Thankful Thursday

My 'landline' is terrible.  It frequently does not work.  Years ago that might have driven me demented.  Imagine not being able to contact or be contacted immediately. 

Now, however, I communicate less by my 'landline' phone than by a myriad of other methods.

My cellphone, an iPhone, lives with me and on it I can communicate in such a variety of ways it still amazes me.  One can Skype (which is the ability to talk with or without video to anyone else on Skype anywhere in the world - free - or one can send text messages to anyone on Skype - free - or one can send text messages to any cellphone in the world for a few pence/cents as compared with the expensive inter-country cellphone provider texts).  I can Facetime (free video chat between any Apple product anywhere).  I can iMessage (free texting between iPhones anywhere).  One can text chat for free when playing a variety of on-line games like Words With Friends (a sort of Scrabble for two).  Then there is good old texting between any two cellphones anywhere (but, internationally, at a price).  There are emails - usually used for longer messages and not necessarily requiring an immediate response - to which can be attached photos or documents.  There is messaging on Google, Facebook, Twitter.....the list and the possibilities are endless.  There are doubtless many things I have forgotten to mention and, oh, I nearly forgot, the iPhone can be used to make phone calls as well.

In addition I can do many of those things from my Macbook and from my iPad.

I love the ability to communicate with friends and play games like Words With Friends and chat with people on the other side of the world.

Just imagine if (when?) the internet is compromised and all that becomes impossible - even for an hour. 

So today I am thankful for all the means of communication that are now available to enable me to share the lives of my friends wherever they, or I, may be.

Note: 'Free' means no costs additional to those incurred in linking to the internet.

Thankful Thursday: Apple

Why is it that blog posts are like buses: you wait for ages for an idea and then three come along at once?  The 'Apple' I'm talking about is nothing to do with the fruit trees that surround The Cottage for hectare after hectare in this, New Zealand's fruit bowl.  No it's the Apple.

0500 hrs this morning and my iPad 'rang' and woke me.  My iPad rang??  How come? It is wifi only.

One of the beauties of the iPhone is that it has a programmable sound notifications so that I have it set for no 'ringing' during the hours of midnight to 0630.  It's also programmed to take calls from designated numbers or people or from anyone who tries twice in quick succession.   However Apple has Facetime which enables people using an Apple device to contact each other orally and visually over the internet free via their Apple device.  It is only recently that a friend in Australia (Fiona, daughter of one of my oldest friends who lives in Canada who is not into modern technology and doesn't even have a cellphone) got me to start using it.

Fiona is in Canada at the moment.  Fiona is trying to persuade her Mum to get an iPad so that she can communicate more effectively with her daughters and friends scattered throughout the world (Fiona doesn't have a landline telephone).  To that end they were in an Apple Store in Canada.  Who better to demonstrate Facetime on but someone in New Zealand.  They miscalculated the time and were quite surprised when a rather sleepy voice answered his cellphone wondering how it could have rung and why it was still dark.  It was, in fact, the iPad that had rung but my sleeping brain hadn't computed that.

Frances Garrood would, I am sure, say that that demonstrates all that is bad about modern (ie post 1970) technology (see Pre-1970s - The Best Inventions) but for me it demonstrates all that is good with the ability we now have to communicate with each other in this physically large and yet very small earth.  

So whilst I might have some misgivings about being woken at 0500 I am very thankful for the ability to communicate with my friends so easily.

On The Social Importance of Milk Bottles

Adrian went on holiday from Blogland.  It was partly because he was having a good time and partly because in The English Lake District broadband cover is sparse and erratic.  However it is evident that some of his friends were concerned:  probably because he's a mildly eccentric and very likeable chap (not that I'd ever tell him that).

The absence made me think about milk bottles.  Some of my readers may know what they are and remember the days (before refrigerators - which unlike fridges don't have a d) when they were delivered daily to the doorstep.  It's still possible to have milk delivered on Lewis although I suspect it's very rare nowadays.

When you went on holiday one of the first things you did was cancel the milk (and the newspapers).  Obviously you didn't want a load of sour milk to accumulate nor could one generally afford the luxury of waste in those days.

If you didn't cancel the milk and it accumulated the milkman or the postie would be concerned and would tell the neighbours.  Neighbours would usually know if you were on holiday.  If you weren't - or they didn't think you were - then they would immediately be concerned and raise the alarm.

Thus might the humble milk bottle have been your saviour.

