretty high. Our neighborhood is only serviced by one provider, Xfinity (aka Comcast, one of the worst providers of them all). We were ever mindful of our Xfinity usage. The 50% emails before the halfway mark in our billing period made for some dining room table conversations about peak usage and devices. Once I fired up Red Hat Livestreaming, Xfinity’s data caps would be smoked within the first fifteen days of the month. We had no choice but to make the switch to Comcast Business to remove those caps. ...

October 5, 2021 · Chris Short
Be helpful. But, this isn't your day job.

'Tis the Season of Family Tech Support

It’s the most wonderful time of year! When everyone gets together with family or friends they haven’t seen in who knows how long. Of course, the topic of Trump, social media, and burnt gravy stories will come up. But, my personal favorite topic is, “I have this issue with PIECE OF TECHNOLOGY XYZ. Please help me!” Luckily, despite having not worked on anything other than Mac and Linux the past seven years, I don’t get too many wild questions from family. I’ll sit down with Grandma and help her with an iPhone issue from time to time. My mother-in-law has some legacy e-mail stuff all filtered in her Gmail. Sometimes AT&T changes something and it breaks. These things happen. Complex systems are hard enough. No sense in me being an asshole about it (although I will get frustrated from time to time). ...

November 20, 2018 · Chris Short

The Demise of Google Fiber and Internet Under Dirt

If you have not heard the news, Google Fiber is no longer expanding its installation in the 10 markets they service and the head of Google Access (the Google Fiber overlord company), Craig Barratt, is stepping down. Also in the news, was a little-publicized statement from AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, where he said, “I will be sorely disappointed if we are not going head-to-head” with cable companies by 2021. As an aside, AT&T’s plan to compete with cable providers is already feasible. AT&T is already testing its 5G network and expects a full 5G deployment by 2020-2021. A 5G network will be more than capable of providing TV over internet. AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV and their upcoming 5G network means they have the ability to go head-to-head with cable companies in a big way. They only need Time Warner to compete with Comcast because Comcast owns content creators; AT&T does not. ...

October 30, 2016 · Chris Short
Recording device used to record this extensive interview

North Carolina Veterans Oral History Interview Part 1

As part of a North Carolina State Archives initiative to obtain oral histories of veterans I volunteered to be interviewed for the North Carolina Veterans Oral History Collection. I was interviewed by Matthew Peek, Military Collection Archivist for the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (later referred to as MP). The interview was well worth the time it took to coordinate and conduct it. I would encourage all North Carolina veterans to contact Matthew and provide their unique story for preservation. ...

August 17, 2016 · Chris Short

VeriSign's rapid DNS updates in .com and .net

SlashDot is running a story saying that the twice a day DNS updates of .com and .net domains will cease to exist; VeriSign Naming and Directory Services will be switching to a near real-time system on September 8, 2004. From the announcement: After the rapid DNS update is implemented, the elapsed time from registrars’ add or change operations to the visibility of those adds or changes in all 13 .com/.net authoritative name servers is expected to average less than five minutes. ...

November 6, 2004 · Chris Short