The bad news:
I can only send e-mail from my Road Runner e-mail accounts using SMTP from my home computers. When I'm at work (which is about 80% of my computer time), I'll have to either use RR's webmail, or another account—like, say, from one of my personal domains. Someone representing himself as a tier two support person for Road Runner posted on the forum at dslreports.com and confirmed the way their SMTP authentication works:our smtp server authentication is IP driven no other authentication is supported... so if you are on a foreign connection its not going to work which is a pain i know !!!!!!!Not a huge hardship, now that I've migrated my domains from Yahoo! Domains to GoDaddy so that my e-mail forwards actually work dependably. However, there are places where I'd like to provide an e-mail address that I can POP (that lets out my standby Yahoo! e-mail) and that isn't associated with my unique and very recognizable domain names (see my previous comments about online paranoia).
The good news:
It looks like the dust is starting to settle a bit, and speeds at the Foo household are comparable to what we had with Comcast. According to Speakeasy's speed test:
I can't remember what we're supposed to be getting, but it's a point of reference. Certainly, it's better than what I get at work:
In fairness, I should point out that the connection at work has to deal with a whole office of bandwidth hogs like the guy who sits for hours and watches old episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? on his computer.
Another bit of good news is that I did some checking into Grande Communications, which may or may not be the one cable alternative to Time-Warner/Road Runner in our neighborhood. I'll be looking at their pricing for comparable speeds, of course, but I did some initial research into their phone/internet/cable TV bundles, and it looks like going with Grande would be about $60 cheaper for comparable features. Of course, there are still all the tariffs and taxes to factor in, but I would argue that a savings of $20/month and ditching Time-Warner could still be considered improvement.
Meanwhile...
I'm having a vacation day so that I can go get my annual physical out of the way and then mosey—'cause that's how I do things when I'm on vacation—up to the Mazda dealership to see if I can make a deal for a new car. I even ran the old one through the car wash last night, and then came home and vacuumed up all the mulch and breakfast biscuit crumbs that had taken up residence in the carpet and upholstery over the past [mumble] years.October searches
- gravity pulls in allen,texas Allen does not suck.
- misfire peristalsis Yeah, well... you make me puke too, so it evens out.
- meaning of bad penny You ain't from around here, are ya?
- list of abbreations I see you've started without me.
- sweeturtle I couldn't agree more!
10 comments:
LMAO! I had so many other things to say. But it's gone to me know after that twins comment. You have such a brilliantly wicked mind.
Oops. Gone to me NOW, not know. See? I'm laughing too hard to type.
Tink: All righty, then. I was afraid I might not have been obvious enough.
Brilliantly wicked? I'll have to try harder. I was going for wickedly brilliant. The difference is wafer thin, like that between "aggressively stupid" and "stupidly aggressive"—and yet probably not worth exploring.
foo,
HAHAH! But how about Denise and Denephew?
By the way, if I can suggest, you can download a full 14 day trial of ZoneAlarm and see how you like it. As for unwanted Active X, Startup programs and BHO's, you can get the goods under Advanced Settings in the beautifully free Spybot S&D. I also use Lavasoft's free Ad-Aware SE because I'm paranoid...um,I mean careful.
I hope you have an easy time at the dealership. (cringe) and enjoy your day off, sounds like some moseyin' is in order.
Eric: On balance, at least I'm now pretty sure I won't have to explain to anyone what I was getting at!
Emmers: You know what's stunning (pronounced "stoo-neng", wot?) to me? I went back up to the dealership with every intention of buying a car, off the lot... with cash. Apparently, Mazda doesn't allocate very many of the hatchback Mazda 3s, because I've once again come home empty handed. The best I could manage was to put down a deposit on one that's "on the rail" and due to arrive in the next two to three weeks.
And thanks for the tips on anti-verminware.
Ohhh, that's SO bad! Almost makes me want to have twins!
On your Time Warner troubles... do you live in Verizon territory or can you get AT&T?
Peggy: I checked, and Verizon FIOS isn't available where we live. AT&T (a.k.a. Yahoo!, a.k.a. SBC) is available, but it's only DSL—not cable. Having had DSL before, I'd rather not take the speed and reliability hit to go back, if I don't have to; but in addition, SBC has been such an annoyance to us since we moved here that we've sworn never to do business with them.
But like I said, the Grande Communications package looks pretty good, so I expect we'll be checking them out.
Susie: Yay you. And no, I didn't buy a car yet. I'm told that for 2007, Mazda has significantly reduced the number of 3 hatchbacks (It's kind of an awkward model name without the "Mazda", isn't it? Maybe Mazda did that on purpose...) being allocated to dealers. According to the inventory search at Mazda's web site, there's a fair number of hatchbacks floating around the dealerships in this area—but most of them are manuals. That won't work, since part of the reason for buying a new car is to finally get me into a car with an automatic. I've been driving a stick in beep-and-creep traffic daily for the past 12 years, and it's causing me foot and knee problems.
So anyway, the car I wanted to buy and which is listed in the inventory search had already been sold, but there's another just like it that's supposed to be arriving in a couple weeks. Dunno whether "on the rail" means it's in transit, on some train, or if "on the rail" is dealer speak for "currently hanging on the assembly line" (which uses rails). Either way, I went ahead and put down a deposit to hold the car when it comes in so that I get first crack at it. If we can't make a deal, I get my deposti back.
For the record, when the car comes in (deal or no deal) he's getting it. It's taken me too long to get him to the dealer, pick out the car he really wants and put down a deposit. As Nike says..."Just do it!" He so wants the car, I was planning on going up to the dealership and talking to them myself. I was going to say, "Hey! Look you idiots! My husband wants the car. What do I have to do to make it happen?" They were about to see Turtle's ugly side and I was prepared to do Turtle Ninja moves on them.
So Foo...you are getting that car! Putting hypothetical foot down
Nope. Still don't get it. What's so bad about the neighborhood kids calling the twins "Phylbil?"
Signed,
The Mouth Breather in the Next Cube
Congrats on the soon-to-be new car, Foo.
And Turtle - I HAVE seen your "dark side" a time or two in chat many moons ago - I do NOT want to be on the receiving end EVER! B-)
And Foo - love the humor!
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