It’s five weeks since I started my diet and exercise regimen… now with assistance from green tea in lieu of my preferred beverages: coffee and diet soda.

I used to hate green tea. Hate it.

H-A-T-E

This is one of the reasons I suspected it was probably very good for me. I tend to dislike healthy things. Not on principle, but by design.

There’s this odd inverse relationship between my dislike of certain foods and their health benefits. The more I like them, the worse they are for me. The more I loathe them… What? You’ve heard of this?

I was disappointed, but not surprised to learn that green tea can benefit weight loss. So, I forced myself to start drinking a couple of tumblerfuls per day. Without sugar. So long as I was going to suffer I figured I might as well go all out.

After a few weeks I’m pleased to report that I’m still alive and doing rather well. Also: I might have been overly harsh about green tea. In fact, it’s not nearly as vile as other things I’ve drank in my life, such as:

• Gin
• Kaopectate (bismuth subsalicylate)
• Motor oil

No, I’m not being facetious. I did accidentally drink motor oil once. Just that one time.

It would be premature (and anecdotal) to say that green tea has been burning the pounds off me, but it doesn’t seem to hurt, and it’s forcing me to drink at least 4-6 cups of water a day (in lieu of coffee). Just the idea that it’s widely regard to help, and that I’m seeing (possibly unrelated) improvement is enough to keep me on it.

And I’m developing a tolerance for it. I’ve even got a favourite store brand (TAZO) though I’m also on Kirkland and Bigelow just to spread the misery around a little.  And I’m now exploring loose leaf teas, too (Argo, Teaopia).

Truth be told, I’m hating it much less and I’m getting quite good at making sure I’m getting enough GT every day. I keep it stashed around my home, my workplace and my person the way that criminals keep guns and money handy.

If you see me anywhere, come talk to me.  I’ll hook you up.

It was too late to fix the problem, and they had no excuse as to why they wouldn’t budge on their prices, but it was a nice call nonetheless.

Of course I didn’t actually get to speak to the President, unless the President is a nice woman named Nicole.

She wanted to know what had gone wrong. It helped that I’d written all the blog posts in this series: I had all the pitfalls described in glistening detail.

They have the names of the people who tried to assist me, are concerned that there was no follow-up, and promise to counsel them on how to avoid these sorts of things in the future.

Hey, it could happen.

I’ve now had TekSavvy service for nearly a week, after 5 days of wrangling with Rogers to release my line.  I’m not sure if Rogers managed to fix their issues of their own accord, or with some pushing from my wife’s friend who started making waves from inside, but my cable modem was finally freed to link to Tek.

The numbers were great.

There was an immediate improvement of 7 MB/sec in download speed.  Netflix was even more a pleasure to watch than usual, and with Tek’s top plan there are no bandwidth charges, so we’re watching as much as we want, whenever we want.  No worries.

It’s the honeymoon phase and I’m sure there will be occasional rough patches ahead, but I’d still rather deal with Tek’s customer service reps any day of the week. A great experience.

I filed a ticket with Rogers via TekSavvy explaining the problem. Rogers responded 45 hours later—just within their 48 hour deadline—explaining that there was no problem and service should be working normally.  I conducted a full shutdown of my cable modem and computer, waited 5 minutes, then restarted my system to discover that I was still being assigned a Rogers IP address.

TekSavvy looked into the issue and discovered that somehow Rogers had interrupted service at the wrong address. No, not over confusion over non-existent apartments  within my house, which Rogers had earlier used to explain why I couldn’t receive service from TekSavvy.  No…  This time they managed to disconnect the Internet service of a total stranger, whose address is completely different from mine.

The remedy?  Another carefully worded ticket, fully but simply explaining what they’d done wrong in fixing their problem.  ETA to solution?  Another 24-48 hours.  Meanwhile, some other Rogers customer is without service because their line was inexplicably cut.

At this point I fully expect to wake up tomorrow morning (after the 48 hour deadline), reset all my equipment, and continue to find that the Rogers Denial Of Service attack (a.k.a. Online Modem Activation) is continuing to latch onto my new cable mode, blocking my TekSavvy Service.

It’s hard to blame TekSavvy for all of this. Their Customer Service Reps have varied from good to excellent, but because their company is a wholesale reseller of Internet service over Rogers own lines they are limited by what Rogers does (or fails to do).  The ridiculously poor service and incompetent, careless mistakes that have left me without home Internet for nearly a week now are as a result of Rogers not treating TekSavvy like a valued customer.  Sad, but it’s not hard to understand why that might be the case.

Rogers would obviously prefer not to have to allow for competition by leasing out its lines to small competitors.  But as the local monopoly, there isn’t a lot of room to move in and create competition without this reselling provision.  How motivated is Rogers to provide their own competitor with top-drawer service?

