This may be likely if you are one of those celebrity worshipers that have nothing better to do than to sit around and watch awards shows and discuss gossip.  A social network may be a source for creating buzz about a topic to make someone go to a search engine  to find out the truth.    If I want to know about a historical event, I certainly would not go to the local beauty shop where a bunch of “old bitties” are sitting around gossiping about it.  That is the type of environment you get in a social network.  There may be tidbits of truth in the gossip but certainly not correct factual information in a timely manner.

For the rest of us, we want facts not gossip.  If I want to know something, I will search for it. Most people have learned the skill of searching on a search engine and weeding through the mess.  It becomes second nature to search specific, then broad, and then get a little more specific with each successive search.  Going into a social networking site to find relevant facts would be similar to going into the hen house with Miss Prissy in the old Looney Tunes cartoons.  In the cartoon it shows many hens sitting on their eggs gossiping about everything.  It is possible that I am wrong and just do not get it but I doubt that.

I think that search engines are safe in their positions as being the central point for finding things online.   Social networks will continue to be the place where people share pictures, gossip, and discuss politics.  I do not see it being a source for a person on a fact finding mission.  Of course you have those that do not think with their heads and are more into feel good information.  These people may be perfectly content going to the beauty shop to study for a test.  Anyone that has been to college knows that places like Wikipedia are off limits as being sources in a paper.  It is not that Wikipedia is not accurate but that since many of their sources are not peer reviewed, they could be seen as not credible.  Of course in some cases they are not accurate.  This same idea could be said about social networking sites.  They are fun to talk about things but not where a person would go to find out credible information on a serious subject.  Again, this is my opinion but I feel very secure in this opinion.  I do not think that technology has reached the point of being able to cipher fact from fiction in gossip.  Maybe one day but not anytime soon.

Now Barack Obama is in office and we have the oil spill going on in the Gulf of Mexico.  I have  heard people speak of Obama’s oil spill.  To clarify something, I do not agree with Mr. Obama’s policies at all.  On the other hand I do think that it is tragic that our two party system has become so galvanized that one side is likely to blame the other side for anything that goes wrong whether they had anything to do about it or not.    Regardless of the political slant that a person takes, it is sad how many people latch onto these types of stories.  I have reached the point of being suspect of any story of this nature regardless of whether I agree with it or not.

It seems as though both parties have their key issues that they use to get their base wound up and motivated to vote.  The motivation is to vote against the other side.  Usually the one denouncing the other side is not offering alternatives.  While this is not always the case, I think this goes on both sides. The reason I am bringing this up is because I just got home from going to get some dinner.  While I was out in the car, I heard someone on the radio talking about it.  The radio announcer was pointing out the same thing as I am pointing out.  I wish I could remember their name.  I try to avoid these conversations anymore because most times I engage, it usually becomes hostile.  I hope that sometime our current political climate can subside.  For now I just avoid the arguments by ignoring them.

This being said, they are no different than anyone else.  Any time a person surrounds themselves with like minded people, they have both credibility and non credibility.  They have credibility because they have many people with different perspectives on the same issue.  These people tend to be passionate about the stories they cover making it even more interesting to the reader.  They lose credibility for the same reasons.  Since all parties involved are passionately enthusiastic about the subject matter, there is no one to really question, or be critical of the subject.  When I say being critical, I am not talking about being negative.  I am speaking of having someone question motives, question processes and question the validity of the claims.  It is always good to have multiple sources from differing views.  By questioning the subject matter, it helps the reader wrap their mind around it and possibly learn the subject from differing views.  This is one lesson from college that has really stuck with me.  I use to see this attitude as being negative and just trying to be a roadblock to progress.  Now I understand that when people question things it often results in the reader being more informed.

One thing that is paramount when a person decides to be a technology writer is that they must submerge themselves into the subject. They need to learn it through and through so that they can not only know the subject but that they can be seen with credibility.  Earlier I made the claim that technology writers from San Francisco are similar to members of Congress in Washington D.C.  The point that I was making with that statement was that they live in a bubble where everyone thinks the same way.  There are no people questioning their motives, processes, or validity of their claims.  This is not meant to disparage them but rather point out the dangers of isolating yourself from differing views of the subject. 

