Why I hate electronics

[Paul B]

This week I went to get my wife a new I Phone which is supposed to be smart. It's not as smart as it thinks it is. First of all a few months ago I went to a Verizon store and they told me she was not ready to upgrade until January of next year. But, for some reason they must think it is January because now she can Up grade from her aluminum and wood phone.
The crank fell off of it so she needed a new phone.
So we go to the Verizon store which is a huge, almost empty place that they could have built in my kitchen and there was only 2 people in front of us.
There seemed to be 5 or 6 people working so the wait should be quick. Wrong. After 45 minutes they call our name and we speak to this nice young man who shows us all the phone choices and we finally settled on the "free" upgrade that cost me $400.00. Anyway, along with that I got this little box that is supposed to allow her to go online with her laptop anywhere the phone works. All you have to do is put in this little number and it automatically works. Yeah right. So we spend another 2 hours in the store getting more "free" stuff" and learning how simple this is to program.
At home five hours later I still can't get the stupid thing to do anything except light up, so if nothing else, I have an expensive night light or door stop.
To initiate the thing you have to put in your Apple Password. I have that written down on a piece of paper with my address, phone number and birth day just in case I get lost and someone has to bring me home.
It worked 5 minutes ago when I bought "In a Godda Divita" from I Tunes for 99 cents.
But I guess it doesn't like my choices of music so my password stopped working. OK now I have to reset my password and it has to have 8 letters and numbers with at least one capital, so I put in "Washington DC".
I tried all sorts of different passwords that I have written down until it stopped me to say that it thinks I forgot my password. OK so now it wants my birthday.
I am pretty smart and know my birthday. It is an easy birthday to remember because I was born on Christmas Day
Along with some famous people.
I type in December 25th with the year. It says that is incorrect.
So I put in my wife's birthday. That is incorrect. Now I start putting in the birthday of my Grand Daughter, my copperband butterfly, Angelina Jolie,
Abraham Lincoln etc. None of them worked so I naturally assumed it wanted me to put in Bill Gates birthday but I didn't know it. Then it says I have to look on my router and put in the WEP Key whatever that is. I used to do a lot of woodwork. I have a few routers but none of them have any WEP Key on them, I keep them next to my drill press.
until I realized I needed to look under my computer.
So I crawl under my computer desk and find the WEP Key and type it in. It tells me, that is incorrect.
So now nothing works and we have to go back to the Verizon store on the Fourth of July which is the most American thing I can think of to do today.
If I had the little Nerd who designed this phone in my hand yesterday I would have wrung his little neck. There is no reason this stuff has to be this complicated as even my almost two year old Grand Daughter could make it much simpler.
I think all passwords should be 3 letters, something easy like "DUH".
There also should be a big "ON OFF" switch on the front of the phone, something like you have on your wall to turn on your lights. So all you need to do is turn on the big switch (which could also turn your lights as you can't use the thing in the dark anyway.) Then type in "DUH" and it automatically syncs every device with in a mile from where you are standing. Other people on the same device will just have to wait until you are done.
Instead of a WEP KEY there should be a big skeleton key that you stick in the back of the thing. I could use that same password "DUH" for all my bills such as electric, water, gas etc. If someone wants to break into my utility account and pay the gas bill for me, go ahead, who cares?
All of this stuff could be made so much simpler. Did you ever go to a store that is mostly women and they are on line for something like clothes or shoes?
You could retire on those as people are asking questions, showing the cashier pictures of their kids, explaining why you have to buy this outfit because they have varicose veins of cellulite or if the checkout girl things these pants make you look fat. Your fat makes you look fat, the pants just make you look silly.
A Man's store should not even have any check out people. Just put a sign on everything reading about what everything costs and put a bucket by the door. Then, on our way out, we will throw in about what the item costs. At the end of the day, it will almost average out and sometimes they will make a little and some days they will lose a little, but we won't have to wait on line and we don't want to ask any questions anyway.

 

[Mark...]

Amazing how experiences can be so different. I was over due for an upgrade, on black Friday I found a free Galaxy S4 online at Best Buy. They shipped it to me and I did the switch over the phone in a couple of minutes. Total cost $0....

 

[Paul B]

I don't care if it cost $10,000.00, I just want the stupid thing to work when I get it home without spending my retirement putzing with it.

