John Dyer

[UPDATE: A very helpful billing rep in Cingular's Corporate Markets Group named Janet Collier single handedly setup my account in just a few hours! I guess its who you know...]

Two weeks ago, my new Dell Precision M65 came in. It’s a great machine for web development because it has tons of space and tons of horsepower (and runs Vista B2 perfectly). But the other major feature I wanted was the built in Cingular Wireless card for “always on internet” or Mobile Broadband. It’s supposed to take 24-48 hours to setup. Instead, I'm going on two weeks with no results.

Here’s my current saga:

• Tues, July 18 - Called in, gave my card's information and our Cingular account and was assured that everything would happen in 24-48 hours.
• Thurs, July 20 2PM - Received call from Dell that Cingular changed the price from $59/mo to $79/mo. I asked them to double check with Cingular and call me back because Cingular's site says $59/mo. I did not receive a call back.
• Thurs, July 20 3-5PM - I spend a few hours on the phone with Cingular trying to activate through them. Their activation people need a new number in order to activate the Dell data card, but they can't give me a new line for the data plan. They forward me to the their business people, but they can't give me a new line without also ordering an AirCard. I try several differnet times and everyone at Cingular tells me a different story about data activation and what their software can and cannot do (I heard the phrase, "The software won't le me do that. It's just not setup that way." about 100 times). They one thing everyone at Cingular agreed on was that Dell was wrong - the data plan is $59/mo. and I would have to call them.
• Fri, July 21 9 AM - Since I got nowhere with Cingular and Dell hadn't called back, I called Dell again Friday morning to see if they had been working on it. I found out that the $59/mo rate was only for people with existing Cingular accounts, but that it was $79/mo for new accounts. I told them we had an account so that shouldn't be a problem (I currently use a Treo650 with a data plan). A nice young woman named Stevie assured me she would take care of it and call me back when it was resolved.
• Fri, July 21 12PM - Stevie called me back and left me a message to say she was working on it.
• Fri, July 21 5PM - I haven't heard back, so I call again to make sure everything was still on track and another nice young man tells me Stevie is gone and hasn't done anything on it. He says he will personally look over this account and get it done by Monday. He tells me a crucial detail. Dell is not allowed to call Cingular. The only way Dell can contact Cingular is via email and they have to wait for Cingular to respond.
• Mon, July 23 4PM - I haven't heard from anyone, so I call again. I spoke to a woman who said that the order had been cancelled. Wow. She apoligies for the inaction of the previous three people to whom I've spoken and suggests that we restart the order. So, we place a new order and I have to wait another 24-48 hours for activation.
• Wed, July 25 2PM - Still doesn't work, so I call again. This time, I speak to Jennifer. I don't beleive that getting angry or being pushy is helpful, so I calmly and respectfully relay the story, but remain firm that this needs to happen today. She was very kind and apologetic. It takes her a while to find my order, but when she finds it, she says that it was placed Jul 20, then cancelled. What? Nothing from last Tuesday (7/18) or Friday (7/21) or  Monday (7/23)? No. This time she suggests that her manager call me to see if he can help.
• Thur, July 26 10AM - I haven't heard from the manager, so I call again and somehow I happened to get Jennifer again. She was very kind and thanked me for being so patient and kind. She puts me on hold to get her manager, but then comes back and says that he was in a meeting and waived her off. "He'll call you today."
• Thur, July 26 3PM - The manager calls! He tells me that Cingular emailed back saying that our Cingular account has a "no more lines NP" The Dell manager says that Cingular sends messages with unknown acronyms all the time and he does not know what this one means. He tells me some stuff about the number of data vs. voice lines, but that he doesn't really know how to make it work. So he offers to try to setup a new account (which apparently will cost $79/mo) to avoid the dreaded "no more lines NP" problem, but he also sends our existing account information so that we can get the 59/mo rate. I'll need to wait 24-48 hours again.
• Fri, July 27, I'm writing this message from through our "internet tubes."

So here is a summary of pretty dumb things I ran into when dealing with Dell/Cingular activation.

• You must call Dell instead of Cinlguar to activate your account. Cingular cannot activate the card if you call them.
• Dell and Cingular reps tend not to know pricing or policy very well and the reps tend to blame the other company for problems like mine.
• Dell only has email communication with Cingular, and apparently Cingular sends Dell Cingular-specific acronyms that Dell reps (and managers) cannot decifer.
• Dells account records don't show who has worked on orders or how many times you've called in, so you have to start over every time. Make sure you take down names - I only did for 2 of the 5 people to whom I spoke.
  
• Dell's voice menu makes you listen to a several minute long message before you can make a menu selection. It is not a "make your selection at any time" menu.
• When you get through the menu, the menu always tells you, "Your expected wait time is less than one minute," but it's always at least 20 minutes.
• 24-48 hours = 2+ weeks with no service.

Cool stuff

• I hear it's pretty fast when it works.

Although it’s pretty old news, it’s still fun to me: This post is coming from Word 2007.

As with all web development, FreeTextBox requires that I work in multiple browsers to ensure that it works well for everyone. Both CSS and JavaScript have a lot of idiosyncrasies in the various browsers out there. Even Mozilla occasionally behaves differently in OS X than it does in Windows or Linux.

I thought I would show my setup in hopes that I might give anyone out there ideas on multiple browser development. My main machine is a Windows XP box (currently a Dell Inspiron 9100, moving to a Dell Precision M65 next week) with a second monitor on the right. I also have an older G4 running OS X that sits under my desk. This machine has an identical monitor to the laptop and it sits to the left of my main monitor.

To synchronize the machines, I use an open source application called Synergy2 which allows me to move my mouse from the main machine over to the OS X machine. In effect, I have 3 connected monitors, but the left one is really an OS X machine. This allows me to work with Safari (1.3) and the OSX version of Firefox while simultaneously working with Windows. For Linux, I use VMWare. I like to download pre-made Linux images from thoughtpolice like Fedora Core 5 (which is also a great way to test Mono apps) so I don’t have to spend time installing Linux and handling updates.

Here is a picture from above of my setup:

Here are some links:

• Synergy2 - software KVM
• VMWare player - free virtual mache
• Linux VMWare images (thoughtpolice) and more at VMWare
• Portable Firefox – in order to text multiple versions
• Portable IE – I have IE7B3 installed and download 4.0, 5.0, 5.5, and 6.0 from evolt.
• Launchy – I use this to launch various browser versions