I am not paying this invoice from MICROSOFT because...

 I am not paying this invoice because MICROSOFT has not provided me with a satisfactory way to access my account since June of this year despite my various attempts. The whole problem arose out of my identity being stolen and its consequences. These are documented in these links.

Hodentek: Identity theft and two-factor authentication (or Two-factor HELL)

HodentekHelp: Is there a workaround for the two-factor verification problem?

HodentekHelp: Identity theft and two-factor authentication (or Two-factor HELL)--Part 2

Here is an invoice that Microsoft emailed to me. I can reply to this email but it does not reach Microsoft.

I also have a bunch of emails that either do not reach Microsoft or it does not care to reply. 

If I choose to see my invoice, I get this screen,

This is my old phone number which was changed when my identity was stolen. The More information is just a circular reference.

Getting data from the FreeStyle Libre glucose sensor is easy

  I have been having glucose-related issues for many years. Although diagnostic data indicates I am diabetic, I am not taking any medication for diabetes. However, I was always concerned about its possible effects. While my lipid profiles were under safe 'standard values', I suffered a heart attack in 2022. I decided to look at my glucose values more closely to make adjustments in my lifestyle and diet. The only diagnostic at my disposal was the painful pricking of the finger and measuring with a strip. This is totally unsatisfactory as it can provide only a single data point. I have always wondered how healthcare providers make decisions on this single value measured in a doctor's office once every couple of months.

Fortunately, I was able to get a Freestyle Libre glucose sensor (Freestyle Libre 14-day). Now, at least I have a tool to look at what I am eating and associate it with glucose levels. I have been having it for the past two days. The display available on the Libre Link app which is available for Android and iPhones is quite nice, but I want to look at it in more ways.  The Libre website gives access to this data on their website. 

The sensor gets data about interstitial glucose every 15 minutes and stores it on the website. Here is how you can get the data. 

These are screenshots of the steps I took to get the data on the website to my computer. It is a Dell laptop with Windows 64 OS, and I also have Microsoft Excel on the computer.

This is Libre View from the Libre website

You need to agree before you proceed.

You need to log in to download data. This means you have purchased the sensor and installed the Libre link app on your phone (Android or iPhone). Note that you have enabled two-factor authorization.

After being verified you got access to the site.

Now click Download Glucose data at the top-right corner.

Your data appears in your Downloads folder on your computer.

Here is a sample of the downloaded data.

I have clipped off some personal information.

Although I have shown a few columns, there are a lot more useful columns that contain data related to custom test times and notes associated with those events.

Hope this helps. 

Added later (9/7/2023)

Freestyle Libre provides a comprehensive report at the end of the 14th day with many details. This includes the daily glucose variation, the superposed view of daily glucose variation showing the variation of glucose at any selected time. It also provides the 'time in range' data showing in all what percent of the total time you were in a safe zone (70 oto180 mg/dL) and what percent you went above and below this range. A well-managed diabetic will be more than 75% of the time within the safe zone.

One thing I noticed that was concerning was that at any point in time, the CGM value was less than the value found by pricking the finger (capillary measurement) and measuring with a meter ("one-touch") in my case).

Identity theft and two-Factor authentication (or Two-factor HELL)

 My Internet Identity was stolen in early June. 

This is my advice to those whose identity might have been stolen. The first thing to do is not to change your passwords etc. Immediately log into your account and note down any suspicious transaction, especially where money or resources are involved. Make sure your login access to the institution is easy and that you have alternate ways of getting verified. In my case, this was a circular reference and there was no way out of the loop. Only after making sure, you can access all accounts for which you have turned on two-factor verification (two-factor verification turned off), you should take other measures such as changing passwords, reporting to credit agencies, FBI, etc.

T-Mobile, my communication provider, strongly recommended that I should change the telephone number as the phone(s) were compromised. I immediately changed my phone number which landed me in this two-factor hell.

Although at the back of my mind, I had the feeling that I may face other problems while updating it at other contact addresses, I opted to change immediately. Ever since that date, my Office 365 has not allowed me to log in. It allows me to change provided my "Old phone numbers" can receive text messages or phone calls. This is impossible as the phone(s) have changed. There is no other option in the two-factor authentication which was never modified. 

This also created a problem with my back accounts which had two-factor authentication with only a phone for verification. Bank of America was the worst. It left me with no means to correct this issue. Finally, I had to write to them twice as the first one addressed to the bank branch manager did not respond despite my writing to him being delivered by the next morning mail. I am waiting for the other mail from BOA.

