I didn’t want to port my number over until I was sure WIND’s coverage was adequate, so I declined the option when I activated my SIM. A few days later I was satisfied, so I called up WIND customer care to request the port. The person who answered my call told me it was impossible to port a number to a SIM that was already activated, and that I was stuck with the number that I had been assigned. Not happy with this response, I asked whether there wasn’t some other possibility, and I was told that I could go to a WIND store and get a replacement SIM, which could then have my number ported to it.

I phoned my nearest WIND store, and was told it would cost $25 to get a replacement SIM. Obviously I had no intention of paying $25 to fix a problem on WIND’s end, so I headed to Howard Forums to see whether other customers had faced the same problem. It didn’t take long to find several discussion threads on the topic. Some customers had managed to get a free replacement SIM at a WIND store, and others had eventually convinced WIND to cancel and re-activate their existing SIM, entering a port request with the new activation.

I called back, hoping to get a different customer care rep. This time, the rep was happy to put through a port request for me, but said the request would need to be handled by their back office staff, and would take three to five business days. While this seemed like an awfully long time for such a simple request, it sounded like a better option than making a trip to a WIND store, so I asked the rep to put through the request. She took down my information and gave me a reference number.

After four business days had passed, I was getting impatient. So I called back and gave my reference number. The rep told me that the reference number didn’t exist in their system. He looked up my account, and found that no port request had been made. I explained what had been done on my previous call, but the rep insisted that it was not even possible; I could not port a number to a SIM that had already been activated. The rep told me I would need to go to a WIND store and get a new SIM, which he insisted I would not be charged for.

At this point I was irate. How could my request have disappeared into thin air? I called back one more time, hoping there was somebody in customer care who could actually help me. The fourth rep again couldn’t find my request from the previous week, but after explaining my situation he told me that my number could easily be ported in to my existing SIM. He only had to cancel my existing SIM and re-activate it. He was able to do that within minutes, and my number was ported within the hour.

Clearly WIND has a big problem with insufficiently trained customer care reps. Two out of the four reps I spoke to didn’t know it was even possible to help me, and one was too incompetent to do it properly. My tweets to @WINDmobile during the ordeal went unanswered, as did an email to customer care. While I plan to stay with WIND for the time being, in the hope that their network is better than their customer care, I will definitely not be recommending them to friends. Koodo will remain my recommendation.

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

After a quick restart, the tearing was completely gone. Yay!

Here’s my submission:

Having read over the previous copyright bill (C-61), I would like to voice my opposition to the inclusion of anti-circumvention provisions in the new copyright bill. My reasons are as follows:

1. The anti-circumvention provisions in bill C-61 would have made it illegal for consumers to unlock their cell phones. This would further stifle competition in Canada’s wireless sector by making it more difficult for consumers to switch carriers, since they would have to purchase new hardware. It is my view that competitiveness would be maximized by banning the practice of cell phone locking, rather than protecting it in law. The owner of a cell phone should be free to use it with the carrier of his or her choice.
2. Users of the Linux operating system, myself included, must use a circumvention tool (libdvdcss) to play legally purchased DVDs on their computers. I see no reason why the use or distribution of this tool should be restricted, since it has many uses which do not infringe upon copyright.
3. The anti-circumvention provisions in bill C-61 would have allowed copyright holders to take away users’ fair dealing rights simply by applying technological protection measures (TPMs) to their works. Fair dealing rights are a critical part of our copyright legislation, and we must not allow them to be taken away by anti-circumvention legislation.
4. Technological protection measures can be harmful to consumers. For example, in 2005 Sony sold music CDs containing software intended to prevent unauthorized copying. This software installed itself without requesting the user’s consent and could not be un-installed. It also made the user’s computer unstable and vulnerable to attack. Other copy protection schemes use a central server to decide whether to allow users to access content they have purchased. When this server ceases to function, whether intentionally or unintentionally, users lose access to their content. In 2008, this occurred when Yahoo shut down its DRM server. I believe that rather than protecting TPMs in law, we should be protecting consumers from them by limiting their use.
5. Technological protection measures can harm competition. For example, until recently, users who purchased songs through the Apple iTunes music store could only play such content on Apple iPods. A user wishing to switch to another brand of music player would be unable to do so without losing access to their purchased content. It is my opinion that users should be able to access legally purchased content on the device of their choice. Protecting TPMs in law would undermine this goal.

