Andrew, Your PS3 can't communicate with your router the way you want it to. That can neither be caused by nor solved by PlayOn. It is a completely independent problem between two devices you bought from other companies. You need to consult with them how to fix it. Just because our product/business relies on your network does not make us responsible for maintaining it. Similarly, if the power outlet which your PS3 was plugged into was not supplying the PS3 power, we would not be able to help you there either. If you choose to respond again with profanity on this matter, you will no longer receive any replies or support from us at all, on any matter.

My right to "profane" is protected by the 1st amendment to the US Constitution. Now you also have the right to refuse to deal with me but I would not base that on "profanity". IMNSHO that would be unwise to do so. My profanity is a sign of extreme frustration. Now if you wish to blow off customers just because they are extremely frustrated at you I would suggest to you that that would be a very unwise move. Take it for what you want I guess.

Meantime I will do everything in my power to insure that everybody I come in contact with knows that MediaMall is not a company they want to do business with. Now is that what you really want? I would hope not. Or can we civilly work together? Your choice.

Here's a recent exchange:

In the interim here I just want to say - All I ask for is for this software to perform *reasonable* well. I want to be able to sit and relax in my easy chair and watch videos and entertainment on my device *AS PROMISED* by MediaMall in their agreement with me. Look I'm a reasonable guy and willing work with you and actually put out enormous amounts of effort and cooperation with you trying to help everyone in the process. But there comes a point at times when even I feel like I'm being abused and dumped on as if this is my problem with no help whatsoever being offered by your side to come up with a resolution to such problems. Like a trapped animal I will strike back if treated unfairly (and I believe I'm being treated unfairly). I will become your worst enemy. If you wish to resolve this privately then email me. Otherwise the public fight is on. I will not rest until I receive satisfaction. Enough is enough and I am tired of being treated like the enemy here.

Response from Playon support:

Your PS3 can't communicate with your router the way you want it to. That can neither be caused by nor solved by PlayOn.

Of course it can. You can make suggestions and offer work arounds. Surely you are not lacking that much foresight are you?

It is a completely independent problem between two devices you bought from other companies.

I.E. we're about to pass the buck here...

You need to consult with them how to fix it.

You know what? Last week it was working just find. You know what else? For the last 2 frigging years (like how frigging is not considered profanity yet we all know it's merely a substitute) it's also been working fine. It was not until you guys were suggesting that I run these funky networking programs that it suddenly broke. Gee, imagine that....

Just because our product/business relies on your network does not make us responsible for maintaining it.

I'm not asking to maintain it - I'm asking for help. It's you who are refusing to offer help, instead choosing to pass the buck onto somebody else - namely me.

Similarly, if the power outlet which your PS3 was plugged into was not supplying the PS3 power, we would not be able to help you there either.

Really? I mean really?!? You could not say "Hey plug it in?!?" Man are you missing the boat here!

If you choose to respond again with profanity on this matter, you will no longer receive any replies or support from us at all, on any matter.

The profanity is a sign of extreme frustration. Need I point that out to you?!? Your support sucks! You blame your customers for things and refuse to offer assistance. You constantly pass the buck and blame your customers for problems you refuse to assist on. I am not the only customer that has pointed this out to you. When will you start listening? I can put you down without profanity but unlike you I am able to use the full vocabulary of the language to express myself including what you call profanity (which is BTW protected by the 1st amendment of the US Constitution) to not only express your incompetence but express my frustration in what may be called a short hand that you full well intuitively understand and know as I assume you are 1) human and 2) relatively intelligent adults thus comprehending not only "adult language" but also understanding it's common usage and expression. Yet you are about to use it as your scapegoat to refuse to deal with this issue because truth be known, you don't wish to deal with it. What exactly does that say to your current customers and potential customers? I leave you to ponder that.

But here's the real deal. You have a product that often does not work and that people are simply dropping you off as yet another company who does not know what the "F" you're doing (and who are we kidding here - everybody knows what I meant by "F" so lets stop kidding around and start really acting like adults. Ain't nobody being fooled by what "F" means. Your protestations about "profanity" are silly!). I would think if you were smart you would be working with such people - especially such people who were 1) technically inclined and 2) tenuous at working solutions such as I am rather than blowing them off with the "Hey you said a dirty word" excuse.

