esrosedotblog

QUIET BROKEN

Did I say that nothing was happening?

All that went by the board today.

John wanted to get an iPhone which, for reasons which are a bit more than I can summarize here, involved switching services from Verizon to ATT.

So far, I am an innocent bystander.

Now add. My old phone won't work on ATT so I need a new one.

I fought, I wiggled, I swallowed hard but went along bravely proclaiming that I would be happy with a plain old vanilla keyboard phone. I don't do text. I don't take pictures. None of that. I am a dinosaur.

We went to Target which has an all in one operation for services and phones. Re-upped the ATT and that all went quite well.

They did not have a plain phone, well they had one in another store. I decided on the spot that I could use two things. One is a screen keyboard and maybe, possibly, some day I would like to text so there was a Samsung, no LGs, with a pullout keyboard and pictures. Not much more expensive. There is no logic to the pricing systems.

I got a short course on operations and away we went. An hour and a half. Not bad, in my experience. And the young man was nice and helpful and frank about better and worse options.

OK.

I got home. Started to set it up. No help in the fact that I was looking at John's iPhone setup instructions. When I figured that out, I got out the Samsung sheets.

I finally got that I had trouble with a security feature that requires pressing a button on the side to do any operation.

It was a mess.

I got in the car and went over to have him run me through some operations which he did. Nicely.

He had to call the ATT service but it worked out.

I set up my voice mail, setup the password, got a call and so on.

But it is rough rough rough. The push a button thing isn't quite right. A new behavior, easy enough.

The screen scrolling is OK but, it seems, very sensitive. I get a lot of shit I don't want. Solutions are there but they require fumbling.

My fingers are too big. Scroll on the left side or you will get a lot of stuff you don't want.

I was using my thumb. Not a great idea.

Awkward as hell. But I have the fundamentals.

Somehow I want to get through this learning curve. I have thirty days before the promise to exchange for the pushbuttons runs out.

I have seen people with this screen thing hold the phone out from their face and push the buttons carefully with the little finger extended and light taps being given to the "keys".

There is a whole lot of shit on this. Even apps.

All I know is that the service is less expensive than the Verizon, unexpected, and so far I have the basics sort of down.

I will have tomorrow to work out any more wrinkles.

It may take another trip back to Target and help from the guy to get me over the freakout period but that is OK. Sort of.

There is no use in looking back and asking why we did this. It is a better plan. The phones are going to work out. I may never text but if I feel like doing so it is easy to set it up and then I can fumple with the teeny keyboard.

I have come a long way today. I am not better off than before but I did my part to help John get an iPhone. Obviously I cannot help him with his problems but he has several friends who are just dying to show him how.

Labels: technology