Paige Wakefield » Technology

Can’t get there from here

Paige — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:38:15 +0000

This evening I had an appointment up in the Broadlands. I used my GPS to get there, and it took me along a short stretch of a toll road that cost me four dollars that I was not expecting to have to pay. I was quite annoyed because my GPS usually advises me at the begining of a trip that there will be toll charges and offering to take me a different route. Well, I wanted to save money as much as possible so on the way home when I directed the GPS to take me home I directed it to avoide the toll road (this time it advised me that a toll road was part of the route.) Anyway I was taken down a lot of winding country roads that were very narrow, and I started to wonder if maybe a hacker had gotten onto the satellites and having a good time getting me lost! Eventually I ended up on a main road that I recognized and I made my way home, none the worse for wear.

New phones

Paige — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:59:32 +0000

Staples had a telephone system for sale last week for half price. The phone system is a cordless one, with five handsets. Since the older system was no longer being reliable, cutting off in the middle of a call for no apparent reason, I decided to go ahead and buy the one that was on sale. The old set (which I really liked) was made by Panasonic. The new set is made by Uniden.

To be perfectly honest, I like the Panasonic better. I like the feature where the call waiting announces who is calling. The Uniden does not do that. The Panasonic handsets fit nicely on my shoulder if I have to prop the phone between my ear and shoulder. The Uniden just slides right off of my shoulder. I REALLY don’t like that – I like being able to talk with my hands free. And the Panasonic has an intercom feature; the Uniden does not. I wish my Panasonic phones worked better!

Did you ever wonder how it worked?

Paige — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:55:52 +0000

Did you ever wonder how it works out that when you use a search engine to find a product or service, how the order of presentation is determined? Well, it turns out there is a whole behind the scenes process called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that determines that. And there is a big money business behind that process!

A business that wants to be one of the top companies listed for a search like that certainly has its work cut out for it! Some of the most technologically savvy businesses would be quick to obtain guaranteed seo services with a company whose sole business is making sure that their client’s web page is near the top of the search. Doing that maximizes the efficiency of the effort; hiring a professional that guarantees results seems to me to be a no-brainer. Why waste valuable time re-inventing the wheel?

What is going on?

Paige — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:04:28 +0000

Something is going on with my browsers that I don’t like. My Internet Explorer is acting up when I use Facebook; it won’t let me type in anything. And every time I switch from one URL to another a pop up ad window opens up telling me that I’ve won a contest and telling me to fill in the form. I’ve tried using my malware software but it says my computer is fine. Has IE changed so that this happens to everyone?

I’ve tried loading the Chrome browser because I heard that it runs faster than IE on the Windows application that I have, but I still get those stupid pop up windows. With Mozilla Firefox, however, those windows don’t pop up and it runs fine. I guess the best thing to do is to just stick with Firefox, but that makes me sad because I’ve used IE for such a long time that I was comfortable with it. I really did not want to switch to something else. Anyone else out there know what might be going on with IE?

A Welcomed Change

Paige — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:14:22 +0000

The cost of ink cartridges has always been an issue in this house hold. I really want to start looking for another printer that will not cost me hundreds of dollars each year to keep the Black and White Copies and the Color Copies affordable to print. I do shop around for the best deals that I can find off and online, but even with all of that effort I still pay way too much each time. I have turned into a real printer scrooge these past six months or so and I’m so tired of it. And God forbid if some one wants to do some type of flyer printing for various needs and wants, I find myself getting anxious about the whole darn thing.

My sister just purchased a new printer and she is only having to pay $5 for her black ink cartridge, so I’ve got to go over there and take a look at it and see what type it is, how much it cost her and see if that would be do able for me. Hopefully I’ll be getting some gift cards as Christmas presents, since so many more folks are turning to gift cards for their gift giving needs. And I can’t think of anything better to use them on then a more cost effective printer, because I really do use my printer for a lot of various printing, faxing and copying tasks. Five bucks every couple of months versus the thirty five dollars that I’m easily dishing out would be a welcomed change.

