Sunday, March 25, 2012

Truconnect cancelled.

See previous post and

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2011 Virgin Mobile cancelled!

I cancelled Truconnect a couple of days ago.  A few hours after cancellation deep support called me back after two days finally ready to try to get me connected.  I informed him that I had already cancelled.  He obviously did not know.

That's two companies that front for Sprint with great pricing that failed to even connect me much less provide service.

Virgin Mobile seemed to be run by teenagers.  Truconnect seemed to be run by people in their mid twenties.  Neither had procedures that worked.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Truconnect sucks.

$5 per month fixed cost plus 4 cents per megabits usage for a MiFi mobile hotspot.

I had the Verizon Wireless version a few years ago for $40 per month but cancelled because Verizon did not have a plan, which gave a discount for bundling its Internet services.  I was already subscribed to Verizon Wireless on my smart phone and Verizon FIOS at home with no discount so I could not see having three Internet services from one company, which ignored my requests and suggestions that it was good business to bundle its Internet services.

Truconnect sounded like a good deal, especially when New York Times David Pogue endorsed it.  I ordered a MiFi device (Novatel 2200 3G) from Truconnect for about $80 in December 2011.  The Truconnect website was so messed up that I could not activate my account.  After three months of ignoring my mistake I decided in March 2012 to try again.  The website problems persisted but so did I and my account was activated.  The same could not be said for the MiFi device.

I wasted several hours over the last three days writing and speaking to at least three support people and my MiFi device is still not active.  The deep support guy told me this afternoon that the device that his company had sold to me might not be in their data system and that might be the problem.  Say what?

When I told him that the previous non-deep support people never knew that he said that they did not have access to the same data system that he did.  I suggested that they all have such access.  He wanted me to stay on hold while he continued to check.  I said I had wasted enough hours today on Truconnect and please call me back when he had resolved it.  No call back after seven hours.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Khan Academy: phony or unprepared?

http://www.khanacademy.org/

This guy was profiled yesterday on 60 Minutes:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57394905/khan-academy-the-future-of-education/?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

I tried a few exercises a year ago and found the guy insufferable with his unsteady hand, sloppy handwriting and most of all his halting, do-over style, which suggested primarily that he was faking it to seem real or he was truly unprepared.  Maybe kids aren't put off.  I'll probably try again.  Maybe the one about hitting a home run in Fenway Park (cannot find now), which I could not finish because it was so excruciatingly drawn out.

I like the idea of freeing people from the educational institutions and providing alternatives, especially for those who otherwise would not have access.  I'm just not ready to say this is the best way.  Maybe now that Khan has others working with him the product will get cleaned up.