Windows 7, Service Pack 1: The Service Pack is now freely available for download at Microsoft.com I had no trouble what so ever installing on home systems, although one system that had a "Release Candidate" version, had to have that uninstalled first. Took over an hour to download and Install, but no glitches, and all seems well.

Yahoo News publishes secret formula for Coca Cola: Read it here:

ATT Promotion for their iPhone Customers: Send a TXT Message to 11113020 with the message / Subject of YES and in a month, you'll have 1000 extra Roll-Over Minutes added to your ATT Cellular account.
Details here:

WiFi issues: If you're having grief maintaining a WiFi connection in your house or apartment, prehaps a neighbor is using the same "Channel" as you and interfering. Used to be you could download a "WiFi Stumbler" program like "eWiFi" on your iPhone and it'd identify all the WiFi signals it could see. Then you could see if you needed to change "Channel". Last March, Apple removed all such programs from the App Store, perhaps because the programs could be used to help one without WiFi to glom onto a neighbors WiF for free.

So what's someone to do to check on possible signal conflicts? Luckily there's at least one web based program that peforms such functionality to assist one: Just use:

http://tools.meraki.com/stumbler

.

Twitter won't save you: Excellent review of a book about the downside of technology on the Internet. Read it here:

iPhone 4: Verizon vs AT&T models: Best article I've read comparing and contrasting the two models; by David Pogue of the N.Y. Times. Read it here.

Verizon doesn't have capacity for a flood of iPhones either: The President of Verizon snarkily promised they wouldn't have issues handling all the iPhones they were going to sell, like AT&T had. Well that lasted all of 2 hours before they had problems; Story here:

Chevrolet Volt: Interesting review of test driving a Chevrolet Volt, GM's "electric" car. Prolly
enough negative comments that I wouldn't consider buying one.

Google getting less useful: Washington Post today had a story that's a case study of the Google signal to noise ratio upon searching for a specific answer is getting ever lower. I often find a useless hit that's just Ask.com.

P.S. Lucky I use Firefox with the Ghostery add-on as the Washington Post website had seven instances of Spyware.

AT&T admits it can't run POTS: AT&T applied to the FCC for permission to shut down POTS last month. I called in to ask when I would receive the unearned portion of my previous bill (they bill in advance) and was told "The check was cut yesterday". Should I believe that or is that from a script?

AT&T Mobility gets bad publicity: So yesterday at lunch time I'm listening to Jim Rome trying to interview Aaron Rogers about the up coming NFL Championship game. Rogers called in from Green Bay, Wisconsin on his iPhone. 3 separate times the call dropped or turned into a garbled staticy mess like it was an analog call. As Green Bay fan noticed here. Jim Rome proceeded with a long verbal tirade about how bad AT&T cell phone service is. And this year's ratings of cellular companies for consumer service rated AT&T worst. It took AT&T many years and a lot of effort to replace Sprint PCS as worst.

IDIOTS AT AT&T: So January 7, my AT&T POTS telephone number was ported over to Ooma.
Then Jan. 18, I receive a Postal Mail from AT&T (dated Jan. 11) asking me whether the disconnect of POTS was authorized. Why would they not call Jan 2 or at worst on Jan 7 BEFORE when they knew of the disconnect coming? Makes me happy to be done with those clowns.

Landline now with Ooma instead of AT&T: Today was my porting day, and my 23 year old ATT landline is now handled by Ooma. Was only down for 3 hours this AM.

AT&T doesn't keep it's promises, I keep mine.

Goodbye POTS : POTS = Plain Old Telephone Service (or Landline); I'm so annoyed at the dishonesty of AT&T. They keep hitting me with junk email, junk postal mail, and junk phone calls, despite assuring me after each complaint that I'm opted out and it won't happen again. Then everyone of their web sites hit you with SPYWARE, and they totally dishonestly deny that they're doing that. SO I had to do something to vote my displeasure. So I've now connected OOMA to my U-Verse Internet, and in another 2 weeks, if OOMA works as well as its seems to after hooking it up, I'll port my AT&T phone number over to OOMA, and GOODBYE POTS.

