Monday, February 06, 2006

IQ TESTS

THE COMMENTS SECTION IS NOW OPEN!!! For some mysterious reason, the comments section hadn't been working the last few days. I was wondering why you all were so quiet!!


I would like to think I'm fairly intelligent. My circle of friends are also intelligent. During the last two decades, I've managed to raise two intelligent daughters. I've noticed, however, that nothing makes anyone feel stupid faster than attempting to program a new cell phone.

GACK!!!!!


I've had my new phone for almost a month and TODAY! I finally figured out how to select predictive text for text messaging. It was much easier to figure out with my old phone. At dinner the other night, my friend, Kathy, showed me her new cell phone, which is just like mine. I asked her about predictive text and she said she figured it out. Then we sat there in the restaurant with our phones, punching buttons and squinting at our read-outs and couldn't figure it out. She said she'd call me after she got home and read up on it.

She called me and walked me through it. No luck.

Today, I got out my book and committed to getting it figured out TODAY, no matter what. SUCCESS. Sadly, I have no idea how I did it.

Next step, trying to find the location of the ringtones I downloaded. They aren't where the book says they should be. I've concluded that the instructions in the book were written by the Mapquest people. This instruction book seems to sometimes leave out a step in a similar fashion that Mapquest sometimes leaves out an important intersection or left turn.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

czeching in - whew!!!!

I wonder why your cell phone didn't predict this. :)

Anonymous said...

Zug shares your Mapquest woes.

wysiwyg said...

Finally I can post my comment!

You know there will be tears before suppertime if you keep trying to get the technology to do what you want it to, don't you Sly.

BTW I discovered a neat feature on MY phone the other day. Turns out if you get to the right screen, punch in a phone number and press the green button with the picture of a little phone handset on it, you can actually TALK to someone just just like when you use the phone at home!

Amazing!

But then I take my successes with technology, any successes, with a large dose of gratitude and cherish them.

ABTW, thanks Bismuth, Sly's reference to MapQuest reminded me of reading Zug's column and howling with laughter, but couldn't for the life of me find it again.

DonnaJo said...

Mapquest woes:

1. At one time, my ex and his new future ex built a home in a new subdivision. To get to it off a main road, there were 7 right turns and 2 lefts. Mapquest only showed 2 turns. This was never my particular woe, but I had a lot of phone calls from parents of my daughter's friends trying to find the place. They couldn't call my ex because the new future ex was always on the phone and they didn't have call-waiting.

2. When I drove to Manhattan last year -- the first time EVER driving there -- there was a building in the middle of the street where Mapquest wanted me to drive.

3. The next day, trying to drive to Brooklyn, we couldn't find any signs that mentioned I-478. We asked the tollbooth operator who smiled and said "Mapquest, eh? There IS no 478. Take 278 instead."

Sarah said...

Ditto lab.

Just sayin' Hi, I can relate, I feel your pain.

Anonymous said...

Lessons learned:
1. Don't trust MapQuest when accessing from cell phones.

2. Proof positive that manuals are written by non-techies for even MORE non-techies.

c. Future ex's and mobile phones are synonomous - ding-a-lings.

c+. Predictive texting should be able write the entire message for me.

Q. Predictive texting a form of Phone ESP? Why can't they do that for voice activation too?