respublica

This has been tech week. Also a garden explostion

For some reason several of our websites, mostly Dale's) had issues which would not let us update or post. It seems like something is going on with regard to changes in security, but the hosts do not make it easy to get things up and running again.

He has a blog which is really not publicized because I keep it to add each day's Meyer Minute he writes so as to keep an archive. This website needed his credit card updated since his had expired. This is normally easy to take care of, but for some reason it just would not do it. Since I take care of this sort of thing for him, I sent in a "ticket" with the problem to the hosting company. Thankfully they remotely fixed this and he's back up and running.

But, there was also an issue with the list server he uses to send out a mass mailing for his Meyer Minute. We have never had a problem with this company in all the many years we've used them. The best thing about Dundee is when you call someone answers the phone immediately. We got that straightened out. It seems the internet is not all that secure anymore so I was given a different way to get on the server.

Dale has also had a heck of a time with his MLB app. It stopped working and if you know Dale, you know he loves baseball and likes to watch White Sox games on his Ipad through MLB. I've emailed them, received a vague response which did not help. So in this case MLB will not work for him.

In other news, our vegetables have really gone crazy. Especially the tomatoes. I have several varieties and they all are producing big time with no bad spots on any of them. It's kind of a miracle. I finished digging the last of the potatoes this week and they are all just as fine looking as the tomatoes.

A gmail issue

We honestly don't know where to find the information we need to get Dale's gmail working. Last night he got out his older ipad while looking for an app he'd downloaded on it. He needed some information he'd highlighted from some book he'd put on this ipad and wanted to email it to himself.

But that device would not accept the currrent gmail password so he changed it.  But, when he got back to his phone and larger/newer ipad, these would not accept the new password.

I haven't found anything from google on what the deal is and how to fix it. He really needs gmail to work on his iphone.  Why is everything so difficult? Why is it working on one device but not the others.

Update one hour later. I finally got his two devices back on gmail. It was trial and error, hunt and peck until I finally got it.

All the updates

Does anyone else get weary of all the programs wanting to do an update? Lately every device I own wants to update. And, if the past is any warning, any update will totally mess how we use our programs.

Basically I ignore these demands for update until the device just goes ahead and does it on its own. And I'm ticked when I find this out. Everything wants user names and passwords...again. Like they don't know what they are.

It's annoying and irritating.

Getting wired

We are spoiled most likely with all of our tech things which keep us in communication quickly. But we learned there are still places which are very underserved by cellular towers, internet etc. And we are in one of those places. When we arrived on Tuesday there was absolutely no way to get ahold of anyone anywhere. No phone service no internet connection. We'd arranged from Collinsville in the weeks ahead of our trip to have a landline scheduled, Dish satellite hooked up and internet.

The problem was those who were to do this work expected (logically) for us to get their emails regarding times of arrival. And of course we did not. So Dale spent a good part of our first afternoon and evening and even the next morning, driving a half hour away to find cell service to answer them. It became exhausting. Spoiled we may be but these days you really need a way to call or email in emergencies.

The Dish guy was right on time the next day and a really fun person to talk to. He got it all up and working and so we at last had tv. The next day came the guy from Dish who hooked up the internet which meant another one of those Dish things on the roof.

We have not heard from the local phone company about that service although we got a bill. They aren't too efficient here with that kind of thing judging by the crazy emails from the office. So phone calls are kind of iffy right now but having internet helps with that.

Funny thing is, well not funny, but yesterday saw a lot of rain and wind. Of course the Dish TV went out and is still out. We've heard this happens a lot. But the internet dish right next to it is still working, thank goodness or I wouldn't be writing this.

We will get used to a different way of going about our time here including a 25 minute drive to any grocery store.

Freeing up space

I was checking my iPhone this morning to see how much usable memory I had and how much I'd used and from what. I don't do this as often as I should and freeing up space does help the phone run better. I knew some things take up more space than others, but it still comes as as surprise to learn just what they are.

Text messages take an inordinate amount of your phones memory. Some apps do the same.

Here is where I began today:

I'd used 37 gigabytes out of 64 available. A gigabyte is 1000 megabytes.

 

Here are the biggest apps users of memory. It's amazing how much space texts take up.

After about 15 minutes of deleting some texts, apps I see how the numbers changed. Oddly I believed photos would be the biggest space hogs, but no. I have many more texts and photos to go through and delete later today so much more space should be free.

Where oh where have my messages gone?