Let’s face it, the average consumer would be livid with TekSavvy after this experience, assuming that the problem lies with them.

Rogers, as I see it, is either guilty of gross incompetence or gross indifference that borders on anti-competitive behaviour.  They are either poorly staffed or poorly trained in their customer service and tech support department, or they are providing the poorest support possible to resellers like TekSavvy.

Which is it? Both, perhaps? Is one masquerading as the other? Five days in, after having explained the same situation to a dozen tech support personnel and enduring multiple “mandatory waiting periods”, it’s hard not to assume the worst about my ex-provider.  Incompetence is, after all, not a crime. Nor is poor customer service…  but how does it affect the customer when the customer also happens to be a competitor of the dominant company?

Let’s see if they’ve released my line to TekSavvy by tomorrow morning.

Saturday was my cancellation date with Rogers. Why I should owe 30 days notice to a corporation is anyone’s guess, but the Rogers service agreement is a wishlist come true that you’re obliged to sign to get service.  I returned my cable modem, received a receipt as proof of same, and was notified that my connection to the service had been completely wiped from their system leaving me free to connect another ISP (in this case, TekSavvy, who provides their service on Rogers’ own lines).

I returned home and installed my new cable modem. It connected instantly—to Rogers’ Online Modem Configuration tool. Even though I had cancelled service, Rogers’ network was still attempting to provide high speed Internet using my new modem. It recognized that it wasn’t a Rogers modem, and served me a webpage explaining how to call Rogers Technical Support.

Trying to reach the correct department proved challenging. Because Rogers’ voice menu support system is tied to your account, it only provides contact options that match the services you are subscribed to. Because I was no longer a High Speed subscriber, there was no way to reach their Internet tech support, not without talking to the first person who answered and requesting that they transfer me to the correct department.

In all, I spoke to 5 Rogers Tech Support personnel on Saturday. The most technical piece of  tech support I received was from the 5th person, who insisted I must be seeing a cached page in my browser and that I should clear my cache. When I told him I’d already done so he directed me to call TekSavvy, insisting the problem was at their end. There was no acknowledgement, let alone explanation, as to why Rogers networks was still intercepting Internet traffic along a line that they were no longer providing Internet service to.

TekSavvy was a pleasure to work with. I was notified that while work orders for service changes went out every 30 minutes, technically Rogers had until 11:59:59 p.m. to release my cable line, despite the fact that I was no longer their customer and they’d confirmed receipt of my equipment.  So I waited, disconnecting and reconnecting the cable line, powering down and reinitializing my router about every hour, clearing my cache, rebooting my computer, trying from three different computers and 3 different operating systems.

Midnight came and went and Rogers’ network had still latched one of their IP addresses to my cable modem.

I called TekSavvy back and we spent an hour doing the required system checks to establish that the problem was not my fault. Despite this, I was required to accept Rogers Terms and Conditions for filing a ticket against them, agreeing that I would pay $99 if they determined that the problem was my fault. I agreed.  Sadly, I can’t charge Rogers $99 for tying up my line and consuming hours of self-provided technical support and line testing. Nor can I charge them for denying me Internet service which I’ve been paying for since Saturday morning.

It’s Monday morning now. Rogers is still intercepting Internet traffic on my cable line, trying to attach itself to my router, and preventing me from getting the service I’m already paying for through TekSavvy.

Any guilt or concern I had about the title of my previous post (Rogers: If We Can’t Have You, No-One Can) is gone. They really do make themselves difficult to leave, and make it difficult to start a new relationship with a competitor. I’ve kicked them out, and yet they won’t stop entering my house. I confront them directly with the evidence  and they deny that they’re still trying to come into my home, and yet, every time I switch on my modem—there they are.

If Rogers was a person, I’d be petitioning for a restraining order right now.

Really though, my expectations are lower and more reasonable:

• Acknowledge that there is a problem, and that it seems to be your fault.
• If you can’t help me, direct me to someone who can.

Rogers CSR denial, fingerpointing, and unwillingness to help solve the problem makes me feel like they’re the injured party. I’m not their customer anymore, so I’m not their problem.  But I am their customer.  Rogers is still providing my cable television service.

For now.

I arrived home tonight to both a voicemail and an e-mail from TekSavvy. The e-mail is titled “Rejected Cable Order: Attention Required”. I shook my head. I paid by debit so I know the money was good. TekSavvy’s own website verified that the service was available in my area, and in any case it runs on Rogers’ own cable network. So what’s the deal?