 

[Mark...]

I don't care if it cost $10,000.00, I just want the stupid thing to work when I get it home without spending my retirement putzing with it.

Have the 10k ready, my 17 year old is an iphone expert....I'll send him over...

 

[lefkonj]

Unfortunately Verizon/ATT/Best Buy etc don't know how to 'setup' these devices. They expect that everyone does this on their own. Customer service at these places is terrible and they just care about getting more contracts, nothing else. Last year when I got new devices added to my family plan it took 3 months to get the billing correct, remove services I denied during purchase etc etc. If they can't get the bill right they can't get the devices right.

 

[trivan]

That sucks Paul, but I think the worse places to go are the carrier store fronts. It's probably too late now but when you get the phone at an Apple store, they unpack it, get everything working for you and make sure you have access to your email, web, etc... WEP is a pita, but it's no different then connecting a windows PC to you wifi.

Also, you don't need an extra free wifi device, the new iPhones have that built in. You wife can use her iphone to get internet on her laptop. You'll sometimes pay for this service, and also the data that is used.

Good luck.

 

[Paul B]

The phone wasn't the problem, that was a Verizon upgrade and worked right away. They installed her aps and 200 pictures as well as her contacts. The problem was this Hot Spot thing that allows her lap top to work anyplace her cell phone works. It does not rely on wifi. We will try it out now on our boat because there is no wifi out there. The other problem was getting the Veterans discount but I think I got it now.
I use Verizon for my cell phones, house phones, computer and TV. I used to have cable but whenever it rained, it would go out, then I had satellite but I am in between 2 major airports in NY and every time a plane flies over (every two minutes) the screen would freeze. I am happy with Verizon but the devices are still to complicated to get to start working. I didn't know they made that thing in phones to get your lap top on the internet.
Now my old computer is croaking. It is a very old machine that I was going to throw out 5 years ago. I deleted everything on it and re installed everything and for 5 years it worked flawlessly. There is no virus protection or firewall on it and I think that is why it doesn't have problems. But now it is acting up so I may have to operate on it. I can fix just about anything but the software sometimes gets me. I like to open things up and see gears, solenoids, oil, pistons and maybe a piece of wood.

 

[Alcohol120]

the engineers who design the technology hardware and software do it with the best practices in mind. everything is designed to be intuitive and easy to use. i would try googling a tutorial for the small box you bought on how to set it up. like others said, the newer iphones have the feature that the box you bought has i believe, its called a personal hotspot and you can find it in the setting. however, the box may support faster speeds. the box probably works off of 4G LTE which has spotty coverage to begin with (especially in rural areas) because its newer technology and many cell towers still support 3G.

 

[Empire]

What trivan is referring to is known as tethering your mobile data plan to any other wifi enabled device. Doing so creates a mobile hotspot. Almost every phone out now has that option. Did they make you buy a separate portable wifi box? If so, that's a dirty move. I used to work at AT&T mobility and if he/she did that, they were trying to reach their gross add quota thus resulting in a higher commission.

 

[lefkonj]

I could be wrong but wasn't Verizon one of the companies that couldn't do data and voice at the same time. SO if you turned it into a hotspot you can't make or receive calls. That could be why they pushed the mobile hotspot (but I bet the commission thing is dead on). The one piece of advice i can give you is to audit your verizon bill monthly for the next 3 months to make sure there were not new charges you weren't expecting. The telephone providers are notorious for this: Hey its free (but only for 3 months, did we forget to tell you that).

 

[Paul B]

the engineers who design the technology hardware and software do it with the best practices in mind. everything is designed to be intuitive and easy to use.

