Time wasting on the Tube!

May 13, 2014May 13, 2014 The Indecisive Eejit37 Comments

Old Motorola Mobile — The Fatherships old mobile phone! (Image by Garry Knight)

I’ve just wasted two hours of my life, two hours that I will never get back. Weird thing is I don’t really mind, well apart from the fact that the potatoes are not scrubbed for tomorrow nights tea.

The events leading up to the two hour time wastage I totally blame on the Fathership, because he also caused me to lose about 2 hours on Friday night. You see he has a new phone, a new mobile telephone to be exact. My sister gave it to him for Christmas and offered to set it up and everything, but the male rent believes in using something until it falls to pieces, so he continued to use his current one.

Lately his mobile provider has been failing to deliver and getting frustrated with the lack of signal I was approached to make the move to a different network. Cue two hours spent on the phone to said networks, changing sims, transferring contacts, topping up and teaching the oul boy how to switch it on and make calls. By the time 10pm came on Friday night I was sick of the sight of mobile phones, and I’m a geek ffs!

Fast forward to today, another call to the network for the MAC code they promised to send Friday and we’re ready to go. Phonecall to the new network and we have a scheduled time for the number to move across to his new phone. I hope everything goes according to plan or the Fathership could be launching into Orbit. He DOES NOT want to lose his old number, and if he does, I might lose my head on a chopping block in the garden!

So I’d fed them both, done the dishes and cooked my own tea. Of course the whole mobile phone drama happened just as I ushering the first forkful into my hungry mouth, so off I trot up the stairs, dinner in one hand, his mobile phone in the other, and my elbow lodged between the banister and the wall praying that Alien leg can hold it together until we get to the top of the stairs.

By the time I got off the phone my dinner was freezing and it was already 9pm. My early finish and night of blogging was evaporating into mist in front of my eyes.

Then it happened, I started reading blogs and came across a post Steve had done about the band James. I was captivated by the video for the song ‘Moving On’, if you have time I think it is worth a watch, you can find it on Steve’s post HERE!

As always happens when I go onto Youtube, I started to watch video’s from Ellen. Her show is not broadcast here as far as I know, unless you pay for subscription services. I find her incredibly funny and particularly love it when she scares her guests and pulls surprises on people. For the next two hours I laughed, welled up, shed tears, was amazed and entertained to the point where I pretty much forgot about everything else. Ellen can keep my two hours, she deserves it for an awesome show and she is now my go to person when I need cheered up.

Two hours well spent, I have a smile on my face :)

As you get older: Messaging!

October 24, 2013October 24, 2013 The Indecisive Eejit14 Comments

As you get older, technology seems to move faster and become more difficult. Couple that with the slight memory failure that seems to start once you hit forty and things are on a downward spiral.

Saving telephone numbers into your mobile phone should be a simple enough task, unless like me you are easily confused. I have this quirk about not having two people of the same name in my phone, it always leads to me sending the right message to the wrong person. To avoid this, one person will have their proper name and the other will have a nickname. Problem solved…….or not!

One of my friends has been off for a couple of weeks now after having a minor op. To abbreviate and to save anyone any embarrassment, lets just say a horticulturist was visiting the general area her lady garden.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the office what with the girls being off, and tonight I finally remembered to text my friend and ask her how she was doing. In an attempt to make her laugh I sent the following message, “Hey Tootise, how’s your toush, hope you are well.” I was rather pleased with my wit.

I saw her come online and read the message, but then go offline again without sending a reply. That’s weird I think, saying hmmmm repeatedly and scratching my head, that was bound to make her laugh. I checked again, no reply, and then it dawned on me, I had sent the message to the wrong person. Both friends have the same name, but one was in my phone as a nickname!

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I hastily sent an explanation text and another to my other friend telling her about my faux pas, thankfully I have understanding friends!

I’ve been laughing at myself ever since!

(Nicola if you read this, you will know to whom I am referring!)

Reviewing the Nokia Lumia 820!

August 11, 2013August 12, 2013 The Indecisive Eejit6 Comments

So I’ve had it for about 3 weeks now, my mobile phone upgrade, the impressive Nokia Lumia 820.

To be fair, there is not much difference between my previous phone, the Lumia 800 and this one, the most notable however being the screen size, 4.3″ as opposed to the 3.7″ on the 800. For years I have listened to men telling me that size matters and in this case it certainly has made a difference and put a smile on my face.

The AMOLED screen is bright and responsive and features Super Sensitive Touch meaning it can still be used, even when wearing gloves.

Windows Phone 8 allows for live tiles with 3 sizes, meaning with just a couple of presses you can customize your home screen to suit your lifestyle adding people, apps, weather and any other tiles you desire.

A feature I was glad to see introduced, was the ability on this phone to adjust text size through various key places on the phone, i.e. text messaging. Sometimes on the 800 I had struggled with text, especially in low light, which is not something you want when you are a spectacle wearing geek!

Notable in its absence however, is the option to change your keyboard layout, it’s qwerty or nothing I’m afraid. I loved my alpha numeric keypad on previous phones and miss it dearly, I have not been able to warm to the presence of the full keyboard and find my texts and e-mails littered with comma’s as they are so close to the space bar. I am fully expecting the glass to wear away in the position of the back space.

Another thing lacking is the ability to be able to personalise your phone with text message tones. After reading through various forums I see that I am not alone in my despair over this. I can only hope it has been considered and will be added when the new software update rolls out in the next couple of months.

The integrated Xbox app works well and seems to have fewer of the connection problems I experienced with the 800. Smartglass has been built in and your avartar is now larger and can be customised from the comfort of your armchair using your phone.

You certainly wouldn’t be buying a Windows Phone if you are an App fanatic, as the Windows marketplace holds nowhere near as many as the likes of the Play store on Google. It is not hard to tell, that at the moment Windows phone are seriously lagging behind the competition in sales, as they are not very well supported, some companies being unable to confirm if this will ever change.

My main reason for buying a Nokia however, was for the signal strength, and from the options available within their range, the Windows operating system was the best of the bunch, in my opinion.

I live in a low signal area, which few networks support and had changed to the Nokia Lumia 800 from my previous HTC Sensation due to the fact that I was not able to send or receive text messages and make or receive calls.

The 820 seems to be fairly good, however I would say the 800 would have had slightly better reception, and for this reason I am a little disappointed with my upgrade, but so far so good, it’s still early days.

I was excited this week to learn about O2’s new app called Tu Go.

No signal? Download our TU Go app to call or text from your O2 number over wifi

Sounds great right, especially for someone like me who has signal issues. Downloading the app would allow me to be able to make and receive calls in the house by using my WiFi connection. You usage is still taken from your monthly allowance, but in the grand scheme of things that wouldn’t matter as much as being able to make and receive telephone calls!

One snag – there is no App for Windows Phone. At present it’s only available for Iphone, Android, and Windows 7 PC’s. Worse still, it doesn’t look like one is coming any time soon, if at all. Another large company not supporting Windows phone despite Telefónica announcing a Windows partnership, tut tut! Better get that sorted.

The introduction of this one app would make me consider Ebaying the Lumia and replacing it with an Android phone again, however as the Tu Go app is relatively new, I’ll give them a little time to get their act together.

Overall I’d give the Nokia Lumia 820 a hefty 8 outta 10. For what I need it for, it’ll do just fine…for now!!