An example of this was a couple weeks ago when the technology writers became too passionate about their topic that they painted themselves into a corner.  The topic I am referring to is the Facebook privacy issue.  They were all beating the same drum.  They were all thinking that it was the single most important issue of the day.  They went beyond reporting about the topic to a point of encouraging others to cancel their accounts.  Even Leo Laporte made a big scene by canceling his account on his technology podcast, This Week in Tech (TWiT).  He was indignant as most of them were.  They were so passionate that Facebook had violated the people’s privacy that Leo Laporte actually said that by being on there he was coercing others to use the service.  One of the people on the show questioned him basically telling him that coercion is too strong of a word even making an example of Leo beating people  up to use Facebook.  Of course he was joking but it illustrated the point.  Leo reiterated his statement by saying “coercion is the right word”.  His rationale was that if people want to see the picture he uploaded then they have to join Facebook.  He said that was the only way people could interact with him.  I will say that most people tat would follow him on Facebook would know he has a blog where people can post responses.  This is a perfect example of losing touch with reality.

While I do like Leo, I think it is a complete exaggeration to think that people are force to join Facebook against their will so they can interact with him.  This is either the most arrogant statement I have ever heard or the most ignorant.  In either case, I think it is a direct result of being too  caught up in the circle of like thinkers.  If you want to listen to this dialogue for  yourself, just go to http://www.twit.tv and listen to episode 248.  The dialogue goes like this…

52:01 (Leo Laporte) I don’t wanna coerce other people into participating in Facebook because because that is how they would participate in with me.
52:09 (Jeff Jarvis) Why do you use the word "coerce" which I thought was a little bit strong. You’re not physically threatening them if they do, "you need to use the Facebook". I mean its like… you, you are giving them a tacit endorsement of it which maybe you are uncomfortable with but I think coerce is kind of a strong word.
52:24 (Leo Laporte) Nah Look, if you want to see that picture I posted on Facebook or want to see that video I posted on Facebook, or you
52:29 (Patrick Norton) How about compel
52:32 (Leo Laporte) I think "coerce is exactly the right word in my mind because I’m incent’ng people to join Facebook in order to interact with me. You know we were one of the things I was doing was uh…

There is another danger of this type of getting too caught up in a story.  Once he has deleted his account, then he no longer has access to it and the features that it possesses. As I said before, to be a good writer, it really helps to be informed on the subject matter.  Once the writer has proclaimed to the world that they are done with the matter and deleted their account in front of everyone, it paints them into a box.  The reality is that Facebook now has more than 400 million users, the vast majority of which do not understand or even care about the privacy issues. Facebook will continue to grow and now there is a person that has previously been considered an expert in the field that has publicly sworn off the very topic that he is expected to be an expert on.  He is now left in a conflicting situation.  On one hand the person can no longer have access to the subject thus leaving him out of the loop.  He can no longer be seen as an expert when he does not use Facebook.  On the other hand, if he changes his mind after vehemently denying that he will EVER go back, he will be seen as a hypocrite.  In either case, it is a lack of credibility.

One thing a writer cannot afford is a lack of credibility.  After all, if the people cannot believe what a person says then it does not matter what they say.  As a journalist, credibility should be of the utmost importance.  This should be sacred to anyone in a journalist field.

