A Rant from Old-Man Keener

As you age, like I have, you will find that your abilities in several facets of life will diminish. You will also find that a few things improve, such as your ability to gripe. I have a superb ability to gripe and it seems to get better all the time.

A few things just plain ticked me off today. So, I figured, what the heck? I might as well share them with you. That way, if you want to, you can chime in with your gripes.

Here are mine:

  • There is another BlackBerry (RIM) outage today. This has been reported for AT&T data lines, but AT&T says the problem is caused by RIM. Hence, I would expect that this impacts Verizon and other carriers, too. I do know this: I bought a BlackBerry Curve because I thought it would be ultra-reliable. Prior to buying it, I had never heard of a BlackBerry outage. Since I have had mine, there have been at least four that I remember. Not all affected my region, but some did. This ticks me off. For iPhone and owners of other “smartphone” devices: you ever have a data outage? Is it often enough to make you think of switching?
  • Fox News TV abuses the concept of a news alert. I don’t know how many times I have seen them devote their entire coverage to a high-speed car chase, or to some other event that they could have spent 30 seconds telling me about. Today, it was some court scene, where FN was determined to show as much of the courtroom activity as they could. Fortunately, an X-Files marathon was on, but it still miffs me that a “news” program cannot do a better job of balancing what it airs. Fair and balanced, my ass.
  • Lady Hillary is playing down the “stepping down” of her campaign manager, obviously trying to give the impression that there is no panic within the Clinton campaign. Who knows? Maybe there is no panic. But, I doubt it. I do know this: we already have a President who has a difficult time seeing things as they really are, and stating them that way, so why would want another one?

Okay. I feel better. Not a lot. But some.

Your turn.


 

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  • Thomas R. Hall

    The major BlackBerry outages have all happened fairly recently, and it’s quite annoying. In fact, there is now a dedicated website that announces outages that customers see, and they’re more frequent than you would think. It affects AT&T quite a bit, actually.

    To be fair, though, my wife’s iPhone has also had several times when it could not connect to EDGE on AT&T’s network. I’ve had it happen once or twice on T-Mobile, but not as much as AT&T.

    Sorry for recommending the BlackBerry to you. :)

    Having straight-up mobile Internet access and getting email via IMAP has its advantages sometimes. RIM really needs to work on fixing these issues they’ve had as of late.

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce

    Thomas, I’m a big boy, and the BlackBerry decision is mine :) Your suggestion for is appreciated, not resented … still like it much better than most of the other “smartphones” I have had.

    But, yes, RIM needs to get its act together. Its major market is Corporate America, which has about as little patience with technology foibles as I do.

    You know it’s gotten out of hand when there is a dedicated website, as you noted, to track the outages.