A look at business, law and life from a technophile.
Ben Holt
I'm biased by what I do: I work part-time as a clerk for Bateman IP Law Group, I've started my own business, I'm working on launching another right now, and I've finished my JD/MBA (Law + Business).
Home page: https://www.doodgical.com
Posts by Ben Holt
Angel Investor of the Year 2010 Finalists Announced
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- Register
- Wednesday June 23rd, 2010
- 11:30 am – 1:30 pm
- Grand America Hotel
Imperial Ballroom
555 South Main Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Angel Investor of the Year just announced their top 15 finalists.
The top 15 are:
- Warren Osborn — Managing Director for Stoneway Capital
- Martin Frey — Spent 13 years as a Sr. Director at Cisco
- John Richards — Co-developed and launched the first-ever online Yellow Pages, Co-Managing Partner of BoomStartup
- Kyle Love — Founding member of the Utah Angels
- Robb Kunz — Co-Managing Partner of BoomStartup of BoomStartup
- Nobu Mutaguchi — Invested in over 25 Utah-based startup and emerging companies
- Dan McPhun — Co-Founder of Park City Angels
- JD Gardner — Founder and Managing Director at Monarch Partners
- Mark Burton — 2006 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year
- Rod Watson — Angel investor dealing mainly with software and biotech companies based in Utah and Oregon
- Brad Walters — Vice Chairman of Utah Technology Council, Previously CEO/President MaxStream
- Mike Levinthal — Former VC with teh Mayfield Fund, serves on the Boards of Altiris (ATRS), Directpointe, Infopia, Metricstream, Senforce, 3point5, Utah Capital Investment Corporation (UCIC) and the Forever Young Foundation
- Ron White — Founder and General Partner at Advanced Technology Development Fund
- John Pestana — Co-Founder of Omniture
- Jim Evans — CEO at Xactware
–Ben
Source: Email, Investor of the Year
OnLive goes Live and online at 7:01 Mountain Time on 06-17-2010
014 years
For anyone who likes gaming, it looks like OnLive may be a contender. I’m currently a fan of steam, but there may be room in my ecosystem for two services that store my games and promise that I can get back to them.
Let’s see what this is all about and if OnLive can handle the traffic. I’ll be there shortly after 7:01 MST (Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 9:01 PM EDT / 6:01 PM PDT). Sign up now and you get a free year of OnLive Membership.
–Ben
Sources: Welcome to Onlive, Free Year, Steam
Google hosts USPTO Patent Data for 2 years – Download USPTO ZIP Files
014 years
Google just signed an agreement to host all of the Patent and Trademark Raw Data from the USPTO.
The Google Patent About Page added this comment:
Q. Why does Google offer bulk downloads of patent and trademark information?A. Google and the US Patent and Trademark Office have partnered to provide bulk file downloads of patent and trademark information to everyone, for free. This information is also available on a file-by-file basis from the USPTO website, or for bulk download on CDs, DVDs, or digital tape, with fees to cover the USPTO’s expenses (often more than $10,000 and potentially up to $250,000). Many major law firms and research organizations rely on bulk file downloads so they can do more comprehensive analysis of the data. Now anyone can get the information for free by visiting http://www.google.com/googlebooks/uspto.html.
So, for all you data crunchers out there – here’s your chance to get your hands dirty. Previously, this data was hidden on a little known FTP server.
–Ben
Sources: About Google Patents, Google USPTO Bulk Download, Federal Computer Week
Prediction – Sprint to get iPhone
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We’ve been hearing a lot of hoopla about Verizon getting an iPhone. After reading a few articles like the one on engadget. I’m thinking that AT&T is losing exclusivity to Sprint.
I was wondering why AT&T would be removing its unlimited access plans and upping its termination fees. And why would they extend an olive branch to iPads before June 7th? Here’s what I’ve come up with: AT&T sees the writing on the wall and wants to lock users in. What better way to create lock-in than make the unlimited plan go away, but leave current users “grandfathered in”. Personally, I kind of find that action desparate and despicable. If my assumptions are true, than AT&T views its customers more like sheep to shear rather than a value-added partner. But I don’t run in the AT&T circles.
Why do I think its Sprint? Go to their website and click on the guy on the bench – the one that says “make your iPhone 4G.” Now you might think “so what? they’re just using a 4G router,” but Sprint has no interest in reminding you that they don’t have the iPhone. They want you to think of all the cool phones they have. Seriously, they have good marketing people. So I think it must be a primer for their iPhone.
In all, its still a guess. But we should find out soon. Let’s look to next weeks WWDC and find out!
–Ben
Comcast Responds Part 3 – Broken Internet Connnection After telling Comcast You Have a Router
2I just received this email this morning. Unfortunately, the comcast technician was probably calling the number that I cancelled in August 2009.
