Considering that we had recently got rid of our cable TV plan I would normally have expected a conspiracy had it not been for the fact that this had been such a chronic problem over the years.

I called again, got routed to India again, and was told that this time it would be FIVE DAYS MORE before they would get out to me.  No amount of arguing would change things.  So five days later here comes a different guy and I go out to meet him at the box and tell him of my troubles.  He checked it, said the levels were indeed off again but that there must be something wrong with the cable or a piece of hardware somewhere if I was continually having these problems. He said he was going to put in a work order to have some other techie subgroup come out and do a more thorough inspection of the equipment at the box but also proceeded to adjust the levels again and got me up and running.

Mediacom, you should really thank that guy because until I talked to him I was minutes away from calling up Qwest and ordering DSL even though I knew it would have crappy bandwidth compared to the 12 Mbps that Mediacom can provide.  Qwest is still an option though.  The next time our line goes dead I’m done with them, and their annoying overseas tech support people.  Just once I would love to call in and get someone local!

Tweetdeck Screenshot

I have been on Twitter for about a year now but never really USED it until recently when I tried out an application called Tweetdeck.  I have tried using others like Twhirl and Firefox based Twitter clients, but none have given me the functionality and easy organization that I have found in Tweetdeck.

Tweetdeck allows a user to split their Twitter deluge up into different panes.  One pane is specifically for tweets by people you follow, another shows you the most recent tweets where others have retweeted something that you posted or where you are mentioned by your @username.  A third pane show me all of my direct messages.  Additional panes can be added as well, for example I have one pane that is a search that updates any tweets on Twitter that match a certain set of keywords.  Replying, retweeting, or viewing a user’s profile is quick and easy, just a right mouse click away.  The system also has a built in URL shortening service link and a variety of other useful features.

The only minor annoyance is that Tweetdeck uses the Adobe Air platform to run on.  You have to download and install Adobe Air (free download) before you can then install and run the Tweetdeck application.  The first  time I installed Tweetdeck I also had a little problem where some of the settings got corrupted.  I finally found the answer to the problem on the Tweetdeck forums, but I also must say that the Tweetdeck support community is very fast in responding to suggestions and questions.  Not bad for a free product!

Try it out!  I don’t think I would be using Twitter to the extent I am doing so without its help.  It has made using Twitter much easier and much faster in almost every way.