As I mentioned yesterday, I cancelled my Vonage VOIP account. What I didn't mention is that I was an impatient jerk when I did it. I have been reading too much about corporate "retention" programs on the internet, and it made me jumpy.

The most recent story is about a rep from AOL who dragged a client through a patience-shredding script as part of the cancellation process. What made it news was that the client recorded the ridiculous call, and it has since come out that this treatment, in large part, is policy for how AOL deals with any customers who try to leave. A former "retainer" made AOL's manual available to the public. After going through all this stuff, and reading dozens of other horror stories about trying to cancel services of all kinds, I was ready to go to war to get rid of my Vonage account.

At first, I was talking to Jen, a happy customer service person. Maybe this won't be so bad. I told her I wanted to cancel my service because I don't use it anymore. Jen informed me she was forwarding my call to Vonage's "Account Management" department. Of course, this is industry-speak for dumping you into a pit of vipers who do everything they can to keep you from cancelling. But I wasn't interested in negotiating, or being up- or down-sold, I just wanted the account cancelled.

The guy who came on the phone never gave his name. He asked me why I wanted to cancel the account.

"Didn't Jen tell you why? I already explained this to her," I said. See what I mean? I was ready to rock-and-roll.

"She just said she had you on the line," he said. Then he started the spiel. "I see you've been a customer with us for a long time--"

"Just cancel the account," I said.

"Tell me why you want to cancel your service," he said. He was pleasant, but you could hear him readying for a comeback.

"No," I said. "Just cancel the account."

"Sir, you have to tell me why you want to cancel."

"No actually, I don't," I said. "I'm the customer, I'm done with your service, and I'm telling you to cancel the account. You don't need a reason. Cancel the account."

He was flustered. Rightly so; I was being an asshole as a preemptive strike against his future assholishness. "Sir, have I given you any attitude? Why are you giving me attitude? You have to tell me why you want to cancel."
Now I was revved up. It's a genetic thing, where about once a year, I need to vent on a poor, unsuspecting person in retail. It's my stress release.

"Get this into your head," I said, calmly. "I do not need to give you a reason. If your computer system requires a reason, or your company requires a reason, it is the fault of your computer, or your company, and I don't care. Cancel my account."

"I need a reason," he said.

I asked him if he had heard the AOL conversation. He hadn't. I told him I was recording the call (another neat trick you can do quite easily with Skype and some extra software) in order to add to the growing pile of horrible customer service experiences. He insisted that he still needed a reason. I relented.

"I'm cancelling because it's raining outside," I said.
There was a pause. "Because it's raining outside," he repeated.

"Yes," I said. "Do you see how asinine this is? We could be done by now, but you insist on needing information, which you don't. Cancel the account."

I heard typing sounds in the background. He was talking to himself, loudly enough so that I could hear: "... customer recording call... giving attitude... refused to provide reason for cancellation..."

At this point I was laughing; I know I contribute to the bad in the universe when I behave this way, but I also like to think that my targets are usually deserving of payback, so in some way I am balancing a scale, true to my Libran nature.

After a brief stint on hold while he finalized the cancellation, he came back, told me it was done, and I politely thanked him and told him to have a great day.

For future reference, if you want to cancel your account quickly, without conflict, and don't mind lying, your best bet is to tell the service rep that you are moving to a new residence that already has the service. Obviously, not nearly as much fun.

(If you have a doozy of a customer service story, please add it to the comments!)

EDIT: I figured it out! Dilbert is handling Vonage's tech support!

I cancelled my Vonage account today. Vonage is a "Voice over IP" (VOIP) company that lets you use your high speed internet connection, with their specialized equipment, to make phone calls. Slick setup, reasonable quality, and great value. For $20 a month, I got 500 minutes anywhere in North America, with all those fun voicemail, call waiting, and conferencing doohickeys thrown in. But then I tried Skype.

Skype is software that lets you "instant message" (IM) with anybody else in the world who has the software installed. It also lets you have voice conversations (hey... isn't that like... a phone call?!?), and with the right equipment, you can even do video conferencing. It's free to connect with anybody else who has the software, and until the end of the year, you can even use their SkypeOut service to make free calls anywhere within Canada and the US. I say "within," because that means that your location and destination must both be inside Canada or the US. Otherwise, you have to pay international rates, are similar to what you get with those long distance phone cards.