Hi Ben,
My name is Joe, I’m a Senior Technician with Comcast Customer Security Assurance. I just left you a message at the phone number we have listed on your account, but I figured I’d shoot you an email also. Mark Casem forwarded us your email and asked that we reach out to assist. First of all, I’d like to apologize for the problems that you were having. What I see on your account is that when you connected with our Chat Rep, he noticed that on your account we didn’t have it specified that you should have the 12 Meg service. What he did was put in a service order to include that 12 Meg Bootfile, and then requsted you powercycle your modem and router. The notes on the account indicate that the chat rep was waiting for you to reconnect, but you never did. I can assure you that we did not blacklist your router. I imagine there was an issue with the modem not booting up with the correct 12 Meg bootfile, but at this point I cannot be sure.
Right now I see that your modem is online with the correct bootfile, and you should be getting the correct speeds. If not, please let us know and we’ll take whatever action necessary to make sure you get them. And as far as the router issue; yes, you’re right. Typically we don’t support routers, and if we have an issue where someone can’t get online behind a router, we’ll have the customer bypass it, and make sure that they can get online without the router, just to rule that out. If at that point reconnecting the router doesn’t allow you to connect, we usually recommend contacting the router manufacturer to troubleshoot further. Again, I can tell you with certainty that we do not blacklist routers MAC addresses. We understand that a lot (probably most) customers use a router to get on the internet, and the last thing we want is for subscriber’s to not have that option.
If there’s anything else that we can help with, please let us know.
Thanks,
-Joe, Tech # 108
Senior Technician
Comcast Customer Security Assurance
I really appreciate Joe following up with me. Fortunately, everything seems to be humming along fine right now. However, I do want to make a couple points that led me to my conclusion (in my defense):
- The router only worked after I gave it a new MAC address (the same one as my HP computer behind the router that would get an IP address). Rebooting the cable modem again and power cycling the router did not solve the problem. It would not renew an IP address.
- Two computers were able to get IP addresses from the cable modem.
- The link the chat representative gave me did not work (it is slightly possible that I didn’t copy it down right because their system didn’t allow me to copy and paste from the chat window – which is still bad). When using the link, I was sent to an error page that asked for an email and something else.
- When I signed up with comcast in February of ’09, they limited my connection to a single computer – the modem would not connect to any other computer (of course I fixed that by making my router look like that computer by using that computer’s MAC address) – so comcast has at least a history of whitelisting
If I were to request two things – it would be to allow copy and paste in the chatroom AND make the link work more than once. Perhaps I clicked on the link and “used up” its one time use while trying to copy and paste.
–Ben
Sources: Email from Joe
Comcast Responds Part 2 – Broken Internet Connnection After telling Comcast You Have a Router
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After sending my email to Mark, I got a phone call from him. The first thing he did was apologize, saying that he was sorry for my negative interaction with comcast. He asked to hear my story, and listened to the problems I encountered. He asked a few probing questions, such as how I would know that my router was banned (which was the fact that two computers could pull an IP address, but the router could only pull an IP address after I reset its MAC – and yes, I did reboot the router before trying).
He appeared to have done his research and asked if I would accept a reduced price on my internet for six months for my troubles. As it was half of the cost of my current upgrade ($30 a month instead of $60), I accepted.
Believe it or not, he actually seemed to enjoy his job. He said that it was like he was given the power to right injustice in the world and the ability to look for it. He also said that he does not help those who are trying to game the system to get the discount.
All in all, I can’t believe that it has to be this way. I’m content and enjoying my internet. My anger has died down. But I’m still baffled why Mark’s position has to exist. Amex front line representatives have the power to get stuff done. Why does comcast have such a tough time?
In any case, thanks for performing a tough job Mark & Team.
–Ben
Sources: Phone call with Mark, Comcast Responds Part 1, Fix – Comcast Bans Router
Comcast Responds – Broken Internet Connnection After telling Comcast You Have a Router
1I just wrote a post about my terrible experience with a comcast chat representative. Comcast responded quickly with something that looked like a generic script response:
Hello there! Sorry for the experience. I work for Comcast and I’d like to look into your experience so that it can be addressed. If you don’t mind, will you please contact me with your information?
Thanks,
Mark Casem
Comcast Corp.