Surprisingly, I have to give credit to Robert Scoble because he seemed to go against the crowd and defend Facebook.  He seemed to understand that you cannot write credibly about something that you have sworn to never use.  I have to give him credit for that.  Again, this is not an attempt to put these people down but rather illustrate the dangers of group think.  Trust me, I am guilty of it myself.  I am very conservative politically speaking so sometimes I go over the top in my rants.  This of course results in my loss of credibility as well.  Fortunately for me, I am just a hobbyist and not an expert.  This blog is just a way to speak my piece to the world.  If no one listens then nothing is lost because it is not my job.  I do have to acknowledge though that it is important to have differing views even if the writer explains why the other view is wrong.  At least the reader has both sides and can make an educated decision on whether to believe the story or not.  I mean nothing against Leo Laporte.  I watch his podcasts all the time and will continue because I am a computer enthusiast. I bought my first computer when I was 17 years old in 1983.  This is the same year I passed my Amateur Radio license.  I have been an enthusiast ever since.

This brings me to the question that has been thrown in my face in the past.  This question is “What makes your morality, to be moral for me?”  They context of the question is that since my morals are based on the Bible, then my morality is irrelevant to them since they do not believe in God.  Essentially saying that morality is relative to your standards or belief system.  These people deny my belief that something is right or wrong because I use the Bible as a gauge, or measuring stick.  If this is true then I can just as easily say to them, what makes what they say right?  You can see the paradox that develops with this argument.  To think that morality is relative is self defeating because to to believe this, the person must believe that morality is absolutely relative.  Since in relative morality asserts there are no absolutes, then the argument is self defeating.

There have been many times that I have heard these people like Leo Laporte claim they do not believe in God.  If they do not believe in God, then the Bible that speaks of HIM, is just a myth.  If this is true then a morality that is based on a Biblical view must be a myth as well.  This leads me to ask by what morality to they make this judgment on Mark Zuckerberg.  How can he be amoral if there is no standard by which to measure right and wrong?  I single out Leo Laporte probably unfairly only because he is the single voice of the “This Week in Tech” podcast network.  The reality is that the vast majority of those in the technology broadcast movement also do not believe in God so they do not have the luxury of having the Bible as a standard of right and wrong.  They typically go farther then just not believing in God by speaking against religion as a whole, virtually discounting all religions.  If there are no  immovable standards by which they measure morality then how do they make this claim about Zuckerberg?

I ask by what standard does one measure right and wrong if it is not measured against a religious standard?  This question is usually answered in essence saying that it is wrong to cause harm to others.  Who defines harm?  Who defines what is acceptable in society?  If a person does not use a religious standard that is immovable then a person’s morality is subject to change with the society.  This seems innocent and acceptable if it is looked at independent of any situations.  The problem with having a relative moral stand is that causing no harm can be redefined.  For example, the German government in the early 1940’s believed they were helping society by removing Jews from society.  They managed to convince themselves into believing that Jews were less than human and therefore their “cause no harm” belief did not apply.  These Jews were not considered people that deserved to be protected.  Since the majority of people in that country during that era thought that way, then one could say that it was moral to kill Jews.  It is dangerous to have a relative moral stand in my opinion.

If people could be convinced that one group of people are are less human than others in one society then it can happen again.  I have heard people speak that education is the answer.  They say that educating people is the answer to all the woes of the world.  This seems reasonable on the surface but then that pesky relative morality comes back in.  Education as a general term is usually seen as a good thing but more and more often it can be manipulated.  Education can and does get used as a tool to spread a belief system.  A simple omission of relevant information, and the use of rhetoric can change the meaning of things.  For example, the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.  The original intent was to eliminate religious coercion while at the same time prevent the restriction of free religious expression.  Somehow over time, the education system of the United States has managed to convince people that any expression of  of religious speech by anyone associated in the government on any level is strictly prohibited.  In addition to this, the education system has managed to convince many that there are selected groups of people that deserve preferential treatment and cannot be spoken of negatively in any way.

Again, I ask by what standard to these people teach us what is right and wrong?  By their own measure, they have no moral standing to tell me what is right just as I do not have a standing to tell them.  I for one believe in the Bible and so I do have a measuring stick by which I measure right and wrong.  My standard often conflicts with theirs.  I think it is often less honest to impose a moral standard on others when they do not have an immovable standard.  This is because the motive is often self promoting and that is why I question all this Facebook anger.  When a person posts on the Internet, they are giving their personal information on a public platform.  They have to know this and if they don’t then they should be more careful where they post their information.    This notion that Mark Zuckerberg is amoral as stated by one that does not  have an absolute morality makes me laugh.  In my opinion, anyone that does not believe in an absolute right and wrong seems hypocritical to claim someone is amoral.

