Where I store my tech stuff

These are the brilliant words from Ann, a technician at the Road Runner National Help Desk. Of course, she was responding to my question about whether the 3com Home Connect Cable Modem (aka Tailfin) was discontinued in 2001. I had my cable installed in 2003, and they brought me a used, scratched-up Tailfin.

Fast forward to my present day hell where I have to power cycle said Tailfin several times a day when I want to connect to the Internet. I thought "always on" was part of the reason I'm paying a premium for cable.

All the Tailfin's status lights show the modem is online and operational. I asked Ann whether I should be able to ping the local IP address of the Tailfin. She seemed to think that I should be able to, but she couldn't tell me how. (You know why. That's another department.)

No problem, Ann. I know how to ping it myself. When I ping the Tailfin, I get no response even though all the status lights show the modem is online and operational. That makes me think there might be something wrong with the modem. And the fact that I have to power cycle the damn thing multiple times a day. But, as Ann says, it either works or it doesn't.

Unfortunately for me, Road Runner's definition of "it works" has me in my basement touching networking equipment every time I want to network. The alternative, of course, is to sit on the phone with the very helpful folks at the Road Runner National Help Desk who walk me through step-by-step how to power cycle said equipment. Can you connect to the Internet now? Good, it works! Until I have to call again tomorrow.

According to Ann, all she can do reset the modem. My local office will have to send out a technician to troubleshoot the problem. Right, except the local office already did that. They sent out a very nice guy who scratched his head a lot. Actually, he replaced the cable that went from my house to the pole because "it looked old". It's good to know that Bright House is investing in its employees. Oh, I almost forgot, these poor guys aren't employees. They work for contractors.

If Ann's statement is any indication of Bright House's and Road Runner's standards of service, I can tell them that it definitely doesn't work. 

I'm on the lookout for a new web host because the good folks at Network Solutions can't tell me when their hosting plans will support .NET 2.0. I spoke with a local hosting company this morning and the guy didn't even know what .NET was after he assured me they support "all the popular" web dev languages. After checking with his technical folks, he told me they're not rolling out .NET 2.0 because "it's buggy". How convenient.

I'm sure the standard for rolling out a new version of a product in a Web hosting environment is much higher than the standard for rolling it out on the servers in my basement. At the same time, I'd expect a Web host to have a much better technology infrastructure for isolating new technologies. Hell, they could even charge a premium.

I think Network Solutions is really missing the boat by not hosting ASP.NET 2.0. I'm not asking anyone to install a beta product or even a first release. I went with Network Solutions because I've been burned by so many smaller hosts, but I'm definitely switching.