HP is dead... now stop molesting the corpse...

So, some of you know... and it's actually in my FB profile, that I'm a former employe of HP.

I've also worked with them extensively for many years as a subcontractor, as a strategic partner, and as a vendor that I had a very close relationship with. I've had a lot of great friends and colleagues in HP, and we've done some very interesting and innovative things together.

Over the past week or so, I've been thinking about what to say about HP's... really Meg Whitmans... plan to split the company in two.

I finally figured out what I have to say... and it's really simple.

The company that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built is finally and definitively dead... It's been mostly dead but vainly struggling for breath for several years, and with this final stroke, it's truly gone.

Now that there is no more hope, and the plug is being pulled, the faster we can bury the corpse, and reallocate the assets to something useful and productive, the better.

I'm sorry, I wish I could say something better... I wish the HP I loved working with for many years was still with us, or had any chance at all.

It doesn't, it isn't, and I can't.

Meg Whitman has continued to do what Carly Fiorina started... gut the company one quarter at a time, doing anything to temporarily prop up stock prices (and the executive managements bonuses) at the expense of the company as a whole, it's future business, and its customers.

This was the final cut. There is no more. It's over...

Farming in an Equilibrium Trap

JayG wrote something today about how this summers drought is hitting farmers very hard; which is absolutely true. And it's already having an impact on food prices, and that impact is just going to grow.

The crop that's being impacted worst is dent corn, which makes up the majority of livestock feed in this country; particularly beef feed. This is exacerbated by the governments ethanol mandates, which take even more of the feed corn crop out of the feed market.

Over the next couple months, we're going to see beef prices crash, as ranchers and feedlots come to the end of their stored feedstocks and slaughter more steer than normal (so they don't have to keep feeding them), and then SOAR to highs we haven't seen in years over the fall and winter.

Jay points out that some are "blaming subisidies" for the state of things... which I think is silly, you can't blame subsidies for weather (well... usually... Microclimate and regional climate adjustments due to overplanting can sometimes be blamed on subsidies... but that's not what we're talking about here).

But honestly, there's something that no-one wants to admit, no-one wants to say, and no-one wants to hear in this country....

We have too many damn farmers.

By far.

Probably by more than half, at least for some crops.

In particular we have too many grain farmers. In even greater particular, we have far too many corn and wheat farmers.

We have a natural market for corn and wheat that would support... something like half... of the farmers that we have now.

All of those people who are only making money because of subsidies; we really don't need them growing corn or wheat.

Either they need to grow something else, or they need to sell their land and stop being farmers.

Even the argument that it "keeps our food prices low" is false; because it actually keeps them higher most years. If there were no subsidies, the market would find its natural level of supply, demand, and price; and the resources inefficiently allocated to subsidized crops would simply be allocated elsewhere (and I'm not even going to get into the second order effects of this regime like obesity, HFCS vs. sugar pricing, ethanol etc...).

But we don't want to hear it.

We are constantly being presented with images of the "struggling family farmer"... And have been for over 100 years.

Shouldn't that tell you something?

There are plenty of very profitable and prosperous farmers in this country, and plenty of large farming corporations that do quite well...

And who are they?

They're farmers that grow crops which don't get subsidies, who have found ways to be economically efficient; or they are farm corporations who have found ways to extract the maximum amount of government benefits.

Again... shouldn't that tell you something?

When a business is failing, that doesn't tell you "we need to subsidize it", it tells you we need to reduce its regulatory and tax burdens and operational restrictions (stop artificially reducing its competitiveness); or we need to let that business die.

Farming is no different from any other business. If it's not competitive, we shouldn't be encouraging people to do it (unless it's of importance to national security, and thus can't be outsourced or offshored; and even then that's an iffy one, and we should still be encouraging competitiveness internally ) and we shouldn't be rescuing or subsidizing it.

Why on earth have we been subsidizing these non-viable crops for 80 years?

Oh wait... I know... it's because to get elected president, you need to win the majority of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio; and to be elected to congress (outside of a major urban constituency anyway) or win those states in the general election, you have to support subsidies for grain farming.

Right now, these farmers are in an equilibrium trap, where because of government subsidies they can just barely get by; but because of inefficiency, actual market conditions etc... they can't get ahead

The way to deal with equilibrium traps, is to break out of them completely. You can't do that by keeping on doing what put you in the trap to begin with; and they've been doing that for 80 years.

If we stopped subsidizing these crops, people would take huge losses in the first few years; particularly as their land prices fell dramatically. It would hurt. A few hundred thousand people would take a big hit...

An aside about numbers: there are about 2.3 million "farms" in the united states. 65% of all crops are produced by 9% of all farms (which farm 59% of the agricultural land), and 85% of all crops are produced by 15% of all farms.

Of the appx. 2.3 million "farms", about 2.1 million are considered "family farms". About 1.9 million of those farms are considered "small family farms", which have gross revenues of less than $250,000 per year, and produce less than 15% of all crops. Of those, about 35%, produce about 9% of the total crops in this country and are generally considered viable. 40% are essentially "hobby" or "part time" farms that produce less than 3% of all crops per year. It's the 25% or so of those 2 million farms, which only produce 3-4% of all crops, and which are basically non-viable, that are the biggest issue.

Oh and 10% of all farms receive 75% of all subsidies, for producing about 25% of all crops. Corn, wheat, cotton, rice, soybeans, dairy, peanuts, and sugar, make up 97% of subsidies. Corn and wheat alone make up 52%, cotton about 14%, rice and soybeans another 23%). 

The VAST majority of those subsidies go to large corporate feed grain farms in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, and Ohio, and to large corporate Cotton farms in Texas (Texas produces 30% of all cotton in the U.S., with Arkansas, California, Mississippi, and Georgia accounting for another 40%); NOT to "small family farmers".

And then, we would be better off as a nation; and THEY would be better off as individuals. They, and their children, would no longer be trapped into a just barely livable, just barely getting by, dependent on the government economic condition for decades. They would move to more productive more useful employment. They would be better off eventually, as would the country as a whole.

The problem? Many of them don't want to. They WANT to be farmers, even though they KNOW it's a bad business. They love being farmers. They've been farmers for generations in their family.  It's all they know, it's what they're passionate about, it's part of their culture and they can't see ever doing anything else.

Well... I want to be an Aerospace Engineer, and design and build airplanes; or even boats (many boat designers are also aerospace engineers. It's a very similar field of study). It's what I trained for, and I love it and am very passionate about it.

But it's not viable for me.

There are more than enough airplane designers out there for the market as it exists today; so I can't find employment as an airplane designer. The fact is, very few new airplanes are being designed.

Now, I'm the first to say that we should get the excessive regulatory burden out of the way of the aircraft industry, and if we did that it's likely that more aircraft would be designed and more aerospace engineers could find jobs...

But would you say that just because I can't find a job in the field I was educated in, that we should subsidize that field just so I could?

...Well... Sadly, some would... Or at least they would, if the field I was in was politically or socially favored... But anyone with any sense or integrity knows better.


We have romanticized the idea of the "family farmer" in this country for far too long.

The fact is, it is no longer economically viable, nor is it necessary, for many of these people to be farmers, and we should stop enabling the equilibrium trap constantly keep them locked into farming, but always on the edge of failing.

Calling Meg Whitman...

The only good thing about a 148.4 mile daily round trip...

Is that it isn't technically a commute.

I'm a contract consultant, with a dedicated primary business location (with it's own phone lines, internet service, computer equipment, entrance and exit etc...), completely separate from the living area of my home. My clients site is not in the same metropolitan area as my home.