The more I listened to this podcast while I was mowing the lawn, the more incensed I became.  I kept trying to make mental notes to myself so that I would remember some quotes.  I did not mention most of them on here because this post would go on forever.  I was struck that a podcast labeled “This Week in Google” spent more time talking about Facebook than Google.  I think I have made my point that I do not agree with many things they say while still listening to them.  The reason I do this is because one of my hobbies is being a technology enthusiast.  Since in our country most of these types of industries come from one metropolitan, I follow these individuals.  Honestly, I do not think it is a good idea to be in lockstep beliefs with any one person anyway.  It is perfectly acceptable to take in many opinions to shape one’s own opinion.  In the end though, my disclaimer is that I will use the Bible to measure whether or not I believe it.  Thanks for stopping by and reading my opinions.  I realize that not everyone agrees with them but hey!  We all have them

They follow thousands of people with the hopes the eventually they will follow back.  Once they get 100,000+ people following them, they proclaim themselves “A-Listers”.  Other than this, there is nothing special about them.  Well they eventually try to exercise this power by proclaiming revelations about companies like Friendfeed.  So far Friendfeed has only been affected because those that have 100,000+ followers make these outrageous statements over and over again.  You see… Most of these 100,000+ followers are people that have to work for a living and only get online from time to time.  They do not have time to be involved in every story that comes out.  They find themselves at the mercy of headlines.  Does this seem like a familiar theme?  This is the way the media works.  They will make an outrageous claim over and over again to a point that people just accept it as fact and not question it.

Friendfeed is an amazing tool but unfortunately it has lost many users resulting in it losing its popularity.  Soon afterward Google came out with Google Buzz which is almost identical to Friendfeed in function.  The same people that use to say that Friendfeed is dead are not telling the world about how great Google Buzz is.  I will not argue that Google Buzz is a great tool for aggregating stories and allowing personal interaction on them.  As I said, Google Buzz is almost identical to Friendfeed.  One thing that is troubling about these aggregators that I never thought about is their inherent power to give more power to those with 100,000+ followers allowing them more air time.  I have noticed that many times in these aggregators I get the same stories many many times from different people.  What ends up happening is that one person will say something and then a percentage of their 100,000+ followers will repost the story.

This seems a lot like some of the multilevel marketing schemes you see around.  I am sure you have heard of them.  They boast about leveraging the work of others to grow your income capability exponentially.  The same theory is at work here.  One person says something and then hundreds of others will say the same thing.  A percentage of each of the 100,000+ followers will also repost to a point where you reach critical mass.  An individual may hear the same story a dozen times in a single day from a dozen different people.  The notion that it must be true because we heard it from so many different sources comes into play.  The truth is that you really heard it from one source and it was distributed through syndication.  It may appear that it is coming from many sources but it is really coming from a singular source.  I use to wonder why a person would want to follow 100,000+ people but it makes perfect sense now.  The sheer audience makes your voice multiply exponentially.  You can say ANYTHING whether true or not and if a percentage of your followers repost your comment, then a percentage of their followers will also repost it.  Can you see how powerful this can be?  This self promoted, self appointed power could be used for good or bad.  It is my belief that this is how Apple gets all of its attention despite only having 10% or less market share.  It is pretty ingenious if you ask me.  Be careful what you hear and believe because many times you are hearing a regurgitated story and not necessarily multiple sources.  Many people gauge credibility based on hearing it from multiple sources.  They are unaware of how syndication works and do not realize that those multiple sources are really just one person.

It is funny and frustrating that we went the extra mile to treat the lawn for weeds and since the vast majority of the lawn was weeds, we are now left with bare dirt.  This will go down as one of the major backfires of all time.  An attempt to make the lawn look better turned out to be a barren desert.  We are slowly getting it back in shape.  With work taking up a greater amount of time that it normally does my house work has slowed. 