OK, fine, I didn't say what was politically correct so you'll just censor me in order to attempt to maintain a pristine reputation (though I'll just capture this over on my blog which you cannot censor) rather than deal with the real issues. Great. Give me my f**#$in $40 back and I'll go away. I'm sick of dealing with your screwed up company! I tried to help you but you refused the help so I give up!

Here's the deal, if I run pavucontrol (Pulse Audio Volume Control) and go to the Configuration tab there's a drop down for my Internal Audio. I had it set to Audio Stereo Output. Seemed to make sense to me. But my mic appeared as greyed out in the Input Devices tab. If, however I change it to Audio Stereo Duplex then the mic starts working. I guess it makes sense now that "duplex" means "goes both ways - in an out" but what doesn't make sense really is why would I want the option of making it so that my mic doesn't work (i.e. Audio Stereo Output)?!? I mean if I don't want my mic to be active there's already a mute button!

And on my desktop, which has a 5.1 sound card (and yes I have a 5.1 speaker setup) the option to get my mic working there is to select "Analog Surround 5.1 Output + Analog Stereo Input. Now all I have to do is go out and buy another mic for my desktop - I seem to have lost the last one.

Still haven't gotten HDMI working under Ubuntu 9.1 but I have some things to try out from the Ubuntu forums.

First off - never make a fucking phone dialing app that is incapable of accepted a paste of a phone number!!! You'd think that'd be a no brainer but way too many phone dialers do not allow paste. So you find a number in a web page or an email or you put it in a file - whatever. You select the phone number and you go to the phone app and want to paste it in. There's no paste. Stupid phone!

Secondly you would think that a phone application would be, oh, I don't know.... RESPONSIVE PERHAPS. Many play back those button tones we all know and love. But most phones can't keep up with even the slowest of typists. How hard is this to sense the button was pushed and immediately (I mean right away, with out hesitation - IMMEDITATELY!!! - did I say immediately?) play the fucking tone and be ready for the next button push. Come on folks, this is not rocket science nor is this a lot of work that the phone needs to do in order to accomplish this minor fucking miracle - yet on both Windows Mobile based phones and now my Android based phone this constantly happens. Is it hardware related? Again, how much hardware is needed?!? My old land line never seemed to have an issue accomplishing this task - why can't my $$$ phone do it?!? Write the damn phone app in assembler and make it (and the tones for that matter) memory resident so you have no excuses WRT speed! Really is this too much to ask?!?

And another thing about phones - why is it that the most common things I do require push and hold in order to work. Not just phones, sometimes accessories. For example, my Bluetooth headset of choice (Sony Ericson HBH-980) has a recessed power button and you must hold for a few seconds to turn on. Now I understand the concept of requiring such a delay to distinguish between a real turn on/off event and an inadvertent one but trust me you would not be inadvertently hitting this power button.

And why is it that I must always wrestle with Bluetooth to get it to work right. My BT headset can handle both "Media audio" (from the media player) and "Phone audio" from say and incoming all. Why the distinction? I don't care. Just call it audio. You don't know how many time I try to connect my BT headset and only the phone audio gets connected. No media audio. So I try to connect again. No go. Try powering off the BT headset and back on. Nope. Try turning off BT on the phone and back on No go. Then the phone hangs. Bluetooth is the only thing that seems to have the power to hang my phone, requiring me to open the case and yank the battery in order to reboot!

And then when listening to Bluetooth often I'll get gaps of silence, especially when starting a new song or podcast, as if it needs to buffer stuff or whatever. It's real annoying. Why is Bluetooth so hard, flunky and trouble ridden?!?

So I go to activate one of them and they ask for my 17 gillion digit card number then the last 4 numbers of my business checking account number. Well I don't know that so I need to go to the Wells Fargo bank site to get that. While I'm doing that it keeps saying "Sorry I didn't get that" and eventually I exceed my limit of retries. Hey I was just trying to get to your slow web site!!!.

