Home Design Software

I was recently looking for some Home Design Software after watching several episodes of "The Property Brothers" and these are some of the options that I found:

1. Punch! Home Design:  http://www.punchsoftware.com/c-11-home-design.aspx?gclid=CLv4w_6D08UCFYZAaQodqCkA8Q
2. HGTV Home Design Software: http://www.homedesignsoftware.tv/ppc/products/HGTV-Ultimate-Home-Design-with-Landscaping-and-Decks-3/?rs2=4218&preflanguage=5&rs=57&rs4=HGTV_US_GOOG_0214&cc=HGTVPPC&
3. http://www.homedesignsoftware.tv/ppc/buy/?cc=HGTVPPC&rs4=HGTV_US_PPC_0115&gclid=Cj0KEQjwyoCrBRCl-aa97pKX_t8BEiQAbrs_9B0oWDH1gM4qosefFb6lKXuh4DJtcymsa5Erlmy4LTEaAsAk8P8HAQ 
4. gclid=Cj0KEQjw4fCqBRDM1ZKhk5jfo6IBEiQAZQ97OA3eiLboMxyxMHtw1ys6Q43oT5pNTOmiXOdh8CJ1NfEaAtFj8P8HAQ
5. Home Designer Suite: https://homedesigner.chiefarchitect.com/

They all look pretty good options with the Punch! Home Design and HGTV Home Design options being the most affordable of the 3.  Punch! Home Design offers some additional content packs which offer additional items to include as part of the options which the other 2 do not seem to offer.

I am hoping to try these in the near future so you can check back for a review of these various software packages and see how they compare!!

Vonage outgoing ring tone problem and ARRIS Modem

I recently switched my Internet Service Provider (ISP) from AT & T to Wide Open West (WOW!) which switched my modem from 2WIRE to an ARRIS DG860 modem.

Unfortunately, a side effect or consequence of this change was that my Vonage service immediately began experiencing problems namely that I could no longer hear a ring tone on outgoing calls.

After hours of speaking with 2 different Vonage customer support representatives, I did not figure out that the ARRIS modem has a firewall setting which disrupts my Vonage VOIP service.  Therefore, I decided to turn off my firewall settings as depicted below on my ARRIS modem to see if I could get it to resume normal Vonage operation and instead rely on my Vonage VPortal firewall settings to protect me from external attackers.

Once I disabled my ARRIS modem firewall settings, of course my Vonage service returned to normal operation!

ReadyNAS Support Users BEWARE!!

As the owner of several Netgear ReadyNAS devices, I use them frequently.  However, I am extremely disappointed with how many times I have to contact support for issues that I experience with my ReadyNAS (particularly the newer ReadyCloud/ReadyNAS OS 6 devices).

I recently ran into an issue which prevented me from accessing the Web Administration console and I was requested to agree to this support policy: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20932/~/netgear-remote-access-policy

If you read the support policy, you will see that this is the most high risk support agreement I have ever read in my LIFE!!  It basically removes all liability of wrongdoing from the Netgear Support Technicians and offers no compensation if some or all of your data is lost from the device!!  The whole reason I bought the ReadyNAS device was to prevent the loss of data and now you are asking me to consent to letting a support tech potentially DESTROY ALL MY DATA!!  There was no way in a million  years that I would consent to such a thing.

As you can probably guess, a bit later on I encountered an issue which prevented me from writing to any of my home folders on the ReadyNAS device.  Once again Netgear Support could offer no other solution than asking me to sign the very invasive support policy in order to troubleshoot it further.  Of course, since I did not agree to it before, I was not about to agree to it the next time they asked.

In any case, I would have to say I am very, very EXTREMELY disappointed with the new ReadyCloud OS 6 devices.  Netgear certainly had the right idea but the execution of the whole unit was very poorly done.  To compound the issue, this support policy provides absolutely no protection to the customer making the support agreements for these devices essentially USELESS.

Great Internet speed for an affordable price

I do a TON of downloading from MSDN as well as various other sites to test out software so needless to say I need very FAST Internet speeds.

Most vendors such as AT & T and Comcast will gouge their customers for their Internet connections and up until recently it seems that WOW! was guilty of the same offense by charging as much as $70/month for a 30 Mbps Internet connection speed.

However, it seems that WOW! is now changing their tune with very reasonable and affordable Internet speed connections.  You can get 30 Mbps for as low as $40/month!!  If you want to jump up to 50 Mbps, you can get that for as low as $50/month!

That is absolutely awesome!! 

If you have WOW! available in your area, you can check out their promotion here: http://www.wowway.com/wow-online/aonline-30hsdandlimitedbasic?utm_source=N9515.3159GOOGLE7&utm_medium=retargeting&gclid=CNXN792TyMUCFYoYHwodAaEARA

Service Protection Plan requirement for WOW! Services

WOW! recently implemented a new nickel-and-dime scheme to hit customers with service call fees of $50 each time a technician visits a customer's home.

I have had WOW! for many, many years and in the past, being a customer was sufficient to warrant a free service call to the house.  However, since I own my own cable modem, I am no longer paying any equipment rental fees, so they have found a new way to make money.

I was recently having trouble with my Internet download speeds and needed to call out a WOW! Service Technician to my house to determine the root cause of the problem.  The technician just made some adjustments to the cable line outside my house but that was enough for me to get charged with a whopping $50 service call fee!!

I inquired further about it and as it turns out, their new policy is to charge for any service calls if you do not have a Service Protection Plan in place.

Interestingly enough, I HAD a Service Protection Plan in place several months earlier but cancelled their lousy TV service and stuck with just the Internet service so the Service Protection plan automatically got revoked.

This left me with a $50 Service Call fee and forced me to renew the Service Protection plan ($5/month) just to avoid this charge in the future.  In addition, one of the other stipulations on the Service Protection plan is that you have it for AT LEAST 1 month before you make your 1st service call (very similar to what Consumers Energy does for their Appliance Repair Plan).   

For some users, if you calculate the yearly costs ($60/yr vs $50/service call), it makes sense if you think you might call out a service technician at least once in a year.  If you have never called anyone out to your house (very much unlike myself), then the Service Protection Plan might not be for you. 

For anyone that might be getting or considering getting WOW! Services, you should definitely watch out for this hidden caveat.