I’ve had the same business telephone number for 17 years.  Four years ago, I switched it from a regular business telephone line, to instead ring to my cell phone.  Last week, my wife and I decided to change phone service.

We switched to another cell-phone company (cutting the monthly bill from more than $145 to less than $60 — with more minutes), but I decided to move my business phone number to a VOIP phone service (voice-over-IP, often called “internet phone service”).

My wife was able to complete the cell-phone transfer instantly at a retail store; within minutes, her incoming calls rang to the new phone.

My request to port my business number to a VOIP service was handled very differently.

I submitted the order and authorization to the new carrier, which submitted the porting request to AT&T on Tuesday. The next day, AT&T advised my new carrier that the number was scheduled to port on August 19 (one week later).

However, AT&T immediately suspended my cell-phone service, without warning.

Now, prospective clients and employers who call my number hear a message that “This number is not accepting calls at this time” (which they’ll reasonably interpret to mean, “service was suspended for non-payment”).  I think it’s probably illegal, and certainly unethical, but there’s no practical action I can take to stop it. AT&T already knows that it’s lost my business, so it perceives no benefit from restoring my service or accelerating the “porting” process.

I already knew that about the interesting business conspiracy among the major cell-phone carriers, who have agreed to permit “instant porting” of phone numbers among their companies, but for all other phone number transfers they will only process the changes at the slowest possible rate that the law allows. But I never expected that they’d take special steps to punish customers porting to VOIP phone services, by disabling my phone number during the intentionally-delayed process.

AT&T has disabled my business phone for a week, as punishment for my attempt to switch to VOIP phone service. I will never again do business with AT&T.

Sometimes it’s designed to force customers to spend more money to buy upgrades, even if customers don’t need any new features.  However, there’s also a reasonable limit to how long a company can be expected to train its staff to work with customers using older software versions (often on antiquated computers and operating systems).

I understand the concept, and today I found an excellent “positive example” from the folks at WordPress: they announced that new versions of WordPress released after 2010 won’t work with older versions of PHP or MySQL. http://wordpress.org/news/2010/07/eol-for-php4-and-mysql4/

Of course, their announcement is entirely reasonable, in part because the changes don’t impose any financial burdens on anyone (all this software is completely free).  By requiring these newer versions of the software that WordPress relies upon, WordPress can provide better performance and more features without the cost of testing and adapting their code to work with older versions of those tools, and without the hassles of making certain features or capabilities available only to a subset of all users.

I’m more annoyed at companies like Microsoft and Dell, who proclaim that they won’t support products after a certain date.  I was especially upset at Dell, which essentially refused to provide support at any price for my Dell 5150/E510 computer, purchased in 2006, after the two-year warranty expired in 2008.  After re-installing the operating system due to a hard disk failure, I was unable to re-activate key features, including using the TV tuner card or DVR features. Dell flatly refused to provide support, even through its fee-based support programs.

Microsoft, to its credit, has sought to clearly define the “support lifetime” for each of its products, so that customers recognize that when they buy a computer or upgrade their operating system, they will cease to receive support from Microsoft (at any price) after about 5 to 7 years. (Of course, Microsoft itself won’t provide free technical support for its operating systems when pre-installed on computers.)

Recently, we bought a TiVo DVR and I was reminded of the absurdity of their “lifetime subscription option.”  You can choose to pay for the service monthly, annually, or with a one-time payment for a “lifetime subscription.” But although most consumers would expect that “lifetime” means “as long as the product works, including any hardware replacements under warranty,” TiVo’s definition is “whatever they may later choose to define as a product’s lifetime.” In other words, they might announce this autumn that the “lifetime” of the TiVo Series 2 (which I think has been available for almost a decade, though we only purchased ours last month) will end in 2011 or 2012, and then all those “lifetime subscriptions” will end.  And paying $300 for a “lifetime subscription” means nothing after the product’s hardware warranty expires (3 months standard, or 2 or 3 years with an extended service contract) — if the TiVo fails, your “lifetime subscription” ends, too.

For businesses, this represents a potential financial “trap,” especially if they operate their businesses using the standard depreciation periods imposed by the IRS (Publication 946, How to Depreciate Property), which assumes a 5-year depreciation period for “Computers and peripheral equipment.”  In fact, many computers and most peripherals will not remain in use for 5 years.  Your accountant can advise you on how to deal with this in your tax accounting, but from a business planning point of view, you should budget to replace most peripherals within 3 years, and to replace or upgrade most computers every 2 to 3 years.  In most cases, computer software will require expensive upgrades every 1 to 2 years.