Of course I'm dumped into the tech support queue where some ditzy blonde answers the phone. She tells me that she'll need to have my full business account number. I tell her I don't have that. I only have the last 4 because that's all your web page gives me. Normally I have to open up statement to get the full account number but I can't do that because this account is too new and doesn't have any statements. "Well you could just look at your checks..." to which I quickly interject "Listen sweetheart I haven't used checks in 18 years!". Then she tells me that she could help me but I'd need to give not one, nor two, nor even three but four forms of identification in order for her to help me! I told her that in no way would I be comfortable with that because everybody knows you don't achieve real security until after 20 forms of ID are presented and hung up!

OK stop and think here for a second... Why can the automated phone system validate me with just the mere last four digits of my account number, which is probably pretty damn easy to obtain, but the human needs the whole account number and/or 4 forms of ID?!?

Bottom line: Since I'm now at the web site I hang up on the dtiz and simply go back around and punch in my 4 digits and I'm validated. Stupid is as stupid does - and I ain't stupid - but I do see it all the time!

And then processes spawned from the original process go in the normal queue, so even if you put the first process in the low queue, the next process pops out in the normal queue. The correct way to do this is to have the original process, the parent process, in the low queue and have it insure any children created are also in the low queue!

Now I used to be that you could verify that with DNS, in particular you could use nslookup to find each of the names and see they have the same IP address. But more and more, Corporate IT DNS stuff is screwed up, perhaps in the name of security, such that they don't always resolve:

So we can look that one up but we can't lookup the other:

However ping works! And verifies that this is the same machine. So why doesn't DNS know about this?

Another pet peave of mine is people using either IP addresses instead of names (Do you refer to your friends by their cell phone numbers?) or using fully qualified machine names all the time when you don't need to...

Now before you say "Well they didn't know and they were trying to be helpful providing you with all the information" consider this: What the hell was the zip file for? There was only 1 file in it. Why zip it? "Well Andy, you hard ass, at least they are saving space because the zip file will compress it". Well then, riddle me this batman, why then capture the entire damn screen probably in the wasteful bmp format! And if you just wished to send me a bunch of screen captures why didn't you put only those in a zip file instead of having to call Word - and all it's inefficiencies - into play?

The end result is that they do it in the most inefficient and complicated way they can find!

So the conversation goes as follows:

Aside from the atrocious English spelling and grammar of this supposed College educated support tech... First off, why's he explaining my problem back to me? I know my problem - I'm not stupid.

Secondly, maybe ya should come to the party prepared! I mean the problem here is simple - a user simply wants to set his password. Have you read the trouble ticket? Do you understand the issues involve? Great then contact the user. But here clearly he state "please give me one minute" - Then clearly takes several! Shouldn't he have the solution in hand?

Note: "^M" included to indicate where the line wrap occurs as this blog software will wrap it differently

Email clients then linkify the first part (http://gisclarifyweb.somewhere.com/eSupport/eSupportjsp/MenuSystem/CaseViewMS.j) but fail to include the second part (sp?casenum=G03519757) resulting in the link not working and making the recipient have to do the work of piecing the URL back together. And with some humongous URLs (and you've seen them) this can be quite an effort. Move this to your small cell phone in a bumping bus ride and this is next to impossible!

So this has spawned an entire industry most notably tinyurl.com and friends. But why? Why not instead simple think up a meaning few words to describe the link and make a proper anchor href. For example, the above is talking about a Clarity case number of G03519757. So that should be the link text. Viola you have G03519757. This magic is achieved in Thunderbird - my mailer of choice - simply by highlighting the link text, typing Ctrl-L for link and pasting in the proper URL (In Outlock you select Insert: Hyperlink). There! You're done. Was that that hard? You've not only made it much easier on the receiver of your email by providing a simple - and attractive - link that will not break by being wrapped by any email client capable of rendering HTML (i.e. most of them) and for any incapable, they'll see the link in all its ugly glory and improper and broken wrapping they they must be accustomed to by now anyway!

So why don't people do this regularly? I'm not sure but my guesses run neck and neck between lazy and ignorant. What's your guess?

