“Please allow approximately ten (10) days for this change to take effect”

It’s the 21st century folks.  When I sign up for something, your company can instantly make a membership for me.  Instantly, you can take my payment.  You send me an email within 30 seconds.  There is no way it takes 10 days to take me off your email distribution list.   Ok, I can delete a few more emails that you’ll send this week.

But, this example takes the cake:

At the YMCA, if you want to cancel your membership, it takes THIRTY DAYS for them to cancel it!   Oh, and by the way, they will be charging you one more time for an extra month before you are removed from their system.  This is simply them screwing you because they can.  And since you are leaving, they don’t need you to be a happy customer anymore.   I guess when they say, “strengthening community is our cause”, they mean “strengthening the YMCA community by maximizing the YMCA profit.”

• It’s faster – This is the main improvement.  Everything is snappier.  It responds to virtual buttons quickly and software starts up quickly.
• It looks nice.  I didn’t have any complaints with the old Gingerbread look.  But, I like this a little more.  Also, the look is more in-line with the tablet experience (we have a Motorola Xoom Android tablet).
• The apps that are updated for the new OS are … just that: updated.  Good thing.  I haven’t had any problems with any apps on Ice Cream Sandwich.
• Google Plus crashes a lot – This is the main drawback.  The Google Plus app doesn’t crash when I am trying to use it.  But, I often get a popup notice that “Unfortunately, Google Plus has stopped” while I’m doing something else.  I guess it was running in the background but I don’t know why it constantly needs to tell me that it has stopped.

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It seems to me a patient has a basic right to know what the cost will be before deciding whether to receive services.

Currently, the doctor cannot tell me what something will cost before seeing them. Then, in the very next moment, they make me sign a paper saying I will be financially responsible for all charges.

They could not tell me whether examining my son for an ear ache would cost $50 or $500. They cannot tell me whether my insurance will pay for it. At that point, should I just hope that expenses will be reimbursed and risk having to pay some unknown amount? Or should I just hope that my son will probably get better and take him home without seeing the doctor? One can not make an informed decision.

The doctor cannot get pre-approval from the healthcare company.  And now the latest I have received from my health care provider is that my charges will not be reimbursed because I did not tell them I was going to the doctor.  They won’t pre-approve it.  They just wanted me to call them and tell them I was going.   And since I didn’t, they will not pay for the doctor visit.  UNBELIEVABLE.

The Mozilla company has no interest in monetizing your user information.  So, the Firefox browser gives you a reasonably easy way to find the controls for cookies.  Just go to Tools > Options > Privacy.

But Google definitely wants to track you and profit from knowing everything about you.  Chrome puts  their cookie settings behind an unexplained “wrench” icon > Then go past “basics” and “personal stuff” (both of which would be reasonable places to find cookies’ settings) and click on the mysterious and intimidating “under the hood”.  The implication in that name is “don’t mess around with this unless you really know what you’re doing.”

Ok, now you’ve found the settings for cookies.  Let’s look at what the browser let’s you do:

The attitude I get from the Firefox browser is, “You want control of your cookies?  Great. Here’s a list of what they are.  Do what you want to each one.”   Firefox gives you a button to show the entire list of cookies.  You can see who is setting them and delete the ones you don’t like.

The Chrome attitude is, “If you have to have control of cookies, then FINE!  Here’s a button to delete all cookies.  Happy?”  There seems to be no way to view what cookies are set.  Just a “clear browsing data” button that doesn’t let you select which site’s cookies you’re deleting.  This discourages you from deleting cookies since you will lose cookies from sites that you like and want to allow cookies.

I like Chrome for a lot of things.  But, I’m going to keep using two browsers for now.

Here is a link to a quick graph that you can easily do on Wolfram Alpha.   It is a graph of the National Debt VS. the Gross Domestic Product.  It shows why the current national debt is scarier than ever.  Even though there has been a large debt in the past, it was never anywhere close to the Gross Domestic Product.  Basically, the United States has in the past borrowed money that it was capable of paying off in relatively short order.  Now, the United States is borrowing money that it cannot pay off easily.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+National+debt+/+us+gdp+

Check it out.  Is this an eye opener for you?  I think the United States needs to really focus on the economy and stop meddling in wars on the other side of the world.

