ShowMeBlog

Changes to Charter Cable service?

  Russell was not happy when I told him that I was going to looking to making changes to the cable service and that we might end up not having 30 M down but end up with 15 M down.
  He went to their web site and then found out that they now offer 100 M down and 5 M up service.  He wants to know if we could get that in the Charter bundle. 
  I have not called Charter yet.  If I am going to take their phone service I need a phone.  We do not have a phone.  I use Skype for our phone service.
  I sort of hate to call them.  Two reasons that I hate to call.  One is that I know I will have to pay for a service call out here because I will be getting their phone service.  The other reason is they send out offers with a “promo code” printed on it.  This promo code is 515671.  Every time I have called with their promo code the person on the phone knows nothing about the code.  Now you can get a deal with the person on the phone it just does no good to tell them about the offer.

  I think I need to take this offer.  Other wise my cable bill is going to go up to $163.09 and I will have a hell of lot less than what they are offering for with this special of $154.97 a month.
  One thing I always forget however is that the price they give you is without taxes.  It is the same with the cell phone people.  The taxes and special charges add up fast.

  I do not need 100 M down speed.  But I want it.  It may have something to do with starting out with 300 baud speed and then moving up to 1200 baud etc.
  It is built into my DNA to more more speed.

Good deal from Charter Cable right?

  I have Charter Cable service.  I got Internet (30 Mbps down), the Digital Home Package, Digital View Plus, Wire Maintenance and DVR equipment package.  Now that comes to $124.69 a month.
  So I have high speed Internet and HD digital TV with DVR service. 
  OK now I get a $13.40 a month discount for the Digital home package for six months.  That will be soon.  I also get a $15.00 a month discount for the Internet service and that will be over very soon.

  Now Charter is offering a special deal to me and others until 02/10/2012.  I can lock in a lower price for 2 years.
  They have a package for $154.97 a month;   Charter Internet (15 Mbps down), Charter TV in HD with the DVR service plus HBO/Cinemas, Starz/Encore and Showtime/TMC.  Also the Digital View Plus service.
  Also they offer Charter Phone Unlimited nationwide calling service.

  Now the first thing is that I have 30 Mbps down now and love it.  Russ would not be happy if I went to 15 Mbps down.
  The other thing is now I do not have any channels like HBO, Showtime and the others.  I been thinking of adding HBO and it is $20.00 a month to add.
  Right now I use Skype for my phone service.  I been using it for years.  I could do away with it and save what I pay them. 

  It looks to me like I need to call Charter and take the deal.  My cost is going to go up up soon $38.40 if I do not do anything.  I would be getting all the premium channels which I do not have now.  Plus I would have phone service with them.
  I would have to buy a normal phone.  We don’t have one.
  Plus what I hate is I know they will have to come out to install the phone service and there will be a service call fee for that.

  What do you think?   Anyone good at math?  Anyone see anything I am missing.
  Not sure what to about the 15 M vs 30 M speed.  My guess is they might keep me at the 30 M speed or they might say I could have the extra speed for $10.00 more a month.
  They offer the 30 M down speed now I think for $30.00 a month and I pay now $39.99 a month for Internet service.  I think they might just leave me at 30 M down speed.

  Leave a comment if  you see something I am missing.  I am not the brightest bulb. 
  showmeblog@gmail.com

Charter has increased my speed

“As a Charter Internet^® Plus customer, we have increased your download and upload speeds. Now you can download 50 pictures in 27 seconds or upload a 90 MB video in 3 minutes. With download speeds up to 30 Mbps and upload speeds up to 4 Mbps, Charter Internet Plus gives you the power to reign over the Internet.”

 

  Also on from the 6th through 8th here in Fort Worth Charter will be giving free ShowTime.  I am sure it is in other areas also.  If you sign up it is $10.00 a month, for  a year I think, and they give you $30.00 back.
  I do not see that much that I like on ShowTime.  I think I will wait until they have a special offer on HBO/TMC.
  When I was checking to see if the free ShowTime had started yet I found channel 605.  It is FLIX+.  I just noticed that I get it already as part of my “Expanded Service.”  I have never seen the channel before.  That shows you how many channels I have.  I have not had time to find them all yet or check them them out.

We are back baby

                                                               

 Well not sure how long before we lose Internet service but right now it is back. 
  As you can see from the speed test I just did the service is working great and it is fast.
  
 

  I was a full of Christmas cheer and so happy to have the Internet back and have it working fast and then I just got this comment left on YouTube:

 

“eeyoresic6sic has made a comment on Internet Problems - Charter Cable - My Story:

Charter gets such bad reviews because the customers are fucking idiots. You are case and point. You can't use shit ass cable and then run it across your floor where you are walking all over it and crushing it. It jacks up the return, ergo causing your precious internet to fall off line. Use some common sense and STFU. I hope you got charged the $35 for being a jackoff”

 

  Of course this was NOT for the current Internet problem. This was about some problems we had in the past and I did a YouTube video about it.
   
