askye | (no subject)

You know that thing I said about being an Evil Overlord and banning all songfic and MPreg?

I'm making an exception--if it's parody then it's allowed. Because I forgot about Minim Calibre's songfics. BRS songfic about his feelings for Angelus...and Joe/Billy songfic to Joni Mitchell...those are masterpieces and have to stay.

In other news I'm switching from a local ISP to msn.com. A few years ago I switched from msn.com to the local ISP because 1) it was cheaper and 2) I wanted to support local businesses.

Except Local ISP hasn't treated me right. I get way way too much spam and I can't use their filters because it filters out legit mail, not even mailing list posts, but actual email sent specifically to me from friends. Not to mentioin I've had problems off and on getting connected on the weekends and they tell me it's my modem, that it's too old and that it's dying.

I've freaking had it with being told my modem is dying and I need a new one.

So I have 2 free months of MSN while I go around changing all my email addresses on everything and reroute mailing lists and things like that. Whee.

Of course if I have connection problems with MSN then I will know it's my computer, however the fact I only have problems on the weekends and spefically Sunday nights makes me think it's my ISP rather than my computer.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Except Local ISP hasn't treated me right. I get way way too much spam and I can't use their filters because it filters out legit mail, not even mailing list posts, but actual email sent specifically to me from friends.

I sort of hate to tell you this, but if your primary reason for switching to MSN is because your old ISP's spam filters were removing legitimate messages, it's not going to get better. The filters work the same way. In fact, there is some evidence that MSN has been programming their filters to call some legitimate messages spam if they originate from Microsoft's competitors, or from forums critical of Microsoft.

Now, if you old ISP are being dodoheads when you ask for technical service, that's certainly a good reason of leaving. Just don't expect much of a change on the spam front.

The spam is a secondary issue, a lot of it is my own fault I'm sure, leaving my email address where I shouldn't.

It's mostly the treatment from my ISP. When I call up it usually goes something like "you're modem is too old" and then I tell them I only have problems on Sundays, sometimes Saturdays, then I get "well maybe there is moisture on the wires" dude, it hasn't rained here in weeks---y'all should know that, and then they push DSL, which isn't even offered in my area.

Humidity can degrade performance if your phone line is old and crappy. It happened to me a few years ago, and I had the phone company come out and fix it. If that's the case, though, then you'll know it because your phone calls will have huge amounts of static.

Still, it's rare when it's only humid on Saturdays and Sundays, so I think you were right to dump them.