Total Rant

Published on by Grace

I’ve had it with technology. I’ve had it with Google, with Apple and with FB/Instagram. I’ve had it with how these companies have monopolized technology and everything G-D thing is connected to every other G-D thing.

Apple is becoming as bad as Microsoft with all the OS updates – and then nothing works right.

And then of course there is my luddite husband – he downloaded the new iPad OS and somehow – he doesn’t know how – he connected his credit card to Apple Pay. WTH?  It was never connected before. Did he, with his trembling hands, poke the wrong thing? Who knows. But his credit card company sent him an email notifying him of this and asking if he did it. No he didn’t do it – as least as far as we know.  We had to call the credit card company to get his card taken off of Apple Pay – simply turning the option off via his iPad didn’t do it.  (Why does Apple have his credit card info? Because he/we bought his Apple devices from Apple and paid for them with that credit card.)

Also – his Overdrive account, and his public library connection were disabled and I had to download Overdrive again, I couldn’t get him signed into his library account via the library web site, had to sign him up for a new Overdrive account – and – and- and….

My blood pressure is through the roof with all this bush-wah.

I’ve been playing with computers since the late 1960’s – what is that – 50 years? And yes, the old days were simpler, easier – I swear they were. (Okay, dial-up was a pain in the patootie and super slow, and you know my motto is “Instant gratification is not fast enough” but hells bells, people.)

Am I crazy but didn’t Instagram have a bunch of filters that you use on selfies? I’ve got pics of me with bunny ears and I swear I did that through IG – If anyone has any info about that please let me know

And this whole blogging thing – I wish I had never switched from Blogger to WP – for one thing, Blogger is free (aside from $18 a year for my own domain) – WP is pay, pay, pay for everything. I can’t even post a video directly to WP unless I drop a ton of money for a business account and just paying for a personal account frosts my butt.

If I want to post a personal video, I have to upload to my Vimeo account and then embed it – PITA. And no I won’t use Youtube because they tack on all those other videos onto mine plus advertising – whatever.  And yes, I’m going to say it – Back in the old days – that didn’t happen. Also, shhh, don’t tell anyone, you could download the music part of a music video as an mp3 – yeah, I know that’s stealing – my bad. Shoot me. At least with Blogger you can upload a personal video – easy peasy.

I’ve got to figure out how to unconnect things – I don’t need everything on every device I own, and quite frankly I own too damn many devices.

And since I am a total hermit, not particularly by choice, you understand, I don’t live and die with my phone. If it’s on my iPad I don’t need it on my phone and if it’s on my phone I don’t need it on my iPad – but I sure could use some of it on my laptop or desktop but – oh no, they aren’t IOS devices.

Also too – I ordered stamps from the post office website and it’s been over a week and I still haven’t got them.  I swear the Pony Express was faster.

Lets see – what else? Because I live just one mile from where I should be living, this month the Uber bill is going to be – huge. We will be single handedly keeping Uber in business this month.  Because my husband can’t walk more than 2 blocks or so before becoming exhausted, we have to Uber everywhere and thankfully they don’t mind a ride of half a mile.

I’ve got to run now – and figure out how to disconnect more things…

24 thoughts on “Total Rant”

  1. I received an iPad for my birthday and was advised to immediately upgrade to the latest model and enable data. Welp. That was a huge waste! I rarely use it except to watch the occasional movie when I don’t feel like being in the living room. I didn’t need the $300 upgrade for that! I never take it anywhere, so I don’t need data ~ it’s always on my home wifi. Ugh. Too much tech stuff, agreed. Oh, my Echo is disconnected and in a box, and I never ask Alexa/Siri anything. Too much!

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    1. No friggin’ way am I going to have machines eavesdropping…first thing I do is shut SIri off, as for Alexa – what do I need that for? Amazon is plucking at my last nerve as it is….

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  2. Apple has tried to learn my credit card, but thus far I seem to have kept it from them. I don’t have Apple Pay set up at all. My computer asks if it can remember my credit card when I enter it to buy things online, but I tell it no.

    It seems rather absurd to me that WordPress allows video embeds but doesn’t allow people to post videos directly. I can see if they don’t want to allow it on free sites, but that’s just crappy of them not to allow it on the personal plan.

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    1. I went into husband’s Apple account and deleted his credit card info. I don’t let my computer remember jack – and I would delete all the cookies but that would mean signing into everything every time and I spend too much time on this stupid machine to hassle with that BUT I do have extra verification on sites like my bank and credit card and paypal – so I’m always retrieving access codes off my phone. OY!

