Comcast X1 Platform Leaves Customer Without Television!

Comcast has done it again! What the company doesn't tell you is that if their X1 self-install kit fails, you will not have television access until a technician is able to come. This left my mother with no cable for 10 days after my sister tried to upgrade. Apparently, the signal is not strong enough and Comcast won't allow you to use the old working box after you signup for their crummy X1 Platform! Great job guys! You've certainly re-earned the title as the "worst company in America" again!

I wish I could say my experiences with them have been better but they bully you into paying for two accounts if you have even a small home office regardless of the fact that you are the only one in the house using a business connection! This is a sure fire way to guarantee bad service and plenty of unhappy customers! If that isn't bad enough, the unauthorized changing of appointments to different days and unwillingness to give discounts to customers who have been with them for years makes me conclude this company really has no clue what damage their policies and own employees are doing.

Cannot Enter Phone Number in Chrome Browser

Can't enter a phone number in Chrome? This bug has been around for a while. Although the solution is simple, there seems to be quite a bit of misinformation on how to fix the problem. In a nutshell, here is how we resolved the glitch:

1. Open Chrome menu by clicking the 3 lines that appear in the top right of the browser.
2. Choose History from the drop-down menu.
3. Click the Clear Browsing data... button.
4. Click the Autofill form data check-box if a check-mark does not already appear next to this entry.
5. Deselect the other check-boxes.
6. Click on Clear Browsing data.

Somehow, Chrome gets overloaded when too many entries have been saved. This will clear the cache that records form data like phone numbers while preserving passwords and other browsing history.

Donating my Funny Bone to Science

Finally bit the bullet and decided to become an organ donor. This freaks some people out but I'm okay with it provided it can save lives and benefit science. Each state has its own way of handling organ donations. In NJ, you simply go to donatelifenj.org and signup. So whether someone needs a liver, kidney, cornea or just a funny bone so they can laugh again, I'll be there. Actually, I'll be here, there and a little everywhere. Otherwise, what's left of me (if anything) will be cremated and sent back to nature. Until then, I'll do what I can to help the blind and others in need. Maybe I can't change the world, but for a lucky few, maybe I can actually make a difference.

Discrimination Against Service Animals

With Beaver Dam Wisconsin banning most animals as service animals, the city overstepped its authority. Dogs are great as service animals and yes small horses as well but pigs are highly intelligent and make great service animals. If a person has an unorthodox service animal, banning that animal bans the person dependent on that animal and thereby violates that individual's civil rights. Maybe kangaroos are a little extreme as they can be dangerous as adults but the council overstepped its bounds restricting service animals to such a narrow definition. Full story at:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/beaver-dam-bans-kangaroos-service-animals-mcdonalds

How to Catch Bad Supervisors and Staff

Oh joy, just had another Home Depot delivery that didn’t confirm the appointment the night before. If this were just a one-time thing, I could take it with chagrin. Unfortunately, these types of mistakes happen all the time in big companies but why are they so prevalent? Part of the answer lies in the fact there is little accountability. In theory, supervisors are supposed to monitor systems and ensure everyone is doing their job. However, when the supervisor or IT has too much power and can override the system, that person can bypass proper accountability.

In the case of Comcast, on several occasions someone changed my appointments to different days without my authorization. Even worse, the company also failed on another incident to have a supervisor call me back relating to a problem that the technicians could not resolve. Suspiciously, each time a technician flagged the recurring problem as requiring senior support to callback, the log entry mysteriously disappeared from their system. Only someone with the highest level access should have this ability but apparently it was no trouble for the culprit(s).

So how do you actually stop abuse like this? Surveillance cameras can be helpful but they cannot stop more witty managers that know how to cover their tracks by manipulating the system. A better way would be to provide an option in the voicemail or at least online portal that allows customers to directly report suspicious behavior in the company without having to depend on customer support to log incidents. The complaints would then be reviewed preferably by a non-biased third party and the database would also have triggers to prevent hard deletes and record changes without full audit trail logging. This may sound extreme but big companies provide too much cover for senior staff and unless there is an easy way to get around them, some abuse will be impossible to stop. 

At OfficeSalesUSA.com, a transaction log records any changes made by staff to orders. Moreover, voicemail contains only one menu and is easy to navigate. All callbacks are made promptly and most incidents are resolved in a matter of minutes rather than hours let alone days or weeks. Maybe not all companies can streamline their support and order tracking this well but no customer should ever have to weed through several levels of voicemail all to be disconnected by a wiseguy that knows he can get away with it.

If You Can't Beat Them, Confuse Them!

I don't think many people would argue that a customer's shopping experience should be simple and intuitive. Despite this, some online stores and brick and mortar retail outlets almost seem to be deliberately making their stores and websites harder to navigate. Why would anyone in their right mind want to do this? In theory, if you can make the customer look harder to find needed supplies, they may in the case of a brick and mortar outlet at least go down some aisles they wouldn't otherwise.

Since the local A&P reorganized its stock, I've been dumbfounded trying to find goods that used to be so intuitive to find. Instead of grouping similar products like paper towels, napkins and tissues all in the same aisle, now they appear in separate shopping aisles that are not even adjacent! They may have thought this would encourage people to buy more but the reality is that the store never seems to be any busier and now it takes twice as long to do the same shopping. Often I find it so annoying that I'll go out of my way to ShopRite instead.

