Thursday, May 25, 2017

FAKE NEWS ...

My new I-Pad is NOT connected to my modem after all.  I was fooled by it's willingness to play games when it has no internet and it is only when I need to buy something at the Apple Store that it needs an internet connection.  When this happens I still have the hotspot to connect me so all is not lost but I have spent inordinate amounts of time trying to get it connected to my computer modem.

Just in case people are reading this and beaming me messages to look under the modem for the password  -  I have done that and tried every combination of letters and numbers on the bottom and have even gone to the modem's webpage where I found that the generic password is 'admin' -  that doesn't work either.  So all I can do now is wait until Techie can find the time to come and connect it or abandon him and find someone else to find the magic word (and no  -  "please" wouldn't work although I haven't actually tried it).

Tomorrow I am looking forward to a day when I have nothing at all planned  -  the first for weeks  - and I have a sinking feeling that my conscience will prompt me to get the floors and windows cleaned.

One of my clients brought her computer in today and it turns out that she has Win 8.1 but I was unable to connect her to the internet and have a strong suspicion that she has a dial-up connection.  Anyway, the computer is pretty useless as it has no editing, no minimising or closing pages, nothing!!  She uses it to play solitaire and that is about all it is good for.  I suggested that she have it sorted by a technician but she says that she can't afford that so I have offered to teach her Win 10 and she can use her library's computers.  However, the receptionist has given her the name of one of the other teachers who is an IT specialist and I am hopefully that he will take her on and sort her out.





Saturday, May 20, 2017

I don't know how I did it but I did.

My new iPad is now connected to my modem.  I don't know how I did it but it now works without the Hotspot.

I kept my appointment with the Apple experts and Josh unlocked and did basic setup to the new one so that I was able to use it and Siri seems to recognise my voice but at the moment our conversations are a bit stilted.  Siri was a man to start with but is now an Australian woman and I really do not know how I am supposed to use her; no doubt the light will eventually dawn for me.

On  the way back to the train I ran into Techie who said that he would try to be with me at the end of the week  -  but he didn't come so I have been fiddling with things and changing settings for the past two days using my Hotspot and this evening I turned her on (the iPad is a  girl) and found that I was connected to the internet without the aid of the Hotspot so something I did has worked.

I still cannot connect all my computers with each other or use Wi-Fi to print so if Techie eventually arrives I will ask him to do his worst and get things up and running.  However, one of the sites I visit knows exactly how many computers I own so they are connected somehow  -  probably on the Cloud.  I still have too many passwords between the two iPads but hopefully as I work through things I can synchronise them a bit better but for the moment it is just nice to know that they are both connected.

This morning I clipped the cats' claws  -  a job which I put off for as long as I can because poor little Poppy has arthritis in her right front paw and obviously at some stage someone was a bit rough with her.  It wasn't me  -  I have always been super-careful not to hurt her but she still has to be muzzled to quieten her down.  Parsifal knows that he gets special treats after the operation is over and tries to hurry things up by wriggling but he is no problem.  Poppy enjoys the treats but not the claw clipping so she always gets done first so that she doesn't anticipate  -  if cats are capable of anticipating and judging by their reaction to the serving of their evening soft food they are definitely able to anticipate.


Monday, May 15, 2017

Ipodology - or not

I have never before felt so inadequate when faced with a computer, as if there hasn't been enough stress in my life recently.

My old Epsom XP-100 printer kept on getting its black ink nozzle blocked and I was spending more and more time "wiping" it, culminating in a whole afternoon when the test pattern didn't change no matter how many times I cleaned the nozzle so I decided that it was time to get myself a new printer.  Having seen a newer iPad than my very old one (which I have never really used except to play games on) I decided to get myself a new one while I was in JB-HiFi.  The printer is no problem:  ink cartridges went in easily,  it primed and printed although it should connect wirelessly (it tries  -  more on that later) but the iPad was not so easy.  It rejected all the passwords which I tried and then suggested using a thumb print as ID.  The went OK and I made friends with Suri and took a couple of photos of the cats.  Then I turned it off.