This made me think how vulnerable we are in modern society if we live alone.  After Mum died I used to phone her 93 year old brother (who lived about 550 miles away from Lewis in Anglesey) every night.  He was a bit reclusive.  One night he didn't answer the phone.  After a couple of hours I got in touch with a neighbour.  He had had a stroke and was on the floor a few feet from the phone and unable to reach it - it might as well have been a million miles away.  Had he had the stroke after the phone call instead of before it then it would have been 24 hours before he'd have been discovered.  If I'd missed an evening for some reason then my next call may well have been too late.

He was, however, an exceptionally methodical man and if he'd had milk delivered and had not taken the milk bottle in that day then it would have been noticed by the evening.

Thus might the humble milk bottle have been his saviour.

Of course the story of the humble milk bottle, though real enough, is simply allegorical of the issues that face us in a society that lets one in three people over the age of 60 go a whole week without speaking to anyone at Christmas (according to figures from the UK's Office for National Statistics).

Makes you think!

Broadband!

Until now I have used an NZ Telecom T Stick over the cellphone network for my broadband.  For that I get 4Gb/month allowance for $81.  As I have to pay for 12 months even though I only use 6 that really means that I pay $162 a month for my broadband.  The 4GB limit means that I can't use YouTube or the full benefits of Skype and even updating my computer and iTunes etc can take me uncomfortably close to my limit.  I can, however, use my laptop when I travel which is useful.

Now an enterprising self-confessed computer geek/nerd has set up rural microwave broadband in our area and it's absolutely fantastic.  The basic allowance of 6Gb is less than $50/month and for the $80 I used to pay I could get 20Gb.  Not only that I also have WiFi so I can use my UK smartphone here too.  So I am well pleased. 

The receiving dish on the fence

The hill with the microwave transmitter in just to the left of the fence line

There it is!  That tiny feint post on top of the hill just under the wires under the branch of the nearer tree. Amazing.

Arghhhhhh

Intermittent, slow cellphone Broadband.  Intermittent even slower dial-up.  How can this be a want and not a need???!!!  I am so frustrated.  Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

What is a Need?

So often these days we say that we need something when we don't actually need it. Children have arrived at the stage where they believe the use of the word 'want' equates with need. We adults are not far behind! Presumably children have learned from us.

Most of the time it is easy to decide what we want and what we need but occasionally the boundaries get blurred.

Whoever we are and wherever we live We need food, water and shelter.  To survive in the modern world we in the more fortunate countries of this world need a level of education commensurate with the job we do to earn a living whether that be a street sweeper or a nuclear physicist.

Oh, forget it.  This could get way too complicated.

The whole point of this was the fact that I was deprived of internet access on demand for the twelve days I was away and I had severe problems.  Now that I am back in The Cottage I thought those problems were over but, no, this afternoon I'm experiencing problems and am actually using dial-up to do this posting.

We all need , and I mean need, human contact to stay sane and be rational human beings in modern society.  For many of us that means keeping in contact with our friends and family whether they be near or far away. There was a time many centuries ago when a long way apart was the next settlement but now many of us are separated from our friends and those we love by half a world.  Half a century ago half a world meant letters taking many weeks or months to arrive and join people together.  Today communication can be instant.  We can carry a cellphone and speak to someone almost anywhere in the developed world and with satellite communication contact is available anywhere at all on the planet.

Anyone who is reading this is an inhabitant of Blogland.  We are used to being able to communicate daily - usually via broadband internet - if we so desire. 

So this past twelve days has been quite a self-revelation.  I've had a wonderful time seeing Northland and enjoying new company.  But I've been deprived of much of the instant communication to which I have become accustomed.

Do I need that or do I just want it?  I think it's a need for me.  Where does your vote lie?

Communications

One of the things that I (and not CJ) have inherited from my parents is my need (for it is a need) for telephonic communication.  My parents had a telephone (Stoneycroft 1936) in their first house around the time of my birth  and they were never without one and had the same number when they eventually left the house they lived in all their married life until they went to live with CJ and Jo.  Well I say the same number.  The prefix had altered variously until it expanded to 0151 (for Liverpool) 228 (one of the numbers for the former Stoneycroft area) and the original 1936.

I have never been without a phone either and, since the late '80s early '90s when  it had a  brick-sized separate battery, have had a mobile or cell phone.  I still have the same UK mobile number as I had when I got my first phone although the prefix has again altered to accommodate the huge rise in number of mobile phones.

