Author Topic: The Technophobe Reader - Technology Help (Read 213644 times)

ginny · « **Reply #440 on:** March 08, 2012, 10:36:57 AM »

Welcome to The Technophobe Reader

Cartoon used by permission of the artist

Confused about Ihpones, Ipods, Ipads, Itouch, Androids, or anything else electronic? Don't know what a "text" message is? Don't have a Nook or a Kindle and don't know the benefits of an e reader? Feel left out of the rush of the new technology and wonder what all the shouting is about?

Have a new Iphone, Ipod, Ipad, Nook, Kindle, or I headache or are considering same?

Ask your question here! Other sufferers may be able to direct you to a source for help or help with their own experience.

This discussion has no "expert" moderator, we offer here no professional advice but we may be able to answer out of our own experiences, so ask or comment away!

ginny · « **Reply #441 on:** March 08, 2012, 01:01:13 PM »

Let us know how you like it, Larry. Supposedly the graphics are incredible. I was tempted too but I have the "new" IPAD 2 so it would not make any sense to upgrade again.

I love mine and am now obsessed with Temple Run. My grandson only just turned 5, has so far a score of 246,487 ...no, no, hold the phone, just now he got 273,562... which is about 200 thousand more than I've ever been able to get.

If you've ever played that game you know how impossible that is!~

In my opinion I PAD is going to revolutionize the world, possibly making computers obsolete. They only lack 2 things to make them perfect: a phone connection and Word documents and those are in the works, already available as we've seen as an APP for iphone. My iphone saved me the other day when an accident closed the interstate and I was late. I switched on the free GPS ,which for 9 bucks a month talks to you and it safely navigated me thru the country to where I wanted to go.

Just amazing. You always have a phone with you, again just consider a few years ago, if you were lost you were lost.

I'm taking my IPAD on my next trip overseas and will find out how easy it is to work there.

pedln · « **Reply #442 on:** March 08, 2012, 08:22:10 PM »

iPads sound wonderful, and I hope to own one someday. The new one apparently has something like Dragon Dictate on it, too. But I hope computers do not become obsolete as I love my big monitor. Probably some day there will be a way to connect the iPads to big monitors.

We're travelling at a high rate of speed technologically, so I no longer doubt that anything is impossible.

Have fun with all your new toys folks.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #443 on:** March 09, 2012, 05:38:08 AM »

Can anyone tell me if a UK mobile phone will work in the USA? Do I have to do something to it?

Thanks
Rosemary

Steph · « **Reply #444 on:** March 09, 2012, 06:05:38 AM »

If you want to call back to Scotland, you will need some sort of international phone.. You might already have the capability in your cell phone.. It depends on the service. If not, buy a disposable phone when you get here. You pay for only the time you use it..
IPAD. I have the original and still love it.. but yes Pedlin, since you sync your IPAD to your computer, anything on the IPAD is also on the big PC.. You simply connect t he two . I do it once every two weeks to keep everything on both computers current and before I leave for Franklin this summer, will try and pull the laptop into it as well.
Ginny.. I have the run, but am really really bad at it.. I love the journeys that are App games.. Have a whole bunch of them. You visit all over and perform various types of problems.. Also have a killer Free Cell type.

ginny · « **Reply #445 on:** March 09, 2012, 07:19:01 AM »

I think the keyboard of the IPAD is the biggest liability right now. The portability is such a plus, and they do make a little sort of folding case into which you slip the IPAD and type as if on a regular keyboard. Stephanie is right, but have any of you tried to actually use the large desktop monitor AS the IPAD monitor? That is, use it to see the IPAD more clearly? I know a lot of people do that with laptops, and I also want/ need that huge monitor, normally.

Once Larry gets his hands on one we'll be able to cross mountains with it.

I did see that on Dragon Dictation, Pedln! And it's not all games and toys, some of it could be life saving, like the NOAA weather radio.

I very much like the NOAA weather APP. Here if a storm comes up at 1 am, we cannot turn ON the TV or the internet, to try to find out where it is, due to the satellite knocking out. So theoretically we could have something coming at us and never know it until it's too late. However the IPAD not only has several APPs for weather, including the Weather Channel and IMAP where you can see radar for your own town, but it has NOAA weather and, if you like, NOAA weather radio live, and it always works. I have used it several times since I got it. Kind of reassuring to have it right there, and be able to hear the broadcast and SEE the radar.

Especially since here in the southeast our storms come up so suddenly often at night, and you, if the TV works, turn on the local channels and you're lucky to get one talking about the storm, or one band across the top with 2 hour old news, interrupting the 10 year old reruns. Nobody is talking about the current storm which may only be affecting your area but which may be rattling the shutters which is why you woke up in the first place. It's so good to be able to SEE something and KNOW something.