Sadly, Rogers is in charge of installing my TekSavvy service and Rogers’ support claimed that my house had been subdivided into many small apartments and they could not arrange the installation of Tek’s service without specifying which apartment.

Truth: This house was, at one time, subdivided into many illegal apartments.

However: The City of Ottawa put a stop to it 5 years ago, prior to us buying the house. It was converted back, and Rogers has been our service provider for the entire time we’ve lived here at the “restored” address.

I suppose I should feel fortunate that it only took ~40 minutes of cross-debate between me, Tek and Rogers to establish that service could be installed at a single address… and I only had to provide my account number to prove that Rogers had already been billing me at this address for the last 5 years.

So, I’ll be getting my service after all, and I only had to prove my own existence to do it.

P.S. for TekSavvy: A less threatening, more descriptive email notification would be appreciated.

UPDATE: Tek is again reporting that Rogers is still confused over the “multiple units” issue, and that an in-person look at the house may be needed to verify it’s not an apartment. They’ve sent another email to Rogers explaining that the house was converted back many years ago. They will update me again within 48 hours.

The only thing missing from this experience is “Hotel California” as the theme music.

They resorted to the usual fear-mongering, trying to make me doubt the speed and reliability of the new service, despite the fact that Teksavvy provides its high speed Internet over Rogers’ own lines.

I tweeted a complaint to @RogersHelps, which was completely ignored. Given the lack of interest from their live support, I’m not surprised, really. For immediate action, I suppose I should have tweeted to @Rogers_Sucks instead.

So it’s goodbye, and I’m getting Teksavvy’s unlimited bandwidth plan for less than I was paying for Rogers’ midrange plan.

I’ll keep you posted, but based on the feedback I’ve received from friends and colleagues, I’ll be recommending that you do likewise.

~$ cd /etc/kde4/kdm
~$ sudo kate kdmrc

Search for the [Shutdown] section, and make sure the shutdown and reboot lines aren’t commented out with ‘#’ hashes. Add (or uncomment) these commands.

HaltCmd=/sbin/shutdown -h -P now

RebootCmd=/sbin/shutdown -r now

• Inexplicably, several apps were uninstalled including GIMP and Wine. Easily remedied.
• This weird error message proved more difficult to fix:

dpkg: warning: parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 20544
package 'handbrake-gtk':
error in Version string 'svn3834ppa1~maverick1':
version number does not start with digit

Very odd because handbrake-gtk wasn’t installed on the system at the time of the upgrade. It was installed via a PPA some months ago, then deleted, and I thought I had wiped all traces of it away… Apparently not.

I tried a bunch of solutions from various forums until I hit on this one which worked:

sudo dpkg --clear-avail && sudo apt-get update

All in all, one of the smoothest upgrades I’ve had with Kubuntu (I always do it during beta; I’m too impatient to wait for the release to mature).  And KDE (now version 4.6.2) just gets more gorgeous with every incarnation.  Be sure to invite your friends over for a look, so they can see what the next version of Windows will be stealing.

Happy hacking.

However… I’ve been a privacy analyst for nearly four years and Facebook shows no immediate symptoms of becoming the next MySpace… so it seemed prudent to acquire a second account, devoid of any useful personal data, purely to keep tabs on the site’s policies and practices.

Today I received this: a warning in my margin that my Account Protection was inadequate. “Nice,” I thought. “Perhaps they’re really taking a more pro-active approach to privacy and security.  Maybe they’ve determined that most users aren’t aware of or don’t know how to access the correct panel to tweak their settings.”

Honestly, no sarcasm here.  I really did hold out hope that this was a legitimate, automated protection mechanism and I was being guided to a process that would be for my benefit.

Instead, I saw this:

Question: How will providing Facebook with additional e-mail addresses (Step 1) make my account more secure?  I had assumed that this action was intended for security: after all, they presented this “protection” warning to me next to an icon of a big brass padlock. I guess this is to suggest that I may become locked out of my own account?

And if you look at Step 2, Facebook would like a phone number.  More specifically, they’d like me to give them my mobile number.  Why?  Well if you’ve been reading the news recently, it’s because they’d like to provide that information to third parties.

Step 3: If all else fails, Facebook is willing to settle for the well-worn security questions… hopefully ones that don’t rely on common information that others know, or could easily guess, as happened to Ms. Palin not long ago.

Nothing about this warning feels genuine. Honestly, it feels predatory. Facebook, if you’re concerned about my account:

• Ask me to create better security questions.
• Prompt me to create a more complex alphanumeric password (preferably with upper and lowercase letters), and perhaps even to change it periodically.
• Guide me to the page that shows me how my profile page is viewable by the public, or logged-in users who are not my friends.  Then, offer me a link at the bottom so I can edit it to my satisfaction.