OOMA was a pleasure to hook up. Take it out of the box, plug an Ethernet cable into a free Ethernet port on the U-Verse Wireless Router/Modem, plug a phone into the OOMA,; go online and register the OOMA, and then power up the OOMA, and wait for it to check for firmware updates, and Bingo, you're good to go. Only gotcha is OOMA's Getting Started Guide omits the go online and register requirement. I bought it online from Costco, at a sale price, with free shipping, and a $50 credit on my OOMA account for Foreign phone calls (about 2 cents a minute). In the unlikely event I decide I don't like the Ooma, Costco is excellent about taking returns.

FOLLOWUP: I'm now informed that my AT&T number will be ported (transferred) to Ooma on January 7, 2011.

Your smart phone is spying on you: Both Browsers and Apps, and unlike Computer Browsers, at present there's no way to stop the total breach of your privacy. Story here:

84% of Web sites track you with spyware:
USA Today has good article on the subject
Read it here:
Read my Dec. 4, 2010 Blog post for how to stop it
on your computer.

BLOCK Txt messages on your AT&T cell phone: ATT has a secret web site that allows you to block email addresses from sending you txt messages: http://mymessages.wireless.att.com . You’ll need to register there, even if you already have an AT&T login for your regular account. One can block all SMS messages and/or multimedia messages sent to you as email. This is how spammers can get to you — they send junk txt messages to MobileNumber@txt.att.net or MobileNumber@mms.att.net. Its probably best to block both of them.

DO NOT TRACK : USA Today had a story on how most websites put spyware on your computer, and even commonly used techniques (some previously mentioned here - see my Oct. 25, 2010 post) do not fully stop it. The way to fully stop it, AND IDENTIFY WHO IS USING WHAT SPYWARE, is to install Ghostery for the Firefox Browser, and only use Firefox as your Internet Browser, unless another Browser allows Do Not Track add-ons. Tracker Block says their program should be used too, with Firefox.

AT&T, I discovered, despite claiming not to use Spyware, uses Webtrends. Go to the WebTrends website and see how they advertise their Spyware to companies.

Even USA Today, which ran the story, uses Spyware, one discovers after installing Ghostery.

I have been running Norton Anti Virus Quick Scan a few times a day to remove Spyware, but after installing the above mentioned Firefox Add-Ins, instead of finding and deleting its usual 4 to 12 instances of Spyware, Norton found Zero ! And an added benefit, my Uverse 12mbps Internet connection tests 10% faster than before I installed Ghostery, since any speed test is no longer competing with Spyware. Speakeasy.net speed tests result of 11.4 to 11.9 mbps download speed depending on location of test were obtained, and distance had no correlation to speed.

I've tested Firefox with its privacy add-ins on Windows 7 - 64 bit, Windows XP, and Windows Vista 32 bit and Mac OS X 10.5.6 - 32 bit; so I expect it'd work most any other OS.

Followup - Default settings for Ghostery do next to nothing. It must be manually turned on after Install. : FireFox Tools> add-on's> Extensions> Ghostery> Options button> Blocking tab> "Select" All & "ON"> Options Tab Enable Auto Update> Performance Tab - Enable all Scans but NOT Lite mode.>Save.

Thanksgiving Leftovers: To do something with leftover Turkey meat: Today I'll make chili, using a modified Consumers Reports recipe. CR came up with a chili recipe to have to compare against canned chili many years ago. I omit corn, and use more beans amongst changes.