Even better, I'm working in one state, and paying taxes in my home state, as local income. That makes it VERY clear, that my clients site is not my "primary work or business location".

Also, I'm technically on a less than 1 year contract, both for my client, and for my parent consulting company (yes, I'm technically a small businessman, contracted to the big consulting company, then further contracted out to the small company).

There is really no legal way the IRS can try to claim that I am a direct employee, or that my primary place of business is my clients site.

So, my 148.4 mile per day round trip isn't a commute; it's travel to and from a clients site, and is therefore tax deductible at the standard IRS mileage rate for 2012 of $0.55 per mile.

On Wednesday, it will have been a month since I started work (4/23 to 5/23), with one day taken off (my birthday, April 27th); and this is what my mileage log summary shows for the past month (today, and tomorrow extrapolated from the previous record):

Report 2012/04/23 - 2012/05/23

Business	Rate	Vehicle	Miles	Mile Deduction	Expenses	Total
Crispin Enterprises	0.555	cadillac sts	2503.8	$1,389.62	$0.00	$1,389.62
		vstrom	742.0	$411.83	$0.00	$411.83
Total:			3245.9	$1,801.45	$0.00	$1,801.45
Grand Total:			3245.9	$1,801.45	$0.00	$1,801.45

That's for one month.

For the next seven months it's going to be a bit less (since I'm probably going to be working from home one day a week), at more like $327 a week for the remaining 31 weeks of the year, minus three weeks (between vacation and holidays)... That's a total mileage deduction of just about $11,000. Oh and I can also take a deduction for the portion of my loan interest that covers my business usage.

Of course... I am putting 3000 miles a month on my vehicles; and all the maintenance and depreciation cost that incurs (a full years deduction would come to just about $20,000; and as a small businessman, isn't subject to the 2% limit).

Right now, the depreciation on my STS is something like $3,000 a year base, plus mileage... Call it $6,000 total at current used car pricing. My actual expenses (projecting to a full years mileage and costs) for fuel are something like $6,000. My actual expenses for maintenance are something like $3,000 (two major maintenance periods a year, plus two additional oil changes, plus a set of tires a year, plus incidentals).

So, I'm coming out a bit ahead on the standard mileage rate with the STS; and well ahead when I'm using the bike (which gets about 1.75x the mileage of the car, and has basically zero depreciation from what I paid).

Between that, the rest of my uncompensated and unreimbursed business expenses, and all my other business, and personal deductions (and of course, being unemployed for the first four months of the year, and the big pay cut I took from my previous job); my taxable income (and therefore my tax burden) for 2012 is going to be... low. VERY low.

In fact, so low, I think I will have covered my expected tax burden for the year before fall (between my unemployment, the taxes my wife has paid, and the last months taxes paid from the new gig, I've already covered more than 1/4 of it).

So, at least there's that.

Stress Test for IT Ops Shops

Cringely wrote something interesting today, ostensibly about how to fix IBM (a cause I believe is currently lost. their management is too far down the hole to see daylight anymore); but particularly, what I think is actually a pretty great stress test for any IT ops shop.

For those of you unfamiliar with the IT outsourcing business, many companies, both large and small; contract out some or all of the operations, design, implementation, maintenance, service, and support, of their IT operations to professional service providers.

These services can be on a long term or short term basis; and in scope can extended anywhere from staff supplementation (a few extra bodies), to staff replacement, all the way to complete "blackbox" outsourcing; where your company literally has no IT staff OR infrastructure whatsoever (sometimes even no desktop PCs), and everything is handled by an outside company.

This has of course been going on since the 1950s and 1960s with mainframes, and 70s and 80s with minicomputers; but over the past 15 years or so, has dramatically accelerated, to the point that many organizations even outsource all of their IT desktop and server operations, support, application management, administration... Some even outsource their IT management, policy setting... really everything related to information technology; except perhaps the senior management (CIO, CTO etc...).

Very frequently, this means that no single person actually employed by an organization, has any IT knowledge, expertise, or access to the IT resources of that organization; or, if they do, they don't have the time necessary to properly oversee these functions (because, after all, it's about cost savings; which means man hour savings more than anything else).

What results from this, is in theory a cost savings (and often in practice); but when no-one employed by your company has the skill or understanding to properly evaluate the service they are getting from these contractors... well, things can get out of control very quickly.

The U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, DOD, the State of California, and New York City (among thousands of other organizations around the world); have all found this out the hard way, to the tune of billions of dollars in cost overruns, and project failures.

As it happens, I have worked in this business much of my career; mostly in the design, architecture, and implementation functions, but some in the operations and support functions. In many of the roles I've held along the way, I've dealt with a lot of these contracts, in all their many variants; and the many companies that provide them (including IBM, and my new employer; both quite extensively).

In fact, the new job I start Monday is an operations role (managing information security operations), on a "staff" contract (which is one of the variants of these types of contracts, where instead of completely outsourcing the function, the company brings in outsourced contractors, who act within the structure of the parent company as if they were employees... thus "staff"... even though most of the actual IT roles are in fact filled by contractors).

I don't disagree with anything Cringely has written in his post; or for that matter, the rest of the post series on IBM (which, if you have any interest in IBM or in IT, you should read, if you haven't already. It's big news, and I think it's correct).

The test he proposes, SHOULD be one that any competent and well run IT organization SHOULD be able to pass; whether outsourced, or organic to a company.

Frankly, I know a lot of shops that wouldn't pass this test... In fact I don't know many shops that could pass every part of this test in a reasonable amount of time... and I'm willing to bet a lot of folks are going to be seeing this come from their clients or their management in the next few days or weeks.

So, the test that Cringely proposes:

Ask your IT outsourcing provider to produce the following:

1) A list of all your servers under their support. That list should include:

• Make
• Model
• Serial Number
• Purchase Date
• Original and current asset value
• Processor type and speed
• Memory
• Disk Storage
• Hostname
• IP address(s)
• Operating system(s)
• Software product(s)
• Business Application(s)

Is this list complete? How long did it take your provider to produce the list? Did they have all this information readily accessible and in one place?

2) A report on the backup for your servers for the last 2 weeks.

• Are all servers being backed up?
• Are all the backups running in the planned time window? Is there ample time left over, or is the operation using every minute of the backup window?
• When backup runs on a server there are always files that are open or locked and the backup cannot copy them. Every day the backup team needs to look at their reports and make sure that files that were missed are backed up. In your examination of the backup reports you should see evidence of this being done.
• If you spot any potential problems with a server ask for a list of all the files on the server. The list should show the filenames, date’s, and if the archive (backup) bit has been flipped

Is this list complete? How long did it take your provider to produce the report? How often does your provider conduct a data recovery test? If a file is accidentally deleted, how long does it take your provide to recover it? Can your provider perform a “bare metal” restoration? (bare metal is the recovery of everything, the operating system included onto a blank system)

3) A report on the antivirus software on your Windows servers.

• Is antivirus software running on all your Windows servers?
• Is it the same (standard) version?
• Are the virus signature file(s) current?
• Ask for case information on any recent virus infections

Is this list complete? How long did it take your provider to produce the report? When a virus is detected on a server, how is the alert communicated to your IT provider? How fast do they log the event and act on it?

4) A report on your network. It should include:

• Illustrations of the major network equipment including routers, switches, firewalls, etc.
• IP address allocations.
• Internal DNS entries.
• Current routing and firewall rules.