I don't think so, I think they are Jibonies with devious minds. Like people who design car and boat engines. I was a mechanic for GM and I never hired anyone for anything but I constantly have to re-design all sorts of things for both the cars and boat because they just seem so stupidly engineered. I really think it is the college, it takes away creativity and common sense. As an example, my boat, and almost all boats of any size have trim tabs, hydrallic fins on the back of the boat to stabilize it. They are controlled by a small hydralic motor in the bilge. Now if you were going to design something that was going to sit in salt water in a dark, damp bilge, what is the one material you would "not" make the bracket that holds that motor in the bilge with?
Iron, right? You would not build that particular part out of iron, but on virtually every boat, that is what it is made out of. The both of mine were so rotted that I actually used a shop vac to get them out of the bilge as there was nothing left to them but red dust. Even wood would have been a better choice. Not only that but in all cases they install them behind the engines so it is almost impossible to get to them, and you need to check and put oil in them. How stupid could they be? It drives me crazy when I see something so simple that seemed to be designed by a sea slug. I extended the hoses and cables to the pumps and mounted them on 1/2" thick acrylic plastic that I just bent into a big angle. They will last longer than the pyramids, be very easy to get to and cost a third of what the iron bracket costs. Now I know they make money on things that break, but it is just stupidity. If you are going to design something, and you can't figure out how to do it the correct way. Quit your job and work at a hot dog stand. All boats also have water cooled exhaust manifolds and if the boat is in salt water, those manifolds only last about 8 or 10 years because they are also iron and filled with salt water. (unless you are on a lake) 99% of the boats have no way to flush fresh water through those manifolds so the salt sits in there and eventually you overheat and you have to replace them for a couple of thousand dollars. I designed and built for about $10.00 a PVC intake pipe that allows me to connect a hose to the engines after I am finished for the day and flush them with fresh water. (You can see the red valve handles on each engine that controls the flow of fresh water through the engines so I can flush them) It's a no brainer, but no one does it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It drives me crazy as these things are so utterly simple. The boat has a 2 showers and they run hot and cold water. After 3 years the hot water no longer worked so I called the company and they told me the heaters are only designed to work for 3 years. Really! They are like $500.00 and they run only in the summer and only when you need hot water on a boat, like once in a lifetime. I removed it and put it in the garbage and in about 10 minutes designed a hot water heater that will last forever and cost $20.00. I could go on but my blood pressure may go up even though I normally have low blood pressure.

You can't see those new acrylic brackets here but they are in the front, where I can get to them. They were in back of those engines. I would like to see that Verizon engineer get back there to service those things.
Most people don't know how to design things or know the principal of how they work, but if you did, you would know that there are so many badly designed things.

 

[TanksNStuff]

I could be wrong but wasn't Verizon one of the companies that couldn't do data and voice at the same time. SO if you turned it into a hotspot you can't make or receive calls. That could be why they pushed the mobile hotspot (but I bet the commission thing is dead on). The one piece of advice i can give you is to audit your verizon bill monthly for the next 3 months to make sure there were not new charges you weren't expecting. The telephone providers are notorious for this: Hey its free (but only for 3 months, did we forget to tell you that).

Absolutely incorrect. I have Verizon wireless and can use GPS navigation, receive texts, and search the internet all while being on a phone call at the same time (using a bluetooth of course) with my Droid RAZR Max. The limitation of voice/data at the same time is only with some phones, not the Verizon network.

And I agree with Paul about these engineers. Sometimes they create devices that do amazing things, but completely lack common sense.

I work for a construction company that specializes in water/sewer treatment plants and pump stations, etc. so I deal with design drawings all the time. It always amazes me how they do things like: decide a fan should go somewhere, but neglect to include any wiring requirements for it on the electrical drawings... or when they show top views and side views of precast manholes and each one gives different dimensions for the access hatch so we don't know which size is correct ( I mean its not like they're on different plan sheets, they are on the same sheet and nobody notices this?)... and then the specifications tell you to refer to a spec section that doesn't even exist.. or when a spec section describes a different brand or model number than what is listed on the drawings. I could go on for hours with these simple errors that could be easily fixed if someone actually checked stuff before it goes out to bid.

And my favorite is when they always throw in a disclaimer that the contractor is responsible for verifying all measurements are correct before submitting a bid. Oh really? And how are we supposed to do that when the bid is due in like 2 weeks after its advertised and we can get plans? It takes most of that time to go through the plans/specs and start doing a takeoff and by the time you need to verify a measurement you find out you can't get access to some things. Like one time we bid on a job to replace valves below deck on a sludge barge for Philadelphia Water Dept... we couldn't verify dimensions because the barge was full of sludge and the pumps were broken so they couldn't empty it. We had to rely on the engineers drawings and after winning the job we found out they were wrong.

Granted, these engineers aren't designing a product but they are designing a system to clean your water and sewer waste so you'd think they would be a bit more careful in their jobs!