(And yes, I do know about weather radios, we do have one but you can't leave it on, unless they've made some changes in the way it broadcasts recently, because with every severe storm warning, much less a tornado watch or warning, it goes into hysteria and broadcasts every 5 seconds and you would never ever get any sleep. And you would not be able to separate the forest from the trees.)

Steph my reflexes and Temple Run are not quite in sinc hahasha However they do say these things are very good for the brain, so I keep trying.

And it IS addictive.

IPAD also has an APP for the best solitaire I have found. And I like getting my news that way. I like picking from the million and one CNN stories which I want to watch: the CNN APP allows you to do that.

Rosemary, I don't know about UK phones and the US, but if the reverse is true, our phones will work overseas with an added on international package, I don't see why yours wouldn't work here. I'd check and see what the rates are, they may be extreme. Maybe somebody else knows something better. Stephanie's idea of the disposable phone or one that runs on a card (chip inserted) set to a certain amount sounds good, I don't know which is more expensive. I think Best Buy and WalMart sell them here in the States.

Are you coming to America?!?

LarryHanna · « **Reply #446 on:** March 09, 2012, 10:08:22 AM »

Ginny, I just realized that we can have a video chat with the iPad sometime. That would be nice. I got an email this morning that Apple has shipped the iPad from China to be delivered on the 16th.

Steph · « **Reply #447 on:** March 10, 2012, 06:08:17 AM »

Since I have the original IPAD, I have purchased a small gadget that inserts in the top and you can download your pictures from the camera and now also a small keyboard that you can use instead of the built in one. I find the little one hard to use if I want to send a longer message on email. I do not have the capability to hook into the extra systems , but simply use the router at home and the free wifi everywhere.
Speak?? Now that one is interesting.. But then I am not tech oriented.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #448 on:** March 10, 2012, 07:48:06 AM »

Ginny, I posted a reply yesterday but it has disappeared into the ether - that's the second one to go in 2 days

Anyway, yes, I am coming to Philadelphia on Wednesday, staying with my friend Susan from the Barbara Pym group. Then on Friday we go on the train to Cambridge for the Pym annual conference, which looks like it will be fun (Susan has been before). It's all a bit scary for someone like me who never goes further than North Berwick, but I am looking forward to it - more so now that I know that Susan can meet me at the airport (she thought she might not be able to at first).

And I have managed to work out that my phone is 'internationally enabled' (got my password right after 3 attempts - why on earth do I need a password for Orange?) Will be using it as little as possible as it will cost a fortune, but it's nice to know I have it.

I'll tell anyone who wants to know all about the conference when I get back.

Rosemary

ginny · « **Reply #449 on:** March 10, 2012, 08:41:42 AM »

Larry! How exciting! I must lose weight! hahahaa

Rosemary!! How exciting II! No NYC? Philadelphia is my hometown, but I haven't been back in years, unfortunately. The last time I was there, I went to what WAS Wannamakers (department store downtown) to hear the organ. They have a grand pipe organ there in a lobby many stories high and my mother and I used to have lunch when I was quite small overlooking the organ when it played during the day. I can't recall who owns that store now, it was Lord & Taylors when I went back, it's not now, but it was still nice to have a sandwich and hear the beautiful old organ play, again, overlooking the huge eagle statue where people used to meet on the main floor. Brought back a lot of memories.

Have a wonderful time! We'd love to hear EVERYTHING about your trip, too bad you can't stay a month!

I do know what you mean about having a phone, expensive or not, should you need it.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #450 on:** March 10, 2012, 09:01:55 AM »

OMG (as my teenagers would say...) the perils of Skype. When my husband was working in Edinburgh and we still lived in Aberdeen, I resisted his attempts to get me to go on Skype, because then he would have been able to see me trying to do several other things during the gaps in his conversation

Rosemary

Steph · « **Reply #451 on:** March 11, 2012, 06:24:05 AM »

I have resisted Skype since I really dont use the phone much.. and am not quite sure who I would want to see in person and talk to..

marjifay · « **Reply #452 on:** March 11, 2012, 10:36:35 AM »

Someone posted this in another of my groups:

Poem of the Year

The computer swallowed grandma.
Yes, honestly it's true!
She pressed 'control and 'enter'
And disappeared from view.

It devoured her completely,
The thought just makes me squirm.
She must have caught a virus or been eaten by a worm.

I've searched through the recycle bin
And files of every kind;
I've even used the Internet,
But nothing did I find.

