Thursday, November 21, 2013

Technology - It's not Like the Old Days

Ya gotta love technology advancements.  Or maybe not. 

One of the issues I was having, in addition to my temperamental refrigerator, was my land line phone.  I had a dial tone but could neither make nor receive calls.  If someone tried to call me, they went right into voice mail without the phone even ringing.  And it was my Comcast voicemail, not my home VM, so I had no idea.  I was just relishing in the fact that I was not receiving calls from telemarketers.  If I tried to call out, I got a busy signal.  Now I ask you, when was the last time you got a busy signal on the phone?  That is what made me start to wonder if there was something wrong.

I called and made a report that the phone was not working.  It took them five days to fix it.  In the meantime, I was trying to remember to keep my cell phone with me.  How do people hold on to the stupid thing all day?  I spent most of my day looking for it.  (This is the same woman who lost her glasses two weeks ago.  I only wear them to go grocery shopping and cannot fathom how, or where, I lost them.)

Yesterday Comcast called to say it was fixed.  The customer service rep said the tech had a heck of a time figuring out what was wrong and perhaps we need to switch out the modem - again.

While we were on the subject of modems, I mentioned that some of the channels on my TV in my office do not have any sound, just picture.  He told me some story about Spanish language TV not working and how I needed to push the 'lang' button on the remote.  And 'Voila', sound.  (Did I somehow push this button my mistake one day?)

My life was so much simpler when my TV had four channels and I had to get up to actually change the station.

And that is not my only tech complaint.  A while back I complained that an Internet Explorer update had messed up my computer.  I had to have McAfee remotely control the computer to clean up the mess.  Afterwards, all of my followers had disappeared from my home screen of my blog, even though readers still saw them.  I just figured it was a browser issue and was not going to worry about it.

My computer does automatic updating.  I don't usually pay attention to what Windows is updating.  Not a good idea it seems.

This morning when I tried to blog I got an error message from Google.  They told me the browser wasn't compatible.  I checked my browser to find that I was updated two days ago to IE 11.  I though I was back at IE 9.  What happened to IE 10?

Google says it is only compatible up to IE 9.  I managed to post anyway.  And when I looked at my home page, suddenly all of my followers were there.

I think for old times sake I am going to sit down this afternoon and write my cousin a letter.  She is 80 and does not have a computer in her home.  I'm beginning to think she has the right idea.  I am sure her life is much less complicated.

3 comments:

  1. haha i can so relate--my smart phone has got it all over me, denise ;)

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  2. My husband doesn't use any of this electronic stuff. Doesn't understand it, doesn't want to. He just missed out having to use it before he retired.

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  3. I like all of my gadgets, but do cling to a landline. I never remember to look at my cell phone and see if I have any messages.

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