Joel on Software

2000/12/20

My Revenge Against Clueless Internet Providers

We're getting a T1 installed in our new office, which has made me the target of an awful lot of marketing calls by very aggressive salespeople from Internet providers. They usually want to fax me a quote.

Fax? Hello, people, you're Internet providers. Why not email me a quote?

I asked Qwest if they could just email it to me. This didn't seem to be within their capability. They insisted on faxing it.

So, Qwest, been nice to know ya. I don't know why I would want to buy T1 access from an Internet company that doesn't know how to send an email. We're probably going to go with SAVVIS.

New Toy

Oh boy oh boy oh boy, I just got a new toy via FedEx. It's a wireless 128kbps modem from Ricochet and Juno. Full report here.

Ooo, this is fun. I'm actually posting this from a cafe on 70th and Broadway. Nice!

Have you been wondering about Distributed Version Control? It has been a huge productivity boon for us, so I wrote Hg Init, a Mercurial tutorial—check it out!

Want to know more?

You’re reading Joel on Software, stuffed with years and years of completely raving mad articles about software development, managing software teams, designing user interfaces, running successful software companies, and rubber duckies.

About the author.

I’m Joel Spolsky, co-founder of Fog Creek Software, a New York company that proves that you can treat programmers well and still be highly profitable. Programmers get private offices, free lunch, and work 40 hours a week. Customers only pay for software if they’re delighted. We make Trello, insanely simple project management, FogBugz, an enlightened bug tracker designed to help great teams develop brilliant software, and Kiln, which simplifies source control. I’m also the co-founder and CEO of Stack Exchange. More about me.