The joy of technology

I don't even know where to start with my "joys" of technology. My biggest question is, AM I ALONE? Certainly, I can't be the only one who has issues with cell phones working or not working? 

The story began months ago when my phone started cutting out, resulting in many visits to various places. The result is that I paid the insurance deductible (I NEVER buy insurance, but this time I did), and I got a phone replacement. 

Yesterday was the day to transfer all the data to the new phone. Yep -- you know where this is going. I should have been SMART, taken it to the Bell store, and had them do the transfer for me. How hard can this be? 

I downloaded my photos to my computer, backed up the rest of the stuff to the cloud, and switched over the SIM card. It should have been a straightforward process of restoring the backup, and off I would go. Nope -- the restore was challenging. 

Most apps now use a two-step authentication where you send a code to your phone. So when Google asked for the code, and I didn't have the phone set up -- what then? I won't go into the gory details, but it was an ugly day. I managed to get the restore to work, but I didn't get all my data back. Not that it mattered. Everything for Text came back, but not What's Up. Some of the apps were restored, but most were not. It was bizarre, and yep - I should have let the experts do that. 

So I spent the rest of the afternoon downloading and logging into apps as I needed things to be working. And then, of course, NOTHING was synced to the new phone or paired to the new phone. I was able to quickly restore Libby by syncing with my iPad. But then I had to pair my earbuds and FitBit with this phone. So it's a total pain to be sure, and well, I chatted on the phone from the BASEMENT for a half-hour call, and it worked beautifully. Let's hope this was all worth it. 

I got two more bindings done, but they were late last night, only because I needed some photos for today! This blog is total accountability!

This is the last of the Quilts of Valour quilts, so there are now 13 in the stack to be delivered. I'll make arrangements today. 

The last of the Quilts of Valour quilts

And one more of the Project Linus quilts is done! 

Project Linus quilt

The stack on the table is positively puny at this point! I hope to get a couple more done today, as my focus will be on something other than that darn phone. 

What's left to bind

I also spent a couple of hours on a Zoom call yesterday. I was a participant, so I just had to sit and listen. There were close to 300 on the call, and people need to learn Zoom etiquette. 

Lots of people like to announce their presence and where they are from. And this is OK, but not during the session. Those chat messages pop up on the screen and can be totally distracting to the instructor. And if you arrive late, you do NOT need to announce that. Yep -- one lady popped in twenty minutes after the start and announced in the chat, "I'm here -- so sorry I was late!"  All the attendees can also see those messages, and why do we care? 

Chat messages on Zoom

I took that picture to remind myself to chat about the messages, but she received hundreds of messages. 

And then you have those that DO NOT listen. I won't mention the session or the instructor, but I was NOT impressed. Yes -- she knew her stuff -- I'll give her credit, but she seemed disorganized, and I thought the topic was WAY beyond some of the people attending. However, in her credit, this was not technically a class, and it was not targeted to any one skill level. But if it was a demonstration of how she teaches, I didn't like it. 

Let's face it, it was a selling tool to sign up for her classes, costing $250 a year per student! 

OK -- back to the listening thing. She provided a handout to the students, sent one hour before the class started. A handout? I didn't know we had work to do before the class. Then I realized that we would be following along with her. Oh, when she started, she said we would get an edited version of her presentation that we could use with the handout to repeat the lesson. That handout should have been sent AFTER the class; there was ZERO need to put everyone in a panic. Because I don't know how many people then said in the chat -- "I didn't get the handout." 

But of course, someone asked the question (even AFTER the instructor very explicitly said -- "DO NOT follow along"), are we supposed to be following. You would think by now that people would understand the concept of most Zoom classes -- they are NOT hands-on. 

And how the students think they will keep up with the teacher when she goes about the class as if we weren't there. She didn't repeat the steps as you would in a hands-on. OK --- I know I'm being picky but serious people --- this is NOT a hands-on class, and can you please listen!

And several times, she had to mute people because they unmuted themselves. They weren't asking a question; they were yakking in the background with someone at their house. You know that is super distracting to the teacher. She didn't acknowledge any of the comments or the muting, and I realize now -- because she'll clean up that video and send us a link. If she had made comments, that would have required much more editing. 

The bottom line is that this person is knowledgeable, but I do not need to pay her $250 a year to learn what she knows. I don't like her style, I HATE her voice, and I'll make out just fine on my own! However, in all fairness, I learned one thing, which made it worth my while! Wait -- I learned two things. 

Yesterday was a 14+ KM walking day, and I'm off to spin class, where I'll add another 30 KM to my total for the year. As of this morning, I'm down to 79.7 KM, so I'm going to make my goal, but I'll still have to walk at least 12 KM a day for the next four days. The weather is warming up, so it's going to be perfect! 

Well, I see it's time to get myself moving. 

Have a super day!

Ciao!!!