June chitchat

[Ikoiko]

V, oh no, another remote! When we got the current TV the salesman tried to sell us a sound bar. I said, what do you mean, doesn’t it sound okay? I told him that we would take it home and try it out. It sounds fine at home.

[agate]

You do sort of expect sound if you buy a TV. Maybe an antiquated idea by now but I don't think so.

There is a mistake in my previous post but it's too late to edit it. When I wrote:

Some of those manuals are terribly hard to write

I meant:

Some of those manuals are terribly hard to read.

[Virginia]

Agate, me tinker anymore with the TV!!!! Bite your tongue!!! He told me on his daily visit today to put the remote to the sound bar in a drawer and not to touch it again. LOL

He is kind of smart. He stopped by my provider's store and they said his thinking was right about the WiFi and router. They gave him another one (no cost). So, then he started thinking and decided it might be in a cable that runs between the WiFi and the router. He says he has tons of those cables. So he brought one of those over to try before doing anything else. He has an app on his phone that shows the speed that I am getting in my office and he says I should be getting at least half that speed in my living room where the TV is. After changing the cable the picture came back to where it should be. He did something to the sound bar and no more boom boom in the background.

So, you would think all would be good, but late this afternoon it seems the picture is again not as bright as it should be. He called me and I didn't mention it because he told me he stopped by my provider's store again and he told them they should have a remote for a smart TV that is not hooked up to cable. They told him they did and gave him one. It supposedly works pretty much like I have been use to with cable. He is going to bring it over, probably tomorrow. It was too late today because he still had not taken his dog for his daily ride. Yes, you heard that right. He tries to take one of their dogs out everyday in the car. The other wants to go in the back yard to run and if she thinks he is going to get her leash she knows that means going out front and she hides.

I will see how the TV does tonight and call him in the morning if I need to.

Ikoiko, now I will have 3 remotes for this one TV. Doesn't that sound like fun. I am glad I like to read.

[agate]

I know what you mean about 3 remotes, Virginia. I have 3 remotes too! One came with the TV, one came with a newer version of it, and the other goes with the DVD player. I use all 3 of them in some weird way that I don't understand but so long as it gets the picture and the sound, I'm happy. I have absolutely no idea what some of the buttons on those remotes do and I'm scared to try them out. The user's manual hasn't been helpful.

[Virginia]

I forgot about the remote for the DVD. Now I have 4, that I can think of.

I didn't hear from my brother today. It seemed strange. Maybe he was fixing all their TV remotes. They have 4 TVs. The main one in the living room, one in the master bedroom, one in a bedroom his youngest son stays in when he is in Raleigh and one in my brother's upstairs office. Their about to turn two year old Grandson loves to get the remotes and push every button he can, then he giggles. My brother just lets him do it and then when his Grandson leaves he fixes all the remotes.

It has rained here all week. Today it was cold. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain again. I think then it is going to get hot. I didn't get anything much done. I wanted to do some things, but then got bogged down when I started going through some paperwork and also when a neighbor called a couple of times to talk.

I hope all of you are having a nice evening. Most of you are on the west coast. Strange how that has kind of turned around. It is me, Snuggles, Sunshine, Linda and Ikoiko who are left on the east coast. It use to be that most of the people were on the east coast, but that is no longer true.

[agate]

OK, Virginia, if you need 4 remotes for one TV, and your brother has 4 TVs, he might have 16 remotes--? That would keep a person mighty busy, what with changing the batteries and keeping track of what to do with all of those buttons. With the nearly-two-year-old pushing buttons, I don't know how he has a free minute.

I've dropped a remote many times. It's a particular problem because often that destroys the battery, and when I open up the battery case I find that the batteries have been leaking.

[flatcap]

Remotes are like black boxes to me. I have the same trouble with the newer credit card readers and those electronic kiosks you see more and more often these days.

Half the time, I need to ask the help how to operate those things, which of course defeats their purpose. The other half, I do the best I can, which is sometimes not enough.