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      1. There are definitely downsides to this whole high-tech digital she-bang. That’s why I don’t want smart things in my home. Something would fuck up and I wouldn’t be able to open my fridge, and I would be seriously pissed.

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    1. LOL – G is still working and all his work is done via computer and yet the man just barely knows how to open his email – none of which he deletes – which reminds me – I should remind him to clean all that stuff out.

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  4. I enjoyed this rant and hope it brought some relief. I love this motto about instant gratification isn’t fast enough 😆. I’m very impressed that you were playing with computers in the 60’s. Very rare skill back then and it makes me wonder how you got into computers at a time when these things were giant a giant affair with vacuum tubing. From what I understand.

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      1. I don’t really know anything about Apple OS’s – only that I download them LOL but there are two main OS’s – one for desktops/laptops and another for phones and iPads, called IOS – and you can’t use IOS apps on OS devices – but OS apps are used on IOS devices – like ‘messages’ and Facetime. If I didn’t disconnect some devices every time I get a text or a facetime call ALL my devices would start ringing!

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    2. In 1969 I got a job as a ‘personnel assistant’ for a new conglomerate, we were located in a new building between 9th and 10th Avenues which made recruiting office personnel difficult because no one in their right mind wanted to travel that far into THAT neighborhood LOL But – one of the divisions on site was the ‘Data Center’ – it did work for the company as well as outside companies – it was the start of companies computerizing payroll and accounting functions. The mainframes were huge floor to ceiling machines housed in their own climate controlled glass rooms. It was also a time of transition from keypunch cards to direct input into the computer system – the terminals for direct input of information were called simply “CRT” machines – just monitors that operators could directly input information. It was fun times – really. I was hiring programmers and had to learn about various computer languages – I think Cobal was the big thing back then. I had to learn how to input data so I could hire those people as well. Unfortunately I still had to use a typewriter to type up forms which the crt operators then input into the mainframe. It would have been so much easier if I had my own ‘crt’ machine and could have input directly but that wasn’t quite a thing back then.

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      1. This is amazing. So Personnel, basically HR. And the huge mainframes, interesting computer history here. I am surprised you don’t have a whole post about it. And I wish you had photos from this period as well.

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        1. IBM was king of the hill and Googling their history will get you all the photos you like. Did you ever see a cartoon where there was a huge floor to ceiling computer (mainframe) and the punch cards were spewing out and the attached printer was rolling out paper madly? Yup, that sort of thing really happened – it was hilarious to see. Or the time the a/c went out in the building and they were bringing in tons of dry ice to keep the mainframe cool….

          And yes, what is now called ‘Human Resources’ used to be called ‘Personnel’ and I used to to shout at people “This is the PERSONNEL Department, NOT the PERSONAL Department” Oy!

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          1. Maybe that’s why they changed it to HR 😆. I actually did just go look up an illustrated history of IBM because I like reading needy things like that and it’s good reading for when I am bored and lazy. So thanks for the idea.

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            1. When you go back and read what they were accomplishing waaay back when – it makes you wonder why it took so long to be more usable and available – I’ve never read enough to understand what the missing pieces were. Want another fun tech dive – Google “the first fax machine”. -how does 1843 strike you?

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  5. I have an online subscription and I remember taking it off of auto pay last year when I renewed. This year I get a notice saying that my renewal was taken out of my account. Somehow they put it back on auto pay. I was not a happy camper. I’m considering this as possibly being my last year with them.

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  6. Excellent rant!! This cracked me up…. I swear the Pony Express was faster.

    I have something similar tomorrow about mobile phones.

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    1. Oh did I mention that whatever I add to my iPad shows up on my iPhone? Or that I phone calls/texts show up on my desktop/iPad as well as my phone? I think I have most of those crossover turned off but since I get so few calls hard to tell yet.

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      1. Yes l think one has to be very careful with the digital ‘all aware’ presence inside our homes. Although I have my desktop and an iPad in the house, l very specifically keep the two separate because today’s algorithm configurations arew keen to connect everything in their typical nefarious fashion.

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  7. Kinda scary that the credit card information got hooked up mysteriously! The way Google knows what the hell I’m thinking, it doesn’t surprise me that Apple was able to get it though. I love technology for the ease in getting information and connecting with others but not for the behind the scenes tactics they use! My mom has an iPhone and somehow it got connected to her husband’s so he could see everything she did including her texts on his phone. What a stupid feature!

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    1. When we were setting up G’s iPhone I had him ‘program “Siri” so he could use the voice function since his hands are so shaky – it picked up my voice instead of his while I was giving him instructions and now it won’t respond to his voice.

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