Is this information complete and current? How long did it take your provider to produce this information? Is this information stored in a readily accessible place so that anyone from your IT provider can use it to diagnose problems?

5) Information on your Disaster Recovery plans Here is what you want to know:

• Documentation on a recent DR test, the plan and results. It should show the actual times tasks were started and completed. Problems should be logged. (it is okay for there to be some problems, that is the purpose of the test)
• Ask for a list of names from the IT provider of the people who worked on the test.
• How many people who worked on the test live full time in the same country as your DR facility?
• Did your IT provider fly in an army of offshore support folks for the test?
• If there was a real disaster how long would it take your IT provider to assemble a team to support your emergency?
• Ask for a list of your critical applications to be provided and supported in a disaster.

Is the list complete and correct? Is there sufficiently detailed information on each critical application? How much data is involved? Is the data actively sync’d over a network? How often is the sync’ing process checked? What hostnames and filesystems need to be restored? What application skills are needed to start up the applications?

6) Help desk information. Here is what you want to know:

• Ask for a report of all the help desk tickets for the last 2 weeks.
• Independently ask your company (not your IT provider) for information on known IT problems over the last two weeks.
• Compare the information from the helpdesk and your company sources.
• Pick a few random incidents from the help desk ticket report. How long did it take to discover the problem? How long did it take your IT provider to begin to work on the problem? How long did it take your IT provider to fix the problem? Was the problem really fixed?
• Is there an active problem prevention program? Is your IT provider examining the reported IT problems and finding ways to reduce the number and frequency of problems?
• How long did it take your provider to produce this report? Did they have all the help desk ticket information readily accessible to everyone and in one place?

7) Look for evidence of continuous improvement.

• Repeat this process once a month.
• Look for changes and improvements month to month and over several months.
• Are the total number of problems being reduced?
• Is the response time to fix problems being improved?
• Is there clear evidence your IT provide has an active and effective continuous improvement program.

A good IT provider will have the tools to automatically collect this data and will have reports like these readily available. It should be very easy and quick for a good IT provider to produce this information.

A key thing to observe is how much time and effort does it take your IT provider to produce this information. If they can’t produce it quickly, then they don’t have it. If they don’t have it they can’t be using it to support you. This then will lead you to the most important question: are they doing the work you are paying them for?

If you're in IT, I'd be willing to bet your own shop can't pass this test in all aspects; at least not within 30 minutes or an hour, or even the same business day. In my rather broad experience across hundreds of clients, if you can even get most of it within a business day, you're doing pretty well.

That's not as it should be; but it's often how it is. Many shops, if not most, just don't have all the elements they need to maintain this level of operational fitness.

Something that Cringely didn't explicitly write here, but which should be addressed (and is implied in the test); is that passing this sort of test is really dependent on four elements:

1. Proper tools: Your team needs to have the right tools, access to them, and have them properly configured; so that they can do all of these tasks efficiently, effectively, and consistently.
   
2. Proper process: Your IT processes need to account for all aspects of your operations. They need to be easy to understand, well documented, readily accessible and readable by anyone who needs them, consistent but flexible, goal oriented and mission focused, PROPERLY TESTED; and your staff must be properly trained on them.
   
3. Adequate staff levels: You need to have enough people to cover all the work required for your IT needs. To an extent, good tools and good process can reduce your staffing requirements (and in some ways, the skill and training requirements for that staff), but you can only cut so far. You MUST have adequate coverage, and that coverage must have sufficient skill, knowledge, and training; to meet your needs. Further, you must understand that your staff are human beings, with lives and pursuits outside of work. They have vacations, and family emergencies, and they get sick. They have different skillsets, and different skill levels. Some are more or less efficient or effective than others at some tasks . Treating your staff as fungible man hours is a sure and certain recipe for failure.
   
4. Good IT management: Without good management, none of these things will happen. If handed them on a silver platter, without good management, they will stop working. Management must keep all these factors in mind at all times, and maintain MISSION FOCUS above all else. You are not here to meet a metric, you are here to get a job done; a job that enables other peoples jobs. Meeting your metric isn't doing your job; making sure others can do their jobs is.

Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

The Anger, it is MINE

Grrrrrrrrr....

Last month, my web hosting provider screwed up my billing on two of the TWENTY SIX accounts I have with them (I manage a bunch of web sites, domains, hosting accounts, mail hosting accounts etc...).

For some reason they were trying to bill to a very old credit card that expired in 2006. Now, they had been successfully billing me with the default method on file, for all my accounts, for over ten years now; and were still doing so for my 24 other accounts... I'm not exactly sure how or why this happened now, but OK, it did.

They called me up a few weeks ago, and over the phone we supposedly fixed it, so that ALL twenty six of my accounts, products, and services, were being billed in the same way.

That was the 8th of July.

Yesterday, the 18th of July, they deleted the accounts, AND THE CONTENTS OF THE SITES, without notifying me. I found out this morning when I got to a domain parking page instead of my personal web site (which up until yesterday, had been up continuously since 1993)

Apparently, they have been trying to re-bill the same old expired card, again and again, since our phone call.

It only took me over an hour on the phone for them to figure out this is what they had done. Against their own policy (which is 30 days past the first notice, which was 6/28), and somehow against the rules of the automated system.

I've been using this company for over ten years. I have spent, at this point, tens of thousands of dollars with them (both personally, and for all the websites I manage), for hundreds of different domains, hosting accounts, mail hosting accounts, certificate management, and related services.

This is NOT how you run a business. How you handle good customers, who spend lots of money with you. When someone has 24 accounts with you in good standing, and for some reason two of them are not, you find out why and you FIX IT.

After an hour on the phone with them, and their distinct lack of helpfulness, I informed them that I would be cancelling all my services with them, and that prior to the next domain renewal time for each of my 21 active domains, I would be changing registrars (it's a real pain to change registrars in the middle of the registration term, especially since I recently renewed a bunch of domains. 60 days on either side of the renewal can be considered a blackout period for a registrar change unless you want to deal with a bunch of extra crap).

So, now I need to find a new registrar and hosting company, find backups of everything, reformat everything how the new host needs it formatted, report... Then I need to change my mail hosting, and deal with the most likely several days of buggy mail transfer.

One of the sites has NO direct backup because it was built in a CMS. We'd have to rebuild the CMS elsewhere (presuming it was supported on that host) then reconfigure it to match, then import the old and incomplete exports... It just isn't going to happen, that site is lost for good.

Oh yes, this is going to be fun. Really.

An Aristorcacy of Talent, and the Triumph of Markets

This is possibly the single best business document I have ever read; and I mean that with no hyperbole. It is also the single most libertarian document I have ever seen applied to a large corporate environment.

You HAVE TO read this.

Culture

View more presentations from Reed Hastings.

Announcing Crispin Press

When we first decided to publish a cookbook, it was clear from the beginning that we were going to offer it in full color, with photographs. We didn't want to put out a product that didn't have color, and photographs, and that was that.

Unfortunately, the custom and small run printing and publishing business charges through the nose for color printing.

We initially contracted with a small run publisher, with a quote that we thought to be reasonable for the first print run (based on a minimum order of 500 copies). We based our initial figures on the quote and so priced the books at $25 a piece.

Unfortunately, between the launching of the cookbook and the actual printing, the quoted printing cost per book soared to $30; $5 higher than our announced cover price.

Obviously no profit would be had at such a price, as almost no one would pay $30 plus shipping and profit (nor would we ask anyone to). We'd also already announced a $25 cover price, and we weren't going to go back on that.

