I don’t even think the title of this article is right. When it comes to the subject of technology my experience and knowledge are all over the place. You have to cut me a little slack because when I was growing up we didn’t have cell phones, laptops, ipads, desktops, smartwatches or any of the other devices that exist now. To put things in perspective we used rotary dial phones, I took a class in FORTRAN in college and we actually used IBM cards in college. You probably have never heard of FORTRAN or IBM cards. And have only heard about rotary phones or saw them in a museum. No one ever heard of Apple, Microsoft, Mac, Dell or any of the other guys who create all this stuff. So if anything I say seems a bit weird or out of touch it probably is. I cannot keep up with everything that is currently going on. I feel a little like Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom when he is acting like he is a handy guy and the person asks him about electricity and he says, “220…221 whatever it takes”. The other person says you sound like a real handy guy. OK maybe I am a few steps ahead of the Michael Keaton character but only a few. I am not going to pretend that I am tech savvy. That would be ludicrous but I do have a cell phone, laptop, ipad, fitbit and a desktop computer. I use all of them. I won’t pretend that I know a whole lot about any of them and if I am required to go beyond scratching the surface I am immediately in trouble. Let me share an incident the other day. Jeff my youngest son who is very tech savvy sends me a request for a Zoom call. He might have just as well sent me the instructions for creating a nuclear weapon. I know what Zoom is. Unfortunately the last time I was on a Zoom call was when Kathy was still alive and she actually handled it. The app was on her ipad and not on any of my current devices. This meant getting the app and signing up and creating a STRONG password…emphasis on strong and my device wasn’t responding very fast and the call didn’t happen. Jeff said at one point, close everything and start over. I could barely remember my name at that point and was unable to answer any of his questions. My hands were sweaty and I finally said that we should do this another day. After hanging up cooler heads prevailed and I was able to get the app and we actually did complete the call. OMG it was very stressful and now I am ready for the next Zoom call. Thank god.
What I have just been talking about is not the reason for this article. It is for all of the things that we deal with every day that are not like they used to be. By this time in my life I should be more adept at dealing with all of the new technology but I am still surprised and confused by the stuff. Let us take for example your basic Microwave. My son recently purchased a microwave which is also a convection oven. I am not going to go there. Heck all I wanted to do was pop some microwave popcorn. I used to have a microwave that had a popcorn button. It also had a beverage button. All you had to do was push the popcorn button to pop microwave popcorn. No thinking, no other settings or buttons to push. In the same way you could heat a beverage with one button. I am looking at a control panel that could have launched Apollo 13. There are many levels of instructions and a dial that when you reach that level then you dial the option you want. Seriously…way too many choices. Do you want to heat up pizza, meat, poultry, a plate of food, oh my god…I just wanted to pop some popcorn. Finally I could not find the magical popcorn button so I just guessed 3 minutes and started it and listened for popping corn. I figured when it stopped popping I would be good to go. What I didn’t realize is that there are many different levels of power in this particular microwave and that if you don’t have the correct power setting that those 3 minutes could either pop popcorn or cook a meal. Why do I want popcorn anyway. There are chips in the pantry and I don’t have to push any buttons to eat those. Probably a better option at this point. I have gone to the microwave on several occasions and had to call the “company microwave guy” to help with the event. It becomes easier for them to do it than try to explain and train me to do it. All I wanted to do was heat up a piece of pizza. This particular microwave has settings for 1 thru 4 pieces of pizza. Are you kidding? Now it isn’t enough to heat up cold pizza you have to tell the microwave how many pieces you are heating. Maybe soon it will ask if it is a cheese, pepperoni, or combination and was it a small, medium or large pizza. OK…you get the idea. I think I would need a training class to operate this thing. At the end of the day this particular unit is capable of so many things and I am sure that knowing all of the things it can do will make cooking become child’s play. Although I am not sure that any child could do any better than me on this one. I am now leaving sophisticated microwaves. The next unit is the oven…almost as complicated as the microwave…just take my word for it. Who needs to cook things in the oven anyway.