 

[malulu]

the main reason that you need to jump through hoop to setup the stupid box/phone, is now a day every things are online... ( security concerns )
you need to make sure everywheresssss have a hard to guess password... WEP, HOME-WIFI whatever... hence complicated the setpup issue....

i often see people don't set up passcode on their phone?? this is craziness...

if anyone get a hold of the phone without the passcode, they can simple use it check your email, then know which bank you use for banking... and could login to that bank and ask for password reset to sent the reset into to the email (which is the phone can see) and some may ask for SSN or ZIPCODE, which is not too hard to get it now aday...

so setting up some security questions for password reset is a MUST... but please, NEVER setup those easy to guess Q/A - like where you goto school, your mom's maiden name...etc. instead, when they ask for your best friend's name, you put in your brother's best friend name...etc. to be on the safe side.

my kids pay online game alots - they are free!!? i am sure a lots of spywares would be on their PC... ??!
therefor, all my kids PC log-on ID don't have administrator permission, every software/plugin installed - i must check and use my ID to do so...
regardless how hard i tried - i am still worried everytime i saw my wife using my kids' PC to do online purchasing..

these technology conveniences come with big RISKs... some days we would all be sorry for it... one wrong move... we would be in deep trouble!

 

[Paul B]

if anyone get a hold of the phone without the passcode, they can simple use it check your email, then know which bank you use for banking...

While they are checking my E Mail they could maybe answer some of them for me. My E mail may also confuse people as there is never anything important on there unless they want the recipe for linguini and clams or directions to a restaurant that serves clams on the half shell
I was a General Foreman for a large electrical construction firm in Manhattan, (700 men) I did the job of building the office for Penthouse magazine. (yes, tough job, but I also built the NY Playboy Club) Anyway for Penthouse, there were no light switches shown on the prints and I didn't like the architect at all so I didn't mention it. The lights were not in the ceiling but mounted on the top of the furniture and faced up. I planed for switches but didn't put any in because I was not the architect. A few months after the place opened the manager came to me and said "how do we shut off the lights? Our electric bill is $27,000.00." I said, you can't as there were never any switches called for. We got a nice extra to install them.
Another time there was an engineer who I didn't care for because I asked some questions at a job meeting and he yelled at me saying not to ask questions, just install what he wrote.
OK, this was a fairly big building we were putting up, about 60 stories and I had 250 men. The print showed an outlet installed 20' from this column. But the building ended 10' from the column. This was on about the 50th floor so I told my man to install it in the wet concrete just as it showed, 10' outside the building, hanging in mid air 700' above the sidewalk. I instructed him to finish it with a receptacle and plate.
The engineer went nuts but a number of people heard him say to do exactly what was on the print and not ask any questions. He got a nice bill to chop that out of the cement and move it. He never complained to me again.
Another job was a cafeteria in an office building. Over the rails that you slide your food tray on was a stainless steel trough about 60' long with 12" holes every few feet for high hat light fixtures to be installed. The sarcastic engineer told me to make sure I don't drill any holes in the stainless steel like "all" of you electricians do. So we installed all the high hats and around each fixture I glued the head of 4 large bolts to the stainless steel. He went berserk and was going to sue us and kill me. But I was laughing so hard, I didn't hear him. Dance

I also did a 50 story building on Fifth Ave. The contractor went out of business and the entire building went up with no electricity at all. Not even the lines from the street were installed, just a small temporary power panel.
So at the first job meeting the building contractor wanted me to get power in the building very fast. I told him there was no power in the building, it was still in the street. So he complained that I didn't know what I was talking about. So at the next meeting, I was ready. I took a reel of 500,000MCM cable. This is a reel of wire about 7' high, 1,000lbs and the wire is about half as thick as your wrist. It is the largest cable generally used and a building of that size would need dozens of them. I took the end of the cable and taped a regular male plug to it. At the meeting when they asked about supplying power to the building, I had a worker drag in the cable with the plug on it and said,
"if you want power real quick, take this across the street and plug it into the lobby of the Trump Plaza bldg. because as I said, there is no power in this building.
Everyone cracked up.

 

[malulu]

i don't really mean you - i meant in general about those peoples that go online and don't lock their phones.

regardless - it sounds like you have a great fun job!! loved to hear more stories - it is all fun!!