technology can suck my kazoo

Where to start.

1. 1and1 could possibly be the worst provider i have ever dealt with as a customer, ever. I pay a small portion monthly for a 1&1 Root Server III. I have had this now for almost five years maybe? A long time... Consistently once or twice a year the machine dies. Just goes offline.

end_request: I/O error, dev 03:01 (hda), sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:01 (hda), sector 525096
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,1)): ext3_get_inode_loc: unable to read
inode block - inode=29683, block=65637
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:01 (hda), sector 0
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,1)) in ext3_reserve_inode_write: IO failure
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:01 (hda), sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:01 (hda), sector 525096

I'm no rocket scientist (yet) but that looks like hard drive problems to me. Each and every time this error happens when the server is no longer available via tcp/ip or serial console.

Each time I open a ticket and maybe 2-3 days later it's resolved with a hard reboot or "a loose cable was found" and fixed. If I didn't have people who depended on the machine being up, I would be quite amused.

More amusing is the inability to find live operators online to help or the remote hint at getting a service credit. HA HA HA. More and more i realize that with the internet catching on, many companies can happily take money for shit service with no recourse. What is someone going to do? Sue over 150usd/month? Sue over the lost money?

What I really love is the auto-responder:

Dear Customer,

This is an autoresponder e-mail.

Thank you for your recent e-mail.

We expect to answer your e-mail within the next 12 to 24 hours.

-- Hi, how about fix my machine within 12-24 minutes. It's 2008! Does it take 12-24 hours to fly an engineer onsite to resolve the problem? Bastards.

2. My IBM VPN. Who knew that upgrading my VPN software at the suggestion of the auto-updater would completely destroy any chance I have of connecting to the internal network and keeping myself productive. Now I can't do anything and it's fantastic.

There are forums dedicated to extracting and ripping this 'pos' VPN software off the cmputer and reinstalling. Apparently the uninstaller isn't quite groovy enough to work. Calls to technical support? Complete waste of time.

Maybe I just provide to my customers such a high level of support and expect this in return when I'm a customer. Thinking about it now...when businesses want my money, it's so easy to take but so difficult to maintain. Why is that?

I think the internet in general may be fucked a little bit and I'll have to rethink all of this.