In desperation, I asked Jeeves
My searches to refine.
The reply from him was negative,
Not a thing was found 'online.'

So, if inside your 'Inbox,'
My Grandma you should see,
Please 'Copy, Scan' and 'Paste' her
And send her back to me.

(This is a tribute to all the Grandmas and Grandpas who
have been fearless and learned to use the Computer.........)

******************************************************

Frybabe · « **Reply #453 on:** March 11, 2012, 10:58:36 AM »

That is sooooo cute! Do you know who the author is?

marjifay · « **Reply #454 on:** March 11, 2012, 11:20:18 AM »

No, Frybabe, I don't know the author. I'll ask the person who posted it and let you know.
Marj

JoanK · « **Reply #455 on:** March 11, 2012, 06:56:30 PM »

Marj: that's great!

Steph · « **Reply #456 on:** March 12, 2012, 06:36:48 AM »

It is amazing what we Grandmas have learned over the years..Think about it.. When we were teens, we never even heard computer as a word.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #457 on:** March 12, 2012, 01:31:49 PM »

Aarrgghhh! I upgraded my ipad to iso5 yesterday and LOST all my mail and contacts on the ipad and it now says everytime i try to do mail from the ipad that my password is incorrect or that the server isn't working!!! Fortunately, i have almost all of the mail info on the pc also, but it is infuriating. It is especially so since when i go on line to get some help it's obvious that this has been happening for people since at least Oct and there appears that Apple hasn't publicized a fix, or an strong alert ahead of time to back-up info.

On top of that i'm finding none of my passwords at websites are working, even though i know they are correct! Only Seniorlearn let me in w/out frustration!

It was even a person in the Apple store who told me to do the upgrade, and he didn't mention the potential of a problem. That disappoints me.

Jean

jane · « **Reply #458 on:** March 12, 2012, 03:22:53 PM »

jean...are you close enough to the Apple store to go back in, hand it to said person and say...fix it?

That's so frustrating, I know.

jane

mabel1015j · « **Reply #459 on:** March 12, 2012, 09:28:20 PM »

Jane - yes i am! And that's exactly what i'm going to do. I could call them and fiddle around w/ someone telling me what to do, but i just don't want to bother trying that.

Steph · « **Reply #460 on:** March 13, 2012, 06:05:06 AM »

When I upgraded to the cloud a bit ago, I thought I had lost every single app..Turned out that in the App store, there is a button for purchased and they were all neatly stacked there. IPADs are weird in how they store..
I did the IO5 and all seems fine, but I had better check.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #461 on:** March 13, 2012, 12:16:34 PM »

Yes, most of the apps that i "purchased", (most were free) were in the "cloud", but my mail just won't work.

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #462 on:** March 14, 2012, 05:57:42 AM »

For some reason, I still prefer to read my email on my big computer. Love the big screen..So I rarely use the IPAD for email.. I checked everything else, but will check that as well.Have you tried syncing the IPAD on your other computers.. Just go on ITunes and plug the two together.

pedln · « **Reply #463 on:** March 14, 2012, 10:54:25 AM »

Reading all this, one can see that "school" will be necessary for a lot of things. I wonder if "telephone school" was ever considered back in AG Bell's day.

I can still be shocked when confronting privacy and the Internet. Yesterday I registered for a retail account and all went well, but the national retailer wanted to check my identity, so I had to answer three multiple choice questions. A possible answer for all three was "none of the above."
First question -- home address, past and present -- the answer was one I had 35 years ago. 2nd question -- phone number, easy. 3rd -- and really shocked me -- What year was my Toyota Camry?

These came up in a matter of seconds. What kind of databases can commercial enterprises buy? How can an individual find out what info about him/her is being circulated? This is for everyone. Even the most stalwart luddite who has never even seen a computer.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #464 on:** March 14, 2012, 11:11:07 AM »

Yes Steph, i had to go on itunes to download the update to iso5 - i giggled to myself at that sentence, 25 yrs ago i would have no idea what it was saying....download? Iso5? Download the update? Sounds like a puzzle. What a whole new language we've earned in the last 25 yrs.

Anyway, after the update i synced -another new word - everything (i thought) to the ipad.

Anyway, if you are going to update, be forewarned and you probably should backup much of your present info, altho i'm not entirely sure how you do that w/ the email.

