2024, Family, Media, Technology

Cellular Meltdown

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I used to watch that show “Monk” with Tony Shalhoub.  When someone would marvel at his talent for solving crime, he would say “it’s a gift…. and a curse”.  That’s how I feel about my cell phone.

After four years, YA wore me down about getting new phones.  I didn’t remember any angst about the last time we did phones, but it was four years ago.  The purchase of the phones was pretty straight forward; YA had done all the research so after we dickered with the salesperson about the pricing a bit, we bought the phones.  If it had been up to me, I would have coughed up the $25 to have them transfer all my stuff from the old phone to the new but YA was adamant that she could do this.

Aiy yi yi.  That’s when it got ugly.  Since we were using the old phones for trade-in, YA said I had to log onto all my various apps/accounts to make sure my logins worked before she “wiped” the old phone.  This turned out to be not as easy as you’d think…. too many times I’ve reset a password and then not written it down when I got home (think the bagel place and the gym).  So there was a fair amount of password resetting to get through.  She wasn’t exactly patient about this.

Then it turned out that my sticky note app isn’t available any longer from the app store.  At this point YA was tired of me and my techie problems.  She suggested I use the Notes that is already on my phone.  “What Notes?” was my question.  She took the phone from my hand, did a few clicks and voila… there it was.  However because she had done it instead of telling me how, I couldn’t get it back a few minutes later.  Suffice it to say we had words.  AND as I’ve looked at it, I don’t like the Notes anyway… guess I’ll have to go find myself a new sticky note app that I like.  Sigh.

It took about 90 minutes for all this – not a lifetime of suffering, but I do feel like I need to check myself into a convalescent home for a good rest!

Do you have a “technie” helper?  Do you need one?

37 thoughts on “Cellular Meltdown”

    2. Funny you should say that because the last phone I switched from android to iPhone… because YA said “if you had the same kind of phone as I did, I’d be able to help you”. I’m still laughing at that!!

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  2. Our techie helper is Brian, the IT guy at our work who has a private business on the side and who makes house calls. We tell him he is on the short list for canonization.

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  3. I’m the techie guy at our house, at least as far as iPads and computers are concerned and so far I’ve never had to call in outside help.
    Our phones are a slightly different matter. I use mine infrequently and in limited ways. I am conscientious about updating the operating system when updates are available. Even though Robin and I have essentially the same phone, we are in different places on them in terms of the settings choices we have made and the apps we have added so if Robin has a problem with her phone that entails an app I don’t use or a setting I may not even know exists there can be some fumbling around and even, in extremity, a google query before we get it sorted out.

    No doubt, Sherrilee, the fact you were changing operating systems as you transferred the content of your old phone to your new one made it more likely that some of the old material would be incompatible. I definitely would have opted for the professional service in making that transition but even so it’s reasonable to expect the new OS would require a learning curve.

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  4. 1. No.
    2. Many times, yes. More often than I want to admit. But I’m too frugal to pay someone. Plus I think I’m intelligent enough to figure this crap out myself. That’s why I always prepare my own tax returns. Shouldn’t the government make it as easy as possible for us to give them our money? Oh, wait. They do, by withholding taxes from paychecks! Wrestling a refund out of their money-grubbing little hands is the hard part.

    The one downside of not having children or grandchildren who can do tech stuff in their sleep. 😦 Oh. well.

    Chris in Owatonna

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        1. If you go to Fillable Forms on the IRS Free file page, you can e-file for free, and it does allow schedule C’s and whatever forms you need. It’s not yet open for 2024 returns, though – it’ll be a couple of weeks.

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  5. Our grandson is in Kindergarten. He gets less than an hour of TV or movies a week, plays no video games, and only has a tablet from school for supplemental work on reading and math. He can recite the process for turning on his school tablet and logging into his account and refers to the Google symbol as a “beachball” that he has to press as part of the process.