National Customer Operations
[REDACTED EMAIL]
Here is the email I sent:
Mark and Team,You requested, through my blog, that I give you my information so that you could look into my problem. Here’s my relevant information:Ben Holt[REDACTED ADDRESS]Just signed up for 12 Mbit service. Speedtest.net showed 4 Mbit service with an Xmission server. I chatted with Jan Albert on your chat room (after using your telephone reboot prompt). Jan “optimized” my connection and requested that I reboot the modem, router and computer. After the reboot, my router was blacklisted.I have since regained service by providing another MAC address.I did some more tests this morning after I wrote the blog post. As it turns out, if I use the Orem, UT (Fibrenet) speedtest.net server – I do get the speed I requested. It appears that Xmission (Salt Lake City) was the bottleneck.As for a resolution, I’m not sure what to say. My mother always told me to apologize, look the other person in the eye and tell them that it would not happen again. Although I’ve never received an apology from your corporation and especially your CSR’s, I’m not sure I’d believe it. There just seems to be too much distance between those that appear to care (your section) and those on the front lines (your contractors and CSR’s). I’m not sure your goals are even on the same playing field. The only thing that has been easy in our relationship has been giving you money, placing my initial order (the fulfillment was a mess), and keeping the status quo (for the most part).I guess a start would be to explain what the CSR did behind the scenes, including “optimizing” my connection and why my router was banned. It would even be interesting to me to know what information and notes are on my account / stored about me.Thanks,—-====Ben Holt====—-[REDACTED EMAIL]www.doodgical.com
I’ll keep you updated with their response when I hear back from them.
–Ben
Sources: Doodgical
Fix – Broken Internet Connnection After telling Comcast You Have a Router
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UPDATE 6/3/2010: I was really mad when I wrote this post. However, since everyone has bad days – and since a comcast level one tech has looked into the records – I’m going to remove the CSR’s name. Comcast didn’t ask me to remove the name, but I decided that I wasn’t after a personal shaming. We all mess up.
I’ve organized this post into the fix and the rant. As the fix is more important, I list it first.
FIX:
Problem: Comcast was adjusting my speed because I requested an upgrade to 6-12 Megabit speeds. I admitted having a router. The chat representative ([REDACTED] – You’ve been warned of the name), requested that I power cycle my equipment including my computer and gave me a link to get back to chat with her. I power cycle all my equipment and I can’t get back on the internet. Guess that link she gave me isn’t going to be useful.
Fix: Pick another computer on the network and log into the router. Tell the router to use the MAC address of that computer.
Why: She banned my MAC address of my router. I could plug in with another computer directly into the modem, but my router MAC address (which was spoofing another computer’s address) had been banned. She didn’t want me back on the internet. You would think that a comcast representative would just have the decency to say that they don’t support the router and that they would wait for me to plug in directly or not help. But a ban without telling me? That’s just mean, shady and angers me. When there’s a viable alternative, consider me gone – comcast.
RANT: I hate comcast. Everytime I deal with them, I feel like they are sneaking around. This time, I’m angry. Unfortunately, they are less incompetent than our DSL line provider worse (Qwest). So which is worse?
- Being lied to or told half-truths, but being able to circumvent their stupidity because I have enough technical knowledge to figure out what they’ve done? (Comcast)
- Being unable to access the internet because they’ve screwed something up on their part of my line, but they’re honest with me? (Qwest)
I guess I’ll take option 1 and hate it. I believe in honesty, but it doesn’t get the job done to admit the job is not done. On the other hand, I hate giving business to someone who doesn’t do business in a straightforward fashion. I can’t wait for Utopia (the new fiber provider) to reach me. Then goodbye comcast.
–Ben
Sources: Assinine Comcast Chatroom Help
Fix – Mac OS X – Windows Offline Files in Parallels is Networking Issue
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I just fixed parallels to work better on a domain we have at work. From what I can tell, parallels uses a sort-of stealth mode by default that makes it look like all traffic is to Mac OS X. This may not work well, if you’re using offline files. Here’s what I did
- Go to the Networking settings in parallels
- Use Bridged (Default) mode
With bridged mode, it will appear as if you have two computers connecting to the network on your Mac. All traffic will be given to Mac OS X and Windows. This is the setting that worked for us at work.
Note that when you connect the Mac to the network, it may take a little bit for Windows to discover the network.
IMORTANT NOTE: Adjust your networking settings on the mac (wireless, etc). Let windows discover the network itself. If you’re still having problems, turn off the wireless networking if you’re connected to the wired network.
While you’re at it … increase the number of processors and memory available to the “Guest OS” of windows. You’ll have to shut down the windows guest os to do so. It’s totally worth it. Just don’t give it more memory that you actually have. In fact, I would drop the memory available by 1/2 a gig.
–Ben
Sources: Personal Frustration and Messing Around.
RIP – Connectblogs
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There was a local business magazine that was slightly edgy and pretty fun, while providing useful information. It was called Connect Magazine. Connect magazine decided to gather the best of the local bloggers and aggregate them into one big feed on their website. Not only did it give a decent place to read about local and national issues, it gave many blogs (including this one) the push it needed to grow into decent traffic. After all, people just need to discover good content to want to come back to it.
It appears that connectblogs is off the radar for good. Thank you Connect Magazine. You put some great Utah bloggers on the map.
–Ben
Sources: Broken Links and a Parked Page