The downside of dropping Vonage was that I lost the phone number I had with them, so now people can't call that number to talk to me.
Luckily, with Skype, you can buy a real, dialable phone number, with an area code almost anywhere in the US, the UK, and a whole whack of other countries. This service is called SkypeIn, and people can use a regular phone to call you on your computer; and at US$40 per year, it's about 1/6th the cost of my previous Vonage service. I'm hoping we'll see Canadian area codes shortly, but in the meanwhile, I should be able to get by with my cell phone.

So how do you get started? Let's compare the two services:

With Vonage, you buy a device called a "router" either from their web site, or from an electronics store. Then you go online, or call them, to register your router and apply for a phone number. (In some cases, you can even transfer your existing number over to Vonage, but this takes some time.) Then, you plug the router into your high speed modem, plug your phone into the router, and start dialing.

With Skype, you go to their web site, download and install the software to your computer, and then sign up with a username and password. Type a phone number in the little box that appears, and click CALL. That's it. To make things easier, you can also create lists of contacts that you can dial directly by clicking on them. You will need a microphone and speakers, or a microphone/headphone combo (often sold as a "headset"). Some laptops (like my MacBook) come with a microphone built-in, but I find this creates some weird feedback.

The verdict? In my tests, the Skype sound quality was noticeably better, and Skype offers a wide variety of interactions: not only can you call, but you can also IM, video conference, or send files (a handy feature when you're discussing, say, some photos of a trip you just took). The main drawback is that you will have to be at your computer when you make calls; if you like to roam with a cordless phone, get a wireless or bluetooth headset that you can use with Skype-- that way you'll only have to go back to your computer to dial.

But perhaps the greatest thing about Skype is the effect that momentum will have on the service. Once all your friends have signed up, you won't have to use the SkypeIn or SkypeOut services at all-- just connect to them using Skype, for free, from anywhere to anywhere in the world. Which begs the question... how will Skype make money then?

I used some of my new herbs in an omelette yesterday. It was awful. I guess red basil doesn't go with eggs so much.

In other herb news, the thyme and oregano are beginning to droop and wither, as is the greek basil. The red and regular basil are faring well, and the rosemary is stiffer than a quarterback on prom night.

The main problem is that my apartment gets very little direct sunlight, so the more sensitive plants are starving to death. This is too bad, as I'm finally interested in keeping plants alive, now that I can eat them.

My mom just a finished a week-long visit with me. The thing about moms, and my mom in particular, is the staggering amount of work they can accomplish for their offspring. In seven days, my mother filled my fridge with healthy food and left me several simple recipes, redecorated my apartment so that now it looks like a cool, adult pad instead of a storage space for the homeless, and forced me to finally take out the recycling.
Besides that, we had a great trip to Millarville Market,
watched the Chuckwagon races and Grandstand show at the Calgary Stampede, and played more Scrabble in 6 days than I have in the last decade of my life.
Unfortunately, I have no photos to share as my camera battery charger is missing in action, rendering my expensive digital tool entirely useless.

Anyway, it was a great visit and I encourage you all to make sure to visit your family soon, or at least call and say hi. Love ya mom!

I haven't bought into the whole podcasting thing. There is one guy, who goes by the name Zefrank, who is insane and insightful.

Zefrank puts together a video podcast almost every day, full of miscellaneous ramblings, but usually including one or two short analyses of current politics or popular culture. But I particularly liked (and identified) with this post about ideas that you never follow through drugging you into happiness. A must watch for any artistic procrastinator.

We all make stupid decisions about money and numbers, but we may not realize this truth, or the cause behind it. In this mp3 audio file, Daniel Gilbert explains why our numerical judgement is so bad.

It is an intriguing and humbling lecture; I think all of us will identify with at least one of the foibles he points out.

In one example, he suggests you are going downtown to the theatre with a $20 ticket, and a $20 bill in your wallet. When you arrive, you realize you have lost the ticket; most people will not spend the remaining $20 on another ticket. If you had gone downtown with two $20 bills however, and at the theatre realized that you had lost one of the $20's, you would use the remaining one to purchase your ticket. In the first case, you see the ticket as now costing $40 (way too much!), but in the second case, you see the lost $20 as not being related to the cost of the ticket. In reality, both scenarios are exactly the same.

In another example, people were asked if they would drive across town if they could save $100 on a small item, like a stereo. Most said they would. When asked if they would drive across town to save $100 on a $32,000 car, most said no way! Why? Compared to $32,000, $100 doesn't seem like much, so the perceived "value" of going out of your way is small. But as Daniel points out, the $100 doesn't know where it came from; it's not worth less because it was a savings of a smaller percentage.

