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I cancelled my XM subscriptions... I think?

I used to have 3 XM subscriptions -- one for my car, one for my fiance's car and another for my parents. I enjoyed the service much more in the beginning when the gimmick was less commercials & there weren't a lot of good online radio alternatives. Now that we have sites like last.fm, Pandora, Rhapsody, and Slacker.. and can hook them up to devices like the Squeezebox there's really no need for an extra device. XM's final nails in many a customer coffins has been adding additional service fees, more commercials & increasing subscription fees for secondary radios. Their bad customer service when it comes to cancelling an account hasn't helped matters either.

A few years ago I smashed my laptop bag into the line out jack on my old-school Roady, rendering it useless and figured it was a good excuse to get rid of one of the subscription payments. I soon found out that XM makes the cancellation process as frustrating as possible so users are more likely to change their mind. No option to cancel online, they MAKE you call a number..they throw you into infinite hold music and customer reps hang up on you.

Fast-forward to today.. two years later. It appears XM is still using the same old tactics. Still no way to cancel service without jumping through hoops over the phone. Sure, you can activate a radio online or over the phone in minutes without a problem, but you could easily spend half a day trying to deactivate that same radio. I wasted more than half an hour trying to cancel my two remaining XM subscriptions. I *think* the pain is over. Goodbye XM.

Posted Jun 27th, 2009 1:00 PM by AceBHound
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Aspire One - Swapped Atheros with Intel 3945 Wireless Card

This is an update to a previous post on the Acer Aspire One. Like many others, I was having wireless issues and thought I may have found a driver that solved the problem. Even though the Atheros AR5007EG 7.6.0.264 driver I had attempted seemed to work better than other drivers, eventually my connection did drop and the wireless card disappeared.

Some users are reporting getting the 6-cell battery fixes their wireless issues. Some users have reported fixing the issues with various versions of drivers. And some have replaced the wireless card entirely to fix the issue. The theory is either this Atheros card isn't tolerant of the voltage it's getting (or not getting), heating up, or it was a bad batch of wireless cards. Doesn't affect all Aspire Ones but there are enough people that are affected.

I've bought an Intel 3945ABG wireless card off of eBay for $11 shipped -- can't beat that :) Imagine my surprise when it showed up today in a bubble envelope without any anti-static bag. Quality. Well, I followed tutorials to disassemble the Aspire One on aspireoneuser.com forum and Ensieo.com and have the Intel 3945 successfully installed. Most of these tutorials are for upgrading RAM so you can basically stop as soon as you have the wireless card exposed.

One thing I will say about disassembling is take your time and try to find several tutorials to get the full picture. Getting the keyboard out was a little tricky, but a couple credit cards came in handy. I used them to push all but one of the tabs at the top of the keyboard in, then finesse the remaining tab by pushing the tab with the corner of one credit card while working the other credit card around the edge of the keyboard.

Also the tutorials will say to remove the keyboard & touchpad cables -- you need to release the black locking mechanism. So.. take any tutorials online with a grain of salt and try to get as much of an idea as possible. Then just use common sense and you should be fine.

If anyone has any questions about replacing the wireless card, I'll be glad to help answer them. Hopefully this solves the issue with losing my wireless connection.

Posted May 21st, 2009 11:18 PM by AceBHound
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Funny comments in source code
As anyone who's ever programmed knows, it's always great to come across a wacky comment in source code. It can be the highlight of your day. Sad? Maybe.. but sometimes developers can have a great sense of humor when up against tight deadlines or just plain tired/drunk :)

There's a thread on stackoverflow.com devoted entirely to the question "What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered?".

Here's a good one..

//When I wrote this, only God and I understood what I was doing
//Now, God only knows

Check it out and have some laughs.

Posted Apr 22nd, 2009 11:37 PM by AceBHound
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Issues with Acer Aspire One Wireless Card & More

I bought an Acer Aspire One Netbook over the summer -- and aside from the known issue with the fan being loud (requiring a fan control program like AA1 Fan Control the netbook is pretty darn sweet for the portability factor.

After using it about a week I noticed some odd behavior with the wireless card -- the wireless adapter would randomly disappear from Windows XP! Luckily I found I was not alone with this issue. A very large discussion on this issue can be found at theacerguy.com. I'm not sure if there's a guaranteed solution other than replacing the internal wireless card -- some people have had luck changing the power management settings or updating the driver. I'll update this post if I find anything that works or if I decide to replace the internal card.

I also experienced a problem with the battery not being recognized by Windows XP. The netbook wouldn't hold any charge and I was concerned the battery died after only a few months. Turns out the connection was just loose and popping the battery out & back in did the trick. Hopefully it's not an indication of things to come.. cause these things are really cool!

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Update 1: No luck with setting power management stuff with latest driver downloaded from Windows Update. FYI the setting that Acer and others have recommended changing is in Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager. Expand "Network Adapters" and double-click on the Atheros card. Then go to the advanced tab and turn "Power Save Mode" to off.
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Update 2: I downloaded Atheros AR5007EG 7.6.0.264 from Acer's driver page (found as a possible solution in the comments at theacerguy.com post) and so far so good. I have used the netbook for several hours each day and put it into hibernation mode when done. Usually at some point I would see the wireless drop, but haven't had it happen yet with this driver. I also have the "Power Save Mode" described above turned off. I'll test over the next few weeks and see if this remains true.

Posted Jan 31st, 2009 7:30 PM by AceBHound
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Google Chrome Web Browser - Voluntary Spyware?

Google just released Google Chrome, a web browser that has some pretty amazingly good ideas built into it. The most notable are that it runs tabbed windows under separate processes so if a webpage crashes it doesn't take down the entire browser -- and a more powerful JavaScript engine dubbed V8. They are making the code open source and inviting the community to get involved in changing the web as we know it.

You can check out some of the features of the browser or read up on why Google decided to write a web browser (excerpt below).

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better . By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers.

Still, as much as I love Google's innovation and seemingly charitable contributions to the internet.. I still view the company's offerings with a skeptical eye. If Mozilla had just released a Firefox version that ran separate processes for each tab, I wouldn't even blink at the chance to download the new browser. With Google, there always seems to be some "catch" and since they are known for data mining the catch is usually loss of privacy.

Essentially you are voluntarily allowing Google to spy on your usage habits any time you use their search engine, desktop search, toolbar, web browser, mail service, etc. It's in the terms of service and is totally acceptable since you are agreeing that in using their product(s) they can collect information. Google just keeps finding new ways of collecting more information from us.

Don't get me wrong, I think Google's a great company and has seriously helped shape the web over their first 10 years and they'll continue to do so. But I'm not going to use a Google phone with a Google Mobile OS to check my Google Mail.. and go home to search Google with a Google Web Browser and download files for Google Desktop to index, all while not thinking about my lack of privacy and data being mined by a single company.

That being said, I am hoping some of Google's ideas are adopted by the greater good and we start seeing browsers pay more attention to where the web is going with the blend of web applications and desktop applications. You can be certain that if Google's Chrome Browser is adopted as quickly as Firefox was, the competition will listen.

Posted Sep 5th, 2008 7:47 AM by AceBHound
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