What day is this? Ok, Tuesday. Well, sometime Sunday I realized I wasn't getting text messages on my iPad. They were coming in fine on my iPhone, but stopped on the iPad. This has never happened before and I have no idea why. I've googled this, but the answers are mostly nonsense, at least to me. But I did make sure both the phone and pad were connected to the iCloud. I haven't messed with any of that, the texts just stopped showing up on the ipad and I use that more often during the day than my phone.

Now what I see at the bottom of the messages is a notice that iCloud is downloading messages. But it never finishes, the download bar stays about 3/4's of the way and why all of a sudden shouldn't they just appear as always. I get a fair share of texts during the day from our kids and from Dale and other family members so this annoys me.

It's not the end of the world but the mystery bothers me.

What a morning

Yesterday Dale went out and bought a new secondary monitor after his original one died. He needs two for the work he's doing and especially for all the zoom/adobe connect online virtual meetings he is a part of. Well, he could not get the new monitor to connect to the computer. Nothing like a tech problem in the early morning when he has a virtual meeting at 10. I went down to his basement office and tried my best to see if I could connect them, but no.

So I called my sister (a tech expert) and between the two of us doing Facetime on our phones, we were able to finally (45 minutes) get them set up. At first we got the two monitors communicating but the windows page was on the new monitor not the computer. It took some doing to finally get them where they were supposed to be thanks to some British tech guy on the internet.

Dale was so relieved and happy he cleaned out a closet full of his coats and hats which he knew I was frustrated with. It was pay back. 

But then....he came to find me to tell me his keyboard had stopped working, the main space bar was stuck in the down position and wouldn't pop up. What next? He thankfully decided to run out and get a new one.

Tech stuff is a miracle actually, but when it breaks down, it makes life a pain. Maybe later today one of the TV's will go out. Things go in 3s right?

No volume, he said

We still haven't had our smart tv replaced which was broken by the movers, but having the Roku set up in the bedroom has been very handy. But I had to laugh at Dale's vague understanding of most tech things. He got rather addicted to watching a Netflix series on the history of ancient Rome while we were still at the seminary. Once we got the Roku going this week he was thrilled to go back to watching how horribly the Romans killed each other. That was my impression on the series anyway.

So last night he went up to the bedroom, pulled a chair in front of the tv and watched all this again. Each episode is 45 minutes long and I'd guess he watched two last night. I went up to see how he was doing and was surprised he was sitting so close to the screen and he said, "the sound is really low on this series for some reason, the only way I an hear it is to sit right next to it. He couldn't find the volume control on the actual tv. When he finally shut it down for the night I went up and looked at the Roku remote and sure enough, there was the volume up and down control on the side.

Too late for him, but there is always another day.

I conquered the Roku

I'm pretty pleased with how easily setting up a Roku player was. I didn't believe I'd have the smarts to do this. I was initially stymied by the fact that I couldn't find the remote to our bedroom tv and wasted at least half an hour going through some of the boxes in the basement we hadn't unpacked yet. And, the tv in question did not have an obvious turn-on button. But when I finally found it and got it on, it wasn't long before Roku set up screen came on. 

I did a lot of going up and down stairs to set up passwords and such on the laptop, but everything I did went immediately to the roku screen on the upstairs tv. I was daunted by the time it will take to get the stations we watch most. Roku screens are filled with all kinds of program icons and choices. It seems, and you may know, Frank, but each of the programs we want in there have to be activated by going to their websites. It takes time and I'm not at all sure where they end up.

But we have some of the news channels and HGTV. Also Netflix. Today I'll try to make sense of how these show up on the screen. And, whatever shows we have on our Spectrum account will go to the Roku tv. That's cool. But I have to spend time choosing and activating the on the computer or my iphone. 

Even better the Roku remote does everything from turning the tv on and off to letting me use my voice to control it.

Setting up a new wireless router isn't as easy as they say

Since we moved back to Collinsville, Dale has been unhappy with the internet connection he's been getting down in his basement office. Over at the seminary house I'd put in the Google wifi system which worked really well. There were three small white things, the name of which I've forgotten. One is hooked to the cable modem and that is your new wireless router. The others get plugged in various parts of the house and they extend the signal.

Over here in Collinsville I decided to get the latest Google Nest wifi unit. Supposedly it spreads the connection much farther in the house. It will also work with our previous extender units. I believe this, but so far I haven't been able to connect with it. It reads so easy. Plug one end of a power line into the router unit and the other into a wall socket. The other cord gets plugged into the unit and the cable modem. Your phone will tell you what to do. But, I never got a connection. I'd taken out the cable line from our previous Netgear router and modem, but the new system just didn't connect.

I'm going to play with more today and hope I was just going too fast.