[This post is mainly for my therapeutic purposes]

I HATE BROADSTRIPE (my cable company).

I blogged about them before, when they were called Millennium. They have about the most ridiculous support model one can imagine.  I can’t stand dealing with them so much that if there is an issue I wait for months to contact them, because the chances of the problem just randomly fixing itself are much higher than anyone from Broadstripe doing anything about it.

For several months my cable modem has been randomly rebooting itself. I found a way to get to the modem’s logs (192.168.100.1) and I discovered that the problem is due to weak signal from Broadstripe (every time the signal drops below a certain level, that no respectable company should ever reach, the modem reboots itself hoping for a miracle). Recently the problem has severely intensified and I lose connectivity about every 15 minutes. So I called Broadstripe and set up an appointment for Wednesday morning. Originally the appointment was set up for 8-5pm, but they promised to try to give me a morning slot (before noon). I called yesterday to confirm and was told that I’m lucky and that the technician will arrive in the morning. Today, as it was getting closer to 10am, I decided to check again and I was told that they may or may not show up before noon, and that Broadstripe can’t do anything about it. Call me crazy, but I thought that when I called yesterday they told me explicitly that the dude will be at my place in the morning. Luckily they showed up around 11am. I showed them the logs, they looked at signal levels and determined that they were way too weak. So they switched a couple of cables around, looked at the signal levels again and according to Broadstripe's diagnostic tool everything now seemed ok. 10 minutes after they left the modem rebooted itself, and the power level got back to the outside-of-the-spec level. I called Broadstripe to see if the technician can come back. Nope. Apparently they have other jobs they have to semi-finish today. They can come back tomorrow, but I’d have to take a full day off. Maybe they’ll be able to schedule me for the next week. I’m so frustrated that I wasted a half of the day and the issue is not fixed. I’m even more frustrated that I’ll have to waste at least one more day to wait for someone to resolve the issue. Why do they work only between 8am - 5pm and they can’t schedule a more concrete appointment? How many people out there can afford taking a day off to have their cable fixed?

As a side note, I think that I would be less frustrated if not all the issues that I’ve been plagued with in the past 2 weeks

• My hard drive died (again)
• The power supply in my media center died, and since it’s an older small Shuttle case I can’t find a replacement so I’ll most likely end up building a new machine
• I no longer have cell coverage for about 30% of the way between work and home. A week ago AT&T promised to fix it within a day or two
• My home internet connection sucks

Washington Mutual seems to be really desperate these days. Exactly a week ago I deposited a check with them via an ATM. The check itself was written by somebody who banks with WaMu. WaMu immediately withdrew the whole amount from that person's account. It then made 80% of funds available for my use only after 3 days (based on my experience most banks clear funds the same day if the check is written for an account in their bank). Today I got a letter from them saying that it will take 1.5 weeks in total to get the other 20%, because they need “time to collect the amount of the check(s) [I] deposited.” I called them and asked why it's taking so long. They repeated what's written in the letter. I asked how it's possible that it takes them so long to collect funds from their own bank, especially since the whole amount had already been withdrawn from the account of the person who wrote the check. The customer service rep kept repeating the same story, so I gave up. I wonder if it has anything to do with this.

As a side note, I am really bitter about WaMu. Late last year I bought their shares at a little bit over $27, since they seemed pretty cheap comparing to their high point last year (about $45). Today they hit $3.48 (day’s low). It’s been by far the worst investment I’ve ever made.

Microsoft Corp. has completed its acquisition of Danger, Inc., the company announced today...

 

Danger will become a part of the new Premium Mobile Experiences (PMX) team, a group within the Mobile Communications Business (MCB) of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft. The PMX team focuses on consumer-facing mobile project...

I tried Amazon Fresh for the first time this week. It’s an awesome service. Their prices are very comparable to what you can get at a brick and mortar grocery store (often even lower), they delivered my order for free (I requested the pre-dawn delivery so they placed the order outside of my door by 6 a.m.) and they even threw in a free bag of fresh produce.  I can’t tell you how happy I am that I didn’t have to walk through tens of isles and look for the things I want to buy, didn’t have to wait in a checkout line, and didn’t have to carry everything home.

One small suggestion for Amazon Fresh would be to spice up their web site. It’s a super plain web site and browsing it is not exciting at all. I wish it had better product descriptions, suggested recipes, community feedback etc. Maybe it’s all coming soon….

Seattle is FULL of startups. Here are a couple of interesting lists:

• This list keeps track of Seattle's 206 startups and their rankings on Alexa and Compete
• Here's a map of startups in Pioneer Square.

