Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

Comcast recently announced several new additions to their on-demand choices.   Bones, Gray’s Anatomy, Private Practice and others were added to on-demand.  Sounds great doesn’t it? Wrong, there appears to be roughly twice as many commercials on-demand as there are on broadcast.   On-demand has sunk to new and even lower standards.   Comcast, you are guaranteed to put new life into TIVO sales.   DVR use will double except my guess is that using Comcast’s DVR will mean more commercials.   Oh, and I saved the best for last.   Comcast disabled the fast forward function so you can’t even fast forward through the commercials.    Nice move Comcast!   Disabling fast forward really endeared me to your service. Comcast are your intentions to aggressively drive your users to FIOS or Direct TV? I watched Bones tonight on-demand and that will be the last time I use on-demand to watch Bones. ...

Once again Comcast has truncated my ability to surf the net. Upon arriving at my vacation destination I discovered the cable modem that worked just swell last January no longer worked. After one hour on the phone with Comcast, I was told the modem was not working. Duhhh! Comcast told me to get a new modem or get theirs for $8/month and since that makes no sense whatsoever being here for less than two months, I went out and bought a new modem. Of course I checked Comcast’s compatibility chart and then even called and spoke to a tech to verify that I had, indeed, chosen an acceptable Comcast certified modem. I set up the new modem which did not work. The Comcast tech I spoke to this time told me that he wasn’t getting any signal and that the old modem was probably just fine, that it was a Comcast issue. He scheduled a service call. The earliest call was 5 days later and for those of you as addicted to the net as I am, seemed like an eternity. The Comcast tech arrived within the ...

I’ve detailed my frustration with Windows 7 and then with my new Acer Aspire hard drive crash ad nauseum. I’m still fighting to get back to where I was prior to “upgrading” to new computers and a new problem fraught OS. Let’s just say if I wasn’t bald before I would be now. Latest issues after I got my Aspire back from Acer with it’s new hard drive and a newly installed Windows 7. My wonderful IO Gear GUB211 auto switch, that allowed me to share my printer with my XP and Vista machines and my miserably unfriendly Windows 7 machine, has stopped working. I am in the midst of troubleshooting that with IO gear via email. Not the best support but better than no support. Secondly when I got my machine back I reinstalled Norton Security Suite, free from Comcast. I had it on one of my XP machines as well. Lo and behold my file sharing no longer works between my machines. My XP m achines running Avast free talk to each other but won’t talk to either machine running Norton. My Vista mach...

I’m on vacation but as most Internet junkies I am loathe to be out of touch. I brought my laptop and as backup for the laptop, I brought my PDA which is wireless enabled. I purchased a Comcast approved modem and added seasonal Internet to my TV package. BTW I heard about the seasonal package by word of mouth, I still haven’t seen it on any Comcast site. It turns out in touristy areas like Florida; Comcast has a program that allows you to go month to month on Internet access. The Comcast representative wanted me to have their tech come out to install my modem for $50.00. Since installation was putting a splitter on the cable and sending one cable to the TV and the other to my laptop, I felt I could handle it and I saved the $50.00 installation fee. Once the modem is attached, you call Comcast and provide them with the mac# that is on the modem and you are in business. For $25.00 a month I get a slow but reliable connection to the Internet. Slow as compared to what I have at home bu...