A few months ago, at a search-engine conference in San Jose, Google was giving away free copies of the book Performance Marketing with Google Analytics: Strategies and Techniques for Maximizing ROI, which I gladly picked up.

I also had an opportunity speak with one of the book’s authors, Caleb Whitmore (who was promoting his consulting practice in another exhibit). I was quite impressed with his knowledge about Google Analytics, and I must admit that I was a bit embarrassed when he identified a capability of Google Analytics that I hadn’t found before — and which might have saved me a dozen hours of work in one project.

While no book can replace the actual experience of using Google Analytics with real (live) web-site data, Whitmore’s book does appear to provide a fairly clear “broad overview” of its topic, and will probably be useful to newcomers to the topic.

As an iPhone user, I sometimes find it annoying to navigate through web sites (including my own blog) which were designed with a standard desktop screen in mind.  On the other hand, I also sometimes find it annoying to experience a “crippled” version of a web site just because I’m using an iPhone.

This plug-in also gives users the option to disable the “mobile view” (just scroll to the footer and click on the toggle switch to disable (or re-enable) the mobile view).

There are many “settings options” for this plug-in, and I’m still experimenting with some. I’m currently using the free version, but will likely upgrade to the Pro version ($29) once I figure out how to use some of the features.

Let me know what you think.

I read an interesting article in the East Bay Express yesterday, noting that the City of Berkeley is considering adding new fees for residents to cover the increased losses from recycling.

Yes, folks, that’s right: most cities lose money from their recycling efforts, because the cost for trucks, staff, and facilities exceeds the income from selling recyclables.  One factor is poachers’ diversion of “high-value” recyclables (mostly cans and bottles), leaving cities only the heavier and less-profitable recyclables.

In our household, we’ve struggled with recycling for several years. Whenever we try to save our cans and bottles to redeem ourselves, we end up with ant problems.  But if we won’t profit from the recycling, it’s very inconvenient to maintain two or three separate refuse containers in our kitchen (currently, we have one for cans and bottles, another for paper and cardboard, plus a regular “trash” container).  This means we use more plastic bags, and spend more time replacing the bags.

And then someone raids our recycling bins to profit from our extra work and expense!

For years, I didn’t think twice about the folks who poached our recycling bins.  But then I noticed that when I picked up our empty trash cans, there was always “debris” in the street, which I long assumed was “cast-off” from the trash pickup (“lazy workers”), until one afternoon I watched someone “raiding” our cans.

An elderly woman pulling a cart stopped at our recycling bins, and began pulling items out and tossing them onto the street. She took the cans and bottles, and put most of the other recyclables back into the recycling bins. But then she raided the regular trash cans, ripping open trash bags to extract cans and bottles, and dumping loose trash onto the street. She made no effort to pick up the loose trash.

The following week, when the same lady came by to raid our trash cans, I chased her away.  A week later, she returned again, and I chased her off again. I started to wait until later in the afternoon to take out the bins, but then other people raided them, sometimes more neatly but sometimes leaving a worse mess.

My efforts to prevent “poaching” of our bins doesn’t just help me avoid cleanup work; it also keeps the highest-value recyclables for the city to collect and redeem, further offsetting the cost of trash collection.

I’d be less upset if the same people who poached our recyclables also picked up loose cans and bottles that people dump in streets and near sidewalks, but they don’t — picking up a single can or bottle isn’t worth their effort!

While reading the East Bay Express article yesterday, I considered what “extra steps” we might take, as a community, to prevent poachers from diverting our community’s resources.  Unfortunately, any solutions I can conceive of would bring extra costs (lockable bins and trucks that could open them; bringing out the bins only when the city truck turns onto our street). And of course, there are many “more important” problems facing our communities that deserve attention and resources.

Link: “Hands Off My Cans: Recycling and Anxiety in Berkeley” (East Bay Express, June 9-15, 2010), http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/recycling-and-anxiety-in-berkeley/Content?oid=1813895

When I first read the headlines this morning, I was confused and a bit angry: national political figures (South Carolina Representative and House Minority Whip James Clyburne and White House advisor David Axelrod) viciously criticized Alvin Greene, the winner of the South Carolina Democratic Primary for the U.S. Senate, and called for him to withdraw from the race. Some claim that his victory was “not legitimate” and that he is a “GOP plant.”

How, I wondered, could someone win the Democratic primary without being “vetted”?  Why didn’t the Democratic Party invest money to support Greene’s primary opponent? And most important, why should the voters of South Carolina be ignored?