Jean

jane · « **Reply #465 on:** March 14, 2012, 12:12:09 PM »

Pedln...I think that "they" know everything about us. I know, for example, that property assessments and even property taxes are online in lots of states, and other stuff people think is "private."

mabel1015j · « **Reply #466 on:** March 14, 2012, 05:31:45 PM »

Recommendation: there is a "Free App" app that each day sends you a list of the days' free apps. Today they have "Video Time Machine" and "Holiday Time Machine" which is so much fun! You can choose a year and get videos of that year. In the VTM, you can choose "music, tv or movies" and on the HTM you choose a year and get videos from those same sourcesbut you don't get to choose. i haven't looked at it completely, but in the HTM the yrs go back to at least the '20s..

The VTM was sitting on 1942 when i opened it so i just choose music and got a movie of a German chorus and symphony w/ a Nazi banner on the stage, regardless, the music was very good. Check them out, have some fun

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #467 on:** March 15, 2012, 06:12:56 AM »

Free Apps are so neat. I have a three d one of space and the earth and all of the satellites, etc. I love it.. So neat. I can go up to one of the satellites and then turn it all different ways to look at it.. Same with the planets.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #468 on:** March 16, 2012, 09:18:08 PM »

OMGosh! If you have a Apple device, you should download the 2 two free apps i mentioned earlier! One is "Video time machine" and the other is "holiday time machine". I have spent all evening having such a good time watching the videos on them. The holiday app has Christmas tv shows, or parts of them. The whole show of Your Hit Parade Christmas 1955 is there, go to the year 1955 and the to #14 of the set of that year. I loved the Hit Parade Show, Dorothy Collins, Snooky Lanson, Gisele McKinsey. Of course, i went looking on youtube and found videos from other Hit Parade shows! They also have Ch-mas episodes from Ozzie and Harriet, Hazel, Bonanza, Alfred Hitchcock, etc, etc. And all kinds of ch-mas music videos from movies or tv of the year you choose.

On the video time machine, as i said, you can choose news, movies, music, tv and ads. Some of the ads are fun to look at. I also found a 30 min movie - i guess it was shown in theaters as a short - from General Motors to tout their " craftsmenship" in their 1950s cars. It was quite interesting, talking about craftsmenship thruout American history and then they walk thru the process of making a car door. I thot it was interesting. Of course today it's probably all done by robots.

You can pick any year, or just start at a year and work your way forward or back. It is very easy and works very well, both apps do.

ENJOY! Jean

Steph · « **Reply #469 on:** March 17, 2012, 06:06:52 AM »

Hit Parade..Snooky, Giselle, etc. Oh I do remember that. We watched it on TV, although Grady and Hurst, who predated Dick Clark out of Philadelphia were my afterschool favorites.But those Philly girls were a shock to this little farm girl.. Heavy eye makeup.. tightest skirts in creation.. Wow... My Mom would look and go.."Forget it, no decent female wears makeup until their 20's and their mothers should never let them wear those skirts. Sigh..I felt very very homely. Then grown, I met a lot of them grown in Philly and boom.. Realized I would never have wanted to look the way they did.

ginny · « **Reply #470 on:** March 17, 2012, 12:55:51 PM »

EVERYBODY who grew up in Philly (ahem) does or did not look cheap or is or was not over made up or looks like Jerseylicious.

(Remember the spit curl?) hahahaha

And not everybody on Bandstand and Dick Clark came FROM Philly, either. When we moved to NJ they used to get busses up and recruit kids for that broadcast, even from where we lived in NJ. That was a different time.

I still have one of those pencil skirts, I am thinking perhaps my right calf would fit in it now. hahashaa

(And some of thsoe girls who did go were TOUGH and I mean tough). That was the era of the DA and the real Fonzies of the world. Different world at least from the one I live in now, or from our little Quaker town in NJ which was full of preppies, the twinset and the bob, and the field hockey and lacrosse teams for the girls.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #471 on:** March 17, 2012, 01:39:11 PM »

I'm talking about all of these things in my April course on the 1950s, 60s & 70s, so i've been looking at and remembering them. I used to show my college students a film about the fifties which had some of the movies that we saw in health classes about etiquette and dating, etc. One was about Suzy who "thought" she was popular w/ the boys...... she wore pencil skirts and tight sweaters - remember those pointy bras? - and "parked w/ boys in cars." But when she tried to talk to them in the cafeteria, the boys snubbed her!!!! So There! The college students thot they were hilarious.

If you get the Time Machine app, take a look at 1957, music, #3 in the set. It's titled "Swing Dancing from the movie Untamed Youth." I think it was a major "B" movie, i don't recognize anyone in it, and it never got to Shippensburg, Pa. There is a young woman who is obviously "Suzy" grown up, in her pencil skirt and very tight sweater w/ very pointy bra......LOLOLOL. Just the very essence of the "bad girl". Ohhhhhh my.... I laughed! ...... but then i remembered how sad it was for girls who were labeled "bad girls."