It refused to recognise my thumb print and got very surly when I tried a couple of passwords which I knew that I had tried so I took it back to the store where I was shown how to force start it and plug it into Happy Tunes which would fix it.  It didn't!  Happy Tunes tried to download the repair program but after many tries I gave up and, knowing that I was on iCloud I went there and set a user name and password which should have worked except that I had tried too many times (I understand that five times is the limit) and it was disabled.  Grrrrr!

I phoned Apple and they did a remote connect and tried and tried to fix it until I ran out of time (Mothers' Day and I was being collected by D3 to go to lunch with D2).  So Now I have an appointment for late morning on Wednesday to take it to the Apple Magic Unlock people.  So here's hoping. But GB1 who is now 16 years old and in his second-last year of school said that his class and the one above have all been furnished with Surface Pro4s (I have Surface Pro 3 and it is a nice little tablet) because the school has discovered that employers want their staff to be familiar with Internet Explorer.

My next problem is that the new iPad will not connect with my modem and D1 had the same problem with hers when she came to stay at Christmas.  They both connected with my Hotspot so I realised that the problem probably lay with my new computer which Techie dropped in here in a rush last August after my brush with the Blue Screen of Death. 

I went in to settings and the 'sharing' switches are turned off so I think that techie was in a rush and didn't stop to set things up.  Until the printer and the two iPads I didn't notice that things are not as they should be and so I will call him up when the iPad is unlocked and hope that he will set things up so that the printer and all the rest of my multiple computers can print wirelessly and both iPads will connect without having to turn on the hotspot.

I ended up so confused yesterday that I began to think that I was dementing but a good night's sleep has cleared my brain and I will get things sorted one way or another but if IE is going to be  'de rigueur' then I may have missed the boat with Apple.  Never mind  -  there is always Mah-jong and Sudoku but it did take a really nice photo of the cats so all is not lost  -  except the photo of the cats.

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Getting back to Normal

I no longer have to keep my leg up and I am back on a normal diet  -  as of yesterday  -  and still feel a bit guilty when I chew on anything but the mouth has all healed up and there is no more need for custard-like food.

One trouble I am having is that the suggestion about eating nothing thicker than custard set me exploring the custard shelves in Coles and I discovered a delicious chocolate custard which I persuaded myself was a legitimate food to tide me over.  I am now going through the throes of sugar withdrawal which is never easy and all chocolate is out for a while which is really just a matter of avoiding the aisle where the chocolate is shelved.

So now I have no excuse not to clean and tidy my apartment which, thanks to my automatic vacuum cleaner, is mostly just setting it to run,  cleaning and emptying it out afterwards, wash the filter and put it all together again.  It does both tiles and carpet so I just leave it to its own devices and it has finally discovered how to find its way to and put itself back into the charger.

The "meet and greet your neighbours" affair has been cancelled.  As I understand it, only the people from CRII replied to the invitation and someone found that it was going to be all too difficult to organise.  All it needed was a rubbish bin and a couple of people to collect any stray paper plates afterwards as we were asked to bring the tipple of our choice and a plate of nibbles to share.  What can be so hard about that?

Today I had a little bit of Mothers' Day early because D1 will be off to Europe next Saturday and will miss the main event so I opened her present when I phoned her this morning.  I know that I am getting a pair of handspun and hand knitted socks from D3 because I ordered the fibre in with the Chunderup fibre so it is all matching but different as they were both spun differently.  I will try to post a photo of the Chunderup Sweater and matching scarf if google will let me.  It used to be rather bloody-minded about that but I have a feeling that things have since I last tried.

I am still entranced by what is going on in America and just hope that the checks and balances regarding Trump-Care will hold firm or a lot of people are going to die.  If rape is a pre-existing condition not worthy of benefits then anything which takes people to the doctor could be considered a pre-existing condition and then most of the population will  have not health cover and the doctors and nurses will have to get jobs in the coal mines which seems to be the only growth industry  -  or building a pipeline through heritage forest.