I would further like to make the following suggestions for the upcoming copyright legislation:

1. Crown copyright should be abolished. I believe that the benefit to the public of putting works produced by the government into the public domain would greatly outweigh the resultant loss of revenue to the government. This model is used in the United States, where works produced by its federal government are not entitled to domestic copyright protection.
2. The term of copyright protection should be reduced. In my opinion, twenty years from the date of publication should suffice, since most works cease to be comercially exploitable before that point anyway. This would vastly enrich the pool of works in the public domain, upon which creators could freely build.

Clayton Smith
Ottawa, Ontario

Here’s a screen capture for your amusement:

First, I put the following in /etc/drirc:

<option name="allow_large_textures" value="2" />

Then, in /etc/X11/xorg.conf I changed my DefaultDepth from 24 to 16. Finally, I restarted X with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, and enabled compiz in System –> Preferences –> Appearance –> Visual Effects. Voila!

I found these instructions here.

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66 GHz)
• Asus P5K-V (1333 MHz FSB, integrated video)
• 2GB Corsair Twin2X PC2-6400 (4-4-4-12)
• Antec Solo case
• Corsair VX450 power supply
• WD Caviar 500 GB SATA hard drive
• Asus DRW-1814BLT SATA DVD burner

It also has a few components from my old machine, namely a 250 GB PATA hard drive, Hauppauge HVR-1600 ATSC/NTSC tuner card, and M-Audio Omni sound card.

Initially I was experiencing choppy sound and mouse movement whenever the hard drive was active, but I solved the problem by downloading the latest drivers for the JMicron PATA/SATA controller from the manufacturer’s website. Also, the memory was running at 5-5-5-18 timings by default, but I easily fixed that in BIOS. I used Norton Ghost to move Windows to my new SATA hard drive.

This machine is smokin’! Prime95 is running about three times as fast as before, and I can’t believe how fast BeyondTV starts up. The new case is great too. It has way better ventilation than my old one, and I love having USB ports and audio jacks on the front!

At first I wasn’t pleased with the tuner card, due to the abysmal quality of the software that came with it. But at the recommendation of several reviewers of the card, I downloaded the trial version of a piece of PVR software called BeyondTV. It isn’t perfect, but it’s a vast improvement over Hauppauge’s software and it’s quite usable. Watching high-definition TV on the computer is great, and being able to skip the commercials makes it ever better!

To replace our internet, I decided to switch to DSL service from the National Capital Freenet, a not-for-profit internet service provider and the world’s second free-net. Unfortunately, I’m quite far from Bell’s nearest central office and thus limited to a download speed of 2.5 Mbps, compared to 6 Mbps with Rogers. But the NCF’s price is significantly less, and some things are actually faster with NCF, for example BitTorrent downloads, which Rogers slowed significantly using traffic shaping.

Yesterday I reached the point at which I was satisfied with the new television and internet setup, so it was time to pull the plug on Rogers. First I had a look through the FAQ on their web site to figure out what I needed to do to cancel my service. I was disappointed to learn that they require 30 days advance notice, but what can you do? I also read that cancellations can be done by phone any time from 7:00 am to 2:00 am, seven days a week. But after phoning them up and navigating through the annoying interactive voice response system, I reached a department that was currently closed, and would be open during their “normal business hours”, which they neglected to specify.

I phoned again, taking a different path through the IVR with the hopes of getting a real human being on the phone. I succeeded, but the person who answered my call wasn’t able to handle cancellations, and forwarded my call to the same place I had reached on my previous attempt. I called a third time, reached a different person and asked again to cancel. When she proposed to forward my call, I told her about the “normal business hours” message and she told me that indeed that department was closed, and that the mysterious normal business hours were 8:00 am to 9:00 pm, seven days a week. I was surprised to hear that, considering that it was currently 6:00 pm. Upon pointing this out to her, she corrected herself and told me that the weekend hours were actually 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.

So this morning, a bit after 8:00 am, I resumed my quest. Taking my original path through the IVR, I got the same old “normal business hours” message. I called again, taking the path that would bring me to a human. I got forwarded to the same place again. I called a third time, and the person who answered told me that she would be unable to make any changes to my account due to technical difficulties. I called a fourth time, and miraculously reached someone who didn’t decide to shunt me off to some other place after hearing what I was calling about.

She of course told me that I wouldn’t be able to cancel my service for 30 days. I asked whether I could at least cancel my internet immediately, and she told me even that would not be possible. But luckily, I was able to switch my connection speed to the slowest available, thus avoiding most of the wasted cost.

Anyway, I’m glad that in a month’s time I’ll finally be Rogers-free. I’ll be paying less than half what I was before while hardly giving up anything (and even getting a bit extra thrown in, namely CBC in high definition and fast BitTorrent downloads). And hopefully Rogers will stop sending me junk mail once a week! Well, maybe that’s too much to hope for…