In the case of online stores, some sites actually throw a million pitches at you deliberately to upsell or grab your attention. While this approach sometimes works, when the site becomes so complicated that it's hard to navigate, the user might abandon the order. Shoplet for example, is well designed in certain regards but it can be a little intimidating particularly to novices. Personally, I prefer sites that show automatically what you have placed on the cart instead of making you click the cart icon. Likewise, when the checkout button is hard to find or not even visible until another action is completed, it can be pretty annoying.

While retail chains like A&P are reorganizing their stores and online mega-stores throw everything but the kitchen sink at you, the German supermarket chain Aldi is taking a different approach. Instead of trying to keep you in the store longer like A&P, Aldi tries to streamline the user experience to make it as easy as possible to find products. By combining this approach with cheaper prices than even Wal-Mart, the chain has been expanding and has recently announced that it will be opening 45 new stores. If history is any indicator, investors will downplay this as more stores are deliberately convoluted and simple web sites find a niche for those looking for an escape from cluttered/hard to navigate sites.

Brain Surgery for Dummies

It may be a little unsettling, but it's not easy performing brain surgery when the surgeon can't even see what he or she is working on. In the past, magnifying eye glasses were state of the art. Today, technology makes it easier and safer than ever to undergo these procedures. As Popular Science explains, "Synaptive's robotic microscope arm follows the surgeon’s movements, projecting an image of where she is working in the brain across two huge screens." The projections provide better views not only to the surgeon but also to students learning these delicate procedures. While medical training has greatly benefited from this modern approach, technology has just taken another giant leap forward.

Synaptive Medical of Toronto, Canada has recently produced a synthetic brain for training purposes. The gelatinous and other extremely life-like properties are so realistic, it has been described as eerie. For the first time, medical students can train without having to sacrifice a cadaver brain allowing for more training as donated organs like the brain are not always readily available. We've come a long way since the game Operation. Now, even the patient can see in all its exquisite detail the surgeon accidentally dropping his scalpel on your prefrontal cortex.

Sales Tax Scams - More Common Than You Think

Recently, I heard about a women that purchased a new appliance from a big home improvement store. Although she was expecting to save money on sales tax because the store was in a lower tax area, much to her surprise, sales tax was only a few dollars. When inquiring about how this was possible, the salesman simply stated that he doesn't ask questions. Being computer savvy, one can only speculate about a million ways this could happen. Most likely, the sale was listed for a tax exempt organization and the only sales tax probably pertained to a separate purchase order that listed just the appliance accessories. That would effectively reduce the taxable dollar amount but needless to say, it is still illegal.

Catching the people that do this is no easy task. The IRS simply does not have enough staff to investigate every suspicious transaction. OfficeSalesUSA.com requests proof of tax exempt status before processing a tax exempt order. Typically, this proof is kept on file and in theory, the EIN (Employer Identification Number), the tax exempt number and organization are properly vetted. However, not all accountants and bookkeepers are as astute or even conscientious enough to do a proper check.

While it is certainly possible to scam online dealers and even large brick and mortar establishments, there is no question that a much bigger problem occurs every day in places like barber shops and other local businesses that deal with mostly cash transactions. This not only denies money used to fund road construction and other needed repairs but also puts other businesses that do pay taxes at a disadvantage. The one saving grave is that the people that perpetuate these deals are often so brazen that they call attention to themselves by living well beyond their means. Ultimately, no one gets a free ride and anyone that thinks they are above the law can only hope they are not already on the government's radar.

Artificial Limbs Grown in Lab

A major milestone in limb regeneration has been completed recently by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital. Using a complex technique for stripping specialized components of cells of a deceased rat's limbs down to a bare matrix or scaffold, researchers have been able to regenerate entire rat limbs. During the process, more muscle and vascular cells were extracted from a second donor rat and grown in a culture. These cells were then injected into the forming limb and stimulated with an electrical impulse to create the necessary vascular and muscular tissue. 

Although much progress has been made, significant challenges still remain before an actual limb can be implanted on a test subject. The senior author of the paper Dr. Ott explains "Additional next steps will be replicating our success in muscle regeneration with human cells and expanding that to other tissue types, such as bone, cartilage and connective tissue." 

With much at stake for wounded warriors and other amputees, the procedure couldn't come soon enough. In the meantime, the AbilityOne program and other charitable services may help people get by but they cannot replace what nature gave us and science still has a long ways to catch up.

Medical Marijuana Reducing Drug Trafficking

Although I'm not a proponent of medical marijuana myself, I do think it's interesting that an increase in local production within the country has forced at least some areas outside the country out of the drug trade. As bloomberg.com notes, "The effects are being felt in Sinaloa, long the heart of Mexican pot production. Farmers there are ripping out marijuana planted on hillsides." While the laws of supply and demand may sometimes diminish undesirable production, the drug cartel is still a major problem that will likely continue even if some drugs become less lucrative.

Keeping Safe on the Job

It's all the rage in Europe right now. This sleek new garment will have everyone envious around you. OK it's hideous and looks like something out of a horror movie. Nonetheless, June is National Safety Month and creepy as it may be, protection coveralls are not any worse than the facial masks women are wearing these days for wrinkles. It may not restore your youth but it can help you avoid being robbed of youth by industrial accidents and other mishaps. BTW, the suit is also great for riding in taxicabs.