Claude Clemmons Online » Electronics and Technology

Maps and Phone Books are Obsolete

Claude — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 23:32:58 +0000

Happened to glance at the bookcase in the spare bedroom and see all the books that I own but never seem to read after the first time. why did I buy all these books? I should have used the library!

There are a stack of phone books on the bottom shelf. I might as well throw those away. Who uses phone books for anything anymore? Not me! I can find it online faster and easier without having to heft a big cumbersome book and search through thousands of pages and other listings.

Maps are also pretty much obsolete. If you don’t have a GPS for your car, you probably have a mapping and location program or app on your smart phone. Who needs maps anymore? They are obsolete, too.

Online Shopping is a Breeze

Claude — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 23:20:42 +0000

Whoever make the prediction 20 years ago that we would be using the internet for a lot – if not most – of our shopping, was totally correct and should be recognized. I don’t know how I would go about finding who that person was, but they do deserve a big pat on the back.

My buddy, Owen, orders everything online but groceries and gasoline for his car. I know in some big cities you can order groceries online and have them delivered to your door, but we aren’t that sophisticated around here yet. With the price of gasoline going up, I’m not sure that anyone can make a profit on delivering things any more, anyway.

I order some things from Amazon, and I recently ordered a few things from Overstock.com and both are very good about processing the order, getting the order right, and delivering in a timely manner. I ordered some items from Sears.com at Christmas, too. So far, everything has gone great. What a nice advancement for shoppers – online ordering and delivery to your door!

Great Advice – Know When to Shut Up

Claude — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:35:38 +0000

I know that sometimes we all blurt out things we later regret. I have trouble with that myself. It is even harder on Facebook, when it is so easy to make a snarky comment and then end up offending a bunch of people who can’t seem to take a joke. So I need to keep my mouth shut a little more often and watch those typing fingers, too.

Battery Charger Mess

Claude — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:30:45 +0000

Doing some Spring cleaning around the house and I have little piles of things that I find and I’m trying to group them with siilar items to figure out what kind and size of store containers I need to get. I have an assortment of plastic bins and boxes, some cardboard boxes and some baskets.

The biggest pile so far is a tangled mess of wires and battery chargers. This is very disturbing to me. How did I get so many of these battery chargers? What do they go to? How did they get separated from their device that needs charging?

It would be so simple for the people who make these battery chargers to write the name of the devise on there somewhere. I have no clue what any of these go to. How am I supposed to figure out which one charges what device? Plug it in and hope it doesn’t explode?

Browser Differences

Claude — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 01:59:54 +0000

For years I have been using Firefox as my browser. It is free from a company called Mozilla and it has always worked great for me. When I bought my first laptop, the first thing I did was install Firefox.

My office wanted to send me home with a desktop PC, which was fine with me. I use the work computer for only business, such as checking my work emails and and work related presentations. For some reason the tech support guys at work had installed Chrome as the browser on the machine.

I like them both. I believe I will stick with Firefox on my laptop though. I see no reason to change.

Phone Overboard

Claude — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 03:15:04 +0000

Well, today was not a good one for me. I started out having a great day – we went fishing at the Lake. Didn’t really expect to catch anything, but it has been so warm that getting the jon boat out sounded like a good idea. So we spent 3 hours putting worms on hooks and didn’t catch a thing. On the way back to the boat ramp, I leaned over to check the motor and PLOP! My cell phone jumped out of my pocket and went overboard. Totally my own fault – can’t even yell at anyone.

GPS Helped

Claude — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 23:04:56 +0000

Most of the time I need to go someplace locally that I already know both where it is and how to get there. But now thee are some parts of town that are new and I’ve not had the need to go over there yet. That’s when a GPS can come in handy. It’s not that I can’t ask for directions, but with a GPS I should not have to ask.

An App for That

Claude — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 23:48:45 +0000

Commercials are always talking about all these “apps” that you can get. I know they are mostly for the new expensive smart phones, which I don’t have. But some of these apps look pretty cool. I’d be interested in upgrading my phone if anyone from the phone company would bother to give me a call and make me an offer on that. But it seems the phone company doesn’t care what kind of phone I use or what I pay for my cell phone service each month. They made their initial sale and put my ass on ignore.

Antivirus Nuisance

Claude — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:17:03 +0000

Sometimes I miss the old days of the computer and internet. You know, when no one had to worry about hackers and viruses. It was such a cool new thing and then some jerks had to come along and ruin it for everyone. Now you have to be careful about viruses and malware and hackers and be paranoid all the time. That just takes the shine right off of everything for me.

Ear buds

Claude — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:54:46 +0000

All these kids wearing earbuds while they listen to their music on their iPods and MP3 players have me puzzled. How can they stand to have those things in their ears all the time? I have tried all kinds of brands and styles but I don’t like those earbuds. They make my ears itch and drive me nuts.