First, we looked at the option of going to a no-color book, with no photos. Chris reworked the layout, and re-wrote a bit to fill... but we just didn't like it.

So we priced around again, knowing that prices were high (the original printer was the lowest we found); and MY GOD I did not realize $30 a piece for a self-published cookbook was average to good, and for color was very good.

Printers and publishers who market themselves to NON-PROFITS selling cookbooks as FUNDRAISERS are charging $30 a piece for black and white. Don't even get me started on subsidy press/vanity press, and print-on-demand services and their idea of "reasonable".

Even the local printers seemed to want to bleed us dry, and I tried plenty of those. We could get a reasonable quote for black and white, small format, perfect bound only; anything else (and most especially the large format, full color, spiral bound book we wanted), the prices started out at "unreasonable", and topped out at "ridiculous".

So we looked at all of the various printers' quotes, looked at what WE thought to be reasonable, and asked the eternal question of capitalism: Can we do it better and cheaper?

As it happens, we discovered we could.

We ran the numbers for printing the books ourselves, taking into account real professional equipment, binding equipment, paper, ink and other consumables, packaging, shipping... everything we could think of (and Chris is remarkably good at deflating my ideas of how little something will cost. He has this knack for finding extra costs in every corner that we need to account for).

Turns out our cost per book is considerably less than quoted to us. Of course we knew that would be the case; printers and publishers have to make a profit after all. What we didn't understand, was that the difference between what we would have been charged, and what our costs would be to open our own publishing company, were in fact enough that we could cover the costs to do so within the first few hundred copies sold of a single cookbook.

So we thought about it for a few days, got some opinions concerning equipment and quotes from reputable vendors (thanks Bobby!), ran the numbers again and again; and kept coming back to the same point: We can do this ourselves.

I've done copy editing work. Chris was a professional magazine writer for a while, has done article editing (though not copy editing. He knows HOW to spell, it's just he's so dyslexic he reverses words around constantly), knows digital pre-press, and understands and knows people in the business.

We already have the scanning and imaging equipment, and the computer systems and software from Chris's business. We've got the time, and the space...

The numbers told us that the cash influx from the first couple hundred orders would be enough to cover good, professional, small run production color printing and binding equipment, and all of the consumables...

Not only can we do this ourselves, but once the first few hundred cookbooks are sold, we'd be left with all of this really good professional equipment (bought at wholesale prices, thanks again)...

As it happens, we know SO many people who need this kind of service, and I'm still really pissed about the fleecing of the non-profits...

Well, it would be silly not to at least try it. After all, we've already pre-sold all those books, and we're going to need to print and bind them anyway, and this is the only way we aren't going to LOSE money on that...

We decided we were going to do it.

So, it pleases us very much to announce the creation of Crispin Press


Crispin Press is being founded as a short run publisher and printer; offering low volume, color and black and white, specialty, custom, and personal, printing and publishing services; as well as digital pre-press, and editing services.

We will provide limited distribution and fulfillment services, print on demand, and may provide print on demand fulfillment services (if we think the book is worthwhile).

We have already established a distribution contract, and will be able to offer a zero inventory publishing and distribution service through Ingram (the number one book distributor in the country), and Amazon.com; at least for black and white (we can't do enough color volume to get distribution, at the price we'd need to sell it at).

We're in the midst of setting up Crispin Press as an Arizona LLC separate from Chris's business (we already have a company for Chris's contracting business); and for now are doing business under Chris's company, operating as Crispin Press.

Ok... so why did we decide to actually start up a publishing company? Isn't that a long way from just printing a few hundred books to raise money?

When we were researching the market, and trying to decide whether we should try and found our own publishing company, or just print our book and be done with it; we looked around at what was out there for small run publishers, and we just didn't like what we saw.

In particular we saw that certain specialty markets we were interested in were underserved, or poorly served by current providers.

These markets include:

• Fundraisers and non-profits
  
• Small-audience non academic, and non-religious publications (the academic and religious presses do a good job)
• Home schooling textbooks, workbooks, and other instructional and training materials
  
• Gaming materials and manuals
• Hobby materials and manuals
• Firearms manuals, training materials, and books
• Shooting manuals, training materials, and books
  
• Hunting manuals, training materials, and books
• Manuals and training materials for specialty markets
• Political and philosophical materials on the libertarian and conservative side
  
• Family History Books
• Printed and bound family albums
  

Basically, any book that would have an audience of more than 10 and less than 10,000 is in limbo. You can go to a subsidy/vanity press, but they're so expensive, there's no way you'll ever make a dime selling your book (which is why it's called a vanity press).

Sure there are other small run publishers out there, like iUniverse for example; but as I said, they charge through the nose for color, or for anything other than perfect bound (let's not even get into what they charge for hardcovers in color).

We really think this is viable; because the fixed costs are pretty low (modern digital pre-press, and short run color printing technologies have made that possible), and because it's my labor, and the labor of my family and underemployed friends on a temporary basis.

Basically, we don't have a shop, we don't have a warehouse, we don't have a payroll, and other than the direct printing and binding equipment (which is expensive, but reasonably priced for the work it can do) we have the gear already; so we can really afford to do this cheaper than anyone else, in the small quantities we're looking at doing.

Besides which, if this doesn't work, we're not really out anything, because we needed to do everything but the business paperwork to get the cookbook done anyway.

I don't think we could have dreamed up a better prospect for a home-based, part-time, flexible, extra-income business. One that can be run from my iPhone, no less.

I want to personally and individually thank you for your pre-orders of the cookbook. It was that strong interest in helping us out, and in buying our book, that made all this possible.

Thanks to all of you who have pre-ordered cookbooks and/or given us free publicity, we've made our minimum number plus a few (around 210 at the moment). That will allow us to cover our costs on the equipment, and on printing and shipping the first print run of the cookbook.

Anything we sell over and above that, we're actually making a profit, and paying down our legal bills.

Our first product (the cookbook) will be shipping as soon as we're done re-writing, reformatting, and redoing the layout.

Our initial design and layout were predicated on the services of our first publisher. Now that we are publishing ourselves, we need to reformat, and do some re-writing to fit the new press and binding system. Chris is working on that now, and it should be ready to start printing in a week or two.

Our website will be going online shortly as well. We've got the domains and hosting up and running, but we're still working on the design and coding.

When the site is live, we will publish our toll free number, contact, and sales info. We will publish a standard price schedule for services at that time. In the mean time, email me for more information.

Hopefully we can turn Crispin Press into a long-term solution to our legal debt problem, that will allow me to work at home, and help other people with services they need as well.

Thanks to all of you who made this possible!

Mel

Precisely Wrong

Apologies, while they may hurt the pride (or the pocketbook) are easy.

A simple "I'm sorry. I screwed up. I'll fix it, and try not to do it again"... it isn't hard.

A sincere apology goes a long way.

Some people though, seem to be incapable of apologizing. Oh they may seem to say they're sorry, but... no that's not quite right is it...

"I'm sorry you were offended"... ummm, wait a sec... That's not actually saying you're sorry is it now... in fact that's rather saying "I'm sorry you were a whiny oversensitive idiot. It's not my fault, but I'm saying this to placate you"... or something like that anyway...

Last Monday, it came to the attention of the online gun community at large, that H-S Precision, a leading manufacturer of stocks for precision rifles, had sought out the endorsement of the former head of the FBI hostage rescue team sniper program.


This of course seems a natural thing, given that the FBI is a prestigious organization, HRT is an elite unite within the FBI, and that they use H-S precision stocks; this would be a great endorsement normally...

