Welcome to the “BLOT”

http://www.alldatadiy.com

Alldata is a well known repair and service reference used by professional automotive shops all around the country. A good friend of mine uses Alldata for his auto garage and loves it. They reference every imaginable vehicle, show all the parts, diagrams and have all the references, part numbers and even include repair times.

AlldataDIY is aimed at the non-professional. The home mechanic working on his car or truck. It’s touted as having all the same information, the same bells and whistles as the professional version. The DIY version is Web only where the PRO is now Web or DVD. The appeal is that the AlldataDIY manual is supposed to be tailed to the specific vehicle you need ,one vehicle per subscription. TheY ask you all the normal questions, year, make model, 4wd or 2wd, etc..

So far so good. I needed a better manual than the paperback version that I picked up at my local auto parts center which covered about 10 years and several other models. I’m sure everyone has had the experience of trying to find something specific, only to have to wade through pages and pages of useless, non-relevant information only to find a vague reference to what you’re really after.

Anyway, I’m working on a new vehicle and was having some problems that my paperback manual couldn’t answer. I ordered up my new subscription to AlldataDIY, entering in my specific vehicle information, only to find out that it was, at best, an incomplete manual. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a LOT of stuff in the manual, some of the procedures even have diagrams and drawings to help but, for the need I had, there was NO information included and what information came close WAS WRONG!!!

The problem I was trying to fix had to do with my ‘85 Ford F150’s front I-Beam axle. First, the AlldataDIY manual didn’t include any repair information (install/remove) regarding the axle and the diagrams it did offer where either of a 4 wheel drive truck (why did I choose 2wd then?) or of a much older “king pin” connector design. TOTALLY USELESS!! I then did some other checking and there where some more areas that didn’t exist. Want to adjust your 3 speed manual transmission linkage? Don’t bother, according to the manual it doesn’t exist.

I’m still working through the manual but so far I’m really less than impressed. For something that is supposed to be vehicle specific and updated often, the amount of information that I’m finding on my new online manual prevents me from throwing out my paperback version. Even through I chose specific vehichle information for my subscription, I’m still wadin through 4 wheel drive diagrams and procedures (once or twice they even omited the 2wd version) and I even came across several Bronco and 350 references!! That, in my humble opinion, is pretty pathetic. It costs more and provides less. I’m sorry but HOW CAN YOU NOT INCLUDE WHOLE SECTIONS ON HOW TO REPAIR YOUR VEHICLE?????

2 OUT OF 10 STARS

First off, let me state that nothing is ever perfect, no really. Moving on… To keep Ma Bell or to switch to some flavor of broadband VoIP service, that is the question. On the one hand Ma Bell has had several dozen decades to work out the kinks and their service is pretty much bulletproof. Yes, they’re inflexible, unresponsive and pricey but their service is usually the last to fail (if ever - unless you’re in a horror flick and being chased by some stalker with a huge knife) and the first to recover. Vonage (as with other VoIP vendors) has had only a few years to start figuring out what the the kinks are let alone work them out. I don’t know about you but my broadband service drops when it only looks like bad weather outside and when it does drop it can be out for days even if Comcast is “working on it”…

Ok, so for the people who absolutely, 100% all the time, must have some sort of service (and there legitimately are those people out there), stay clear of these new startups and stick with wired service. No offense but these services aren’t really targeted to you anyway.

However, if you don’t live and die on the fact that your home phone might or might not ring or if you feel that having a cell phone more than makes up for a temporary loss in your home phone service, please do look closer into these services, they might be exactly what your looking for!

We’ve now been running a VoIP replacement service (Vonage) for a few months and I’d have to say that for the most part, we’re pretty damn happy. We’re saving over 50% from our old service, get free long distance and a handfull of other services to boot. One of the helpful services that comes along free is “Service Forwarding”. If (when) my broadband does drop, Vonage will forward all incoming calls to a number of my choosing. I simply put in my cell number and bingo, no missed calls. I was able to port my old phone number with little or no problems, have free voicemail and the networked phone adapter was literally plug and play. It really couldn’t have been easier to order, install and configure. Heck, even adding a secondary line for faxes was a snap using their web dashboard interface.

Here’s where this type of service geeks out. Most companies (including Vonage) offer virtual phone numbers for your account. Their virtual because they only truly existing within their system but can be located (local access) anywhere that they service. That’s the US, Canada, Mexico, parts of Europe etc. People dial your “local” virtual number and it rings at your desk - WAY COOL! Have friends or family all across the globe? No problem, get virtual numbers that are local to them and it won’t cost them long distance charges to call you. Same with their business accounts, have “virtual” offices in any city you want! Hell, you can even get 800 numbers. And remember, with no long distance charges on YOUR account, you can call anyone, at anytime at no additional charges! The only downside that I’ve come across is that when you do this trick for your business, you can only call out from your first, real number. So, if you wanted someone to think you had an office in Vegas, because you setup a virtual number, you better think of a reason why all of your calls come from Cornfritter Iowa.

As I’ve said before, we’ve had this service (Vonage) for a few months and it’s generally worked great and we’re pretty happy. The sound quality is excellent, we haven’t experienced any of those annoying digital drop out effects “yet” ( echoing, reverb, ghosting, etc…), we’re saving money and it does what they said it would do.

Let’s not forget the 911 service. That’s been big in the news for a while. Because there are no more “local” phone exchanges for your 911 call to be routed from, all calls start out at your VoIP’s main processing center and then is routed to a “local” authority. Although they have a section on their site to input all of your essentials (name, address, township, etc.), I’m not sure I’ll be reaching for my home phone in an emergency.
The Downside

So why isn’t Broadband VoIP service for everyone? Because it’s new… Because it relies on umpteen layers of technology that no single entity controls… Because everyone has a different X or a different Y piece of hardware in the mix… Did I mention their still new??

My friend called my cell the other day. He tried calling my house but couldn’t get through. I checked from my cell and kept getting a stupid message saying I should “try again later”. Deeerrrrrr, no? Checked all the cables, reset the devices, power cycled everything. Nothing. HEY! ISN’T MY CELL SUPPOSED TO RING IF MY SERVICE GOES DOWN??!??!!. Yeah, that ONLY works if MY broadband goes down, NOT THEIRS!!! After several attempts at trying to reach someone to find out what was going on I was told THE DAY AFTER, that their techs had “identified a problem and have moved to correct said problem”. Geee, I feel all better now..

So yeah, they are new, their technology is NOT bullet proof, good luck trying to get someone to talk to and when something does go wrong, there about a dozen steps YOU need to go through before THEY will even consider it a problem.

In all honesty, I don’t really use my wired phone much at all anyway. Most everyone that needs to get a hold of me has my cell number and they usually use that first anyway. In the couple of months we’ve had the service it’s only been a problem once (that we’re aware of anyway), it costs us about 50% less than we’ve been paying, we kept our number and the level of service is pretty much what we expected.

All in all Broadband VoIP is not that bad, it has some very nice features, it’s much cheaper than the phone company and if you don’t absolutely have to rely on your phone service (e.g. if you feel warm and fuzy using your cell in case your land line is not working), by all means go out and get that new Vonage (Verizon, Comcast, Snip or whatever) account you’ve been looking at. As good as it is now, it’s going to get better and if you can advantage of some their more special features, all the better…

This assumes of course that they actually survive after Verizon’s lawsuit…