Pretty bad. Average speed to the web is under 800kbps. At least I can take comfort in that I am amongst the slowest 16 percent of Internet users in Ontario. It can only go up from here.
The DSL modem arrives on Monday. Until then I get to experience the good old days of dial-up.
This is what you get for a $300 million ad campaign?
I’d ask for a refund.
Maybe the future ads get better. And maybe they will have a point.
The Internet is just not happening with Kingston Online Services. They told me to expect 4 - 7 Mbps and I am achieving somewhere in the range of 300 - 400 kbps. That level of performance is just way too S-L-O-W.
So what to do? We live in the country and Bell’s WiFi service is rated at 2 Mbps. However, after almost a week of raising concerns with Kingston Online Services and getting no action, I decided to relook at Bell’s WiFi.
As I brought up Bell’s Internet page, which took several minutes to load, I noticed that there was a dialog box on the page where you can enter your telephone number to determine service availability. And so I punched our number in and up came this page.
Can’t be.
High-speed DSL? Right to our country estate?
I called Bell right away. And yes, our area supports high-speed DSL over the phone.
In denial: “I just moved and when I spoke with you a few weeks back you told me that there was no high-speed Internet service in our area. Are you sure that we have DSL?”
Bell sales desk: “Yes sir. We just recently upgraded the lines. Your phone supports high-speed Internet.”
The price is cheaper than Kingston Online Services. The bandwidth cap is much higher. And the speed. Well, let’s just say that accessing the Internet on dial-up speed is so old.
Thank heavens I wasn’t on a long-term contract with KOS.
I get my modem from Bell on Monday.
The new house has a number of interesting technology features. For one, it has three rooms pre-wired for multi-channel surround sound: two 7.1 rooms and one 5.1 room.
Unfortunately, the installer did not do a great job with the cable plant. All of the lines — speaker cable, video interconnects, cat5 — were not labeled. And ganged in massive tangles. It took me hours just to untangle the lines and to trace them.
The first two photos show the home theatre. And yes, I know that the subwoofer in the second photo is massive. A big room needs a big subwoofer like this one 
This was the mess of cables before we moved in.
And after.
What a blur. And what an effort. I won’t be looking to move again anytime soon.
The new home is stunning although three days of unpacking has yet to put a dent in the overall objective of getting settled. Or so it seems. The master bedroom, the office, the kitchen and the home theatre are all in pretty good shape. The great room is not bad. The upstairs garage is fine.
The lower garage is full of stuff and it will take some time to get it organized. My daughter’s bedroom is in flight as she wanted to deal with that room on her own. The remaining rooms of the house all need to be organized and cleaned up.
On balance, a pretty fair result over a few days. Lots of tasks to get done. I should have taken a few more days off of work to get the home settled.
I’ll post some photos of the “after” look of the house in a couple of days. Things were so chaotic on moving day that I did not have time to shoot the move.
Arrived at the lawyer’s office this afternoon to sign the papers for the new house. Unlike the deal in Newmarket, there were a few wrinkles on this property. Paperwork as far as I can tell and somewhat typical of rural properties. Oh. There was also the unexpected hit on the Ontario Land Transfer Tax. Ouch.
We should have the keys to the new house by noon tomorrow. We will do some of the most critical prep work before the movers arrive. In order of importance:
I suppose there may be a few other things to do to get the house ready for the move. But I will sleep well tomorrow evening knowing that I can surf the web and watch a DVD.
I love moving.
We have been living out of a hotel room for the past week and tomorrow we make our way to the lawyers to sign the papers on the new house.
Although the hotel is very nice and we have an amazing view of the harbor, I am really looking forward to going home. This week has been a nice transition for the family but we are definitely ready to move.
Two more days.
From my travels on the web last week. Even in the midst of moving.
Now this is a really, really tall building. I wonder if there is a relationship between the price of oil and the height of this structure?
In case you decide to name your house you might need this set of rules.
Kingston and the 1000 Islands. Time for me to get something like this? After all of the expenses associated with moving, I may start with something like this.
Here is some guidance if you are thinking about providing a tip to your movers. Our crew did an amazing job.
Yes. The xbox 360 scratches disks. When we picked up a new title from EB games last week they asked us if we wanted “scratch insurance” for the disk. Good thing we spent the three dollars on the insurance as the disk was scratched last night.
In a memo to all Microsoft employees on July 23, Ballmer said “Now it’s time to tell our story.” And that later in the year, Microsoft would roll out an effort to redefine the meaning and value of Windows.
The Globe and Mail reported yesterday that Microsoft has signed Jerry Seinfeld as part of a 300 million dollar branding campaign. The comedian who championed a television series about nothing will champion an advertising campaign about Vista. RealDan provides an interesting perspective on the campaign.
The negative public perception of Vista is well known to Microsoft and evidence for their concerns can be found at the Mojave Experiment. Remember when Coke tried the same tactic with their failed New Coke product?
We’ll see if the Seinfeld ads have the same impact as the PC/Mac ads.
