• AT&T Parental Controls for blocking Web sites doesn’t work with FireFox 3.5. I didn’t try the earlier versions, so it could be incompetant with anything other than Internet Explorer. Lost two hours today going through the clumsy registration and installation process in order to discover that the software is ineffective.
• AT&T U-verse TV has persistant picture-quality problems, especially in HD. This issue bugged me for weeks before I finally called tech support. Here’s a rundown of the fun:
• Six different calls. This is partly a good thing since they schedule call-backs to check if their solutions actually worked.
• One tech walked me through a hard-restart of the cable box/DVR, without bothering to inform me that doing so would erase all my recorded TV programs. Ouch!
• Technician visited the house and installed an entirely new router. But that was on the second appointment. No one showed up for the first scheduled visit. Then he left his card, saying to call him directly if the problems persisted. They did, I called him, he promised to come on Tues., and never showed. Hasn’t returned subsequent calls either.
• New router means manually restoring the settings for my wireless network. That was pretty easy but only because I know how to log in to the 2wire router directly. A normal user would have to redo the network settings on every computer or phone or game console.
• My AT&T U-verse cable box/DVR has started emitting a high-pitched whine. Tech support says this means I need to replace that hardware, too.
• The iPhone sometimes takes days to deliver a text or voicemail. And it doesn’t get any cell reception in our living room. (To be fair, neither does T-Mobile.)

Why do I spend so much money — $500 each month between U-verse, Cingular FamilyTalk, and the Yahoo/AT&T Web Hosting that houses this blog and NineRubies.com — with a company whose products keep disappointing?

Because of Nine Rubies, we get an up-front view of this phenomenon. There used to be 19 yarn stores between San Jose and San Francisco. Five have closed in the past year. In some sense, it’s good for Saloni and Sudha to be the default Burlingame yarn store, San Carlos yarn store, as well as the surviving San Mateo yarn store. But five mom-and-pop shops closed. Those knitting store owners were in many cases people that Saloni has known since she started. (The knitting world is so local that they even have an acronym for Local Yarn Store.)

Small business was always “red in tooth and claw,” I suppose. But this recession is putting the cruelty on display, and we all are starting to feel it.

In happier technology news, Saloni has launched an online store for Nine Rubies! She’s still burning the midnight oil taking photos of a lot of yarn. Not all the categories are populated in the store, but many are, like: Malabrigo Merino Worsted, Noro Silk Garden, Plymouth Encore Colorspun Worsted, and even things that, frankly, I don’t comprehend (Skacel Addi Turbo Knitting Needles).

Check out the online store