... but for one rather large thing; which has the online firearms community incensed, and calling for the boycott of H-S precision:

The former head of the sniper programs name, is Lon Horiuchi.

Why does this matter? What's in a name? Why are so many people so angry?

Lon Horiuchi is widely considered a murderer by American gun owners. He was in fact tried for manslaughter, but his bosses in the FBI and department of justice made charges go away by claiming a jurisdictional issue.

You see, Lon Horiuchi was the sniper who killed Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge, while she was holding her infant in her arms.

Some background on the incident from an earlier post of mine, "Murder by Incompetence" from August 23rd 2007:

Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the murder of Vicki Weaver by the FBI; and the day before, was the anniversary of her sons murder by US Marshals acting in concert with the ATF. Yes, I said murdered by the government. Not just killed, but murdered. A crime was committed; and it has never been properly redressed. Much of the attention and blame for this crime has fallen on Lon Horiuchi, the sniper who took the shot that Killed Vicki Weaver. I won't excuse what he did (he should have known better), but he was operating on very bad information, very bad orders, and under what I would consider clearly unlawful rules of engagement. The greater culpability for this incident lies in the US marshals who were initially on scene; and from the FBI, HRT commander Richard Rogers, SAC Eugene Glenn, and deputy directory Larry Potts; who took over the scene after Kevin Harris killed deputy marshal William Degan in self defense. On the morning of August 21st, during a botched surveillance operation; deputy US marshal Art Roderick fired at Sammy Weaver (Randy Weavers son) and Kevin Harris, or at their dog striker (this is unclear); killing the dog, and drawing return defensive fire from Weaver and Harris. Deputy marshals Roderick, Degan, Frank Norris and Larry Cooper then opened fire on Weaver and Harris. Degan shot and wounded both Weaver and Harris, at which point Harris shot back directly at Degan, killing him. In retaliation, deputy marshal Cooper then shot Sammy Weaver; killing him. At no time in this engagement, did the deputies serve a warrant, or identify themselves as marshals. When the marshals called in the FBI, the situation they described to the SAC, was an outright lie. They informed the SAC and the HRT commander that the Weavers were radical religious fanatics, part of a white supremacist holy war cult; that all members of the family were armed and ready to fight at all times, and that they were going to kill their children and themselves rather than surrender. The marshals also told the SAC that they had been pinned down for 12 hours by heavy small arms fire, and possibly automatic weapons; and that William Degan had been deliberately murdered. Based on this outright lie, the FBI instituted rules of engagement to allow any adult with a weapon to be shot on sight. These ROE were clearly unlawful, and should have been rejected by the onsite agents (and a judge decided that as well later); instead HRT acted on them for a full day. Within a few hours, the FBI chain of command knew that the marshals had lied; but they did not change the illegal rules of engagement until after Horiuchi had already fired several shots at Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris (wounding both). Horiuchis final shot at Harris missed him, and struck Vicki Weaver who was standing in the doorway that Harris was entering, holding her infant child. I believe that Lon Horiuchi was negligent in his actions that day in firing through the doorway; and he was derelict in his duty to the constitution when he accepted the unlawful rules of engagement; but he did not commit deliberate murder. It seems clear to me however that the marshals wanted revenge for the killing of William Degan, and to cover up their own unlawful acts and incompetence. In furtherance of this, they deliberately mislead the FBI in the hopes that the Weavers would be killed, and there would be no witnesses left alive to their crimes. There is no doubt that Larry Cooper murdered Sammy Weaver, by shooting him (under whatever circumstances), while attempting to cover up the crimes and incompeteance of he and his colleagues. Further, there is no doubt that the US marshalls lied to the FBI in order to cover up their incompetence, and possibly their crimes. At the very least, they should be tried for manslaughter, if not second degree murder; in the deaths of Sammy and Vicki Weaver. Additionally, SAC Glenn, SAC Rogers and deputy director Potts knew that the rules of engagement instituted that day were illegal, unconstitutional, and unjustified. They should never have instituted those rules; but even in so doing, once they found they had been misled by the marshals they had an absolute duty to rescind them. They did not do so, and their incompetence and misfeasance of duty directly caused the murder of Vicki Weaver. Given these circumstances, Lon Horiuchi has been saddled, somewhat unfairly, with the majority of the burden of these crimes. I simply believe this is incorrect. Horiuchi committed negligent homicide; but I believe his chain of command showed a depraved indifference to the lives of the Weavers, based on their political beliefs; and therefore committed second degree murder, or first degree manslaughter (depending on the laws of Idaho, which I am unfamiliar with).

As you can see, I don't personally consider Horiuchi a murderer; however it is abundantly clear, that he committed an unjustified homicide; which can be construed as several different crimes, depending on the totality of the circumstances, and the exact laws of the jurisdiction.

By the laws of most states, Horiuchis actions would be charged as manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, or second degree murder (again, depending on the state, and the exact totality of the circumstances).

The standard by which criminal negligence is decided in most states is thus (or similar): If the defendant knew or should have known, that their actions could result in a criminal act or criminal harm, then they are guilty of criminal negligence.

Further, some states have a concept of depraved indifference; where if one could reasonably foresee unjustified grave harm coming as a consequence of an act, and does it anyway, one is either criminally negligent, or worse. Some states elevate depraved indifference homicide to the same level as deliberate murder.

Lon Horiuchi knew, or should have known, that his rules of engagement were unlawful and unconstitutional. You cannot excuse "just following orders" when those orders are clearly unlawful. He acted on those orders, even though he could reasonably forsee unjustified grave harm coming to those subjects he was engaging.

He acted on those orders, and an unarmed woman with a baby in her arms died.

Based on this, Boundary county Idaho prosecuted him.

They indicted him, and brought him to trial; however the trial was ended and charges were ordered dismissed by a federal judge, who ruled that Boundary county couldn't try Horiuchi because he was a federal agent acting in the scope of his duties as an FBI agent; and that any prosecution would have to be at a federal level (the supremacy doctrine).

Idaho petitioned the US attorney and attorney general to prosecute Horiuchi, but they declined on the grounds of sovereign immunity (an agent of the state - specifically in this case a law enforcement officer - cannot be criminally prosecuted for acting within their duties, so long as they acted in good faith, and without negligence).

Idahos argument was that sovereign immunity did not apply, because the shots taken did not follow the FBIs shoot/no-shoot guidelines, or lethal force guidelines, and because the rules of engagement were clearly unlawful; however the FBI formally disagreed, stating that it was the onsite commanders call, and that Horiuchi behaved appropriately and in good faith.

As charging is at the discretion of the US attorney of the state, or of the attorney general (at that point Janet Reno); and feeling that the FBI had adequately dealt with the situation internally, they declined to prosecute.

Idaho then appealed the judges decision on the supremacy doctrine, and won; clearing the way to try Horiuchi again. However, by this time, several years had passed, a new county prosecutor was in place, the FBI was stonewalling, and the justice department was pressuring the state and county very hard to drop the case; so Boundary county declined to refile.

I realize this is a lot of background matieral; but you need to understand why it is that so many people are so upset about this.

Lon Horiuchi killed a woman with a baby in her arms, without justification, while acting as a sniper during an unlawful operation; and acting under unlawful and unconstitutional orders. He was charged, and tried, but got off on an administrative technicality and through political pressure...

... and a company making equipment for snipers, published a full page endorsement from him on the back of their catalog.

As has been said, that's a lot like having Bull Connor endorse your brand of firehoses.