Microsoft HELP/ Support is useless as it does not address this issue. A simple recipe according to Microsoft is to log in to the app and update your telephone number. Little does it care whether a client can log in with two-factor authentication where the phone might have changed. Phone support (1-800-642-7676) is also useless as it advises you to try logging in again. There is no "human" support.

This is displayed while logging in. There is but one option, but it refers to phones that are changed. There is more information on an Akamai site which is useless.

I have tried numerous ways to find some sort of support from Microsoft and I have been unsuccessful. 

I am planning to get some help from the Microsoft Community and will have to wait it out. The company gets big, and help gets reduced as it does not care about a few pissed-off users.

Getting started with ChatGPT is easy

ChatGPT is a member of a family of language models. It may be somewhat trivializing but let us start a sentence with some blank,

for example,

John is <blank> to Japan. 

What follows 'is' not hard to guess. These are two possibilities that come to mind. 'going' or 'coming' to insert in the <blank> space. My knowledge of the grammar suggested these based on the language I know. I learned from studying the language and have seen it used many times. 

More generally, a language model uses machine learning to conduct a probability distribution over words used to predict the most likely next word based on a previous entry. Language models learn from the text that can be used for producing original text, predicting the next word in the text, speech recognition, optical speech recognition, and handwriting recognition. ChatGPT is one such language model.

The following describes how we may get it installed on a local computer: 

In order to work with chatGPT you need to get a copy of the program to your local computer. Of course, there are other ways to work without a local copy.

You use the GIT program to get a copy from the remote location to your local computer. The Git tool(program) is used to access the GitHub service. Git is a version control tool that you can run from the command line on your desktop/laptop. 

In the present case, GitHub has the files/directory for working with chatGPT. Using GIT you can bring a copy from the cloud(Internet) hosted service to create a local directory on your computer. Make sure you read the README.md file.

The following block shows all the command line arguments for the GIT command. I may write GIT or Git and they mean the same. It is a rich command and you can do a lot of stuff with it.

============================================================

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.2846]

(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\TestUser>Git

usage: git [--version] [--help] [-C <path>] [-c <name>=<value>]

           [--exec-path[=<path>]] [--html-path] [--man-path] [--info-path]

           [-p | --paginate | --no-pager] [--no-replace-objects] [--bare]

           [--git-dir=<path>] [--work-tree=<path>] [--namespace=<name>]

           <command> [<args>]

These are common Git commands used in various situations:

start a working area (see also: git help tutorial)

   clone      Clone a repository into a new directory

   init       Create an empty Git repository or reinitialize an existing one

work on the current change (see also: git help everyday)

   add        Add file contents to the index

   mv         Move or rename a file, a directory, or a symlink

   reset      Reset current HEAD to the specified state

   rm         Remove files from the working tree and from the index

examine the history and state (see also: git help revisions)

   bisect     Use binary search to find the commit that introduced a bug

   grep       Print lines matching a pattern

   log        Show commit logs

   show       Show various types of objects

   status     Show the working tree status

grow, mark and tweak your common history

   branch     List, create, or delete branches

   checkout   Switch branches or restore working tree files

   commit     Record changes to the repository

   diff       Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc

   merge      Join two or more development histories together

   rebase     Reapply commits on top of another base tip

   tag        Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG

collaborate (see also: git help workflows)

   fetch      Download objects and refs from another repository

   pull       Fetch from and integrate with another repository or a local branch

   push       Update remote refs along with associated objects

'git help -a' and 'git help -g' list available subcommands and some

concept guides. See 'git help <command>' or 'git help <concept>'

to read about a specific subcommand or concept.

===================================================================

Now all I need to do is run this command:

git clone https://github.com/chatgptui/desktop.git

I asked AI chat in Bing about a feature in Excel and it did not know

 I recently saw a feature in Excel pop-up all of a sudden and asked AI-Chat in Bing. It did not know about. I thought Microsoft is so busy embedding chatGPT that it may have overlooked how far it has embedded the AI features and its access to its own products.

Let me make it brief. I suddenly saw a magenta(some may call it pink) triangle at the corner of an Excel Cell on a page that had some calculations. I don't know for what reason, but I saw a magenta/pink triangle at the right top corner of a cell which gave me to communicate with some party as shown. It was a "prompt" to start a conversation. I just started one and replied to it as well.

I think when I closed it, Excel tried to get to my email. This is probably a feature for the team that uses this feature. 

Then I wanted to ask my newfound friend, the Bing AI-Chat to find out if he knew what this is about. He did not know either.

No big deal, Microsoft too busy tying loose ends with the new acquistion.