Category: Technology

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Sirius Asshats

I’m on the phone canceling all of my service with Sirius satellite radio. My decision lies ENTIRELY with Sirius’s poor customer service. Not to mention the fact that they are trying to complicate and delay the return of $106 to me.

On January 2nd I ordered two Stratus 4 radios from them. One was to replace my aging original Sportster and one was to add a radio to the account for my Dad as a Christmas present. January 7th came and went with no radios and the hold on my account had been removed for the $106.72. So I called and canceled the order. Sirius confirms the cancellation is in their notes on the account.

I went to Best Buy and bought two Stratus 5 radios for a total of $143. Forward to January 13th. Today I look at my bank account and what do you know there’s a new hold for $106.72 from Sirius. Apparently they didn’t cancel the order. And as far as I can tell they’ve run my card again for a new hold.

So I made the dreaded call to sort it out. First you’ve got to verbally navigate through the highly annoying automated attendant. Any company that resorts to automated attendants for first line customer service stands a high chance of losing my business under the best of conditions.  As a life rule I don’t talk to computers.  Cus at them a lot but never talk.
Once I finally got a human on the phone she said “yes, I see where you canceled on the 7th. Let me let you talk to ‘Ecom’ about the billing and why the charges haven’t come off your account.”

So the guy from “Ecom” gets on the phone.  He said the order “couldn’t have been canceled”. I told him the previous customer service rep told me that it was. He replied, with attitude, “that person doesn’t work in Ecom and could not have canceled the order”.

So did the radios ship? “I can’t tell you at this time”. What about the charges for the radio, how do I get those back?  His response “there’s nothing I can do about it at this time sir”.

So here I was trying to buy additional radios and add service to my account so Sirius could have more revenue. Instead they screw up the order, the cancellation, charged me for the canceled order and can’t even tell me if the radios shipped. Send me to cancellations.

Now customer retention is on the case right? Problem is that if Sirius screws up bad, like they have, customer retention can’t do a damn thing despite their efforts. She tried contacting corporate customer relations and a lot more but couldn’t get an answer on what’s going on or what to do. So “cancel my service” I said.  “That’s why I was transferred to ‘cancellations’ in the first place.”

She responded, “Well, can I give you three months for free for the inconvenience?” And I asked “Can you tell me when I can expect my money back? Or how many more times you guys will keep putting holds on my card without shipping any product?” She could not.

Then she put me on hold again. She came back to inform me that “I’ve escalated your issue to my manager who will have someone from corporate customer relations contact you within 5 to 7 days.” 5 to 7 days??? “Are you for real?” Of course she was.

So I had no alternative, “Cancel the service.”  The battle presses on.

Bad customer service will cost revenue. This, along with other management reasons, is why Sirius closed at $0.13 a share today. They’re scheduled to be delisted from Nasdaq on April 20, 2009.

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Do you think a government economic stimulus package will create jobs for Americans?

I don’t think so.  Of course some action by the government is better than nothing but let’s allow common sense and business logic to prevail.  First, let’s think about state infrastructure projects and construction jobs.  The very second that money is allocated to infrastructure projects (which will take months or years of debate before allocation) the state and municipal governments will put those jobs out to bid.  The awards processes will be partisan and corrupted through social networks and politics.  A few rich guys will make some other rich guys richer.

But somewhere along the line a rich guy has got to get the job done.  That’s when he’ll hire some cheap labor.  Real cheap.  Like non English speaking, work visa, Hispanic cheap.  The Mexicans have not stopped crossing the border looking for work and now they’ll work for even less.  So the labor money will go in large sums to Mexico, Puerto Rico and other Hispanic origins.  I’ve personally known white and black males who’ve tried to work on mostly Hispanic construction crews and it is reported to be intolerable.  It is also a closed club where the American stands out as the only non Spanish speaking guy on the crew.  Prepare to see more real cheap lobor on job sites everywhere as the true American middle class suffers and politicians proclaim they’ve created jobs.