Well, Ginny, your picture shows you as the perfect M-town teenager. You're lovely.

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #472 on:** March 18, 2012, 06:30:29 AM »

Oh Ginny, Spit Curls.. Whew.. Grady and Hurst ( one of them it seems liked young girls and they got pulled eventually). I remember there were favorite dancing couples..and then some of the girls wore what looked like a uniform skirt, but it was hiked way way up. I was adult before I realized that they had rolled it up from the waist.. It was the eye makeup that fascinated me.. Any and all eye make up was considered just way way cheap for young girls in lower Delaware. and the girls on Tv made up something, I always called raccoon eyes. All dark and lots of it. Funny what you remember.
Now.. does anyone figured out how to print from an IPAD..

jane · « **Reply #473 on:** March 18, 2012, 11:54:56 AM »

I don't really understand IPADS, I guess. Are they complete computers? Can you make folders and write and save documents to them? As asked above, can you print from them...documents or boarding passes, etc?

On my NookColor I can connect to any WiFi, surf the net, post to discussions like this, order items, get my email from both google and my ISP, answer email, but I can't make a document or save to a file or print. (At least I haven't found a way to.)

jane

mabel1015j · « **Reply #474 on:** March 18, 2012, 04:42:09 PM »

Jane - the ipad does all the things your Nook does, even in its original version. Since i downloaded the new operating system, iso5, it tells me i can do all those other things you asked about now if i configure it thru itunes. (docs, files, printing)

Steph- you must have a wifi function in your printer, which our recently purchased one has. I'm anxious to try it, but i don't do much on the ipad that i want to print. I do one-fingered typing on the virtual keyboard and that's waaay to slow to do documents or files. It does have a large "notepad" that looks like a yellow legal pad. I have put many notes on it. I may want to print some of those at some point. It tells you how to print in the new online howto guide.

I think Mary has a real

keyboard for her ipad, maybe she can tell you more about this.

Steph · « **Reply #475 on:** March 19, 2012, 06:17:09 AM »

I recently bought the regular key pad..Apple is wonderful. you simply turn it on, go to Bluetooth on the IPAD , turn it on and boonm.. you are connected. Like you I do little with the little keyboard, but knew I could do more if I wanted with the real keyboard.
My older son bought a IPAD 2 and he says there are apps for notes, etc. He uses it for GPS a lot since his job requires him to go to a lot of places to look at stuff. He also keeps notes on it for what he is looking for. I have the original, am retired, so rarely use it for that.

ginny · « **Reply #476 on:** March 19, 2012, 10:29:52 AM »

Thank you Jean.

Yeah they keep telling me, too, that I can print with IPAD2 which would be very nice for travel, by turning on the Bluetooth thing and having a wifi printer which I have but I have not.

Ann, dreck is Yiddish (or German) for crap, dirt, trash, excrement, filth, nasty stuff.

You don't realize until you get much older, the influence on you of what you hear growing up.

Steph · « **Reply #477 on:** March 20, 2012, 06:26:23 AM »

Yes, having married a New Yorker, he used yiddish expressions for a number of things and both of my sons picked it up and use it.. Always funny.They love shmatta.. which is rag..
A wifi printer. Hmm. have to check that out.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #478 on:** March 21, 2012, 11:05:07 PM »

Have you Kimdle users heard about this? They have a publisher who lets the reader determine the story line.
In January, a new publisher appeared on the Kindle. It's called Coliloquy, and its books are a little different -- at certain pre-defined moments, readers are asked to make a choice. Which character should the protagonist date? What event should they go to? In which narrative direction do you want to travel? The books, which are primarily aimed at a young adult and romance novel-reading audience, are like a digital version of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books from the 1980s.
What most people haven't realized is that the technology works two ways -- as you make a choice in the story, Coliloquy's books read you back. They send anonymized data about your decision, as well as about how often you have read a particular chapter, and which characters you have followed the most. They are the first third-party publisher to receive such data from Amazon. They surely won't be the last.

Do you think you would like to do that? I don't think i would, but i'm not sure why not.

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #479 on:** March 22, 2012, 06:03:28 AM »

Hmm.. I once read a mystery that did that.. Once you picked a character, it directed you to a page number to continue. Didnt like it.
My all in one printer is getting very very tricky.. Tried to delete a print job yesterday and it took an hour to make it behave and now it is printing very slowly indeed, but nothing is showing strange. Oh well.

News:

Author Topic: The Technophobe Reader - Technology Help (Read 213644 times)