FACEBOOK’S FUNDAMENTAL BUSINESS MODEL MEANS THEY HAVE TO LIE TO YOU:

FACEBOOK IS EVIL:

Now, I went to Best Buy to buy a Xoom tablet computer.  The salesman brought the head salesman out to lie to me.  He gave me some story about how the Xoom would not work unless I signed up with the Verizon service.  I think they were trying to get me to sign up for verizon service through them.

Then, they acted like I’m an idiot for not taking the service plan.  I understand they make money on those.  It’s fine to offer a service plan but not fine to treat me like I am not qualified to decide.

They pushed geek squad services. They wanted me to sign up right away before they rang it up.  I said I didn’t want any geek squad services and they wanted me to sign and date a piece of paper saying that I didn’t want them.  What!? I don’t have to sign and date something to NOT buy your service.

Maybe the poor customer treatment is the result of a lack of competition now that Circuit City is dead.  They are the only electronics store within 20 miles (maybe more).

1. “Circles” are lists of people you follow

It would have been more intuitive if they had called them “Lists of people whose posts you follow.” (Not catchy, I know).  A circle is not a group that everyone joins. The people you add to your circle are sent a message that you added them.  But, they are simply being informed that you are following their posts.

2. Others don’t “accept” being in your circle

Again, keep in mind: A circle is just a list of people whose posts you are following.  When you make a circle, other people find out that you are following them but they don’t have to accept anything.  You are not asking them to join something.  You are only following their posts.

3. You use “Circles” to define who sees your posts

This is the other use of Circles: When you post something, you can use your circles to define who gets to see that post.  So, let’s say you have circles called “Family”, “Friends”, and “Acquaintances”.  You might post pictures of your pregnant wife and allow people in your “Family” circle to see them.  You might post pictures of your cute dog and allow all 3 circles to see them.

It’s worthwhile to note that others don’t know the name of your circles.  Jack might have you in a circle called “Friends”.  But, you could have him in a circle called, “People I pretend to like”.

Most other parts of Google+ are easy to understand.  Have fun!

Here’s how I did it:

I simply told them, “I already own a phone.  I don’t want the benefit of getting a free phone for signing up.”  I did allow them to do a credit check and I signed up for being billed monthly.  They gave me a cheaper rate since they are not giving me the benefit of getting a free phone.  Again, this is not the pay as you go plan.

Here’s how the cost is cheaper:

Simply add up the cost of buying the phone and paying for the cheaper service for 2 years.  Compare that with the cost of the free phone with regular 2 year contract service fees.  That total was cheaper when I buy the phone myself and pay the lower monthly rate.

To get more into the details, the monthly rate was about $10 cheaper without getting the free phone benefit.  So, in 20 months, you would have paid off the free phone that you could have bought for $200.

So, as long as you have a couple hundred bucks to buy the phone (and thus don’t need the free phone benefit), you should definitely do this.  It’s cheaper.  And, you’re not stuck in a contract.  Win, win.

Determining if you should get an Android phone or an iPhone

My opinion is that a main distinction between Android and iPhone is that Android gives you many choices. You can pick your email software. You pick how often apps sync. You pick which store you can use to buy apps. You can install apps to change the way your home screen works or to automatically go silent between 9am and 5pm on weekdays. The list goes on. But, with iPhone, all these choices are made and the whole interface is kept as simple as possible. If you don’t want to play with settings… If you want someone else to make the choices so you don’t have to think about it, then go with iPhone.

As an aside, here are some things I love about Android that I never got on my iPhone. Customizable home screen widgets allow you to put whatever info you want on you home screen. With my iPhone, I was locked into only having a grid of app icons. Also, since there is app store competition, Amazon has now created an Android App Store that gives you a different paid app for free every day. This healthy market competition will propel Android.