29. January, 2002 - A TiVo gripe, spam and privacy issues

• Last night my TiVo decided to dump the channel lineup I had. I came home to discover that all of my season passes, etc., were just gone. Sigh. Three hours wasted rebooting and reprogramming the thing, and I'm sure I've forgotten something. But since it was already screwed up, I did get to Erase Everything, which I think means the hard drive is defragmented now.
• National 'Do Not Call' Registry Proposed. That'd put an awful lot of telemarketers out of business. And probably just result in them sending spam. [fark!]
• I got a fun little story via email the other day and had to share. I think you'll like it.
• How I Managed To Can the Spam is another fine example of how to deal with a nuisance. [daypop]
• Qwest and MSN fumble handoff of DSL customers. Well, it's not so much a fumble, as holding onto customers who want to leave. But Qwest DSL was never that much fun to deal with. I was calling in for Tech Support (because my connection was down) at least once a month until I switched to getting my service through Professional Network Services who have been great. [strib]
• Qwest changes plan to share customer information unless customers opt out. It's only a temporary victory, though. They're waiting on an FCC ruling, and unless that mandates that they only release customer information for customers who've opted in, they'll probably try again. The thing that bugs me here is the complete lack of choice any of us have about local phone service. As long as I need my DSL line, I'm stuck with getting a land-line from Qwest. I think I'd rather be wireless, but I haven't gotten around to setting up an airport hub and directional antenna over at PNS. [strib]

Copyright 2008, Dave Polaschek. Last updated on Tue, 29 Jan 2002 06:17:01.