One difference between my parents and me is that I have had many land-line numbers.  In fact I now have a number for each 'home' and a second one provided by BT in Eagleton for cheap calls via broadband.  I also have  two NZ cellphones (Vodafone and Telecom because coverage used to vary so much).  In addition I use Skype.  All a very long way from the single, operator connected, telephone which Mum and Dad started off with 65 years ago

The other difference is that today we take for granted that we can text or speak to anyone with a phone almost anywhere in the world simply by dialling their telephone number.  We are also beneficiaries of the magic  (OK it's really technology) which allows us to carry a cellphone and be contacted almost wherever we are in the world.  Do you remember when Star Trek used flip communicators?  It seemed so fanciful at the time. Now we all have one: the cell-phone of today.

As some of you may recall I have no broadband provided by the ordinary phone service and, like Adrian and one or two others of my fellow Blogland community, I rely on the cellphone network for my broadband connection.  It seems amazing that the little dongle on the left can connect me to anyone in the world on the Internet.

In New Zealand Telecom have just updated their network to 3G. and called it XT.  It features improved performance, better global roaming and a wider range of handsets compared to the older Telecom network. The XT Mobile Network differs from the old CDMA network because it features SIM cards (which most of us are used to) which allow subscribers to readily change handsets. Telecom also now advertises fast USB devices for mobile broadband for use on the XT Mobile network. So I decided to upgrade  my old broadband and at the same time upgrade my cell phone.

I used to use the most sophisticated business mobile phone until I retired and finally left the business world behind.  I then went onto the simplest flip-phones that I could put into my pocket.  But these days buying a simple phone isn't that easy. I have always stuck to Nokia phones because the logic suits me and has been carried over in all their phones though the years.

However I decided, as a Nokia flip phone isn't available for NZ Telecom, to buy a Sony Ericsson.  I am so pleased that I did.  It is so much more intuitive than the Nokias I have owned.  And now I am back to collecting my emails as well as texts on my phone.  I can also access the Internet and even use Googlemaps to find my way around.

Yes.  Modern technology is wonderful.  And I would do without a lot of things before I would give up my cellphone and broadband Internet.

Communication: It Ain't Always Easy

I hate it when you lose that which you have just typed. Which is what has just happened. So I'll start again. If I don't get to the end (I am due on the lawns in 30 minutes) you'll understand why. I'm actually typing this at the breakfast table whilst eating my muesli. My fellow breakfasteers are being very patient and not calling me rude names for typing at the table.

So why has communication been so difficult? I have mobile broadband and so using Palin (my trusty Laptop) should be easy from any urban area in New Zealand. But it ain't. Why? I had no problems at Jill's house in Wanganui last time I stayed. This time I had to hold Palin on his side to get a signal. Have you ever tried to type on a laptop whilst holding it on its side. It ain't easy.

So communication ain't been easy. But I'll be back in Napier in a few days so I'll be back to what passes for normality in my life.

Bye bye for now.

Broadband

Perhaps the only irritation to living in New Zealand and at The Cottage is the lack of availability of terrestrial Broadband. So if that's the greatest irritation what on earth am I complaining about? Well I suppose that that's a very valid point. However when one lives in the current environment of instant communication, blogs, internet, computer programmes continually updating, people sending large picture files and so on it's actually quite important to those who are involved in that environment. It's a question of time as well. Ironically now that I am in New Zealand my time is more regimented and taken up than ever it is in Scotland. So if I am to blog and get emails before I go out in the morning dial-up is dire. It has also been one of the first questions by people considering renting The Cottage during the winter.

Vodafone promised last year that by March 'everyone in New Zealand' would be able to have mobile Broadband for $40 a month. Leastways that's what the posters said. What they meant was 'everyone who can get a Vodafone 3G signal can get Vodafone Mobile'. but that's not quite as catchy. At The Cottage I can only just get a Vodafone phone signal never mind 3G so, 7 km from the centre of Napier I (and all the people round here) cannot get Vodafone Broadband. And that, I have discovered, goes for about 20% of the population - perhaps more.

By a quirk of luck I discovered that Telecom mobile phones (mine, Wendy and Martins are Vodafone) work at The Cottage and we can get Telecom 3G. So I now have Broadband - at a rather steep $60 per month for 1Gb. But I do have Broadband. And what a difference it has made. It's still not very fast Broadband but it is like lightning compared with dial-up. And I can take it with me with my laptop. And my phone line is not tied up for hours on end. Great.

What is really amazing, though, is the fact that all the hardware that I need to achieve this is a tiny dongle stuck into a USB port: