Forced Phone Upgrade

 First, let me assure you, I am not a phone person.

I hardly ever use a telephone if I can get out of it, so my cell phone is just a tool. I only use it for emergencies or when I need to locate someone I get separated from in a mall or large store, or when I'm at an appointment or meeting and need to be picked up when it's time to go home. Even then, I tend to text, not call. I'm hard of hearing and until just recently my hearing aid wasn't capable of having a Bluetooth connection with a phone. My old phone probably couldn't do that anyway. It had no memory and got so I couldn't even update the software. Then my provider decided it was time to update their network. That means my phone is not going to work at all within the next couple of weeks.

My old phone was a simple thing. It cost under a hundred dollars when it was new. I have never had a data plan and pay just $10 a month to keep it operational. At one point I had over $600 worth of credit racked up. They let me use that up but I'm not allowed to accumulate it anymore.

I was shocked by what it would cost me to replace the darn thing. The prices on today's phones are outrageous!  Worse than that, my hubby needs to replace his too. He did some research and asked a lot of questions everywhere they sell phones before coming to the conclusion that we would go for the Moto G Stylus 5G. The 5G won't work on my pay as you go plan, but that doesn't mean anything to me anyway.

It has a lot more memory, a superior camera and even a stylus. I  can apparently Bluetooth it to my hearing aids so I might actually be able to hear if someone does call me. (We'll see about that). It also has a virtual assistant. I was about to set that up and got to the part where Google was telling me to say, "Set the timer for two minutes" but before I could speak a voice from the other room was speaking to the cat. He said, "Are you making a mess?" And instantly, Google popped this up as a response.

(click to enlarge)

That definitely gave me a much needed giggle.  But then I had to wonder if Google just learned to recognize the wrong voice.  It's okay.  I just tested it. 

I discovered I can make a grocery list right on my phone. Big deal, you may say, but this is all new to me! I also decided to test the stylus since the existing list has little boxes to check.  I don't usually draw digitally so excuse the mess while I figure this out. 

Oh, maybe Google was right.  I might have a bit of fun making messes.

Selfies

I've never been one to take many selfies and whenever I did, they certainly did not turn out well. I wasn't sure why and figured I am just older than I feel and it just showed up when I pointed a lens in my direction.

Over the Christmas season, someone wanted to take a selfie with me and I cooperated. But before she pressed the button she gave a little instruction I wasn't expecting. "Look here," she said, tapping the corner of the screen. The picture turned out fine.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a photographer on Facebook was about to give a 5-day free course on how to take good selfies using our phones. Well, mine has a crappy camera but I was not about to pass that up!

The instructor, Sab Will, is a well-known street photographer and writer currently working out of Paris. He started us off by having us express any emotion other than the usual happy smile or dreaded duck face where you purse your lips like you are about to give a kiss. He told us to locate the camera lens and look at that instead of our image on the screen. Ah, so that's what my friend was having me do to get the shot she wanted!

Lots of people took the course but not everyone posted the results. Some of them were hilarious though so we were already having fun. Right away I started liking the pictures more than others I had tried to take.  I don't feel you get as much out of a course unless you work it. Sure some likely did the exercises and just didn't post because they are too embarrassed or something, but really, the community atmosphere of any course is what makes them so much fun.

On other occasions Sab had us doing things with reflections and frames and words. He even had us change our point of view at one point.

There was no requirement to use a mirror for reflection ones. Some used windows or other shiny objects. That sometimes distorted the image but that just made it more interesting. I tried a few such surfaces but even he preferred this one with the three-way mirror and the actual image in the phone all at the same time.



 







The lesson about being framed by something gave us choices to be within the frame, have it in front of us, or behind us. A doorway can frame you, but there are lots of more interesting frames to be found if you just look for them or make them, as I did with a belt.

One of my favourite photos resulted from a lesson about looking somewhere other than the camera. I chose to look at one of my own paintings.

Another fun lesson had us include words. We were supposed to find something with words on it that seemed appropriate. Many used a book or a sign.  I had a bit of fun with this one. I'm a housewife so I couldn't resist taking a shot with this can of compressed air in hand.

I'm quite pleased with some of the selfies I have produced while working though this wee course. Oh, by the way, what started out to be a 5-day course stretched to about 2 weeks but still only had 5 separate lessons. Some of the participants said it was hard to fit the challenges in every day with their work schedule, etc. Sab was quick to cooperate.

At the end of the course, Sab honoured some people by posting his favourites and asked the rest of us to post the pictures of others that we liked too, and to tell him why.  Apparently, me peeking through my hoya plant was a big hit. That was one of my framing shots and I started using it as my Facebook profile picture practically as soon as I took it.

The whole experience was well worth the time.

A Creative Smartphone Photography Masterclass will be made available starting in late February.  More info in the link.

The Evolution of a Computer Addiction

I've had a computer longer than most people I know.  I had one long before Windows appeared and used to go online by using the National Capital Freenet on a dial up system. There was no high speed internet back then. You clicked a button, and you waited.  

I found I liked to get into conversations with others, and joined several forums on Freenet. Then I discovered the Bulletin Board Systems, and found there were several BBSs within my dialing area. I joined many of them, so that if the line was busy trying to get into one, I could just dial into another one. To me, a BBS was more fun than Freenet, as often others were online at the same time as I was, and the conversations flowed much more quickly.

I still joined groups based on subjects of interest to me, and got online daily to read and respond to what was being said.  I made several wonderful online friends in those old days, and have kept in touch with many of them ever since.  They have helped me learn things, solve computer problems, and other problems and have occasionally even sent me interesting and valuable stuff by snail mail.

I spent time with these virtual friends every day, and if the conversation got really lively, I spent more time than I likely should have.  You have to remember, that without high speed internet, if I was online, nobody could reach me by phone.  At some point I did get a handy little application (before apps were even spoken of) that let me know if someone was trying to call in.  

Eventually a Windows based computer opened a whole new world to me. I still liked being social on the computer, but I found lots of other interesting things too.  I signed up for newsletters, and later contests, surveys, coupons and samples.  I opened separate e-mail addresses so that my requested "junk mail" didn't get mixed with my personal correspondence. In those days though, people did have a tendency to pass on a lot of jokes by way of e-mail, so there was still lots of junk in my regular inbox too.  Thankfully, most people have stopped doing that, now that we have Facebook.

Facebook used to be a simple thing, much like Twitter is today. You went on and made a statement, or a comment about your day. There were no pictures, no jokes or news items to pass on. There were also no companies using it as a way of interesting you in their products.  Now, of course, everything can be found on these social media sites, and others as well.  I don't really need my newsletters anymore, as most of that info gets posted on social media, but I've tended to hang onto them, anyway.  There is so much on social media that I might miss something, after all.

I was given a tablet for Christmas a few years ago, and can now get online as soon as my eyes are open in the morning, without even getting out of bed. I check the weather, the news, my e-mail and Facebook most days, before even having breakfast.  Are you getting the picture here?  That's the time when I used to read books or magazines.  I still do, but I've already proven that I accumulate reading material faster than I can read it.  Maybe that wouldn't be the case if I wasn't on the computer as much.

I've occasionally admitted to being a computer addict.  I feel disconnected when I'm on vacation, away from the internet (though that doesn't really happen anymore as the tablet goes with me).  I'm also overwhelmed by how much e-mail piles up when I can't get at it on a daily basis.  Mind you, I'm not talking about personal correspondence.  There's actually less of that now that most people I know share their lives on Facebook and such.  Somehow, just trying to keep up with what's coming in could take all day, so I have to turn the darn thing off and go do something.

I'm not saying I don't have a real life.  I do.  I have lots of social outings.  I spend time with Real People most days.  However, with the knee problems I've had this past year, I've spent even more time sitting in front of a screen than ever before.  Sitting, of course, is dangerous to our health.  I have scheduled regular walks, when the knee allows, and now, of course, it's gardening season, so I'll be outside doing that too.

I do need to find the time to weed not only the garden, but also what arrives in my e-mail.  I get entirely too much of it these days.  Even just going through what has come in and deleting things I don't have time for that day takes more time than I'm currently willing to spend.  I've got to step away from this machine.  I have so many other things to do, and I don't move as fast as I once did.  I need to recapture some of the time I spend online.

Excess screen time has snuck up on me.  At least I don't have a smart phone.  I don't want to be constantly connected online like so many people are today.  It was bad enough when I caught myself about to  check the tablet recently when I actually had real company.  The gadget dinged and while I'm rather hard of hearing, she heard it and asked what made that sound.  "Oh," I said "something has just arrived on the tablet."  A few minutes later it dinged again and once more she was curious as to what that little sound was. I flipped open the cover and showed her that new e-mail had arrived and mentioned that it would make a different sound if someone was actually trying to chat with me.  Once I had it in my hand I found it much harder to ignore.  That's when I understood the draw cell phones seem to have on people, even in the middle of a conversation.  No, I don't want to get that bad.

I've now chatted with you about this problem, and how it came to be.  I need to find ways to reclaim some time, but I'm not willing to go cold turkey.  Computer use may take up too much of my time but much of it is enjoyable, educational and even productive.  I would love to hear from any of you who have found ways to reduce your online time, or even just tame the influx of e-mail.  Give me a hand here.  Tell me your stories.  

A Technological Dinosaur

I started with a Commodore 64 and I used to type in games and other programs out of magazines. This was a great way to learn some Basic Programming as I would always make some typos, and while trying to find the problem, I often learned what various commands did.  I was able then to create a little program of my own, that enabled my hubby to shave hours off a monthly task he did at home as part of his job.  I was quite proud that I had learned enough to be able to help him in that way.

As time went on, I was able to help various friends do the things they wanted to be able to do on their computers, and even became a Newbie Helper on the 50Plus chat room. I was pretty good at that as I was able to get 80 year olds, who had never had a computer before, to understand and implement what I was telling them.  And all that was done online, though the chat window, or sometimes by private message.

Times have changed however, and the technology has been developing so quickly I have had trouble keeping up with it. I'm still working on an old Windows XP machine (which I will cling to as long as I possibly can). I also now have a second hand laptop, but I seldom use it as I find it awkward to type on, and often revert to the two fingered method (and I really don't want to do that).  My young grandsons both have  iPads, and I'd love one, but I'm not sure it would suit my needs. I want something with a USB port, so I can load geocaching way points on it if we find ourselves with some spare time while away from home.  Today there are so many different tablets, and I hear they don't all do the same things, so I'm leery about choosing the wrong one.

Recently my house phone got short circuited by a snow storm and I had to resort to using my cell phone.  I was on a pay as you go plan, which accumulated so much credit that Telus finally decided to let me use that credit if I switched over to a monthly plan instead. Now I don't have to top up every month. But when I turned the cell phone on the other day, I got an automated message from Telus saying I had to top up or I'd lose my balance. I started to reply to them, asking why I  needed to top up when I had already had a message from them recently that told me I didn't need to do that because I had over $......oh wait a minute, how do you type a number into a text message anyway?  I don't have a fancy phone with a built in keypad. I don't have a smart phone, or anything fancy at all.  My phone is the most basic model because, as I said, I don't use it for anything. My hubby uses it as a way to track me down when we get separated in a mall. He calls to ask me where I am.

While I fooled around trying to figure out how to text numbers, (and I still don't know) I got an incoming call from my hubby (he is the only one who has my number). He would have been calling to tell me when to expect the Bell Telephone guy who was supposed to come and string a new line from the pole to the house so I answered the call and immediately lost the text message I was labouring over.

When I finally got land line phone service restored, I immediately went online went online to the Telus site. I'd been without the internet for 3 days by that point, suffering, as one of my Facebook friends implied, from a severe case of withdrawal by that time.  I'm usually good at finding things online, but I discovered Telus are very good at hiding their contact information.  I finally found a chat box, and had a lovely chat with someone who assured me that the message I had received was just an automatic thing and that it would be the last one I got like that. I wasn't going to lose my balance after all. (Darn, what was that person's name in case the money disappears tomorrow and I have to get back to them?) 

