dsl saga, continued: Earthlink writes me (step 2 below):

> Please be informed that, once a DSL service is cancelled, it takes
> about 7 to 10 business days for the telephone line to be released
> from the DSL service.

Despite that, SBC took my order for dsl and now tells me they can
switch over an active dsl line, and transferred my call to a "Third Party Verification"
service in Arizona who had me agree that I wanted to switch.

SBC now says they're UPSing a DSL modem, and I should have service on
June 7. Possibly short cutting some of the steps I listed.

dsl provider switching, NOW THE FUN BEGINS : I love our capitalist system. Competition. If I get bad service, I vote with my feet! Since the FCC hasn't mandated anything, switching dsl providers is byzantine, while with a mandate switching Cell Carriers (and keeping the same phone number is supposed to take 3 hours - it took 3 days for me to leave SprintPCS however) is relatively quick and easy.
So I quit Earthlink 3 weeks ago. They must keep my account active till the end of the billing period they say. I signed up for SBC/Yahoo dialup cause I saw the coming grief, and my personal website is long since safely moved off Earthlink and parked at Geocities. Two days early Earthlink turns off my email. Right on time, I can no longer log into the dsl modem with PPOE. The switch will run like this:

1. Earthlink turns off my account.
2. Earthlink releases the dsl line.
3. Earthlink tells SBC it released the dsl line.
4. SBC/Yahoo updates its database so its knows my line doesn't have dsl on it.
5. I call SBC/Yahoo and request to upgrade my dial-in account to dsl.
6. SBC/Yahoo ships me a dsl modem.
7. SBC/Yahoo reprovisions my phone line for dsl.
8. I connect to dsl again. Hopefully at the faster speed I contract for.

cc: FCC

What should take minutes will take weeks. Three more weeks, best case, I guess.

Dell's Time Warp: Here it is on May 29, 2005 and I want to learn a little about the new Pentium-D, so I go to Dell.com, and configure a Dell 9100 with a 3 Ghz Pentium-D, 1 Gig of 533 Mhz Ram, a 250 Gig HD, only a 1 year warranty, an Audigy sound card, and no other bells and whistles. It prices out to under $1500, you'd save only $20 by taking no monitor instead of the 17" CRT monitor. Then to check on how backordered they are. The expected shipping date listed: May 27, 2005

Wireless Networking at tomorrow's Indianapolis 500: WiFi will be used to talk to the drivers while driving. Read about it here and here.

More Bad Tiger News I had earlier posted how I'm underwhelmed by Apple's new release of its OS X 10.4 Tiger. Safari now crashes twice a day. Seems that by adding file attributes so its "Spotlight" Search function will work, Apple has broken every extant AntiVirus program, and upgrades are non existent or not working. Apple didn't do its homework working with software publishers. Apple has stopped carrying Virex on its .Mac web site, as Virex 7.5 won't work with Tiger. An orphan web page is left behind here. Symantec's AntiVirus 9 for Macintosh doesn't work with Tiger, and they have now come out with a version 10. Heaven forfend they provide a low cost upgrade or patch for 9. And now I read reports of grief installing version 10 of the Symantec product. If you wanted to buy Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 10.0 is 2 weeks backordered at Amazon. Seems like its time to go back to 10.3.9

Maybe it's time to ask for a refund on 10.4

cc:sjobs@pixar.com

Followup: So I'm chatting online with a teacher from North Louisiana (exact location witheld to protect the guilty), and am told "We're installing 16 new eMacs next week", and I enquired if they had 10.4 on them cause of the grief it causes for antivirus software, and was told it didn't matter because they didnt buy antivirus software for their Macs.

Lack of Network Security: I've been seeing this for three years. Why is our Government only now discovering it has WiFi Networks all over Washington D.C. that are not secure, and in some cases, wide open? Read one story about it here:

David Pogue may regain some credibility in my eyes. Anything new, software, hardware, whatever from Apple, Pogue is there with a lauditory review. Got so I started to think of him as a shill. Now he interveiews a new phone from SprintPCS. And he doesn't exactly love it.

There are 10 types of people that can understand Binary. Those who can, and those who can't.

50 Million Firefox downloads!: Don't get me wrong, I love Firefox, it's my browser of choice. But the boast that they have past 50 million downloads must be taken in context. I personally was responsible for at least 12. Three platforms each for version 1.0, 1.01, 1.02, 1.03.

And today we have version 1.04

Switching dsl providers : I've turned in my CANCELation notice to Earthlink, and already signed up for SBC/Yahoo dialup service (free the first month). When Earthlink ever gets around to disconnecting my dsl line, I can then upgrade to SBC/Yahoo dsl. Why the change -? cheaper, faster, better about covers it.

Followup 5/12 : I'm good to go now. I have my News Readers set for SBC News Server(s), and my web site now redirects to GeoCities (provided free as part of SBC/Yahoo), and with Firefox treating the advertising as popups, it doesn't show up, took just a few minutes using the GeoCities FileManager tool, only mildly more difficult than using ftp, which is only allowed on the paid version. A polite goodbye was left behind on the Earthlink webpage.

REVIEW OS X - Tiger - I've been using OS X 10.4 for almost a week now, and frankly, I'm underwhelmed. I don't see where it's so different from 10.3; I do see my Firefox and Safari crashing about once a day now. Dashboard is very nice, but hardly rates a new version number for the OS. Spotlight again is also a nice add-on. Maybe from now on, I need to just buy every 2nd or 3rd update to OS X.

I came across a Web Site with some important Life Lessons. And for those who are more visually oriented, this lesson.

Combine Websites?: Should I combine billf.net with this Blog, and only have one website to mess with? It might look like this: click here