I know that her color ink cartridges cost more than $5, but when I need copies immediately, I need them immediately, you know what I mean? If the printing job needs to be a professional one and can wait a couple of days, then I’ll take the job to Super Fine Printing and let them do the work for me; let them do their magic and use their ink and paper and wear and tear on their commercial printers.

Put the batteries all in the same place

Paige — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:16:18 +0000

One of the things that annoys the customers at the store is when they come looking for li ion batteries that they can’t find them right away. As a customer, I can appreciate the idea that all of the batteries should be in the same aisle. After all, that makes sense, doesn’t it?

The sad thing is though, that batteries are scattered around the store. Hearing aid batteries are by the pharmacy counter. Camera batteries are over by the One-Hour photo booth. In some ways, that makes sense, but I think that those batteries should also be in the battery aisle. At home I keep all of the batteries in the same storage box in the kitchen cupboard. Don’t you think that makes sense? What do you think?

What is up with Facebook?

Paige — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 02:47:05 +0000

Just a few minutes ago I signed onto Facebook and immediately got some kind of notice from Facebook that said that I had been asking people to be my friend even though I did not know them personally and that doing so is a violation of Facebook’s terms, and if I keep doing that I could be suspended from Facebook. What in the world is that about? I haven’t asked anyone to friend me that I don’t actually know, or was recommended to me by a friend or family member. Is that for real, or what?

The money making machine of the Internet

Paige — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:19:34 +0000

When my sister first encouraged me to get my own blog, I had no idea how expensive and complicated the process of blogging would actually be. At first it was a case of just go to one company and sign up and badda bing badda boom you had a blog, ready for action! Little did I realize that you have to buy a domain name, which can get complicated because every single domain name I thought of buying was already taken! Once we found and purchased a domain name, then we had to make arrangements to park the domain on the Internet through signing up with a web hosting company. To be perfectly honest, I did not even know what web hosting is!

And then we had to get WordPress installed on the domain as well. To be perfectly honest, I don’t even want to know how that happened; my sister had her son put it on my blog. (Thank you Stevie!) And much to my surprise, this all took several days to accomplish. In this day and time of instant gratification, I expected it to all be done in just a few minutes period of time. One thing is for sure, I sure wish that I was one of the geniuses that got into the business of the Internet years ago! What a creation and technological marvel it is!

Get real

Paige — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 02:12:29 +0000

A customer came into the store today and said that he wanted a refund on the duracell procell batteries he had bought last year. When I asked him what the problem was, he explained that the batteries were guaranteed good until 2013, and they were dead already so he wanted a refund. Then I asked him how long he had been using the batteries, and he told me that he had been using them for several hours a day for several weeks.

When he told me that, I explained to him that the guaranteed date on the packages was a shelf life date, not a “used up by date.” He didn’t seem to understand what I was explaining, so I paged the store manager to let him handle it. Sometimes I shake my head in disbelief over just how silly people can be sometimes!

Transfer from old tapes

Paige — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 02:09:38 +0000

Sharon found some really old reel-to-reel tapes of our grandfather’s old orchestra playing a concert. I don’t know what year that might have been; he had his own orchestra from the early 1920s until sometime in the 1960s. Sharon was asking around to see if anyone in the family had a reel-to-reel tape player so she could listen to the tapes.

I suggested that she take the tapes to a place that provides cd mastering services and inquire if they have the technology to transfer the tapes to a cd, and how much it would cost to do that. I’m sure that everyone in the family would love to have a copy of the music for themselves, and it would be really great if we could archive that family history for generations to come.

Just thinking about how my kids never got the chance to know my grandfather, and enjoy his music the way that my siblings enjoyed it makes me sad. My kids have a lot of musical talent, but they never got the chance to meet those in my family that they got that talent from.