NO....... REALLY?

It's got to be easier and quicker to load things on to the phone while it's plugged in, hasn't it? 

Not so as you would notice.  The time line bar started out at five hours!   There's only one thing to do when you are left gawping at that sort of time span, apart from wishing the bandwidth of the local broadband was a bit broader and niftier; (the polite version of my thoughts.)  A few moments on and the time line bar was reducing by an hour, two hours, then, yay! three hours.  "Come on you can go just a bit more"  It stuck at offering me two hours for the downloads.  It said two hours and it did just exactly what it said it would do. No further willing, wishing, silent cajoling, was going anywhere.  

I checked the progress bar a few times between preparing and cooking the veggies and it seemed to be enjoying itself, stuck on one spot.....two ***@@@*** hours! So I got busy with other things, settled down to relax for the evening and forgot all about it.

Darn it - just getting ready for bed and remembered I had the whole kit and caboodle wired up and the computer  still switched on and busy. At least the time line bar had disappeared, and various things had put themselves in position all by themselves.  Isn't technology magic. 
 Now some of my favourite apps have to be updated, more time... 

MY BOOKMARKS HAVE UPPED STICKS

I reckon I've got Google Chrome under another guise. I've just downloaded the update for gmail, which up till very recently was a beta product that I was not interested in experimenting with. Although I downloaded Chrome, I have never opened it up. I really quite liked what I had got comfortably settled with.

Tabbed browsing has taken on a new lease of life. If I want to have two mail programmes open side by side, I can. This, I heard, was possible with Chrome too. I just have to get used to where everything is now. My eyes keep creeping up to the familiar places and find the old style tabs are not there. As well as these excitements, (ooh, I'd best be careful, in case it gets all too much to have in one go) there are some other goodies, like my bookmarks have upped sticks to another bit of the bar and I have a purple coloured icon for my 'most visited' places. As if that were not enough, there is a little orange square with a white outline of the letter 'B', associated with blogger. I'd swear the little character wanted to jump up and down. We'd better not get too frenzied about this. 

I understand that everything will work six times faster than it did before. How will I manage to keep up with it all, and at such a pace, it sounds positively speed of light: I guess I shall cope, I'll have to. (Wipes sweated brow).

DESSERT COFFEE AND NO COMPUTERS

The computer-age truly tests honest-to-goodness sanity, not to mention domestic harmony. There are far too many experts, the majority of whom are anything but... and they certainly are not, in the main, expert in the general utility of the tool. When you put your total faith in someone designated to be an expert, you can be in a precarious position. Indeed, you become vulnerable, and with it, so does your computer set-up. 

All I wanted was assistance with migrating three systems folders to my computer. I guessed that a simple transfer by flash pen was not going to work.  
"You're right,” I was told by one expert. Total supplication from me to the expert... bad mistake. 

My nicely developing system configuration was completely supplanted by everything from another machine, I had a clone, it was definitely not what I asked for or wanted. My keyboard suddenly stopped working. With expert number two, Saturday became a lost day. Monday, I did a system format and re-load with the aid of a third expert. The keyboard still did not work, but hey! I no longer had a cloned computer.

Four ‘experts’ later, I reached a dangerous overload of frustration. Having finally exploded, the department of experts field one of their senior experts. Senior! This gem of information, I shall not forget. Thirty minutes later, a major difficulty has been resolved, one that took days, including delivery of new parts, then new parts having to be returned by me. (I shall not mention the travel to our poorly managed Post Office and the queuing for a service point). 

In the midst of all this fiery emotion, hubby avoids asking the in-house computer back-up service a big question. He asked it today. The big question remains unresolved for now, even though, I believe I know the answer; it's not one, hubby will like too much. 

Personal and domestic harmony is being re-established. Hubby invited me out to a lovely lunch, during which there was a silent pact not to mention anything relating to computers. Dessert and coffee never tasted better.

UNLOCKING THE LOCKED

I don't believe it!  I want to change the default pin code (factory set) on my cell phone.  The steps worked fine with the old phone, (same model) and in guiding the OH to set his, again, the same type of phone.               Oh Bu ** er!!!! and **** !  I'm locked out and I haven't got the sim card phone number. "Please enter your PUK" the phone demands.  I can't do that either, I've put the card information in a safe place. Like all safe places, I cannot remember where it is.  I desperately need the unlocking code.

I get cheaper texts on my pay-as-you-go card. I use the [locked] sim in another old phone. My texting life is underwhelming.  Is there is any useful history from anyone to whom I have sent a text: no such luck. The phone company can't help without the sim phone number. At this point I explode into more expletives I won't bore you with. 

Just as I decide to buy a new sim card and make a serious mental promise to myself to put the telephone number in several places, there's a breakthrough! .... OH remembers he made a note of my 'text phone' number on his old discarded phone. Eureka!

THE NEXT 'MUST HAVE'.

I was talking to a family geek about the two phones, The Apple iphone kit and Google's Android. It was said that there was in-built advertising on the one,the Apple. There was a certain naiveté, I felt, in suggesting that Google were not exploiting similar potential with their product. 

A little bit of research revealed that Google had already got underlying 'acceptable' ads behind their system. I'm not sure who the ads are acceptable to. The Google underlying adverts would be installed with the same rationale as Apple has, a profit motivation. In this, all phone manufacturers and resellers are playing the same game. I guess I.T. organisations will be telling mankind that all marketing is good for the soul. Will it become the next 'must have', the next faith forum?

There's a lot to be said for staying with a good old fashioned cell phone that just makes phone calls, if anyone can remember what they are. And for a bit of added excitement, a wee facility to send text messages would be useful, though not essential, since voice messaging is bound to be in the bundle.