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As I said before, the only way to get a good deal with your telco is to switch services every now and then or at least threaten to. After checking what Comcast would give me to stay, it was clear that Verizon FiOS would be the better deal and I tried to set a date. Here is my story.

First of all, there were flyers on our door and people going door to door several months before this began all advertising FiOS. When we actually tried to GET it though, they said it wasn't in our area. Song and dance, call after call, nothing. We were stuck. So we set up a DSL package because it was still better than Comcast.

They delayed install for weeks sending us only a cryptic message that they were checking into the possibility of giving us DSL (which is crap because we had it before). I suspect that they were delaying us on purpose until the FiOS became available, but whatever. We wanted FiOS anyway.

When it finally got "turned on" and we were able to do so, we canceled the DSL order and set up one for FiOS instead. Everything went fairly smoothly even down to them calling the day before-hand to remind us and confirm the install date. Then the tech comes out and says that he couldn't install it because they hadn't actually run the fiber from their box in the ground to our house. That and some switch down the street hadn't been set yet (whatever).

He said they'd call us to let us know when the diggers would be out and that he'd already set up the install for the cable for us. They didn't call, but a few days later we found the front lawn spraypainted all over the place (no big deal since we're renting). I called anyway to confirm that they were going to do this right and found out that part of the order was entered wrong. The guy promised to fix it and gave me a tracking number.

As I was writing this, some guy from a third-party fiber installer pulled up and left a note on my door. I caught him and he says that they'll be out to install next week (ugh). Hopefully I can get them to expidite the actual install after that's done.

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So far, this process has been far less painful than I thought. The incompetence is there, but less than I feared. Also, the customer service people were helpful, spoke English, and were polite. We'll see how this turns out in a week or so.

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Washington state passed an anti-RFID law that's unfortunately far weaker than it should be.

The Washington legislation outlaws the use of RFID "spy technologies" to collect consumer information without the owner's consent. The only problem is, heavy corporate lobbying narrowed the scope of the law (before Governor Gregoire signed it) to cover only criminal acts such as fraud, identity theft, or "some other illegal purpose" (making it a Class C felony to do so). Collecting information from consumer RFID chips for marketing purposes in Washington—with or without the owner's consent or even knowledge—is still fair game.

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A city that found that the red light cameras made motorists more cautious resulting in less tickatable offenses turned them off.

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It's up to you to decide whether what you do online is correct and that's why this article about protecting you downloading privacy is important. Use the tips provided to make sure that the only person making a judgement call about your online activity is you.

Whoops... lost another

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Here we go again.

Beware. Monster Cables are a scam.

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The Consumerist was taking heat recently for posting articles about how Monster brand cables are no better than any other even though they cost so much more. Now Popular Science is joining the action with their article explaining that all high end cables are a ripoff.

The electronics industry’s dirty little secret is that they have extremely thin margins on gear, so they make up the cost difference by up-selling you on extended warranties and incredibly marked-up cables.

This is completely true. When I worked at a big named retailer, I could buy a 30 dollar cable for about $6 with my employee discount. Things like extended warranties, add on-services, and accessories are all the same.

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Even if you did everything right to keep you private photos and information private, a Facebook security flaw allows people to access it anyway.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened and I'd bet that it's far from being the last.

Who knows you're out of town and what will they do with the information?

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Here's a great example of how knowing something as simple as where someone lives along with when they're out of town is enough to make their life hell. While this poor guy was minding his business fishing on a lake somewhere, someone called to ask about the free stuff at his house. The thing is, he wasn't giving anything away at all.

Someone posted an ad on Craigslist.com stating that everything on his property was free and people came to rob the place blind.

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What can happen when you become numbed to the security alerts.