Well, it turns out that I’m not the only one wondered what’s going on. As is typical for a story that breaks nationally on the weekend, there are lots of allegations but few pieces of information that could confidently be called “facts.”

Here are some of the allegations in news reports:

• Alvin Greene is unemployed.
• Greene is receiving unemployment benefit payments.
• Greene did not actively campaign, and was essentially unknown to South Carolina voters and politicians.
• Greene’s name appeared first on the Democratic ballot for the U.S. Senate nomination.
• Greene is an Army veteran who was “involuntarily discharged,” but received an “honorable discharge.” He was earlier a member of the Air Force and Army National Guard.
• Greene earned a degree in political science in 2000 from the University of South Carolina.
• Greene claims that the $10,440 filing fee came from his bank account, and was saved before or during his Army service.
• Greene filed no required election statements with the Federal Election Commission.
• The Associated Press reported that Greene was arrested in November 2009 and faces “obscenity” charges,” but has not entered any plea and has not been indicted. (Some reports state that under South Carolina law, Greene would be disqualified from running for office if an indictment were pending.)
• The Associated Press reported that Greene is represented (in the obscenity case) by a public defender (normally a benefit reserved for the indigent, not available to someone with $10,000 in the bank).
• Only one report claims that Greene initially attempted to pay the $10,440 filing fee in cash; others claim he initially attempted to pay with a personal check, but was advised to open a campaign bank account, and later returned with a check drawn from a campaign bank account (some reports say it was a cashier’s check).
• Greene received a higher proportion of Election-Day votes (cast using electronic voting machines) than of absentee ballots (a difference of about 10%), and an exceptionally high proportion of electronic votes in some geographic areas.

By most accounts, Greene’s victory will have little impact on the outcome of the general election. His Democratic party rival was widely expected to lose to the incumbent Republican Senator.  This explains why neither Democratic Party officials nor Greene’s opponent bothered to “vet” Greene’s candidacy.

While Greene’s primary opponent actively campaigned, it’s likely that many voters didn’t know anything about either candidate (the media’s focus was on higher-profile campaigns, particularly the gubernatorial primary campaigns).

Some analysts have suggested that many non-white voters might have voted for Greene because the spelling of his name effectively identified him as black.

Several commentators have suggested that vote-tampering might be a factor.

Some South Carolina politicians suspect that Republican “operatives” may have paid Greene to run for the Senate seat, possibly to ease the incumbent Senator’s re-election, and possibly to embarrass the Democratic Party.  Given the many recent scandals in South Carolina politics, it’s getting harder and harder to embarrass anyone.

__________________

Some news and blog reports about Alvin Greene’s U.S. Senate campaign:

• New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/politics/12greene.html
• Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/11/AR2010061106159.html
• Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/06/alvin_greene_raises_red_flags.html
• Politico.com: http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/0610/Clyburn_Elephant_dung_all_over_the_place.html?showall
• Politico.com: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38433.html
• TheHill.com: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/dem-primaries/102853-axelrod-greene-win-doesnt-appear-legitimate
• Independent interview with Greene: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Exclusive-Interview-with-S-by-earl-ofari-hutchin-100612-533.html?show=votes
• National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com/the-feed/204113/sc-investigate-greene-primary-win
• Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/10/mystery-surrounds-sc-senate-canidate-alvin-greene/
• Scott Creighton: http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/picked-to-lose-the-alvin-greene-story/
• Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0611/The-curious-case-of-Alvin-Greene-surprise-Senate-candidate
• Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/08/alvin-greene-upsets-vic-r_n_605365.html
• Swing State Project: http://www.swingstateproject.com/diary/7075/gadsbys-revenge-alvin-greene-and-south-carolina

Instead, I quickly recognized that some of the headlines were deceptive, as reporters sought to churn a minor clarification into a major story.

Here are some examples that I don’t think are objective (I’ve underlined wording I think is unfair):

• USA Today: “A divided Supreme Court scaled back the well-known Miranda right….”
• Los Angeles Times: “Supreme Court Loosens Miranda Rule” (headline), “The Supreme Court retreated from strict enforcement of the famous Miranda right on Tuesday….”
• Vanity Fair: “In the New America, You Must Invoke Your Own Miranda Rights”
• Detroit News: “Supreme Court narrows Miranda rights….”
• Newsday: “Supreme Court expands limits on Miranda rights”

Several commentators, writing before the Supreme Court issued its ruling, described the case as an attempt to “expand” or “clarify” Miranda, which required that before questioning, suspects must be advised of their Constitutional rights (to have an attorney, and not to incriminate themselves), and police must terminate questioning if a suspect invokes those rights.