I also question the common sense behind other areas of economic “stimulus” that have been discussed like renewable energy technology.  How many people do you know with education or experience in crystalline silicone solar technology that’s looking for a job?  Didn’t think so.  What about Vanadium Bromide battery manufacturing?  Me neither.  So how is government investment in renewable energy technology going to create jobs among a populous without training in such technologies?  This problem reaches from the raw materials handling to the actual manufacturing of things like solar cells.  The people I know who are out of work are not in a position to quickly re-train to work in this new, complex industry.  There has to be education first.

To date I have not heard any actual solutions discussed that could really turn this country and this economy around in the short or long term.  I think we need mandates for increases in teacher pay.  If we want the best people instructing our kids and preparing them to compete in a future economy we have to entice the best among us to take the instructional jobs through financial incentive.  We have to invest in workforce training.  If we actually want to convert our economy back into one that manufactures high end technologies being discussed we’ve got to have a workforce that knows more than how to put a door on a car and paint it.  And if the cost of goods rise slightly to facilitate stateside manufacturing that is a sacrifice we should be prepared to live with, through increased salaries.

I also feel we need to give companies incentives to hire Americans inside the US for all jobs, not just the construction and services sector. Otherwise companies will always look for the cheapest labor first and that seems to come readily available from outside our borders.  I’m not calling it a legal or illegal immigration issue.  I’m stating that we need to make hiring US citizens the better financial option to businesses as opposed to the hiring of foreigners on work Visas.  Until this key issue is resolved the American middle class will continue in a downward economic spiral.

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KVM Battle Part II – Raritan vs. Avocent

I’ve had so many email requests regarding the outcome of the KVM testing at the American Kennel Club (see: Part 1) that I decided to post a follow-up to detail the conclusion of the testing and selection.

To cut to the chase in the end we went with Avocent and here’s why: We needed to support remote power cycling to 3-phase 208V power distribution units.  Raritan did not have a 3-phase 208V PDU that could be controlled to the individual outlet level through their web based “Command Center” interface.  Once again the “Command Center” is actually a 1U server appliance that must be purchased seperately for the environment.  Avocents DSVie3 is a licensed and installed service based component.  We spun up a 2003 server on ESX to host it.

Avocent Cyclades PDU’s were originally Server Technology PDU’s (and were OEM’ed that way by Avocent before the application of the Cyclades brand) and therefore Avocents DSView3 was immediately compaitble with the Server Tech serial interfaces which can be daisy chained three PDU’s deep.  We daisy chained two Server Tech 208V PDU’s per rack to the Avocent serial switches and tied per outler outlet interfaces to the Avocent IP switch ports specific to each server.   This gave us the ability to remotely power cycle A or B power to any server remotely.

In Raritan’s defense their Command Center does support individual PDU outlet to server association.  It also supports power cycling to individual outlets.  What they do not support well is 208V PDU’s which is quickly becoming the standard of data centers everywhere.  My guess is they will have this fixed soon.

Raritans Command Center also did not support as many types of authentication to the Command Center gateway.  AD and LDAP are supported if that’s all you want.  We were impressed that Avocent DSView3 supported RSA Secure ID token based authentication which we were already running for VPN access.  There is a bit more licensing involved with Avocent than Raritan and it can get frustrating to configure and activate on-line.  If you’re someone without the 208V power requirements and hate the act of on-line licensing you may find Raritan is in line with your requirements except for one thing….

The mouse latency.  This is where you will hear most complaints about IP KVM remote consoles.  Both manufacturers supported ALOM ports for SUN, and IP serial interfaces where required.  Where Raritan really fell short in out opinion was the cursor control during remote sessions through the Command Center gateway.  It was better to go to each switch individually where the latency controls made the cursor usable but not exciting.  With DSView3 we did not have such a horrifying experience.  There was latency but it was tolerable and fairly adjustable.  Raritans Command Center fell short on performance as far as we were concerned.  Now take in to account that we were working under the “cost be damned” project control doctrine.    If cost is a factor you’ll find yourself taking a much harder look at Raritan.  Neither of these units would serve well as a day-to-day remote administration tool.  MS Remote Desktop, Citrix sessions and PuTTY will not be replaced any time soon by any IP KVM on the market today.

