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English speaking customer service reps
Yesterday I called my cable company to switch the IP address of my cable modem as I now have a block of 5 addresses and in order to use them, a change had to be made. I called support, negotiated the phone tree, and spoke to a woman with a heavy accent. I explained what I wanted done (my sales rep told me to call support to get the change made) and after explaining it a few times, I thought that she got it. She said she had to transfer me to a modem person and then when the modem person got on the line, he said "I understand you are having problems connecting to the Internet." I told him that there was a communications issue and my connection was fine. So I got my cable modem reconfigured and things were fine.
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Ground loop isolator
I searched for the part to eliminate the hum from my stereo, but all I could find online was one for $10 + $7 shipping. So, I called my cable company to see if they'd come install one for me. They told me to Radio Shack and get a Ground Loop Isolator. I did, hooked it up, and the hum is mostly gone. It's still there when the volume is cranked up real loud, but that could be something else. Very nice.
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Poor timing of Macworld
I've come to the conclusion that having Macworld Expo in January is a poor decision. Here I am at the end of the year looking to see what else I can buy for my small business to get the tax deduction. I was thinking about getting a Mac Mini to run as another server and learn about Mac OS X server, but rumors say an Intel based Mac Mini is coming at MacWorld which is in a few weeks. I don't know if I believe the rumors, but I don't want to take the chance. So, I lose out on getting it as a deduction for this year. If the expo was say in October/November, companies could get in purchases before the end of the year and consumers could get their gifts for the holiday season. I understand that products may not be ready that early, but shifting the development to have them ready would make a lot more sense to me.
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Audio hum
My wife and I have noticed a hum in our whole house audio system and today I finally decided to do a web search and see what came up for fixing it. I found an article which indicated that any component hooked up to cable TV could cause the problem. This sounded far fetched to me, but what do I know about audio and intereference? So, I disconnected all but the MP3 player and the hum went away. I plugged in each source until I got to the TiVo/TV. When I got to the TiVo/TV (it's on a switch), the hum came back. So, I disconnected the cable and what do you know? The hum was almost eliminated! Now I'm off to the store to look for an isolator to fix the problem. I learn something new everyday.