While I am talking about work I must mention a complete 180 degree policy shift with regards to social networking.  At work the computer network has many security rules for obvious reasons.  Among them were the blocking of all social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Flickr, and a host of web based mail sites.  This week higher lever orders came down reversing this policy.  In fact this policy said in essence that social networking sites are crucial to mission communications.

I have to admit that I was completely shocked, pleased, perplexed, and worried at this policy reversal.  Shocked because I thought I would never happen, pleased because I use them myself, perplexed because the policy seems to go against everything we have heard over the years.  Finally worried because I know there will be abusers.  Most companies handle abusers with a heavy hand by removing this privilege from everyone.  I am convinced that it will not last even though I want it to.  I have often wondered why authority figures take this approach instead of dealing with abusers directly.  The best guess that I can come up with is that policing great numbers of people at the same time is time consuming and expensive.  By making these blanket policies, it is easier to be lazy and save money at the same time.  For the time being I will enjoy being able to check my Gmail from work for the first time ever.

I have decided to take a different approach to my behavior on these sites.  For one, I have removed myself from anyone that I work with on all social networking sites.  I not only removed them but I blocked them on Facebook.  This is because I often post on Twitter which updates my Facebook status.  Facebook shows comments of friends and their friends.  I do not want my comments to be held against me at work.  I have removed any reference to my employer from these sites so that I am not representing them on the Internet.  You may ask why I do this.   Well I have a weakness that I am sometimes ashamed of.  I sometimes hear a story on the news that really gets under my skin.  Many times I post my opinion online about that story and it sometimes comes across harshly.  I usually regret posting it after I do it but by then it is too late.  I know I work with a diverse group that range from liberal to conservative and many races.  It is easy to get caught up in the story of the day forgetting there are coworkers that disagree.

For this reason I think it is not wise to follow anyone from your place of employment. You may be friends with one or two individuals and forget that they are friends with other people from work.  Maybe even your boss.  You can easily see the potential for problems.  I have decided that it is not worth the risk.  I know a few people on the Internet that post using a pen name.  They do this not to hide their identity but rather to separate their public life from their employers.  There was a time that I thought they were just being paranoid.  This was until I ran a Google search on my own name and was amazed at how many search results came back, some with pictures of me and my family.  Maybe it is not being paranoid but being wise.  This web site is going to expire soon and I thought about changing the domain to something other than my name.  Is this crazy?  I don’t think so.  If I do, I will leave this one up for a month or so with a link to the new address so those that actually do care enough to stop by from time to time will be able to find it.

I do think it is important to have a brand that is yours but having a distinction from your personal life from your work is also important.  People often ask me why I have my own domain since social networking sites are so prevalent today.  This domain is my brand.  It is my address when Facebook disappears…when Twitter disappears.  I think that it is good to have an online address along with the social networking sites.  Your address can point to the other sites.  Over the years there have been many social sites that have come and gone but the domain makes it easy for your friends and family to find you.  Where most people would not post their home address, they can have their online identity.  Anyway…  I just wanted to explain why I have removed you and blocked you if you were blocked from my Facebook.  There is no offense intended whatsoever.  I know this one was long winded but I have been offline for a while.  Thanks for stopping by.

The truth is that I do not want to come across as some mean tyrant that is always mad at the world.  I know is appears that way sometimes because typing on the blog is actually therapy for me when I am in a bad mood or stressed out.  The funny thing is that later when I read some of the posts I usually find myself laughing at how angry I sound.  Although I usually still agree with my original point, I think there are more effective ways to get my point across without sounding off on a rant.

In a slight change of course I would like to say that really things have been going very well for us.  My wife got a new job that is a significant pay increase with better working conditions.  I got a promotion and a great evaluation at work with things working out better than I could ask.  The house repair is going slow but is actually coming together quite well.  Since I am not a carpenter or construction contractor I had very little confidence in myself in the beginning.  The more I do the more I feel like I can do anything.  Outside the house looks almost the same but on the inside it is very different.