12 oz Ground turkey
4 strips bacon
1/2 Garlic Bulb
2 Medium Onions
1/2 Green Pepper
1 TBS Garlic Wine Vinegar
1 tsp salt
5 Tbs Chili Powder
2 16 oz cans Pea beans
1 Tbs Dark Brown Sugar
16 oz Hunts tomato Sauce
3 Tbs Olive Oil

In large skillet for over an hour heat coarsely chopped onions, garlic and pepper on low heat in Olive Oil, stirring frequently. Separately brown bacon, real or turkey bacon. Add ground turkey,
cooked bacon, to onion mix and cook for 10 minutes. Add drained beans, tomato sauce, spices and heat covered on low heat for 30 minutes. Add extra water, chili, salt or brown sugar to taste.

Good with Fritos, or fresh home-made bread.

Going to 12 mbps Internet: ATT dsl maxes out at 6 mbps; so if I wanted faster through ATT, I was forced to go to Uverse, not a happy prospect knowing how disorganized Uverse is (they totally fubarred a UVerse TV installation last January, so I upgraded my DirecTv instead), with half of ATT Broadband/Uverse support in the Phillipines, and the rest usually giving out Bogus information. I had to use an ATT supplied Uverse Modem, a 2Wire model 3600HGV, which none of the Uverse CSRs Level 1 or Level 2 know squat about. They make up answers. Phillipine support is stumped by most any question. ATT sent me email, snail mail, phone calls, and cell txt messages reminding me about my impending UVerse TV Install (I was getting only Uverse Internet)
CSR BOGUS made up answers:
1. You don't need dsl filters any more.
BOGUS The box from 2Wire, sent by ATT has a full set of dsl filters
2. It may take hours for the "order" to float through the system, wait till 8 PM before activating.
BOGUS I tried activating as soon as my line was lighting up the 2Wire modem (green at Broadband), 5 minutes later I was on the Internet again. (At 11 AM), but still got an automated phone call from Uverse at 6 PM, reminding me to try to activate at 8 PM.
3. I was told there was no way to reconfigure the modem to a 192.168. 0.1 IP# to match my existing network, and I was stuck with its default 192.168.1.255 address; and any change would negatively impact the ATT network anyway. One CSR said use another router behind the 2Wire, another said that's not supported; don't do it. I was almost ready to cancel my Uverse order.
Again, Totally Bogus, I went to SETTINGS, LAN, DHCP in the modem setup; and there is the Menu for changing the modems default IP. Couldn't be simpler, once you knew where to go. I found that menu by trial and error. And apparently CSRs are trained to lie.

Although ATT supplies dsl with no fees or hardware charges, the same is not true for UVerse. I negotiated away the SETUP fee and hardware charge for Uverse Internet before I would accept it.

No proper manual is supplied with the "Self Install" kit, luckily I set it all up while I still had dsl,
and Google is one's friend.

I had to reconfigure the Security on my 2Wire modem for my existing network, a new SSID (from my existing Network) that didn't broadcast , and a new 26 character WPA password to match what my network already used. That worked well for all devices (Printers, Laptop, 2 Desktops, iPhone, DirecTv DVR) except my Linksys WET54G Bridges that connect my Sony model 460 BlueRay player to the Internet. It uses older WPA encryption, and it had to be reconfigured to match what the 2Wire would accept. Good thing I have 20 years experience with TCP/IP and 10 years experience with WiFi; and lots of Networking experience, one needs to know about subnets and masks.After my phone line was switched over (My Voice line was only down for a few minutes, 2 separate times).

I tested my new Network Speed. Generally as expected and hoped for, double of what I got when I had 6 mbps dsl. Now 10 mbps or better actual download locally, somewhat less when farther away websites are chosen. 8 mbps on WiFi with my iPhone, faster from another desktop on wifi. Need to download again Windows 7 Service Pack release candidate to test speed. Desktop speed tested at dslreports.com.

Followup: Early Sunday morning my iPhone tested at 10.95 mbps download WiFi speed, using the free App. "Speed Test".

Now to see if my next ATT bill credits me for having my dsl shut off on November 27, 2010, and doesn't "forget" to credit the sales tax that was charged on it. Then to make sure a friend who "referred" me to Uverse gets his $50 referral credit.