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My 2008 Forecast in Review

Last year, on January 2, 2008 I posted my 318th entry titled “1st Annual Forecast – My Predictions for 2008”. Now I’m going to look back at it and see how close I was.

“Financial: A major US recession is coming due to the massive credit bubble bursting, an inability of the central banks to continue using credit to create a false sense of prosperity, and continued stagflation. Look for expanded government backed plans like the sub-prime mortgage rate freeze to combat the falling value of the dollar.”

While there was never a sub-prime mortgage rate freeze passed as legislation the rest of this prediction was, well, right on the money.

“Health: Health care costs will continue to rise during a long period of stagflation as health corporations attempt to increase profits or reduce profit loss for their shareholders.”

I guess that was pretty open ended. I don’t know that costs rose exponentially but I’m pretty certain they didn’t go down.

“Politics: My prediction is that the race will be tight. It will be a race between those who support Holy Wars against Muslims and legislating morality verses those who know that if we keep this up “Fascism will come to America wrapped in a flag carrying a cross”. – Sinclair Lewis”

Well it was close (up until the end at least) and after 8 years logic and common sense prevailed over failed fundamentalist ideology. Finally.

“Music: Look for me at any nearby shows performed by KT Tunstall or The National.”

Neither one of these acts came anywhere close to Raleigh. So sad.

“Technology: Microsoft will continue to take a beating for creating Vista and if the new 2008 Server is released it will not be embraced at any influential rate…

Look for more touch screen cell phones to flood the market in response to the iPhone rage…

Flat panel LCD and plasma TV’s will fall below $750 for a quality 42″ 1080p model…

Playstation 3’s will fall to a steady $299 this year and Wii’s will be more widely available as Nintendo increases production…

IBM Network Services Division contractors should be wary of the coming acquisition by AT&T. This could mean more layoffs in Research Triangle Park…”

These weren’t exactly predictions made on the level of Nostradamus but I nailed every freakin’ one of them… Boo-ya! Makes me a little more comfortable going into 2009 since I am suppose to be technology literate by trade.

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DOWNTIME…

So it took me a while to get around to troubleshooting why this web server wouldn’t boot. It was a video card issue. I just swapped cards. I really have just been too busy to give a damn about fixing it for the last couple of days but it was constantly nagging in the back of my mind. So tonight after I got Connor in bed I bit the bullet and got out a screwdriver.

Keeping servers and more importantly information services available is my job. I get paid to do it. Forgive me if I didn’t feel like living my job while out of the office for a couple of evenings. It’s not like I’m making any money writing this stuff. If I were, this server would have been up and running within minutes of going down. In reality, if money were involved there would have been enough redundancy built in that it could have never gone down in the first place. So sue me. Blood..stone…you know…

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Trimaco’s MPLS Network

This morning I started the deployment of Trimaco’s MPLS network through AT&T.  It will be replacing the older IPSec site-to-site VPN currently in place between two corporate offices and two manufacturing facilities.  Once the site connectivity is in place all locations will be configured to share a common internet gateway verses the individual gateways now in place.

I need to identify a good proxy server to put behind the existing PIX firewall that will act as the common gateway.  I also need to get to work on some network schematics because my predecessor at Trimaco knew almost zero, hardly one damn thing, about subnetting.   There are illegal subnets all over this network.  Not classless but pure illegal, as in multiple 192 class C address spaces with /23 net masks.  Please God, help the untrained who make it up as they go along.  Or better yet just stop them.

