More phone problems

The saga of the mobile phone continues and not just with mine! After getting the phone working finally, I had problems getting on my home wi-fi. I got on to Virgin media to explain and it turned out that my router was not picking up the phone. So I was told to turn it off and restart to get it to pick up the wi-fi.

Which I did. And then the bloody phone would not turn back on! I tried it for ages, but without success. As you might have guessed after all the problems I have had, I went up the wall. I phoned to try and get some technical assistance and all that was said was that they would take the phone away, and check it out and see if it needed repairs. 

As I had only had the phone nine days, and only had it working for three, this was not acceptable, and I asked to be put through to cancel the contract. In the meantime the phone restarted and luckily I have had no problems since. 

And then more problems with my partners phone. I gave her the old phone as it was bigger than her old one. and replaced her SIM card from her old one into my old one. Does that make sense? Then of course I had to download Facebook onto it. Oh Facebook did not like that! Because it is a new phone they blocked it and I had to eventually get onto here account via my computer and verify it.  What a mess around.

And as she does not use email much, we had to set up a new email account to access the Play store to download FB etc. 

My swearing and blood pressure went up yesterday I am sure! 

A working phone

At last! After all the phone calls and frustration, the SIM card finally arrived and I managed to fit it in to start the phone going. I say I managed, but have any of you tried to fit a 'nano sim' card in a phone? The bloody thing is so tiny, my big fingers had a job holding it, and Sony have made the place you fit the damn thing in a pain. 

There are two small trays to pull out, one for the SD card and one for the SIM. The cards do fit in obviously, but what a fiddle! I dropped the bloody thing on the floor several times, and it is so small I thought I had lost it for good! 

But at last it is in and working, and it works well. The main thing you notice is the camera. With 21 mpx front facing and 13 mpx 'selfie' camera, this really is a good phone for camera work. Nearly as good as my main camera, although of course for serious work I would prefer to use that. 

A quiet day today as the weather is just plain weird. Sunshine all morning, and sunshine now as I write, but then we get sharp bouts of rain, sleet, snow and hail all mixed together. Not something I enjoy being out in these days.

Post office stupidity

You juts could not make it up. Two days ago I had a bill from the Post office credit card I had. I don't use the card and had cut it up some time ago. I thought that I had cancelled the account, but it appears not. I owed a whole 0.08p on the account! 

So I phoned the Post office to cancel the card once and for all. The young man I spoke to assured me that he would cancel it, as soon as I had paid the eight pence! Well I went online to my bank and sorted that out a few minutes later, and that was it, the account was closed. 

But of course it is never that easy with cards is it? In the mail this morning, a brand new shiny credit card from the Post office renewed for the next three years! As I have said, you just could not make it up! Now I will write a nice letter to them with the card cut in half, (or more) and tell them what they can do with it, Piece by piece if they like. 

The sage of the mobile phone is still ongoing, and once again I am waiting for Yodel to turn up, this time with the SIM for my new phone. As I write this, it is 11.00 am, and two days ago he turned up at 3.00 pm, so I guess I am due for a long wait.

My brother and I are trying to buy a car or two by auction and sell them on for a profit. I say try, and we are either getting outbid, or the cars are not going to turn a profit, so it is not worth it. So far we have lost out on three, but he still gets these links and we still are going to try. 

We went over to his place yesterday for a nice afternoon lunch outside in his garden. On a nice sunny afternoon, it was a very pleasant way to spend the day just sitting and chatting. Retirement can be boring, but on days like this, not quite so much.,  Below my brother Martin and his wife Mandy, and then me and Denise.

A mobile mess

As I wrote yesterday, I have decided that my present mobile phone is not suitable, and had ordered a new one.I was told that it would be delivered today and of course waited most of the day for it. It finally turned up at about three this afternoon.

I got unpacking it to get it going, and of course the first thing you do is to transfer your SIM and memory card into it. (Or at least I do as I want to keep the same number) But no, it is not that easy. I was told that I could transfer my old SIM and that would be no problem. 

It turned out that it would be a problem after all as the bloody SIM would not go in. I managed to get the memory card in after some fiddling, (and actually checking the instructions properly!) but the SIM this phone takes is a nano or micro SIM. And of course this happened to be the only bloody phone that did not come with one! 

So on to Virgin mobile to explain the situation, and the nice young lady there said yes we can send one out, but it will not come for another 24 hrs. A complete waste of a day again. Why cannot they get these things right in the first place? 

So, what else did I do today? Apart from some housework, nothing. A boring waste of a day again, all for a bloody phone.

Phone upgrade day

Today I decided to upgrade my phone. Nothing special about that, but I have only had my present phone for less than six months.

I use Virgin mobile for my phones, and on the whole have had no problems with them. I changed my phone just under two years ago for a Samsung mini S4. As a phone it worked well, but of course these days we all use our phones for so much more don't we? I soon found that using Facebook or checking out the web, reading emails was a bit to much for my eyes, and as I am a bit hard of hearing, the sound was not that good.

So a few months ago I bought my own phone just changed over the SIM card and used that. I bought a Doro Liberto 820. This in particular because it was supposed to have a clear sound and as a largish phone would suit my needs. As around £200, it was not the most pricey either. If you need a simple to use phone, this is not to bad, but check out below.

At first I was pleased with the phone. The sound is certainly very clear and the icons are easy to use. But as the months went on, certain things began to niggle. For one thing it has a small internal memory, so it quickly became full and I had to delete a few apps. Not what you expect on a modern phone.And it is quite slow. When you have finished with an app and want to get back to the menu, it takes ages to do it. And it also does not have a 'call blocker'. With the amount of nuisance calls we all get these days, I would say that is vital. In the end I had to download a security app to block calls.

So as the contract was up in just a short time, I called Virgin to see what they could come up with. After looking through the options, I decided on a Sony Experia M5.With a 5" screen, 16gb of internal memory, and a 21mpx camera, I decided that would do for me. I still have to see what the sound is like and when it comes tomorrow it will get checked out. But these days I seem to use them on loudspeaker anyway, so it should be OK. If you are interested click on the link for a review. I will be paying a similar amount to my old phone, so I hope it suits me.

 So what else have I been up to today? Denise had to go home as she was not feeling well, so caught a bus to town with my son. A bus you say! Well he has a prepaid card, and I have a free bus pass, so what the heck, why not. I bought a new fleece jacket as mine had gone home, and then we went for a bite to eat. We chose somewhere that neither of us had been before, the Cozy Club in the Hays area of Cardiff. And very nice it was as well. With a 'retro' look, the food was delicious and not badly priced either. And that really has been that. Not to busy a day, and now I am going to sit down and catch up with some TV.