First Official Day of Solar

Here's the graph from our first full official day of solar energy generation. Note the two colors show the output from the two different inverters. The panels attached to one of the inverters goes into the shade pretty early in the afternoon. If I trim some of the neighbor's trees then we could get the yield up a bit more.



And here is a graph from PG&E showing how much electricity we used over the last couple years. It seems we use close to 1,000 kwh per month. The panels are putting out a bit more than that right now, but will generate less in the winter. Of course when the Tesla arrives, we'll be using a bit more electricity, depending on how much I drive it.

Solar Guard Up and Running

Looks like we're generating some power here in San Carlos. Got the panels installed last week. Solar City has this very cool page where you can track your solar panels. They call it Solar Guard. Sweet.

First 20 Panels

They delivered the first set of panels today. Will they go on the roof
tomorrow? Only SolarCity knows.

Solar panels

The install is about half way done.

Installing AT&T DSL without the Software

I got my new DSL router in the mail today. It comes with a CD that you supposedly need to get the service running. I've had bad experiences installing software from ISPs in the past so I decided to try to activate my service without the software.

At first I hoped that the software only worked on PCs and that there would be some non-software way to activate my service. No such luck. The CD had software for the Mac and the PC.

I then found this article that describes how to get going without the software. Essentially you just need to get to the right website and register for your foo@att.net account and then use that login and password to configure your modem.

To configure the modem you can simply connect it directly to your computer with the supplied ethernet cable and point your favorite browser to the IP address of the router.

Free WiFi at Starbucks

I'm making my first Starbucks stop since returning to the USA. While I was living in Asia, Starbucks switched their WiFi provider from T-Mobile to AT&T. T-Mobile was crazy expensive. The new deal with AT&T is pretty good. You just have to get a Starbucks card for as little as $5 and register online. You then get 2 hours of free WiFi access per day for the next 30 days. You don't pay for the access. You just have to put a minum of $5 on your card every 30 days. If you hang out at Starbucks, I can't imagine you would be spend less than $5 in 30 days.

After living in Vietnam, this seems very American to me. In Vietnam, the WiFi is just free. Sure, the speeds suck but the hassle is minimum. Most cafes don't make you register at all. (Highlands Coffee in Saigon Centre used to make you register, but they seem to have given this up.) Leave it to an American to make a complex system like this.

I am amazed that in my first 5 days back, I now have three AT&T accounts. One for my mobile phone, one for my home phone and DSL, and now one for my Starbucks WiFi.

I did notice that Starbucks seems to be running both AT&T and T-Mobile hotspots. At least all those suckers who signed up for the tres cher T-Mobile accounts can keep using them at Starbucks, for now.

Comcast Sucks (Still)

I was excited to try the new 16mbs service from Comcast. I patiently waited 4 hours for the installer to show. At the end of my service window I called Comcast to see what was happening. The rep told me that the installer was running over an hour late. I was furious. I had scheduled other meetings after my service window so I couldn't just sit around for another two hours. I asked if there was anything she could do. Maybe get someone out sooner? Maybe they could give me something to make me feel better for dissing me so. Nope, nothing. All she could do is reschedule. Unbelievable! I cancelled instead. Good riddence Comcast.

I called AT&T to get DSL service. The AT&T rep was amazingly polite. She was able to get me $150 in cash back incentives. This more than covers the $40 activation fee and $49 DSL modem. With AT&T there is no installer. They drop ship you a modem and you plug it into your phoneline.

Sure, I'll have to live with 3mbs service intead of 16mbs service. However, if my past experience with Comcast is any indication, the hours of waiting for them to install or repair my service doesn't make up for the difference in bandwidth.