Polls and ISPs

First off, I thought people might be interested in a chance to vote on Linux Journal's 2010 Reader's Choice awards. They have categories covering hardware vendors, cellphones and gadgets, IDEs and CMS, distros and all manner of other selections where you can pick your favorite products, services and projects in the OSS/Linux world. If you are interested, click the image above. You will have to submit an e-mail address with your votes but they promise not to spam you with it and I trust them, besides, I'm sure you have at least one throw-away or spam magnet e-mail account to use if you really want to be sure.


Now on to another issue, ISPs and their services. After around a decade I have finally decided that Verizon's DSL offerings just don't cut it anymore (admittedly that might have something to do with the fact that I am now running a Tor relay and seeding torrents of linux distros and videos from The Next HOPE). For the last couple of years we have been trying to get Verizon's FIOS service but they refuse to offer it in my area and still only offering a 1.5Mb/256Kb DSL line as your top tier plan just doesn't cut it. Unfortunately I have been unable to find someone with better service at a reasonable price (probably because almost all the DSL providers in my area are just resellers for Verizon (yay! an extra layer of useless customer dis-service people on top of the already useless ones that actually have some ability to do something). The handful of other (ie non-DSL) broadband providers all want to gouge me and take over my TV and phone service. So, despite some misgivings, Time Warner now has my ISP business as well. I wonder how well their 'digital phone' offering will work with my Western Electric set.