My son also had a security system…with a control panel. The magic word is control panel. He wrote down two settings for me. One to turn it on and one to turn it off. That is all I want to know. All those other buttons mean nothing to me. How about the Ring at the front door. You actually need an app to use all of the functions of Ring. No doubt it is a cool system but again how many classes or manuals am I going to need to attend. Speaking of manuals…you rarely get one anymore with anything. We are going paperless. So I have nothing to write stuff on, no page to refer to. I can go on line and read the instructions there. This is becoming common place in our world today. Sorry I am a hard copy manual guy. Then there are the apps. On your phone there is an App store. Apps for anything and everything. You must know your Apple ID. I don’t know about you but for some reason I never remember my Apple ID. This is a constant source of frustration. I could go on my computer and check the Last Pass App and find it.
This brings me to the other area of frustration. Help and Support…on line. I always hope that I can just call someone in customer service and hope that I get a customer service rep that doesn’t seem like they are robots reading from a script. You know a real person who has compassion for you and appears to really want to help you. I also like to have one whose first language is English. Over time I am actually able to decipher some of the nuances of other languages so that understanding them is becoming more possible. You also will be ask to stay on the line after the call to take a survey. I don’t think they realize that I am damaged goods and probably won’t give them an “Excellent” rating no matter what. Never mind my comments…you can do a chat on line…that is a whole other trip. I have decided that the chat format doesn’t work for me most of the time. I will just wait until my son or daughter comes home and can help.
Fiinally the TV. More appropriately the Smart TV. Good god…at one point we needed three remotes to get the job done. The TV only works with the internet or wi-fi network on. There is Apple TV and the Firestick and Roku. Now you need a sound bar system because these awesome thin Smart TV’s have lousy sound. Now the sound requires a different remote. You could invest in a universal remote. This is crazy…you need some one who knows way more about this stuff than me to program the universal remote. That person has now become the most important person in your life and you want to shower him with gifts when he actually gets everything on that one remote. Once there, then you need to deal with the TV itself. I want to mention the TV Guide. These all have different looks. You need to become familiar with the specific functions of your own TV Guide. They are all different and you can get lost in the different functionality. I personally like the one remote that has Alexa programmed in so you can ask her to find what you want. Love this option. I don’t need to know anything except how to push the microphone button and ask the question. Ever try to use the search function on the TV. Hope that what you are looking for has only one or two words. Entering things into the search mode is frustrating thing. I compare it to the dog bowl that frustrates the dog because it has stuff in the bowl that makes it difficult for the dog to each his meal. Want to mess with your dog… buy one of these bowls and now eating becomes for the dog like entering words in the search mode on your TV. Then there is the with ads or no ads. Kathy and I never watched an ad. Kathy would record everything we wanted to watch and we just fast forwarded through all ads. If you don’t do that then you have to deal with ads. A terrible option. A one and a half hour movie becomes a three hour marathon. Then there is the clock on the guide. Honestly I wish I had never learned how to get to the guide. It is a constant source of frustration. Finally, if you see movies that you would like to watch and you push on the picture you get options of how to watch. If you want to watch it there are different places like Pluto or Tubi. Then you have to sign up for those. Also probably if they are FREE you get ads. But if you want to watch uninterrupted there is a fee. What a bummer. You can add different things to your service which leads you to a $200 a month cable bill. Sorry this is not an ad for enhanced cable options. Those things just cost you more money. I choose Hulu with sports. Cheaper than most other options but there are issues associated with that as well. I guess there is nothing that is really FREE.
I know I am missing many other things that are associated with Technology Things. For now I will stop criticizing all of this new technology. It has become our new reality. We all need to adapt to it and I guess embrace it. I am not touching social media at this point. I know even less about that than the other stuff. Selfies, photos, videos, snapchat, Instagram and texting there is no end. Maybe I can rag on the cell phone stuff later. Happy Technology Things to you all.