Exactly one week ago was my last day at Microsoft. The next day I started at Shelfari. Here’s a quick summary of my first impressions:

• Things move fast. For instance, last Wednesday we started having discussions about our invitation UI, which was pretty confusing to some of our users, and led them to inviting some contacts accidentally. The UI got completely revised and deployed to the live site on Thursday.
• I feel much closer to customers. I am on the feedback alias to which our users send their complaints/praises/suggestions. I feel like I totally know how our customers feel about us, what they like, what they dislike and what they need. I also know how to address their feedback in a reasonable timeframe.
• The open space concept has its pros and cons. I like the fact that I can turn around and discuss ideas with the designer (Tim), but at the same time it sucks that I feel like each discussion may be disrupting the whole office. It’s funny that people IM eachother even though they are 10 feet away
• Free software is great, no matter how bad it is.
• People do whatever’s necessary to keep the business rolling. Some tasks are more expected than others ;) For instance, I never expected that I’ll be responsible for upgrading anything on a linux box.
• I love working downtown. *Walking* to work takes me about 15 minutes, and *walking* back takes me about 20 minutes. Taking the bus is about a 7 minute ride.
• All my PM skills still apply ;)
• I miss Exchange (this requires a completely separate post)
• Product Studio is the best bug tracking solution out there, and I wish it was available publically.

Today was officially my last day at Microsoft. Tomorrow I’m starting at a startup in Pioneer Square called Shelfari. Shelfari is a site for people who love books. I’m going there as their first PM.

I’m definitely sad and excited. I’m sad because I had a ton of fun in the last 6.5 years working at Microsoft, and I loved the things that we were doing in mobile. I also loved the people that I was working with. At the same time I’m excited because working for a startup will be a completely different experience, and I’m hoping to learn a bunch of new things.

I used this blog to talk mainly about mobile-related topics (or ocasionally to complain about bad service ;). I’ll probably still do both, but at the same time I’ll try to post more about life at a startup.  

I *FINALLY* got a new laptop. I ended up getting a Dell M1330 with the following specs:

• XPS M1330, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.2GHz/800MhzFSB, 4M L2 Cache)
• 2GB, DDR2, 667MHz
• 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
• 160GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
• 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

Here’s a quick summary of how I feel about it after 1 day.

Pros:

• Dell is learning from Apple and they’ve tried to deliver the laptop in nicer packaging. The experience wasn’t as cool as unwrapping an iPod, but everything came packaged in 2 pretty nice boxes, all the manuals came in a sturdy binder, and the laptop itself came in a Dell-branded protective sleeve which I can actually see myself carying in public.
• The laptop looks pretty cool (mine is white)
• The OLED screen is the most beautiful screen I’ve ever seen
• It’s just the right size (13.3”). Not too small, not too big.
• It feels pretty nice. Its keyboard feels pretty nice as well
• It seems pretty fast
• I think Dell has learned from people complaining about all the random stuff they used to install, and my laptop came with pretty much just the basic apps necessary to support its hardware

Cons:

• The laptop ocassionally makes a high pitch noise. I did some research on the net, and it turns out that it’s an issue with Intel’s processors. I called Dell’s tech support and they’re working on resolving the problem with Intel. For now the workaround is to prevent the processor from entering a certain power saving mode. Of course it may have impact on battery, but it solves the problem for now. I wonder what Dell + Intel are gonna do about it, since there are hundreds of people reporting the same issue. It just kills me that somebody could ship a processor that makes a high pich noise under any circumstances (even though it’s apparently not noticablable by everyone)
• I don’t get why Dell made me buy an external Creative sound card (pc express). There was no way to uncheck it in the pruchasing process, and it costs about $75. The laptop itself ships with an internal sound card which is good enough for my needs, and I’ll never use the external one.
• I wish the laptop had a slightly higher resolution. 1280x800 is ok, but they could squeeze more out of a 13.3” screen
• The laptop is pretty expensive

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the laptop. Initially I panicked about the high pich noise issue, but I hope Dell is gonna fix it via a BIOS update.

The mobile Live Search team just released a new version of the live search client. I love the addition of voice input and gas prices. Check out this blog entry to learn more, or go to http://wls.live.com from your mobile phone to download the client and install it.

Check out Vodafone's ad for a mobile version of Windows Live Messenger... (the ad is being shown in Spain)

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anuncio_messenger_vodafone

  
Video: anuncio_messenger_vodafone

We now have a location-aware search client for Sprint users. Here's a part of the PR release:

As part of the strategic alliance between Sprint and Microsoft Corp., today the two companies are providing Sprint customers with the industry's first fully integrated GPS location-aware mobile search service in the U.S. with entire Internet search on Sprint phones. Voice search with visual results by Live Search for mobile using Tellme technologies will also be available on select Sprint phones as a separate download. The new services enable people to find Web, local, and phone content easily using traditional input methods or voice.