At best this endorsement is a major gaffe, and a bit tone deaf. At worst, it's a deliberate thumb in the eye to the millions (and it probably is in the low millions. It's certainly at least hundreds of thousands) of Americans who consider Horiuchi a murderer (or something akin to it).

Those people, who just happen to be H-S precisions core customer base. Precision shooting enthusiasts, competitive shooters, the military, and law enforcement. I think if you were to poll all of the above, all of us (and I'm certainly in that group), even the majority of law enforcement snipers (and yes I'm sure every last one of them is familiar with the incident), would find this endorsement at the least stupid, and more likely offensive.

As it turns out however, the president of H-S precision, Tom Houghton Jr., is old friends with Horiuchi. In fact, it was in part that friendship which led to the FBI using H-S precision stocks on their sniper rifles.

You might say that Tom Houghton "owes one" to Horiuchi.

Clearly, the company knew about the incident, and knew about the opinion of the gun owning public; and did it anyway.

Now I'm speculating here, but based on the companies actions I think I'm justified in saying they did this because as far as president of H-S precision is concerned, his friend did nothing wrong.

Of course they did not state this publicly, as this would be suicide.

H-S precisions single largest customer is Remington Arms; who use H-S precision stocks on their factory custom rifles, their special police and marksman rifles, and their tactical rifles. All in all I believe Remington accounts for about 1/3 of H-S precisions business.

Last February, a gentleman by the name of Jim Zumbo; a 30 year veteran writer and hunting editor for outdoor life, and television host for the outdoor life channel, who had been sponsored by Remington for over 20 years; wrote a post for his Remington sponsored blog, in which he described the most popular centerfire semi-automatic rifle in the united states, the AR-15, as a "terrorist gun".

In this article Zumbo said that there was no legitimate use for an AR (or other "evil black rifles") and called for the AR to be banned from civilian hands; because the mere fact that they are available threatens his own preferred "hunting" guns.

Within hours of the post going up, outdoor life and Remington had received tens of thousands of emails and telephone calls. Over the next few days letters poured in.

Zumbo made one of those non-apology apologies, basically saying "hey sorry I upset you, but I didn't do anything wrong".

The very next day, outdoor life canceled his longstanding column, terminated him as hunting editor, and dropped him from their TV network. Remington canceled Zumbos sponsorship deals; and all his other sponsors followed suit.

Last week, the CEO of Remington Tommy Milner said the following:

Because its thanksgiving and everyone is off, we have not made contact with HS. We have taken any reference to HS from our web site.. When you first emailed me I honestly did not recall horiuchi's name so you caught me unawares. I also do not read the blogs so the fact there was an issue came as a surpise. In any event, HS makes a great product and we are a large customer of theirs. Why they would pick a super controversial spokesperson is beyond me. Doing this violates pure business common sense. Early next week we will use whatever persuasive powers at our disposal to get HS to do the right thing.. Do me a favor and tell those on the bolgs that Remington and I are now fully aware of the issue, in full agreement with the outrage, and will do what we can t exert pressure on HS to reverse course. Thanks Tommy

I happen to agree with Tommy Milner, H-S precision makes a good product. In fact, I had ordered a customized stock from them for my 1000 yard rifle project.

They have unfortunately been oddly silent.

The morning after the story broke (I read it about 9pm the day of) I called H-S precision, but got voicemail. I left messages for both sales, and marketing; explaining that I was a customer of theirs, and also a writer and editor of several web sites, and I wanted to hear from them regarding the endorsement as soon as possible.

I called back this week, and again got nothing but voicemail. They have not been granting any requests for comment, or interviews for the now thousands of inquiries they have recieved; apparently including not responding to their major vendors and customers (according to people inside said vendors and customers; of course unofficially).

In fact, they have said exactly nothing for nearly two weeks since the story broke... until yesterday.

I've been waiting to write anything about this story until we'd heard from H-S officially.

Yesterday, H-S Precision released the following statement:

To Our Valued Customers: H-S Precision has received comments relating to individual testimonials in our 2008 catalog. All of the testimonials focused on the quality, accuracy and customer service provided by H-S Precision. The management of H-S Precision did not intend to offend anyone or create any type of controversy. We are revising our 2009 catalog and removing all product testimonials. Sincerely, The Management of H-S Precision

Well, I can see a lot wrong with that statement... first, I think we should strike that "sincerely", because clearly there was nothing sincere about it.

Clealry they are saying "well, we don't think we did anythign wrong, but we're sorry you were offended".

To add insult to injury, they did not send this to anyone directly, nor respond to any questions. They quietly put up a small "news" link in the upper right corner of their website, and released that statement without fanfare... perhaps hoping no-one would notice?

We noticed.

In the mere hours since this statement was released, even those who had previously been defending H-S precision have been calling for a boycott of their products... even going so far as to call for a boycott on anyone selling H-S Precision products, or otherwise doing business with them (such as Brownells and Midway USA).

On my part, I'll be canceling my order with them on Monday. I was waiting for the statement, now I have it, and I'm showing them exactly what I think about it.

I can only speculate about what the reaction of the rest of H-S's customers will be; but I predict this will be the end of the company.

This non-apology is in fact WORSE than Zumbos, because it is insincere and disingenuous; and because H-S precisions KNEW exactly what they were saying and doing than and now, and knew what our reaction (and yes I share it) as gun owners would be.

I expect we'll hear from Tommy Milner on Monday, announcing they have canceled their contracts with H-S. There may be legal wrangling involved, but Remington knows that they won't be selling another precision/tactical rifle with an H-S stock on it; or at least not to the non-leo/military market (government contracts are a lot harder to change).

I expect we'll also hear from Midway USA and Brownells (their two largest distributors) shortly thereafter, announcing they are dropping H-S.

Right now, there is exactly one thing H-S precision could do to save the company, if they're lucky: They could issue a statement condemning Lon Horiuchi, and his and the FBIs actions at Ruby Ridge; and profusely and sincerely apologizing to the Weaver family, and to the gun owning public for being so stupid and offensive.

Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen. I think Tom Houghton really believes that he did nothing wrong, and neither did his friend Lon Horiuchi.

This mans pride is going to kill his company.

Oh and Jim Zumbo? He's back at outdoor life (though he's no longer the hunting editor) and he's back on TV. He educated himself about the issue, and made a sincere apology, and to an extent, he has been forgiven (he will never be totally forgiven, nor totally trusted. That's just the way gunnies are).

A sincere apology sometimes goes a long way.

An object lesson in poor service, and losing money: The connectivity saga of 2007

Oy... the last few days have been... interesting.

I'm going to tell you a story, that should demonstrate to you why every major ISP, Telco, and Cable company in this country is, or has recently been, in financial trouble.

Now, I'm a techno geek. An early adopter (though not generally true bleeding edge), and I have a lot of digital services in my life.

Most critical among these are my telephone service, my internet service, my mobile phone, and my cable TV. Without the first three, I can't work; and the last makes life a fair bit more entertaining.

Now, for telephone service, I've been with Vonage for four years. I love their service, and I never had any problems with it (until a few months ago). Vonage made signing up with them very easy (for me anyway. MY friend John had some major issues, but we were trying to do something the customer service people didn't know how to do), and has always been helpful when I've had customer service questions etc...

Similarly, I have T-mobile for my mobile phone provider; I've had them for four years; and I couldn't be happier. I get excellent telephone and mobile internet service; and they make things convenient for me with regards to billing and customer service.

I have had phones with Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon before, and I had MAJOR customer services issues with all of them; but T-mobile has been just great.