But when the ruling was announced on June 1, most reporters and editors immediately transformed the “non-expansion” story into a “limitation” or “retreat” story.

There are two reasons why the media may have sought to magnify the ruling’s importance and impact.  First, the dissenting opinion was written by newly-appointed Justice Sotomayor. Second, when the case was briefed and argued, the U.S. government sought the ruling that the majority delivered — and the government was represented by current Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who is now President Obama’s nominee for appointment to the Supreme Court.

I assume that in the next few days, we’ll hear pundits proclaim that this case demonstrates that Ms. Kagan is more moderate (less liberal, more conservative) than Justice Sotomayor, which might make her appointment seem more acceptable to some Senators (and perhaps less acceptable to other Senators).  Undoubtedly, we will also hear some  pundits complain that Obama should withdraw Kagan’s nomination because she’s too conservative, and different pundits will claim that this case was a “smoke screen” intended all along to make Kagan appear more moderate than she “really is.”

In fairness, the “change” and “limitation” language was not the only “angle” that editors seized upon.  Many other articles instead emphasized the apparent contradiction in the court’s ruling that one must “speak up in order to assert the right to remain silent” (for example, the New York Times editorial, “Speaking Up to Stay Silent”).

__________________________

The actual issue in this case was whether a statement made by a suspect during interrogation, after remaining “largely silent” for nearly three hours, could be admitted at his trial, or should be excluded.

Mr. Thompkins was arrested for murder.  During his interrogation, he was advised of his right to remain silent, and he remained “almost completely silent and unresponsive”.  However, “At no point during the interrogation did Thompkins say that he wanted to remain silent, that he did not want to talk with the police, or that he wanted an attorney.”

After nearly three hours of an interrogation best described as a “monologue,” a detective asked Thompkins if he believed in God, and if he prayed; Thompkins answered “yes” to both questions. The detective then asked, “Do you pray to God to forgive you for shooting that boy down?” and the suspect answered “Yes.” Thompkins’ attorneys sought to have this statement excluded, arguing that by remaining mostly silent for nearly three hours, Thompkins had effectively communicated his intent to remain silent, and police should have ended the interview before then.

The “real issue” in the case, I think, was this: after police insisted that Thompkins read a portion of the Miranda rights from a card, and after police read all these rights to him, and after Thompkins refused to sign an acknowledgment that he “had been advised of and understood his rights,” police did not ask him if he expressly waived those rights.

The Supreme Court was presented with an opportunity to clarify the Miranda decision by deciding whether or not police were required to ask that question (and if so, whether they could insist that the defendant reply; or if the defendant did not reply, whether police should infer either a waiver or invocation of that right).

In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that police were not required to ask, nor were they required to infer from silence that a suspect was “invoking his right to remain silent,” which would end the interrogation.

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote:

The Court concludes today that a criminal suspect waives his right to remain silent if, after sitting tacit and uncommunicative through nearly three hours of police interrogation, he utters a few one-word responses. The Court also concludes that a suspect who wishes to guard his right to remain silent against such a finding of “waiver” must, counter-intuitively, speak—and must do so with sufficient precision to satisfy a clear-statement rule that construes ambiguity in favor of the police. Both propositions mark a substantial retreat from the protection against compelled self-incrimination that Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), has long provided during custodial interrogation.” (Berghuis v. Thompkins).

While I don’t agree with the majority’s decision, I don’t agree with Justice Sotomayor that this case represents a “substantial retreat,” and I don’t think the majority decision will “limit” or “change” existing law, nor will it change police procedure.

Most journalists adopted the dissent’s view that this decision was a significant change from existing law.  I find this a fascinating example of “pack-mentality media distortion.”

A month ago, our two-year-old Kia Rondo was due for “scheduled maintenance” as required by the manufacturer to maintain our warranty. The dealership where we bought the car is out of business, so my wife took it to another nearby dealership, where we’d had “scheduled maintenance” done once before.

My wife was told that the “scheduled maintenance” would cost $600 to $700.  After much hesitation (since we’d made special arrangements to drop and pick up the car), she decided to bring the car home and research our options, bringing her copy of the canceled service order with her.

We discovered that the dealership had misrepresented the maintenance schedule.  They sought to charge us “early” for expensive service that wasn’t required for at least another year; they also tried to charge us a second time for “scheduled maintenance” that we’d paid for during the prior visit (that service was also done “early,” and certainly didn’t need to be repeated so soon after).

