My favorite time of year...summer...and time to renew the Sirius XM radio subscription. It boggles my mind how Sirius XM deals work, but for some reason nobody ever wants to give you the straight answer when you talk to them. So here is how I get the best Sirius XM deals.Every June I get my "time to renew" email notice. I don't have auto-renewal, because that only signals to Sirius XM that they can charge your credit card whatever the going rate may be. Bad idea! A quick look online, from the link in the email that says "a special renewal offer" shows a staggering monthly price of almost $18.00. WHAT?!?! I can subscribe to Pandora and plug my phone into my car for half that price. Thanks but no thanks.Calling customer service gets us a little movement on the price. I know they have deals, I know I can prepay for 5 or 6 months and get a much better rate than the website advertises. I ask the rep what Sirius XM deals they have going on and am given one price of $25 plus fees/taxes … [Read more...] about How to Get Sirius XM Deals
General
Site Feedback Responses
Tonight I was doing some maintenance on the blog here and came across a spam folder that contained a significant amount of contact form "spam". Unfortunately, the majority of the messages were not spam and were in fact contact requests from you all. Over the next few days I will try to follow-up with everyone, but I wanted to apologize for the error. I fixed the issue now so response times should be much better. So if you contacted me using the contact form, know that I will be following up with you in the week. … [Read more...] about Site Feedback Responses
Observations from 1000s of attorney websites
I have been working on a project recently that required going through 1000s of criminal defense attorney websites across the United States. Now I realize there are some "rules" on exactly how attorneys can advertise and what they can, and cannot, say in those advertisements. One thing is obvious though from looking at these sites. Either attorneys are overly cautious with their websites or the Internet is simply not an area where they feel they should devote marketing dollars. As phonebooks fade into the history books, more and more people use the Internet to find businesses. Personally, and I know I am not alone in this thought, when researching a business and deciding whether or not to do business with them, my first impression is their website. If the site looks like something from the mid-1990s and doesn't look like anyone has put a thought into updating it since then they are most likely going to get skipped over. Now this doesn't mean I am looking for some big fancy website, … [Read more...] about Observations from 1000s of attorney websites
Google Chrome Bookmarks – How to fix
I like Google Chrome as a browser and I used to like the Google Chrome bookmarks manager. Ever since it first appeared I found it much more reliable and faster than both IE and Firefox, and an added plus was that no matter what computer I was on, if I logged into Chrome I could easily pull up and manage my bookmarks. And up until recently I recommended to all my friends and family that they too should use Google Chrome. But in late April that all changed and I am not alone. Someone on the Google Chrome team thought that they were missing out on the Pinterest market and decided that the Google Chrome bookmarks should look more like Pinterest. Google is notorious for doing things like this. They did it with Google+ which was a failed experiment in social networking and now they are trying to recreate the bookmarks in Chrome which is also a failing experiment. Browser bookmarks are supposed to be used to a quick and easy way to remember and manage web pages a user visits. Unlike … [Read more...] about Google Chrome Bookmarks – How to fix
My Problem with Twitter
I will probably draw some criticism for this post, but here it goes. I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter. It is a great tool for keeping up with breaking news and to communicate quickly with people. But Twitter has a problem, actually two problems, and I know I am not alone in this thought process. First, there is not a month that doesn't go by where you don't hear of a Twitter account being hacked or taken over. The problem is that I think Twitter could either significantly reduce this issue or solve it entirely if they would implement better security for their users. Twitter currently offers Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for users, but their implementation of 2FA is so far off from a standard implementation that they have done more harm than good by implementing it. The root of the issue is that Twitter only allows a single account to be tied to a single phone number. For some users that may have multiple accounts this presents a serious issue. Twitter could fix this … [Read more...] about My Problem with Twitter
Quick thoughts on the Google Europe Antitrust Accusation
Today's news is highlighted by the European Union bringing a formal antitrust complaint against Google. I for one have a big problem with this complaint. While I have not fully read the complaint I am going to make several assumptions here. The first assumption I will make is that the complaint primarily focuses on the Google search results and, in particular, results returned when a user searches for a product or is "shopping". The second assumption I will make is that the first assumption is not the entire case against Google. I make the second assumption only because if it is, it shows how far out of touch some people are with technology and how it is utilized. I say this because I don't think the EU has a good case for the first assumption. The articles I have read today all speak of how the EU sees Google returning results that have been paid for (sponsored) at the top of the search results over competitors as anti-competitive. First, let's simplify this a bit. If I turn on the … [Read more...] about Quick thoughts on the Google Europe Antitrust Accusation
The mixed up pricing of SiriusXM and SiriusXM Discounts
I had forgotten how frustrating dealing with SiriusXM pricing can be. After years of not having a subscription, I recently purchased a new car that included a free "All Access" trial. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed having SiriusXM over regular radio, especially since I live in an area with limited "regular" radio listening choices. As is typical of any free trial, you almost immediately start receiving mail and the occasional phone call offering some special. I knew I wanted to subscribe so I was just waiting for the best offer. Where SiriusXM gets you though is that they send you all the letters with these "specials" that sound too good to be true. But what the first difference is, is that these deals are for "Select" service NOT the "All Access" package. While the differences are slight, there is one big difference, that to be honest I enjoy and that is the Internet radio. I figure if I have SiriusXM and for an extra few dollars I can pay for Internet, I will go ahead and … [Read more...] about The mixed up pricing of SiriusXM and SiriusXM Discounts
Linksys WRT1900AC & Samsung Galaxy S5
I was in desperate need for a little home network upgrade and after hearing rave reviews I decided to upgrade my home router to a Linksys WRT1900AC Wi-Fi Router. Immediately I saw a significant performance improvement over my old router with my desktop and using streaming services on my TV. However, my Samsung Galaxy S5 was having some serious issues when it came to wireless performance. My phone would connect to the router, and the router would show it was connected, yet when I would try to go to websites or use applications such as Facebook, I was met with significant delays and occasionally the phone disconnecting from the network. I immediately tried hooking up my old router and sure enough my phone worked perfectly so I knew it had to be something with the WRT1900AC. After searching around on Google for a bit I found several articles with people experiencing similar issues, although not directly related to the Galaxy S5. Most of the issues though seem to have been resolved with … [Read more...] about Linksys WRT1900AC & Samsung Galaxy S5