Technology Issues

Life is getting more and more complicated for this old woman. Last week our computers were down for two days…why you ask. Oh, the domain name expired, and I couldn’t figure out how to pay to renew it. It was not the money to renew; domain names aren’t that high, it was who do I pay.

It took someone smarter than me two days to figure it out, and we had tried calling in extra special technical help about the time my smart daughter, Hannah, figured it out. (She would have figured it out sooner if she had a little more time to donate, but she has her own job and two precious little girls taking up her time.)

All’s well that ends well, right? Well, not really, there’s been some fallout from it, but I think we’re o.k. now.

I have a questionnaire on my e-mail about Adobe, which is the maker of the program we use to produce the newspaper each week. It wants to know how we use A.I. (artificial intelligence) through the program. This whole A.I. concept makes me crazy. I was hoping I could retire before I had to learn about A.I. It’s so foreign to me it could stand for alien intelligence.

So, I was looking at my phone yesterday, and ran across a tip. See how to do something. I didn’t need to do it so I didn’t see how, but I recognize my phone will do a great deal more than what I use it for. I have used an Android phone since close to the beginning of cell phones, and last year made the switch to an I-phone.

The main reason was, of course, to facetime with the grandchildren. Particularly the one in Athens, as I get to see the two here pretty frequently, but the one in Athens takes a little more effort to pull off. So, Facetime brings her closer to “Grandmom.”

I really go by Grandma, but Brystol has determined her own name for me and it’s Grandmom, just like her mom is mom.

I’m grandma to Melody and Adeline, and Melody says that clear as a bell, and one-year-old Adeline is working on it. She’s got Pawpaw down pat, but Grandma is a little tougher. But I digress.

Technology…isn’t it great. When the computers were down I had the opportunity to speak to another business owner about my age. He agreed…technology is great when it works. But the way we did things in the old day wasn’t really that bad.

And do we blame technology for so many people’s desire to communicate by text rather than talk? I’ve heard complaints that young people these days can’t even carry on a conversation. I have to admit I don’t have an awful lot of opportunity to chat with young people so I can’t attest to that situation.

I do have family members who sometimes choose to text when a conversation is actually needed. And, I’m guilty of texting sometimes too when perhaps I should call.

I even have one or two family members who put much of their lives on Facebook, and then expect you to have seen it. I admit I look at Facebook more than I like to admit, but I can go hours…or days without opening it up, and I think if you want to communicate with me…that’s not the way.

Of course, I expect my readers to know what’s happening with me by what I write in this space, and I often am disillusioned! Let’s face it, even if they read it, they may not retain it. And, as hard as I struggle to find a topic to write on, I can’t blame my readers if it, which often involves my personal life, doesn’t interest them.

Time marches on.