  Truth is that for the last few months or last year or so I been getting great comments on YouTube and all the people are being very nice. 

   Here is a comment that was just left on YouTube:

“banker6 has made a comment on Merry Christmas to all:

Jim, you said you're looking for new video ideas, right? I'd like to see you do a series on your favorite foods...what you buy, where you buy it, why you like it.....stuff like that. You've had some food featured in a few of your videos (a frozen fish dinner, a sonic order, your Coke, Christmas nuts), but you should go deeper on you food choices. Maybe a pantry tour? How about grocery cart tour.....what goes in the cart and why. What brands do you prefer and why? Your sidewinder keyboard rev”

Saturday at 11 PM

  I ran the complete virus scan on my computer and did not find any virus.  So I am not sure what in the heck the chuckmarasco thing was.  I flush Chrome buffers and history etc.  I have not had the problem again.

   I messed with the look of ShowMeBlog again.  But that is not news.  It will be news when I do not mess with the look of it.

   Lot of good movies on TV around Christmas.  I am enjoying the Turner Classic Movies channel.

“Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary ofTime Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment (pre-1986 MGM and RKO) and Warner Bros. film libraries. TCM is headquartered at the Techwood Campus in Atlanta, Georgia, in Midtown…”

 

  It seems to me they got the right idea about how to show movies on TV.  You see the entire movie without them running a commercial in it.  They also do not seem to edit or censor the movie.
   I have Charter TV and I am in Fort Worth.  I get it on channel 88 and I guess it is in HD but I am not sure it matters much with those older movies.  It is part of the “expanded service” of Charter so I pay $10.00 a month for that.  That gives me about 75 channels for $10.00 a month.  I also pay for “Digital view and Digital view Plus.”  I do not watch many of those channels.  LOGO the gay channel sucks.  I was thinking I might find something on EWTN but they never have anything interesting.  Well I do watch a lot of the Hitler Military Channel.  BBC America has some good stuff sometimes.  That is about 60 channels.  I am not into music but I have seen some good concerts on HDNet.

  I better get to bed.  I have to be up at 0230 to wake my grandson so he can get ready for work.

Rain drops and soda water

  My hearing is not all that good but I can hear rain drops hitting the water by my window.  The apartment people must have a layer under the dirt by the side of the building.  It might be so they can plant flowers and not have grass grow up in that area or something.  Because when it rains it is like a lake in the areas around the building.
  It has been raining for the last day or so and lots of water there and I can hear the drops hitting the water.  My bed is right next to the window.  I am love the rain but I am getting a little tired of sound.  It is sort of like a Chinese audio water torture. 

 

  I got my Charter Cable bill for the month.  I will be paying $124.15 each month.  That is a lot of money for someone that has the limited income that I have now days.  But I am getting great Internet speed. 
  I got a lot of cable channels but most of all I am loving the HD and DVR service. I record a lot of TV shows and then I watch them when I want and I can even stop and go back to them later.  There were a lot of shows that I would miss and now I just tell the DVR to record them and I never miss them.

  I have not taken care of my SodaStream problem.  What a shame that I had to get an empty gas tank.  I am not sure how that happened.  I did a search and have not found that anyone else has had that problem.
  I got all that stuff sitting on the kitchen counter.  I need to find out if BestBuy sells just the gas tanks.  I saw one when I was there to get the sodamix but it might have been a demo to show people what is in a package when you buy it.
  I am finding more and more places that sell the SodaStream makers and the Sodamix.  I am not sure about the gas tanks. 
  I see that Bed Bath & Beyond sells the SodaStream and Sodamix.  
  Tomorrow I may pick up some carbonated water at a local store and just for the hell of it mix in some of the cola mix and see if that works and what it taste like.  I see Walgreens has Schweppes Tonic Water Diet in a 33.8 oz size.

First nationwide Emergency Alert System test

“Washington (CNN) -- Problems were reported across the country during the first-ever nationwide test Wednesday of the Emergency Alert System, designed to allow the president to address the American people during a national emergency.

Some television and radio stations did not air the planned 30-second test at all. Some that aired it stayed with the signal longer than others.

There were anecdotal reports of TV stations failing to air the message in Washington, Atlanta, New York, California and elsewhere. The message did not air on a cable channel being monitored in a Capitol Hill office and in the Capitol's radio and TV gallery…”

 

  I had forgot that there was going to be a nation wide test.  I was watching TV at the time.  But I was watching a recorded show from my DVR unit.  I think the system worked the way it should.
  I was watching the recorded show and it kicked me out of the video over to a cable channel that had the test.  So after the test I had to go back to DVR and start the video again but it had saved the location so I just started watching were I had left off.
  So I would say from my point of view it was a success.  I have Charter Cable service.