On another note, our city is swelling up with civic pride thanks to our NBA team going to the playoffs in only their second year in Oklahoma City.

This banner above was posted on the Oklahoma City Thunder web site the day they made it to the playoffs for sure.  I had to make a screen shot to celebrate the moment.

In this photo you can see the Sandridge Energy building in Oklahoma City with the large sign on all four sides shouting out “LET’S GO THUNDER”.  Most of us are not expecting a Championship but just proud of how our team has gone from a 23 win season last year to a 50 win season this year.  We are proud of how our star Kevin Durant has beaten Michael Jordan’s record for the most free throws in a season.  He has scored more than 30 points scores of games this year earning him the youngest player to ever win the highest scoring player in a season.  We have another star in Russell Westbrook that often misses the well deserved attention because he plays with another star on the same team. Even the coach, Scott Brooks won the Coach of the Year award this year.  If they did not win another game in the playoffs our city can be proud of the way our players have played and represented our city well.

Life is going very well for us despite the world going crazy.  Yes I do have opinions on health care reform, our leaders (cough cough) and other big news stories but again I do not want to rant all the time.  I have chosen not to get caught up in the anger in the world.  Things are going too well to be ungrateful for what I have.  Sometimes it is nice to talk about good things.

I don’t know about you but I am just about fed up with this whole man is destroying the earth mantra from the left wing whackos.  Lately we have been making jokes and poking fun at them by showing all these snow storms and asking them where the global warming was.  These people have swallowed the pill and are so caught up in this fraud that they are actually arguing with us on this point.  They are saying that we are just missing the big picture and short sided to think that any cold snap would be relevant.  To them global warming is something that is measured over decades and cannot be compared with one winter.  To them it is easy to say that all these record snow falls are another example of global warming.

These people refer to people like myself as deniers.  They see us as those who ignore the factual evidence and say that global warming is not true.  I say show us the proof.  They blindly follow this global warming argument with zero evidence.  Some guy produces a hockey stick chart that is never proven and they just soak it up.  They think that this one leaked email scandal in England has convinced us that it is bad science.  They are wrong again.  We never believed in man made global warming, global cooling, or climate change even for one minute.  The leaked email scandal was just one more piece of evidence to validate something that we already believed.  Let us clarify something right here.  There is no man made climate change at all.  Zero!  This movement is created by those that have a socialist agenda.  You have heard the saying “follow the money”.  This applies in this case as well.

Please do not listen to me.  Pay attention to those making this argument and look at the common denominator.  The ones that are advocating global warming are the same ones that are advocating the governmental takeover of industries, healthcare, and the economy as a whole.  The people that were protesting in the streets against the establishment in the 1960’s are those that are in control.  These people were crazy then and they continue to be crazy.  These people are so caught up in this save the world mantra that they cannot even see common sense.  They see capitalism as evil and unfair.  They fail to see that power has the potential to corrupt anyone whether they work for a corporation or the government.  They do not see that government has just as much corruption as those in corporations except that the government has more power over them.   Their blinded hatred toward capitalism has kept them from seeing that their beloved government is even worse.  Look at history and you will see that every government that has tried socialism has either failed or failing.  They use global warming as a tool to scare those skeptics of socialism to believe that corporations are destroying the earth.  They want to convince people to give up their rights to the government so that evil corporations can be punished.

Global warming is 100% fabrications and has no evidence whatsoever.  They prey on the conspiracy theorists that hang out at Roswell, New Mexico and Area 51.  I know you have seen them.  They are the UFO believers and Elvis is still alive groups.  They are Big Foot and Locknesse Monster types.  They are in your neighborhood and mine.  They like to point out crazies that shoot abortion doctors and say this is how Christians are.  They use these crazies to label the whole group.  They are bullies that try to label you as a hate monger if you dare disagree with them at all. In the 1960’s they were bullies and they still are.  They are now media executives and school administrators.  They are idiots pure and simple. 