Eventually, the dealership claimed that the problem arose from a “computer error” (meaning that their service manager had modified the database so that the dealership would charge all customers for unnecessary service.)

They offered to do the actual “scheduled maintenance” that was recommended by the manufacturer.  Since there is no other dealership within 30 miles, we made an appointment, and I drove the car to the dealership — but while waiting for someone to help me, I realized that it was absurd to trust these crooks to perform any service.

We haven’t had the “scheduled maintenance” done yet, because we can’t figure out how we can trust any dealer or garage to competently perform the required scheduled maintenance.  In the next few weeks, I’ll end up taking an entire day to drive to a far-away dealership and wait while the work is done.

This is just one of several recent “cheat attempts” that we’ve experienced this year, from businesses that seemed reputable. What made it “special” was that it was clear that someone had deliberately modified the dealership’s computer database so it would tell agents that expensive service was required, long before it was recommended.

As a result, every customer was being cheated, unless they researched and noticed that the dealership’s advice was wrong. The owner probably considers this a “gullibility tax,” but it’s really a tax on trust and honesty.

Our complex, technologically-advanced society demands that we trust a variety of “experts” to advise us, but that trust is being badly eroded, by what appears to be a growing pool of dishonest businesspeople. The result is increased cynicism, skepticism, and distrust. Consumers now must allocate extra time to researching and verifying the claims made by “experts” — and when we don’t have that time available, we simply delay or cancel our purchase plans.

Daily newspapers were a slowly-sinking industry even before the internet.  Total daily newspaper circulation has dropped a few percent nearly every year for decades.  While internet access to news has certainly accelerated the circulation decline, the worst damage has been to advertising revenue.  Lost revenue led to reduced editorial staffs, which meant less local news reporting, and increased reliance on “wire service” news that is readily available online.

I’ve also noticed that in the race to cut costs, many newspapers are turning their newsstand distribution over to “low-bid” distribution companies, who hire the cheapest workers, who often fail to put new newspapers into many of the newsboxes, and who don’t repair or clean newsboxes that are damaged or are covered with graffiti.  In addition to reducing newsstand circulation, this reduces the opportunity to convert new residents into subscribers.

But then I found an interesting blog post, “How Early Newspaper-to-Web Technology Crippled News Industry’s Thinking” (Amy Gahran, Poynter.com) which cited a longer article “How early online newspaper production tools led the industry down the wrong path” (Robert Niles, Online Journalism Review).

These folks suggest that another “weak link” contributing to newspapers’ internet failures may have been the technology that was initially used to publish newspapers and to migrate newspaper content onto the Web.  The crude technology limited the ways that newspapers could use the internet, and the lack of any definite revenue stream from online publishing discouraged investment or independent thinking.

While newspapers remained mired in the philosophies and limitations embedded in their publishing software, internet newcomers experimented and found more successful ways to capture and distribute information online. While newspapers stuck with the idea that “we report the news, and people read it,” internet newcomers discovered that they could invite active participation by readers.

Whenever I think about the “lost opportunity,” I end up thinking about one of my professors in journalism school who was amazed (in 1981 or 1982) by the promise of computer technology: he suggested that newspapers would soon have the ability to print customized newspapers for individual subscribers (reducing printing and delivery costs, while increasing advertising opportunities).  The technology was there, but the newspaper industry moves very slowly, and that opportunity, too, was lost.

Instead, the sinking newspaper industry is grasping desperately to cut costs (fire the reporters who write what readers want; fire the editors who make sure the words make sense) and find new revenue sources (paste ads on the front page) — and those actions are turning away more readers.

Our local event is at Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward, from 10am Saturday morning to 10am Sunday morning).  Members of each team take turns walking on a track for the entire 24 hours.

There are lots of family-friendly activities, as well as ceremonies to remember and celebrate those who’ve suffered from cancer, and to “fight back” against cancer.

This is our third year as participants. Unfortunately, in the past year, two more in our extended family have been diagnosed with cancer.

Here are ways you can support the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life:

(1) Donate to support our team: http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY10CA?team_id=713404&pg=team&fr_id=20413

(2) Come attend our local “Relay for Life” 24-hour event next Saturday and Sunday, June 5-6, 2008 at Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward, California. We’ll be at the event for more than the entire 24 hours (10am to 10am), but we welcome anyone who chooses to attend, even if it’s just for an hour or two.

(3) Attend the Relay for Life event in your local community: http://www.relayforlife.org/relay/findevent