I've also been with Cox cable and internet for four years; and I've had TONS of problems with their service, which I very much do not love.

Over the past two years, I've seen my cable and internet bill from Cox go from $106 a month, to $174 a month; with not only no improvement in service, but a worsening.

A few months back, I started getting slow down on my net connection when I was busy, downloading, or using the VOIP. Apparently Cox has started throttling high bandwidth users; and services, like bit torrent, and competing companies VOIP (they offer their own telephone services). This has been causing me no end of trouble with my work VPN, and with my telephony.

It's not Vonages fault, but they have become unusable over Cox; to the point where it has caused me issues in getting my job done (I work all day on the phone). Not only that, but Vonage is in serious trouble financially, and legally, so I've been considering dropping the service. I don't want to, but I may HAVE to.

Now, between that, and all the rate increases, I've been looking to get off of Cox for a while.

Well, the final straw came right at the beginning of football season. I started getting dropouts, freezes, and digital artifacts when I was watching TV. This would happen on all but the HD channels, and it didn't matter whether I was recording with the DVR or not. It was actually WORSE on the standard def analog channels. It started off as a little interference every once in a while, but after a couple months it became so bad, that often TV shows would be unwatchable for several minutes at a time.

Cox sent people out twice to fix it, and twice they did nothing... in fact it may have been made worse. They steadfastly insisted it wasn't the box; but the signal tested strong and clean (100% strength, SN of around 40db) so it wasn't the signal etc... etc...

Anyway, I HATE satellite TV, because you get the exact same issues (dropouts, digital tiling), and it can take 20 seconds to change the channel, and you lose it in dust storms, and electrical storms, and high winds... I could go on. I really didn't want satellite.

Up until recently, I didn't have any other option; but our local telco Qwest has started offering what they call Choice TV and Choice internet in our area; rolling it to different neighborhoods over the last two years.

Choice TV isn't satellite, it's TV over VDSL with fiber to the node. What that means is that they run fiber optics to a neighborhood node, and then run up to 4 twisted pairs to your house with high bandwidth DSL over them. They can run the pairs as far as 300meters from the node, at 11 megabits per twisted pair.

Now, in order to get choice TV, you need to have phone and internet services with Qwest; and between the price increases and the content issues, and the tiling and dropouts... well I've been ready to get off of Cox for a while. Unfortunately Qwest didn't offer choice in my neighborhood...

Until about 8 weeks ago.

When I first found out about Qwest choice TV, I called them up and asked about it; and they weren't offering it here then; but they said they would be over the next year, and I should call them back in a few months. After the last Cox service call that made things worse, I decided to give Qwest a call; and I found out then, that they had the service available.

I was VERY happy about that, and I started the process to sign up for the new service; basically just so I could get rid of Cox.

Unfortunately, halfway through the sign up we hit a snag. I have a fraud alert on my credit accounts due to identity theft; and they were unable to verify my credit over the phone.

Now get this... to resolve the situation, they wanted me to fax a copy of my drivers license, my social security card, and a utility bill in my name TO A THIRD PARTY IN KANSAS CITY.

I spent a few minutes explaining to the account rep on the other end of the phone that the reason I had the fraud alert in the first place was because I'd had identity theft; and that the most common way for identity theft to occur was employees with access to private information; and that there was no way I was going to fax copies of my ids to someone I don't know and trust.

Anyway, I told them to try and find another way, and that I would call back. Then I called up Cox and told them I was unhappy, and why, and that I was going to cancel unless they fixed the issues I was having, and did something for me on my bill.

Well, they transferred me to the customer retention department (you know it's bad when they have a dedicated department just to retain unhappy customers - actually every major telco and ISP does; and all for the same reason - they ARE that bad). I explained the situation and problems to them, and the "customer retention specialist" actually hung up on me.

Ooooh boy that pissed me off.

Anyway, about a week later, we were in Best Buy, and I saw that they were agents for Qwest choice service. I figured maybe signing up in person would smooth things out. Not only that, but when we talked about it, they offered us $100 off any computer in the store if we signed up.

...Well, Mel wanted a new laptop anyway; so merry Christmas honey, we get a new cable, internet, and phone company, and you get a new computer.

Unfortunately, we had the same problem signing up that time; but I got on the phone with the regional sales manager who promised me she would work something out the next day (it was after 8pm by that time).

So the next day I got back on the phone with the regional sales manager, and she goes through the internal connections to the accounts escalation manager at the "home office".

We spent over two hours on the phone with her, and the sales rep on conference, with the escalations manager bringing various other departments on and off line etc... We STILL ran into the verification issue; but finally we got frustrated and just put it in Mels name (she does NOT have a fraud alert).

Now, before this whole multi-party conference call began, I laid out some very clear terms and conditions:

1. I needed to save money over Cox and Vonage, on phone, cable, and internet which together were costing me $200 a month.

2. I needed to see not only no downgrade in service, but an upgrade

3. I ABSOLUTELY MUST, as a deal breaker, have an HD DVR (TiVO or something similar). Mel and I have had the DVR for two years now, and it's made us actually enjoy watching television again. We'll go without cable, before we go without a DVR again.

The regional sales manager, and the escalation manager, both agreed all of that was no problem.

1. My package pricing ended up being $150 a month all inclusive instead of $200.

2. I would actually get more channels, and more of them in HD.

3. They didn't offer an HD DVR, but they specifically said I could go and buy an HD TiVO, and they'd give me a $100 rebate.

So we signed up, agreed to a two year contract on 3Mb/1Mb internet service (in order to get it for $20 cheaper a month with a lifetime price guarantee) with the option to upgrade as high as 11Mb/8Mb, two phone lines (to replace our two Vonage lines), and the Choice TV HD service.

They scheduled us for an install three weeks later.

So, the next day, I ordered a brand new TiVO HD, and the wireless interface for it, with overnight shipping from amazon (for $90 less than list price even, and overnight is only 44 extra for us because we're prime customers). When I got it the next day, I activated it, and signed up for a one year contract with TiVO to get $12 a month pricing (vs $16). Then, I disconnected the still live Cox DVR, hooked up the TiVO (which at that point would only get the analog cable channels, and local HD channels), and started playing...

Oh my god TiVO is the greatest invention in Television since color.

Remember when I said having a DVR made TV enjoyable to us again? Well having a TiVO was as big an improvement over the cable companies DVR, as having that DVR was over standard cable.

Honestly, I can't describe to you how much better TiVO is than normal cable. I can record two programs while watching a third. I can time shift anything I want. I can search for any kind of programming I like, and have the TiVO auto record it; and even record similar programming that I haven't specifically asked it to. I NEVER miss a program I want to watch anymore, because even if I forget to program it in, theres a goo chance TiVO knows that I want to watch that program (based on my having watched it, or similar shows, previously), and auto-records it for me.

To top it all off, I can send movies and music to and from any of my pcs, as well as downloading them off the net from several sources; and the picture quality, even in standard definition, is VASTLY superior to that from my cable company set top box. I would say the picture on SD is just as good as an SD-DVD; and in HD is almost as good as an HD-DVD.

I no longer want to have cable without TiVO, that's how good it is. It's worth every penny of the price, and more.

Oh and the digital tiling, drop outs, freezes etc? Yeah, not a one with the TiVO. Everything is pristine no matter what I'm watching, when. Looks like it was their DVR box after all.

