First post of the year – almost 2 weeks after the last post. I don’t know where the time goes. Well, actually, I do. You know those labour saving time saving information technology devices that allow you to keep in touch while on then move? Well, that is what has been taking my time.
First there was the Christmas I-pad. A sturdy well-built well designed piece of hardware, ideal for keeping that virtual window on the world wide open. Unfortunately it has an odd idea that it knows best, when it clearly doesn’t, requiring that the user does what the tablet wants, rather than the user giving the instructions. I want to drop and drag files onto the tablet, but it tut-tutted and made me go via i-tunes, entering a password each time. I want to link directly to BT web mail. The tablet tut-tutted, and made it clear that its own e-mail software linked to the iCloud was preferred, making it difficult to sync with my inbox. I want to edit word documents downloaded from Dropbox. The tablet tut-tutted and is still refusing to let me do this. Of course my battle with my i-pad has been time consuming. The score to date is about 6-1 to me – the single score by i-pad being the editing of word documents, which still defeats me.
Then there is my new phone. I have been waiting for my contract to expire in order to replace my Samsung that refused to keep its charge, despite the purchase of a new battery. EE quoted £33 p.m. plus a significant up front cost for the HTC phone that I wanted. O2 offered £28 p.m. and no upfront charge. EE generously offered £31 p.m. and halved the upfront cost, and said that they really really couldn’t improve on that. I said thank you for your good service over the years and goodbye. Thanks to being on hold, being cut off, going back on hold etc. this had pretty much wiped out a Sunday afternoon, and I decided that contacting O2 could wait for a day or so. The following day EE phoned me and offered £26 p.m., a free phone, and double data allowance. I am now the proud owner of an HTC M8 One. Or is it an HTC One M8? Anyway, unlike i-phone users, I won’t be referring to my phone by its brand name. “Hark – is that my HTC one M8 ringing? I must answer my HTC one M8 at once. Oh – they’ve rung off….”
The delivery of the phone was an issue. EE texted to advise of a daytime delivery, with a collect-from-the-DPS-depot as an option. The depot is a short detour from my home route, and so I opted to collect. The next day I got a text advising that it would be delivered within 15 minutes, and then another text advising that no-one was in. I knew that. Thats why I opted to collect. And so I had to wait ages at the depot for the driver to return to base.
The phone is wonderfully intuitive to anyone used to a standard PC or laptop, but has far too many options to explore. What exactly is Google-Now? Do I need it?
The phone allows set up using a PC, including “personalising” the phone. I tried to drag the “William Tell Overture” (or the Lone Ranger theme, depending on your generation. Dum diddle dum diddle dum dum dum etc etc) from my PC, as I did for my old phone, but the file type was unsuitable, and so I found a version on the web to download, but as soon as the download started, my AVG anti-virus software started whimpering that it had detected some sort of Adware or something similar. The download wouldn’t stop, and so I deleted it when I could, and re-opened my internet browser to continue with my phone setup. Instead of the reassuring BBC News home page I got a spoof Google page, with an image of a waving Asian lass who, apparently, was trying to phone me, and all I had to do was click on the link and she would make my dreams come true. Bugger.
A 2 hour AVG full system scan failed to find anything malicious, but clearly my home page had been hijacked, and nothing I could do would change it. I eventually had to delete and re-install my browser.
And so you can see that my life has been full of unexpected time consuming IT related issues.
Anyway, we hope that you all had a great New Year. We did what we have done for the last few years – we walked up Croft Hill to see the New Year in from the top, this year joining about 20 others to watch the fireworks around the entire horizon, On New Year’s Day we had our annual High Noon clay pigeon shoot at our friend’s farm. Thanks to windy conditions most clays lived to fly again (we pick up the unbroken ones from the ploughed field in front of the “trap” that launches them). Chantal doesn’t shoot – she just joins us for the post shoot BBQ, hence you have to have a picture of someone else.
Happy New Year from us both, and we look forward to seeing all of you in 2015. Still got some catching up to do on The Oakstump – baptisms, new flats, horse shows and Christmas pics come to mind. Watch this space.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