I asked, since I had contact with a live person, if my new monthly plan (which gives me 50 messages or texts for the same $10 I've always paid) still included voice mail.  I was asking because I had spotted something on one of their web pages that said "Add Voice Mail" when I was hunting for some contact information.  I had earlier tried to retrieve some voice mail and couldn't get in. The phone was not recognizing the password I'm sure I've always used.  The nice person at the other end quickly decided to reset my password for me, and told me how to access it, and what to do when I did. I disconnected, thinking all was well.  I tried to get into my voice then, as I now had two messages to retrieve, but the password she had given me did not work either. Obviously she must have typed it in wrongly at her end, and I'm going to have to connect with Telus again to straighten that out.

This weekend I was at a party, and even though there where ten of us gathered at one table, several of those were busy socializing on their phones instead of with each other.  I have even seen people actually texting while jumping around on the dance floor, and for the life of me, I don't know how they managed that!  I have a hard enough time getting away from my computer as it is, so I'm pretty sure I'm better off not having such a gadget that kept me connected all the time. Not that I'd ever learn how to use it properly anyway.    

How I went from being so far ahead of others technologically, to being so far behind, is beyond me.  I doubt I'll ever get caught up now.   I've turned into a technological dinosaur. 

Techological Orphan

I'm doing something wrong.

This afternoon, on Facebook, I mentioned several of the places where I knew the power was out. I got responses from people who I knew were within a blacked out area.  Even without power, they could still communicate with me on the computer. Well, I'm on the computer, but they are on laptops, notebooks, tablets and cell phones.  Everyone seems to have these wonderful gadgets except me!

In fact, here I sit, on an old Windows XP machine that is built out of bits and pieces by my hubby.  That's right. It's not even a name brand machine.  Now, that's fine by me, as I'm perfectly happy with it.....or at least I was until about a year ago when it picked up some nasty virus.  Hubby cleaned it out, fixed it up so it would run again, and I had to start over with an empty machine. It's been a little fussier about what it will and will not do since then, but for the most part, it still does it's job.

If my power went off though, I sure would be out of luck.  I saw messages online today about school buses (not that I need those) and road closures, etc, but if I didn't have power, I wouldn't see those.  And yet, they are posted on places like Facebook and Twitter for all to see....but where I would definitely need power to see them. 

A couple of people I know have shown me their tablets. I've never really been interested in a laptop, but I'd really love to have a tablet, for some reason.  I watched as one lady I know took a picture with one, in a church basement, without a flash, and it was perfectly clear. Now, that's impressive!  My actual camera couldn't do that!  I also find it much easier to flip through digital magazines on a tablet than to try to do that on a conventional computer. I'm not sure why, but they seem almost made for that kind of application.

I must also mention all the little kids that I see with much fancier phones than mine.  I've never quite understood why a kid needs a phone, but the kids I'm mentioning here are much younger than you may think. I've seen several kids that can't be older than 3 and may even be younger, actually playing with smart phones.  I'd be afraid a kid that age would get mad and throw the thing, but that does not seem to occur to the people who hand them over, for the amusement of little fingers. 

I did get a new cell phone recently, as my old one would no longer hold a charge and it was so antiquated that they don't even sell batteries for it anymore.  This new one is the first cell phone I've had that actually has a camera on it.  Now, I realize the photos you take with such things are not all that great, but at least now I'll have one with me more often without it weighing as much as either my regular camera or my old cell phone.  But even so, I'd never be able to upload pictures to some social network, or e-mail it to you, as I can't substantiate paying the extra price for that privilege.  Computer connections cost enough, and the necessity of a home phone is another expense. I get along fine paying $10 a month to keep my cell phone alive, as I never use all of that, since it gets used mainly so I can be located in the mall, or phone for help if a bear chases me in the woods, or some other such emergency.

Since everyone else seem so technologically connected, I put a request on Facebook to be adopted.  I am, after all, an orphan, since both my parents died of many years ago.  I'd like to become part of one of these families that can not only afford all these technological toys, but also afford to connect them. When I think how much some of them pay out each month, it just boggles my mind!

I started out having a computer long before most people I knew. It was a Commodore 64 and I could converse with people all over the country using forums on the old BBS system.  It was great, at the time.  Some people thought I was rather tech savvy so how I fell so far behind in this tech race is beyond me.  I've gone from the front of the pack to the back. Yep.  I'm definitely doing something wrong.