Here’s what I’m thinking…

LAN IP address blocks delivered via Windows 2003 Server DHCP:

  • 10.10.10.0/23 = Durham
  • 10.10.20.0/23 = Manning, SC
  • 10.10.30.0/23 = Phoenix, AZ
  • 10.10.40.0/23 = St. Louis

The servers address spaces at 192.168.1.x will stay in place on their own subnet.  This will require routing between VLANs on our Nortel Baystack 5510-48T but that’s bad medicine when a layer 3 switch is available.  An inexpensive router with two Gigabit ethernet interfaces would also be able to handle this.  I do want to change the subnet the servers are on from /23 to a legal /24.  I need to look at how much configuration change this will require to accomdate the PAT and NAT entries at the gateway.  My guess is little or no impact.

The end result should be dynamically assigned 10.10.x.x addresses to the workstations by location CPE with their default gateway ultimately being 192.168.1.250.  I have to make sure that 192 subnet is available to all other subnets via routing tables before the switch can be flipped.  I’ve also got to start shopping proxy solutions.

braindump(config-if)#>exit

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Racksolutions Rack Monitor / Keyboard Shelf

It’s pretty rare that I get excited about an inexpensive piece of hardware for a server rack. I’ve never been impressed or excited enough about one to blog about it. So this thing is already getting special attention. It’s Trimaco’s new Racksolutions KVM monitor and keyboard shelf ($429.06 at CDW). Why is this thing important?

For a long time KVM switches with integrated monitor / keyboard trays have been available from almost all server and rack equipment manufacturers. They have always cost anywhere from $1300 to $4000 depending on how many KVM ports are included. They usually come in 8, 16 and 24 port models. But what if you already have an expensive KVM switch in the rack? A few manufacturers have offered just integrated keyboard and monitor shelves and they still hover around $1000 minimum (monitor included).

Rack Solutions has genuinely come up with a product that has a space in the rack hardware market. Their shelf allows you to take any 15, 17 or 19 inch flat panel you may have around (or purchase) and mount it to the bracket on their keyboard shelf for under $500. I grabbed an old 17″ Samsung we had in an unused cubicle. It includes the mini rack keyboard, long cables, a PS2 to USB converter and fits in a 2U space. Simply hook up to the existing KVM in the rack and you will have a genuine rack console. I don’t know how long it’s been on the market but I wish I knew about it 8 years ago. Many anal IT Managers I worked for scoffed at the price of rack mounted monitor / KVM solutions. The same guys who never had to do any work in the rack.

You’ll have to tolerate the photo quality. I took them with my Blackjack.

keybd.jpg

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David Kernell could have gotten away with hacking into Sarah Palin’s email.

20 year old David Kernell hacked into Gov. Palin’s Yahoo email account and has now been indicted on federal charges.  He got in by answering a string of security questions to reset her account password using answers he researched on the Internet.  This was what’s known as a “socially engineered” security breach verses what’s called a “brute force” attack which requires more technical savvy to pull off.  David, aka Rubico10, could have gotten away with his attack.  Here’s how:

David was smart enough to know to use a service called cTunnel to mask his public assigned IP address.  This service (actually a server) is available on the Internet to mask the Internet address assigned by the users Internet Service Provider to a specific account (the account you pay for monthly).  What David wasn’t smart enough to do was use an internet connection that could not be tied back to him.  He performed the hack from his own apartment.

If a breach on the Internet is serious enough, liking hacking a VP candidates personal email account, the FBI or other law enforcement agencies can retrieve the IP address used to connect to the breached site (in this case Yahoo).  David thought that by using cTunnel to mask his IP address (by going through the cTunnel servers) he might not be tracked down because the address in the Yahoo logs would resolve to cTunnel and not his ISP.  Well, unfortunately for David the owner of the cTunnel service, Gabriel Ramuglia, cooperated with the FBI and provided his user and/or connection logs that lead straight to David’s apartment complex.