[agate]

Exactly. I used to think it was just that I myself was getting too old to take in anything new but I've seen so many much younger people having major technical problems just getting used to a cellphone or a remote that I wonder if maybe the world in general is just getting too complicated for everyone. Maybe one of these days many of us will be screaming and tearing our hair out in frustration with dealing with the settings on some device or other.

Oh, and what are electronic kiosks??? Obviously I haven't been looking at what's out there. I'm familiar with wifi being offered at every establishment a person enters and wonder if an electronic kiosk is something like that? Or a recharging station?

Would it be this?
Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...

Sounds as if screens for customers to use are popping up in stores? I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't been in a bricks-and-mortar store in several years. But I wonder if a screen sitting there in a store for anyone to come along and use wouldn't be especially apt to develop problems because of (a) people who are careless, (b) bored children eager to play with the gadget, etc.

[Virginia]

Well...For the time being I am sticking to the remotes I was using. My brother came over with the new remote, but before he could set it up I asked why we didn't go with Uube TV instead of the Spectrum app. We actually set it up one day when he was here and then cancelled it. So he spent a lot of time over here again today setting it back up. We also got 4K which I have to pay more for, however since the TV he bought is 4k I felt like why not use it.

I am going to keep my regular provider app and Utube tv app for one month. I will cancel one of them when I decide which one I like best. I think I will like Utube tv better. Once a person has used nothing but cable tv it is hard to go with anything else. My cable provider just keeps upping the price and he thought it was too much. I still have to have them for WiFi and internet because I can't change my email provider right now due to mail I get from different sources concerning my MS drug.

Agate too bad you are so far away. I have a 37 inch Panasonic tv in my attic that works perfectly or at least I thought it did. My brother thought it should be upgraded, but then I have come to the conclusion that my brother just loves electronics.

[flatcap]

Would it be this?
Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...

Yes, that's it. I guess I should have called it digital, not electronic. The things are everywhere these days, giving the consumer the privilege of doing all, or at least most, of the work. I suppose it's more efficient, but one wonders why prices for services and goods haven't come down instead of going up with all this 'progress.'

ETA: At some of these kiosks, such as the ones springing up in convenience stores, you can check yourself out without standing in line at the counter. Instead, you get to queue up at the kiosk. lol

[agate]

Back when I was still floating around in stores, sometimes there was a phone at the end of some aisles where you could call about a question and someone would reply. I thought that was handy in big stores where real employees weren't easy to find. I'm not sure having monitor screens or whatever these devices are would be much of an improvement over the phones.

There were self-checkout lines too but I avoided them. They looked like too much work for me.

[flatcap]

My favorite grocery store has those phones at the ends of the aisles and around the store. I am glad they are there. I have been bailed out many a time by the helpful staff behind the phone.

I tend to avoid self-checkout, too. I agree that it can be too much work, and I am prone to making mistakes. I think it's better to let the staff do it for you.

[agate]

My favorite grocery store has those phones at the ends of the aisles and around the store. I am glad they are there. I have been bailed out many a time by the helpful staff behind the phone.

I tend to avoid self-checkout, too. I agree that it can be too much work, and I am prone to making mistakes. I think it's better to let the staff do it for you.

Yes, there's nothing like experience to speed up a job. Scanning for bar codes looks to me like something that needs to be done fast but may not be so easily done.

I have all kinds of respect for bar codes ever since I started sending packages by the US post office's Click-n-Ship arrangement where you print up the label and prepay the postage, and your regular mail carrier will pick up your package on a prearranged day. I had a package refused once because I had used a bit of tape over part of the bar code. I was told that no tape whatsoever should ever go over that bar code.

[flatcap]

I'm OK with scanning one or just a few items, but I only rarely go to the store for something like that. I generally avoid shopping until I have a list long enough to make the trip worthwhile.

Bar codes are great stuff, but those new QR codes are confounding. You need a smartphone to decipher those, and I don't have one. Yet.

[agate]

Whenever I see any mention of QR codes, I disappear. Somehow I don't feel up to coping with them.