Every day we make decisions based on incorrect or out-of-context comparisions rather than the flat-out, objective value of a proposition. It's a fascinating listen, especially if you're in the process of making a purchasing decision.

I recently went on a camping trip with some friends, ostensibly to celebrate the fact that many of them had upcoming birthdays. I'm not a big camper, but it seemed like a good cause, and they are my friends after all, and there was a promise of cake.

Then nature intervened.

While most of the group were off riding their mountain bikes,
I sat in a hammock and fell asleep reading a book. I was awoken by a "thunk" sound, and discovered a small squirrel
trying to abscond with a delicious, organic apple.
I took the only action possible: I filmed the whole thing with my digital camera.

You can watch the varmint get away with it here.

I've put my MacBook through its paces, and now it's time for some hard truth. Despite my previous gleeful ranting, I've had some serious disappointments using this computer. But in the end, I don't anticipate most of them affecting the average user.

Within hours of having my Mac up and running, I was downloading and installing dozens of free programs. Many of these programs warned that they were "beta" or even "alpha" (meaning they're not ready for commercial release). I'm sure that some of the problems I experienced were related to this glob of potentially unreliable code. However, many of my concerns must sit squarely on Apple's shoulders.

Hardware:

• There is no "delete" key, but I fixed this by downloading DoubleCommand, which has worked almost perfectly. Getting used to using the Command (Apple) key instead of CTRL is annoying, and I still don't know how to quickly move my cursor in a document. Eventually this will become second nature, but then I will have the issue of mentally switching my keyboard habits when I go from my personal computer to the machines at work.
• The MagSafe connector, while brilliant
  
  Ed's note He just tripped over the cord a few minutes ago, and the laptop is fine.
  appears to be under-engineered. Several users have reported fraying cables, and another couple have experienced melting plastic or outright bursting-into-flames. The thin cable may be a victim of its own popularity, with people yanking on it instead of pulling the plug out by the lighted connector. I'm feeling uneasy about leaving mine plugged in if I am going out for long periods of time.
• Lastly, but most importantly, this laptop is unacceptably hot. Apple has recently started calling the MacBook a "notebook," claiming that the heat is normal for such a fast computer and that it shouldn't be used on your lap. Their own advertising (much of which was recently altered) used the word "laptop" and depicts users with the machines perched on their thighs. There is no conclusive explanation for this overheating, though I notice that the fan almost never turns on, and some people have suggested that Apple went with heat over noise. I'd like to be able to control the fan tolerance in a system setting.

Software:

• On the first day, the MacBook hung while I was trying to show my class the fast user switching feature. Not cool.
• Learning how to install software isn't the simplest thing; you run immediately into DMG files, virtual mounted drives, and the paradigm of dragging an icon to your Applications folder. A bit daunting for anybody. Once you get it down, it's a breeze, but be prepared for this initial shock.
• Parallels (used to run Windows XP) isn't as stable as it sounds. I've used it to test the IE browser for web sites I'm working on, and to play on a PC-only online poker site. About 10% of the time, it hangs. I don't know who's to blame for this, but it sucks. Especially when you hit the nut flush on the turn with a fish betting into you. Ahem.
• For some reason, the guest user I've set up for my students to use is hosed. Almost all the programs throw an error in the first couple of minutes, or refuse to work altogether. So much for "it just works!" Perhaps "it just works for one user" would be more accurate.
• The process of burning a CD messed me up. In the Finder (the OS X version of Windows Explorer), drives show up at the top, and folders show up at the bottom. So when I put in my blank disk, and didn't see it at the top, I spent hours searching for how to get it to work. Finally I realized that the blank disk shows up as a folder in the bottom of the Finder; you add files to this folder, and then burn the folder to the disk. This seems to be part of Apple's UNIX heritage, where you can "mount" a folder as a drive, and other uber-nerdy things.
• iMovie is a bit dodgy. I've just finished my second video, and while the interface is easy to use and I'm very efficient, there are times when titles and clips preview incorrectly, or go blank. I have to rearange them and update the effects to correct the problem. This would non-trivial and frustrating for the average user.

Design:

• I can't find anything to gripe about here.

That's it for now. On balance, I still love this computer. I just wish it wouldn't sear my flesh.