So there’s a moral to this story:  If your going to hack into a government officials private email account by all means use the open, public, wireless Internet connection at the nearest coffee shop.   By using a service like cTunnel, combined with the anonymity of an open wireless Internet connection it would be near impossible for any law enforcement agency to track back through the IP addresses to the offenders origin PC.

I’ve often thought that public wireless Internet connections are the single greatest on-line security threats.  They provide the cover of anonymity.  If the offenders connection was tracked by law enforcement to a local Starbucks the very most the IT staff supporting that point of connection could provide would be the MAC address (hardware address of the computers network adapter) used to connect to the wireless network at the time the attack occurred.  And I doubt that most would be able to pull the MAC off a cheap Linksys router most of these restaurants, bars and coffee shops use.  Should law enforcement actually get the MAC address of the PC used in the attack, trying to locate who bought that PC which was delivered through the retail chain would be virtually impossible.

So hack away from the Carolina Ale House or nearest hotel lobby.  Just don’t do it from your bedroom.  I just realized something. It’s pretty rare that I get to categorize a post in both Technology and Politics. Cool.

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Brightstar Communications in Raleigh, NC

Here’s a customer service story for you.  I just had to send this email to the CFO of Trimaco regarding an emergency service call I had to place with Brightstar Communications yesterday regarding a down fax line:

Drew,

Yesterday I contacted Brightstar Communications regarding our down fax line.  I was told to open a ticket through their on-line form which I did.  I was informed a tech would call me shortly to schedule a time for the repair.  I never received a call.  My follow up with Brightstar revealed that the ticket had been assigned to Tim Beach (Beech?).  I never received any communication from Tim Beech.  This morning I had to call and had to insist to speak with him.  It was apparently a big problem that I actually speak to the guy assigned to the call.

When I asked Tim why no contacted us to schedule a service time he went off explaining some big job they were all on at a hotel or something.  In a somewhat irritated tone, I admit, asked why someone didn’t communicate this to us because the service call was entered as an emergency.  He got irritated and hung up the phone.

I will be finding another vendor to handle this and any future problems with the phone system.  I know several with very good service records including Network South and Atcom.  I will not be conducting business with Brightstar Communications unless specifically directed to do so.  In over 13 years of phone system management and administration I have never seen such poor service or communication from a vendor and will quickly communicate this experience with everyone I know in the industry.

And I didn’t even get to wish him a happy 4th of July.  Mike Seibert, the owner of Brightstar, is listed as the Communications vendor and consultant for “The Business Clinic” in Raleigh which consists of “groups of local professional service firms experienced in offering and implementing fundamental business solutions for small and mid-size businesses.”  This is important because during the coarse of this saga Mike and his staff repeatedly implied the Trimaco was not big enough to warrent emergency service from Brightstar.  Never mind that Trimaco is several times the size of Brightstar with an annual revenue that dwarfs Mike’s.

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Back with a new look .

The conversion from Time Warner to AT&T DSL is complete.  It took a little more time than I anticipated because I didn’t realize their are no phone lines in my office where this server sits.  So the server’s on a wireless network adapter now and seems to be going strong – static IP and all.  I’m still hosting the DNS with No-IP.com because they’re paid for the remainder of the year.

The world’s focus is on the US economy now and so is mine. My rants in the coming months will focus primarily on this topic.  I won’t be watching my language because let’s face it, we’re screwed.  We’ve got job losses, banks are struggling because of loans that can’t be paid back, house values plummetting almost everywhere and gas prices that are through the roof.  Put $1000 under the mattress and get ready to ride out a depression that makes Grandpa’s look like fun.

The talk show pundits make it sound like it’s going to be alright.  The market is “correcting itself” they say.  I laugh at you sirs.  Please do your part to keep hope alive.  As soon as gas hits between $5 and $6 a gallon and the trucking strikes begin you better have food in the house because I hear there’s only 3 days worth on any grocery stores shelves at any time.  Gentelmen, start your gardens.

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