So, last Friday the installer gets here, works out in the street, at the neighborhood node, and in our wiring boxes for a couple hours; putting our two phone drops (each drop has two twisted pairs in it) on the VDSL, and swithcing our house coax (four coax drops in the house) onto the Qwest network. That all went relatively smoothly, except that they wrote the service order wrong, and he had to spend an extra hour on the phone with the head end trying to get the lines re-provisioned properly.

Then he started on the inside work, and we started talking about the service and he dropped a bomb "Oh, we don't support DVRs on this service for HD. Not only that, but they only work like a VCR in SD, and only with this one box and an IR blaster to change the channels".

Say what?

Apparently, there are TWO DIFFERENT Qwest choice services.

The first service is provisioned on FTTN (fiber to the node), and uses multiplexed signals over the twisted pair for separate TV, phone, and VDSL networking. That service uses these proprietary Motorola home gateways, which have basically no inputs or outputs, only limited video bandwidth, and no way to use a DVR with them. Some of the boxes don't even have HDMI out, just component, and the ones with HDMI, are HDMI, without sound; and they don't have a digital audio output.

Basically they are crap. Motorola aren't even making new ones, because they've switched everything to VDSL2; and they've refused to make or support any enhancements, especially a DVR, because the system has too many quality and performance issues.

All this was related to me by the clearly knowledgeable... in fact clearly expert... install tech, while we were talking about the system and it's limitations.

The OTHER choice TV services are implemented over VDSL2, at 200Mb; with full digital IPTV, IP phone, and networking. THAT service looks great, and offers full cable card support, so you can either use the DVR box that Motorola builds, or use your own TiVO.

Yeah... we don't get that service here. Oh, we will eventually, but not for at least another two years.

So at that point, Cox was already physically disconnected and canceled, I'm already out $300 plus a contract to TiVO... and as I said, I don't want to have cable without TiVO. Now here's this guy telling me not only don't I get my TiVO, but I don't get ANY DVR at all.

I was irritated to say the least.

I wasn't able to get the sales manager on the phone, but I left her a message, and the installer suggested he just connect everything up, get it all working; and if I was unhappy with it I could always convert over to DirectTV HD (which does offer actual TiVO, branded as DirecTVbuilt into the satellite tuner).

Of course, as I said, I REALLY don't want satellite; and I don't want cable without TiVO.

... and, under federal law, cable companies which require digital set top boxes have to provide customers who request it with cable cards...

I did actually give the Qwest ChoiceTV package a shot; but after watching it for only an hour, it was so bad that I just couldn't put up with it. The picture was awful, there was audio noise and no surround sound (the TiVO HD outputs Dolby Digital), the programming guide was crap... even the remote sucked.

Even worse, the internet service that I depend on for work? It was intermittently failing. Several times an hour it would drop connection for no apparent reason, for about 3 minutes at a time; sometimes requiring a reboot of my router to regain connectivity.

This was clearly unacceptable, so I pulled the Qwest choice off the main TVs coax drop, reconnected Cox (the drop was still live), hooked my TiVO back up, and got Cox on the phone.

I left the office drop on Qwests network to keep the DSL internet working; and by reconnecting Cox to the living room TV, I at least got working cable again, with TiVO.

I got to a GOOD customer retention specialist this time, and they cut my HD cable package price down from $120 without internet (as it was before) to $80 without internet; and 3 months at $60. They ordered up a reconnect with a free technician visit, and two cable cards.

Then I called up Qwest, and told them to get out here, take off the TV, and fix the internet; or I was canceling the whole shebang. They told me that they could only send one tech out, to do one of those jobs at a time, so I had them send the guy out to fix the internet (which was a lot more critical).

The Qwest guy was here Tuesday morning, and I had him take out the TV service anyway, and reconfigure our service as phone and internet only; which works just fine with no phone noise, and no dropped internet connections. And hell, it's a lot faster than Cox was, even though they are both rated as 3Mbit services. He took the Motorola gateways out, disconnected from the house coax, dropped in a DSL modem... and again spent over two hours on the phone with the head office trying to get things re-provisioned properly.

So now, instead of $200 a month between Cox and Vonage; I'm paying $170 a month ($20 less for the frist three months) between Qwest, Cox, and TiVO ; and I'm getting better service. Unfortunately I'm not getting the simplification I was hoping for, but oh well.

So, anyway, the Cox guy gets here this morning, sees that we've got the new TiVO HD box and says right off "Oh these things don't work with our cable cards".

He then spent the next hour, as we configured the system together, talking about how they never worked, and it was TiVOs fault etc... etc... Also Cox was saying that multistream cards (which can decode up to four streams) didn't work and that even if we COULD somehow get a card working, we could only use single stream cards (the TiVOHD has two slots for providers that only support single stream cards), and it would be a miracle if we got two working.

Well, I knew that Cox had issues with their cable cards, and everybody else, never mind TiVO; but I also knew they DID work, you just had to massage them properly, AND make sure they were provisioned properly at the head end.

So I went in and worked the Tivo to the point where it recognized the card, and did a firmware update; then did a hard reboot on the TiVO. When the box came back up, we were able to get the hostid for the card, and call in to have it provisioned.

After over an hour on the phone with several different departments, they finally provisioned the card; and we were able to get some channels, but only basic cable.

At that point I knew they had provisioned the card improperly, and went back into the service menus to show the installer what they had done wrong (there's a LOT of diagnostic info available in a TiVO. They are Linux boxes after all). He got them back on the phone, they reprovisioned the cards on the account again; and three minutes later I had all 240 channels working, with HD, surround sounds, AND my TiVO service (on a multi stream card no less).

The sad part is, this installer was the MOST experienced they had; and the one they specifically sent out to deal with cablecard installs. The problem isn't with the TiVO, it's with Cox. They don't want to support cable cards (because it costs them revenue in lost box fees. $17 a month for an HD dvr, vs $1.50 a month for a cable card; and cable cards don't support pay per view on demand) so they make it as difficult as possible, and they give their techs bad information, and no troubleshooting tools, or training.

It took THREE damn hours just to get the cable card installed and configures; a process which should have taken 20 minutes.

Actually, what's obscene is the time I spent on the whole process:

1. First Qwest signup (failed): 1 hour
2. Second signup (failed): 2 hours
3. Third signup (succeeded): 3 hours
4. First Qwest install: 3 hours
5. Qwest fix: 3 hours
6. Cox cable card install: 3 hours

That's 15 hours of my time, as in the time I spent directly involved with these processes; never mind the time of the install techs, the provisioning people, the sales reps etc... which was several more hours on top of that (oh and the almost exactly 2 hours it took me to write these 4000 words doesn't help either; but I need to vent here).

I would guess, conservatively, that Qwest has now put 30 man hours into this account. Over the course of all my problems with Cox, they have put at least 15 man hours into it.

All that time costs money.

These providers wont be seeing a profit out of me for years at this point; and all because they havent' upgraded their customer service and service delivery systems to work with each other; and they don't give their people the proper tools and training necessary to resolve these issues when they come up.

...and yet, they wonder why cable companies, telcos, and ISPs taken as a group, are the third most hated group of service providers we as consumers deal with (behind banks and airlines); and why they can't seem to make a profit, no matter how high their revenues are.

How many customers have they lost because of situations like this? Because I assure you my story isn't exactly uncommon. How much good will? How much potential revenue have they not realized, simply because they are inefficient, and provide poor customer service?

When are they going to realize that the only way they are going to make money at this game, is to be both efficient, and convenient?

Unfortunately, if experience is any guide... never. They'll all go out of business first, and then Google really will buy up the internet and rule the world.