Why is it that organizations use Outlook at all? And then when they do they have their address books set up for <lastname>, <firstname>? That's not how I think of people - by their last name first! And to add injury to insult, often looking up people as <firstname> <lastname> fails!

I use Thunderbird and one of the first things I set up is an LDAP directory in the address book for the organization. Often this involves getting the secret LDAP info like server name and most importantly baseDN. Surprisingly I have been successful in getting this information most of the time! Once connected I have access to that elusive Outlook Global Address Book because essentially it's just and LDAP implementation. And my <firstname> <lastname> searches automagically start working directly in Thunderbird. Yippie!

Still there are broken search tools like SameTime's Add New Contact dialog which fails if you <firstname <lastname> search. Coupled with organizations propensity to use <lastname>, <firstname> is "Jessie Scott" "Jessie Scott" or "Scott Jessie"?

I don't know about you but I'm getting really tired of other people "protecting" me and treating me like a person who cannot protect nor fend for myself. I enter into relationships of my own choosing - of my own volition. But my government doesn't trust that I can make the right decision for myself and must force me to do what they think is right at the point of a gun. Didn't we used to overthrow such tyrants? Perhaps it's time to do so again!

If I wish to perform contract work for a client for years and at pretty handsome rate and I must then get my own benefits, to pick and choose those that I want and not get those which I determine I don't want, if I am happy with such a relationship then isn't it I who have voluntarily chosen to engage in such a relationship?!? If the government still wishes to steal my hard earned earnings in the form of taxation and they don't believe I'm paying my "fair share" then that is an issue between my government and me - not an issue between my government and my customers/clients. Take me to tax court if you must and I will show you I am complying with your silly rules for membership in the Socialist States of America.

What happened to the thought that we should limit the abuse of forceful power that the government wields against our lives in the forms of such laws? Unlike the government, private business does not hold a gun to my head to force me to work for them. If they did, then that, and that alone, is the proper place for government to step in and protect my rights which are being violated against my will in a non-voluntary fashion. Now government implements this abuse of power indirectly by forcing private business to comply with legislation designed to protect me, even against my protestations to the contrary.

We see this in spades by private businesses asking all of these security questions that provide no real security, and collecting even more personal information, thus making identity theft even more likely, all in the name of 9/11 and the Patriot Act and "for my protection" as they say. But what if I don't want such protection or if I feel such protection is actually counter-intuitive or that it provide less security because now the identity thieves have a much more convenient target - your cell phone company's computer systems (and don't tell me you haven't heard of such theft of that information).

Lord please stop my government from forcing me to protect myself from that which I've voluntarily decided I do not wish to be protected from? IOW if you need me to sign a release I will gladly do it but stop forcing me to live my life as you see fit! It used to be that such an ideal was esteemed in this country but not it seems to be reviled! Why?!?

So the tech closes my ticket. I reopen it stating "I still can't log in so this issue has not been resolved". He closes it stating that "Well you need the netgroup - go here to request that. There's nothing for us to do so I'll close this ticket again". I reopen it stating "Until and unless I can log into Unix machines and access Unix shares this ticket is not resolved". Again he closes it.

So I give him an analogy - I tell him if I go to the car dealership to have my brakes done and I get a call from the service manager saying my request is completed only to come to the dealership and be presented with a piece of paper telling me how I can request brake pads I'd be fucking pissed! It's not my job to pick the store where you'll purchase brake pads for my brake job! It's the responsibility of the auto mechanic or the dealership to resolved that!!! IOW it's part of the job and you should not involve nor expect the customer (i.e. me) to have to deal with this issue.

He states he understands but he's just following SOP. I tell him "Well then the process is broken and should be fixed".

You see I'm struggling to understand why the support process is so horrible at such corporations. We would not accept such "service" from our auto mechanic, plumber, etc. - why do we tolerate it from our helpdesk team?

OK so I'm signing up for access to the Unix shares and machines so I can use Clearcase. I need to use Clearcase! I mean I'm the Clearcase admin right?. So first off there's a process, and process documentation to go through - a 4 Meg 70 page process! And the step by step guide is, of course, old and wrong. Muddling trough I submit a ticket to some support group...

