Re: For self publishing authors on AmazonKDP, Scott Adams Says

On 5 Oct 2024 17:58:31 GMT, ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
wrote:

In article <jvq2gjp2f0m8n11uh5kbbkd9oo2omhgvp7@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person  <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 04 Oct 2024 21:59:55 -0700, Robert Woodward
<robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
>

In article <vdpbq4$anou$1@dont-email.me>,
William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>

Paul S Person wrote:

>
(snip of somebody else's Amazon publishing problem)
>

 
But pretty main-stream: my phone company not only has automated
screeners on both its help line and its chat sessions, both of which
are very good at not paying any attention at all to any problem they
were not programmed to recognize, but the phone system, the last time
I tried it, actually offered me the abilitiy to /text/ an assistor,
but not to /speak/ with one.

 
When the phone company installed a defective modem, I spent a total of
eleven hours over three days  on chat with various human agents.  They
passed my case from one to another, and all tried to repeat the failed
attempts of the previous agent.  Whatever I said.   Each night an
appointment was finally made for someone to drop by and look at the
modem.  Three days in  row, nobody showed up.
 

>
Several years ago, my cable modem lost its connection (BTW, the outlet
that my TV was connected to was still working). It didn't take me that
long for the Cable company to promise a technician (but not the next
day, for the day after that).
>

Finally someone arrived on the fourth day, and he happened to have the
required modem in his truck.   Fixed the problem in 20 minutes.
 

>
Who showed up on time and, after a bit of investigation (maybe 30
minutes total), was able to isolate the problem and fixed it (I live in
a townhouse complex, my unit is in a building with 4 units - somebody
else in the building had activated their cable connection and the
installer disconnected one of my outlets, I think to get access to the
other unit's wiring, and didn't reconnect).

>
After my optic fiber was installed, Windows would occasionally, when
the Troubleshooter was run, tell me to check the LAN cable. I was
focused at that time on the WiFi problems, so I ignored it.
>
But eventually I decided to check the LAN cable. There was only one:
the one the installer installed between the modem and the gateway. I
found it was /loose at both ends/. Pushing both ends in until they
were secure did help a bit but, as I noted at the time (some years
ago) the actual solution to my problems lay elsewhere.
>
Professional installers who didn't know how to install a LAN cable.
They did, however, know how to configure the modem to connect me to my
ISP, which was, of course, the point of the exercise.
--

>
When I was first trying to install internet at our beach house, the only
option (without involving 6 other people) was Verizon.   The first time
I tried I put in our number on the web page and was assured it was good
for DSL and they sent me the kit and it turned out, oops no, we were
beyond the distance from whatever limit.
>
Watited a year or so and tried again, this time they sent me the kit
and the modem installer was not a web page on the modem but a Windows
installation CD.  I had no Windows PC so I loaded a laptop when I got
home and brougt that the next time I went to the beach.  Oops, the installer
wanted more ram than I had!  I diddled something in the system to make
it report more ram figuring OK, it will be slow, but so what.  I then
spent the next 3 days tring to run the installation process to completion,
and it just wouldn't go, and had clearly been writen by idiots.  Finally
I got to a point where an error message had a phone number, so I called
and said: Look, I'm not trying to do anything complex here.  I don't care
about free virus scanning, or your portal or whatever, I'm just trying to
setup wifi so we & our renters can get online, and I've been working at
it three days!.  The guy said: Yep, the installer is trash, really all it
is good for is getting you my number.  He did some things on his side,
and 20 minutes later, I was good to go. (Mind you we were still *almost*
at the distance limit, so it was slow as molasses, but it was up & reliable).

Unlike dial-up modems, and perhaps 5G or Starlink, DSL, cable, and
fibre optic all seem to require the ISP to do something on their end
to allow the connection to occur.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"