Scattered Thoughts . . .

Sometime during brunch yesterday, we realized we had no internet and, unfortunately, it was a Sunday.  It seems like things requiring a service technician always go down on a weekend.  I rebooted the modem about eight times...  the lights on the modem consistently stopped before the modem booted up...  sometimes none of the lights illuminated.  It was clear that this modem was toast. Sheila got online using her cellphone to request service from Comcast.  She was able to notate that our problem was with the modem.  Shockingly, they indicated that we would see a service technician by mid-afternoon.  That was welcomed news! The service technician arrived within a couple of hours.  It was an easy fix...  just swap out the old non-functional modem for a new one...  boot it up...  and done.  It couldn't have been an easier service call. Best yet, our internet speed is now faster than it has ever been.  Our internet speed is now triple the speed it was with the old modem!  That made the c

A couple of weeks ago, Comcast offered us an upgrade to our router for free. I knew our router was getting old and I knew that we occasionally have problems needing reboots and removing the battery (which is difficult to get at) so a free upgrade seemed like a 'no-brainer'. When we got our free upgrade to Xfinity a year or two ago, I thought it was odd that the Xfinity package didn't arrive with a new modem but everything seemed to work just fine so I forgot about having an older modem. Sheila ordered this free modem upgarde and the package arrived yesterday... in a massive box... I left it, unopened, on the living room floor until after my usual afternoon nap. When Sheila arrived home from work, I opened the box... this new Xfinity router was absolutely HUGE! It was larger than our BlueRay DVD player! This router was so deep, that it barely fit on our entertainment center shelves. I would need to lay it down flat and bend all the cords plugged into the back of it in

The new Comcast Xfinity X1 Entertainment System A few days ago, our Comcast box required another hard reboot which, of course, erased all of our recorded programs. This is something we needed to do far too often... upwards of ten times each year. This is frustrating, time consuming (you need to gain access to the cabling in order to pull cables and power for a hard reboot and then the reloading requires another five to ten minutes), and unnecessary for today's electronics. Worse yet, Comcast's interface has been clunky... sort of like 1980's-style graphic design... slow... dog slow... and the menus were insane! Comcast has been in need of a major upgrade for many, many years... decades, actually. So, our box was not working correctly yet again and needed a hard reboot. Oh, and I should point out that, up until now, we've installed more 'new' boxes (because of burned out components) than years we've had Comcast service. Those older HD Comcast boxes w