Gripe 1: Why do I need to provide all kinds of information for this simple request? IOW Why isn't a simple one "I need Clearcase access to X" sufficient! Oh well. Rule - keep things simple.

So I get an email with yet another 8 step procedure that I must complete to get this access. Plus the way they describe it - Go here, click there, put your username here, search for this, select that - for most users (what if I'm not most users? How would I know if I'm an exception)? Etc. Then submit to start the process!

Ah I see a problem here, they tell me to go to this page and search for that then I'm presented another page. Why not give me the link to that other page? Well because the web programmer didn't program it such that it has a unique URL. Bad design!

Gripe 2 : Why must I follow various individualized steps? If I must fill in certain fields certain ways, why not give me a link that fills them in for me? Reduce the steps! Never tell the user to go to a web page then start clicking to go to yet other web sites - just point them to their final destination!

Gripe 3: What do you mean start the process?!? I started the process last step. Aren't we in process?!?

Gripe 4: Waiting. Where possible eliminate user wait time! This is the 21st century! Wait times of over a few nanoseconds shouldn't be there. Now I know sometimes you need to get "approval" of the boss or whatever but make it quick.

Gripe 5: After we complete this we get more instructions?!? You're kidding right?

Gripe 6: Never send email that does not have a proper reply to address. Doing so assumes your communication is perfect. It's not!

With Linux there's always one more resource, google the problem and you'll find a forum somewhere with the answer, even if it means you'll have to recompile something. It's better to recompile than to fall back to reformat and reinstall...

You just got through saying you don't have to google forums for answers and now you do!

All that said, I've been using Unix (then Linux, etc) both professionally and personally since ~92. I run a Linux based web server, mail server, etc. out of my house and have done so since around '99 and I just switched to Ubuntu 9.04 for my everyday desktop. Here's some real world experience for you from the last few weeks.

No need for drivers? Well the relatively recent ATI Radeon 3200HD card that came with my new system that I just bought doesn't work with Jaunty. There are "open source" drivers but they don't do accelerated 3D graphics. The proprietary drivers do 3D accelerated graphics but don't work with dual monitors and cause X server crashes because 9.04 decided to use the latest X server. With no solution in sight I just dropped ~$100 on an Nvidia 9500 GT card. Got it home and it does more but I still can't run compiz (says Composite extension not installed). Speaking with people on the forums and they're telling me I have to add stuff to /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Tried that, even rebooted, didn't work. Some say use "Composite: 1" others say no, no it's "Composite: Enabled". Uppercase, lowercase? Who knows, no error messages are generated - it just doesn't work. Running regedit is easier compared to this!

Wanted to run Boxee. Sorry, no 64 bit version of Boxee is available. Search the forums. Pointed to a post that describes how to build Boxee from scratch given patch files, etc. Download them and the source. Attempt to compile. Oops, need to install gcc - was gonna do that anyway... Compiling... Oops missing package X. Install that. Recompile... Missing package Y.. Install that... recompiling... Looks like it's getting somewhere. Oops linker died - missing libraries. Gee why wasn't this in the build instructions? Oh yeah, right, because I'm doing bleeding edge building now... Finally after a few hours of this I get a 64 bit version of Boxee!!!

Try to run it. Buzzt! Sorry, won't run on the ATI card - needs accelerated 3D graphics!

Last night install new Nvidia card and try to configure it. Get the 3D graphics going. Start Boxee. Play an MP3 file... Segv! Wonderful! Try a video. Wow, plays OK. Try an online video from Comedy Central? Hangs. No way to get out of this full screen application. Can't reboot, can't get to a terminal! Have to power cycle machine! OK run Boxee windowed from now on. Try again. Video plays at double speed, no sound at all! Crap. Try another one. This one plays, for about a minute and then goes to double time/no sound. Wonderful. Let's try Music again. Oops! Hang again. Kill the window. Restart. Try again. Segv.

Don't let anybody kid you that Linux is without it's problems, trials, tribulation and frustration. On the plus side you can compile and configure things to your liking. On the negative side, except for us pinhead, geek, jerks (of which I count myself) your on your own!