  Not sure how long I will have Charter Cable service!  The other day I got an email from Charter Internet Security that my IP address had committed a “copyright infringement.”  I am not going into detail about it here.     My grandson and I share this apartment and Internet service.  
  Well yesterday I got another email from them.  It seems that whatever my grandson downloaded, not that I am saying he did download something, it took him three days to download (if he did download it).  So I may get another notice about the incident. 
 
  I told my grandson about the emails and I told him not to be downloading stuff if there was any question about it.  I also told him that if Charter cancels my Internet service that I will get DSL service and that it will be for me alone and that he will have get his own Internet service.  He needs Internet service, well we all need Internet service, because he is taking college classes online.
  Right now I have 18Mbps down and 2 Mbps up Internet service.  If I have to get DSL service I think the most I could get would be 12Mbps down and 800Kbps up.  That would be from AT&T.
  I hope I do not lose my Internet service from Charter.  My grandson loves fast Internet service.  Well we all do.  What I should do is just use Charter for my own use and make him pay for DSL service for his access.

New ‘Two and a Half Men’

  I just watched the new “Two and a Half Men” and I will not be watching the show again.  It is just not the same.  If I were to keep watching each week I guess I might get used to it.  But I am not going to do it.  I am just going to watch the old shows in rerun.

 
  I have 17 shows recorded on the DVR device at this time.  If they were all HD I would be close to running out of hard drive space.

  We had a rain storm tonight. Lost power for a couple of seconds. I think I will see if I can plug the Cable HD DVR box into my computer UPS device.
We lost power about the time a 63 mph wind hit Fort Worth. We had rain and even hail for a little bit.

Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HDC

  The cable guy came out and install my new HD DVR box.  It is a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HDC. 

“The Explorer 8300 is a digital video recorder (DVR) manufactured by Scientific Atlanta and used by many digital cable companies. It works like a regular cable box with DVR capabilities and features an 80, 160 or 320 GB PATA internal hard drive. Some versions can also be used with an external SATA hard drive through the eSATA connector on the back. The firmware/software generally comes from one of two sources: the Scientific Atlanta Resident Application (SARA) or the PASSPORT software from Aptiv Digital (a spin-off of Pioneer). The choice of firmware is determined by the cable operator and the equipment available at the cable head-end…”

 

  I think this unit has the 160 GB hard drive.  That should work for me OK.  I been playing with the unit.  I think it is going to make my TV watching much better.  
  There are a few things I did not think about until I got it.  The ability to rewind a live program I been watching.  Plus the ability to replay part of the show again and again.. So if I see any nudity I can replay it right away and watch it over and over again. 

  I think the 160 GB drive will be enough.  It will hold 90 hours of standard TV but only 20 hours of HD TV. 

  I see that Western Digital has My DVR Expander 500 GB eSATA External Hard drives that are made to work with this unit.  Well I see they have 1 TB drives also that should work and the price is only $99.99 so if I need more space it looks like I can get it.

DVR Recording – Charter Service

  I called Charter Cable and ordered a HD DVR box.  They are going to bring it out tomorrow.  I will be paying $10.00 extra a month for the DVR service.  I should not be spending the money but it will work out much better for me.
  Right now there are a lot of TV programs that I do not get to see and that I miss because I do not know that they are on or I know they are on but I end up taking a nap and miss them.  Now I will just go and mark the to be recorded.  I can even record two at the same time.  I can even have two of them being recorded and watch one of them that I recorded.

 

Charter DVR features allow you to:

• Seamlessly record your favourite movies, sitcoms, documentaries, prime-time dramas and live sporting events at your convinience.
• Access your live and recorded programs easily with the Interactive Program Guide.
• Set up a program to record once or to automatically record every episode for the entire season.
• Watch your favourite show while recording another, or record two shows while watching a third recorded program.
• Pause and rewind live TV.
• Record standard definition and/or high definition programming.

 

  I am going to have to pay $25.00 for them to bring it out.  It sucks being poor and not having a car.  But I guess $25.00 is worth it.  They will bring it out and hook it up of course.  I could hook it up but I will be glad to get it.
  I was doing some reading on the Internet and I guess Charter Cable has two different HD DVR boxes.  Right now the box I have is not a DVR box but is a HD box and it is a Cisco 8650HDC box. 
 

   A number of people on the Internet are saying that the Moxi HD Digital Recorder is better.  But I have no idea which one I will be getting.  When the tech comes out I will ask if he has and can install the Moxi box.
 

  I just found a Charter Communications blog  and it looks like I will be getting a Charter Moxi DVR.  I will find out tomorrow for sure.