Weather forecasting on a global scale has not even been possible until two decades ago so there is no way they could get long term forecasts and historic temperatures to measure against even if they wanted to.  Since climate change is not a legitimate science but rather a fabricated left wing tool, it cannot be taken seriously anyway.  They try to bully people by saying “The debate is over” in an attempt to silence the debate.  One thing that the email scandal did validate with me is that these groups that are in charge actively suppress any scientist that would dare question this false science.  I can think of an example of this.  A couple years ago there was a guy that was actually advocating taking away the credentials of any meteorologist that would not preach global warming.  If you follow the link http://www.alabamawx.com/?p=650, you can read about it.  These global warming people are actively fabricating a lie and threatening to take away the credentials of anyone who dare disagree with them.  This is more evidence of their disdain for freedom.  Let us not forget that their beloved socialism was the title given to the former Soviet Union.  You may remember the biggest bullies of them all called the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics (USSR).

Just as I posted a few months ago, these people are opposed to the true Democratic free market society and this is the motivation behind their lies.  Also as I pointed out in that post, that they forget that many of us are old enough to remember the 1970’s when the same crowd was talking about global cooling.  They manipulate natural weather patterns to scare people that are too young to remember that a severe weather event is not the first time it has happened.  I know many of you have watched the national news in the United States after any natural disaster.  They find people in the streets that have no clue and ask them what they think about this event that has never happened before.  They talk about how the frequency of heavy rains, heavy snows, hurricanes, or even earth quakes are a result of man made climate change.  They have discovered something about human nature that works for them.  That human nature is to be lazy and not question those in authority.  The media places themselves as authority figures and repeat the same lie over and over again.  If they say it enough times, people are lazy and just accept it as truth.  The real truth is that there is no such thing as man made climate change whether it be cooling, or warming. 

The world is being duped and the media follows right along.   This is because those crazies you saw at Woodstock of the 1960’s are now in control.  They are just as crazy now as they were then.  They are just as much a bully now as they were then.  Wake up people and stop listening to anyone at face value.  Do some research from both sides of any argument and understand that people are self driven.  It is human nature to do things for one’s self and those that are in power are no different.  They know that in any society you are going to have self starters, workers, and lazy people.  It is easier to fall into the lazy category.  They drive people there by inundating us with negative stories on the news every single day to a point that people become numb to it.  Eventually people become so overwhelmed that they do not feel they have time to research things.  They just sit there and listen to what the media tells them not questioning it for a moment.  Stop being lazy and get off your lazy butts and learn something.  Learning is not just listening to someone else.  Learning is listening to an argument with a critical mind.  Learning is questioning what you hear and finding out the truth.  Learning is finding out from many sources and not just one.  You cannot just listen to broadcast media and be educated.  You have to listen to them and listen to those disagreeing.  You have to listen to many sides to the argument and come to your own conclusions.  Do not just listen to me, ABC, CBS, or NBC.  I am biased and I will tell you so.  These guys are biased and will not tell you so.  That is why you have to question both of us.  Learn the truth and not be ignorant.  If you believe this global warming scare then you are not truly learning because I can assure you that there is zero true evidence to back this theory up.  Thanks for listening to my rant this morning. 

Happy Valentines Day!

This router cost about $39.99 and was clearly on the low end of the spectrum.  The Internet was dropping about every 30 to 40 minutes on this router and the only way to get it back was to reboot the modem and the router.  I lived with this for about two months before finally getting so mad.  I thought I should change routers before calling Cox just to make sure that it is not my equipment.  In January my wife and I went to Office Depot in Moore, Oklahoma and spent $180.00 for what we thought was going to be a good router. 