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  6. I’m not a techie but I can figure things out with time. I have more problems if there is someone who is impatient with me. Part of my success is having the freedom to simply figure things out in my own time and space. Once in a great while I have to break down and ask someone, or search Apple support. (I avoid Google whenever possible.) It should go without saying that there are features, functions, and settings that I am completely unaware of, however, it hasn’t hurt me to remain ignorant of them. I allow the auto-updates to take care of my iPad and iPhone on their own. I use a Dell laptop for storing files and for what little actual word processing or spreadsheets I need. I don’t like Apple’s filing system at all. Microsoft does a much better job of this. I keep Microsoft 365 mostly for that reason.

    A year and a half ago, I watched my old iPhone 8 melt down and become useless before my eyes. It was early morning in August and I was supposed to be on the road for Two Harbors for the Festival of Sail. Instead, I found myself in a T-mobile store buying a new iPhone. I paid them to do the data transfer and it took a long time. Getting a new phone is not a straightforward or easy task these days. Our phones have become much more important to us and there is so much data involved in our daily lives. It’s really a little scary if you think about it too much.

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  7. The extent of my involvement with technology these days is limited to my MacBook Air and my iPhone. The laptop gets considerably more use than the iPhone. I have never learned the art of long telephone conversations (I must have fourteen years old before we got a phone), and texting is a skill that has eluded me. I know my phone can do lots of things I’ve never asked it to do, and it can really be a handy tool, but somehow I’ve never been enthused enough about that to put the effort into learning how. The only selfies I’ve taken so far are of my feet, snapped when I accidentally activated the camera.

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  8. i need techie help regularly
    i used to hire it but now often depending my 5 kids
    each is capable and although they try to explain as they do it my ability to absorb is limited
    i’ve become a lazy sob who is more interested in results than process but should likely try to get a handle on it
    it would certainly make my projects more manageable and i find as i sit on my damn couch i have time and ability to get it done and enjoy it once i start

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  10. My tech guy Jason from Computer Dock was here this morning for a half hour, and I spent some of the best $ I have spent in a long while. I can figure out some things for myself if I have the time to spend on it, but that isn’t often, and I HATE spending time on it when I should be doing something else.

    Therefore, if I ultimately get a smart phone, it will be in the summer when I can give myself over to this task…

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  11. I am so late today because I am now doing a water aerobics class in the mornings and I have to be out the door to get there. It takes a lot of energy and then I needed a nap because I was so tired.

    When we need a techie, my son is quite gracious and helps us out, thank goodness. There is a 9 year child, a 13 year old, and some teens in the neighborhood also that can help at times.

    The thing that gets my husband is on-line banking. He really struggles with the change from in-bank paper checks to on-line interactions. It is easiest for him with an ipad. That is not a tech issue though, it is a brain issue.

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  12. I usually figure out my own tech stuff as much as possible. It’s typically frustrating and takes much longer than it should.

    Maybe that’s due to my own limitations, but I think a lot of tech stuff is just poorly designed.

    One example is date and phone number formats. If you enter a phone number somewhere, for example, 646-555-1212. The app or web page comes back and tells you you’ve entered it in the wrong format. You should have entered in without hyphens, or if you entered it without hyphens you should have used hyphens. That’s just lazy programming. The program COULD have just removed the hyphens, or put them in. it could have taken the ten numbers you entered and put them into whatever format met its needs. So why do they insist that their failure to understand you is your fault? Try harder.

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  13. It is snowing. Husband left for Bismarck at 4:40 for work tomorrow. He phoned me about 40 minutes ago, about 30 miles from Bismarck, and left a message that he was using someone else’s phone he he was turning around to drive back home because he left his phone at my office building in the office he uses there . I just drove to work. His phone isn’t there. It is in his luggage somewhere in his truck. I can’t contact him. I am quite annoyed with him, as that means we will have to look through all his luggage, and we will find it and then he will turn around to drive the 100 miles to Bismarck in deterioring road conditions. He should have just proceeded to Bismarck!!

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  14. He is home. The phone slipped out of his pocket between the seat and the middle console. He will try to leave really early in the morning to get to Bismarck.

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