This router is a D-Link DIR-825 and is an “N” router with dual band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz capability.  I did some research to see if it was a good product before buying it.  This router had some very good reviews and seemed to be liked by many.  I thought with all the positive reviews, this router would be a good choice because one of the advertised features was heavy use on multiple computers.  We came home and hooked up this new router and it worked wonderfully for about two days.  I was amazed at how good it worked when it was working.  After about two days the drop outs started again.  This time they would fix themselves after about five minutes.  The dropouts became so bad that at one point it was down five minutes and came back on for about 40 seconds before going back down.

I was becoming more angry by the minute.  I reluctantly called Cox technical support just knowing they were going to say it was my router.  I have found that many times when you call tech support for any organization they always blame it on your equipment.  Well just as I thought, they went through the troubleshooting process and within minutes came to the conclusion that it was my router.  Of course I did not believe them and thought they were just “passing the buck” so they would not have to take responsibility for my issues.  In my mind there was no way it could be my router because after all, I just bought a brand new $180.00 router with hundreds of positive reviews.  At this point I was not only angry but indignant.  In my frustration I started posting on Twitter about my persistent Internet problems.  I made a point to mention Cox by name because in my mind it was their poor infrastructure that was causing my issues.

To my surprise, my Twitter posts were recognized by several Cox employees.  The couple that I remember off the top of my head were Cox_Will, CoxNicky, and DonaldOhse.  These employees went out of their way to contact me directly to help come to a resolution.  It was Cox_Will that called me on the phone, did some tests, and had a local Cox representative contact me.  I posted a story on my blog that listed my symptoms.  I then sent this link to Cox_Will over Twitter. The person he put me in contact with was Debbie Chaffee from Oklahoma.  They had a couple technical support people come out to my house and spent over four hours on a cold rainy evening.  I really wish I could remember their names so they could get the credit they deserved.  They replaced the drop line to the box on the back of my house.  They installed a new cable coming from the box into the house. 

They even installed a brand new white wall plate that better matched the paint in the house.  They went up on the pole with some sort of tester to see if the line was good coming to our home. 

They even communicated with some tech support people at a remote site using their Nextel phones. 

In the end, they discovered that by pinging various servers both of my routers the latency was terrible and inconsistent.  They were showing me the results going from 7 ms all the way up to 184 ms.  When connected directly to my computer they were consistently less than 10 ms.  It was hard for me to argue with that.  Then they brought in a cheaper Linksys WRT54G2 router to try on a temporary basis.

With this router installed my Internet was working very nicely but I was still skeptical.  Like I told the two gentlemen, my other router worked great for two days before dropping out again.  The guy told me that he would leave their router at our house over the weekend with the instructions to give it a real workout.  He said that he wanted us to put it under as much stress as we could to force a malfunction so we would have peace that it is indeed the router that was the problem.  I grudgingly agreed to the terms convinced that it was going to fail before long.

Well it has been three days and I have been running multiple video streams simultaneously 24 hours a day.  The Internet has not dropped even one time leaving me to admit that it was my brand new $180.00 router that was failing.  I guess it is possible that I could have purchased a lemon.  I am sure these routers are mass produced and there are bound to be a few that fail.  This post is an attempt to fulfill a promise I made to all parties involved. That promise was to post a glowing review of Cox Communications if they could get my persistent problem resolved.  I am not only doing this because I gave my word but also because they really do deserve the praise.

This company had the foresight to to put employees on Twitter and other social networking sites to monitor the keyword “Cox”.  None of these people were contacts of min so they had to be searching for the word “Cox” to have stumbled on my posts of frustration.  These individuals did not sit there and ignore my please but took the initiative to contact me directly.  They stayed with me until the problem was fixed.  I never thought that Cox was doing me wrong before, but was convinced that because I live in an older neighborhood that the infrastructure was old and frail.  I knew that Cox was capable of delivering a quality service because I have many family and friends that are customers and they were very satisfied.  I just wanted to give credit to them and tell them that I am very loyal to those that treat me right.  I will stay with Cox and tell others how they were patient and just as persistent to get this intermittent problem resolved.  Every one of them deserve a pat on the back in my eyes.  Thanks Cox!