Just bought a camera a Sony one what a PITA it is to set up, but this got me thinking im now 38 soon to be 39 and i look at my grandad who struggles with the things in life like direct debits and forget computers this is how im going to be if technology just does not go SIMPLE.!
The tv is straight forward enough but the dvd recorder is a pain, the printer/fax thingy thats a real pain, computers mind boggle me, got ham radio gear those are multi functions one key will do extra things when you press another, HAHAHA!!!!!
Please can we just not make simple things maybe i am just simple! but technology seems to be galloping forward really fast and im stuck creeping forward very slowly.
Do you struggle & with what? Tony..............
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 3 Apr 10 at 12:32
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Absolutely, Bigtee. What is needed is a 'base model' - a sort of electronic Ford Popular - for the likes of us. Lots of people like the complications and the breadth of options to strive for perfection - but there's a market out there for a model that just does the job as simply as possible.
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"The tv is straight forward enough but the dvd recorder is a pain"
Get yourself a Humax PVR and junk the DVD recorder.Its the best gadget we have ever bought for recording and watching tv, even my gadget sceptical wife was won over my the simplicity and quality of the recording
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I have a Sony digicam with a setting on the external dial that says *easy*.... you just press the button and it takes a picture... as it says... easy.
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After I have set up an electronic device to what I believe to be perfection I usually find it works better after the "Reset all" function is used!
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The sky+ box is what i use mainly for recordings but only does one program ocassionally need to use the dvd recorder as i did last week it's easy to press record but to have to set the timer and channel or what a pain!
Yes there is a market for a basic model with everything.
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DVDRWs are pain we had a few and could never get them working properly. We quickly switched to PVRs and haven't looked back. In fact we have three PVRs in the house.
I set mine to auto record Corrie so I never miss it. The picture quality is suburb too. Its a crappy Goodmans unit but it appears I have one of the few that work.
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The humax PVR can record three things at once. YOu dont even need a timer just selct a prog on the TV guide
Seemples.
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I bought a recording DVD player so that I could plug the old Mini DV camcorder in and put tapes of the kids onto DVD. 3 years later..... such complicated instructions, a multitude of different recordable DVD's that may or may not play on other machines. Why is it so damn complicated. Is it too much to hope for one industry standard? So yes, a simple life would be good!
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Agree about the Humax PVR. I bought one for my 91 year old mother, and she has no problems at all with it!
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Thanks to you good folk I've just bought a second hand Humax 9150T to see how we get on with it. Was on a course yesterday so missed the Chinese GP but there it was on the new recorder. Brilliant and simple. Thanks for the recommendations.
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I admit that I'm usually one step behind where electronic things are concerned, but I do try to keep up as much as I can. The experts on this (and "the other") forum have been a great help to me over the past few years, for which I'm grateful. I've even learned things by reading the Guide sections in the Argos catalogue! I'd rather have things which exceed my needs than the other way round.
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Bunch of Woossies you lot. You want difficult I'll give you difficult. Try taking the top of your Eighteenth bottle of Hobgoblin. Now that's difficult.
DM
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If you can do it with your teeth Marty D, anything you say from now on is ok with me.
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Sat 3 Apr 10 at 16:47
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I remember my older (mucho) Brother 20 years ago finding the setting up of a VCR a PITA,
and he was a TV engineer with his own shop in Maidstone for gawds sake.
He phoned me on Thursday, thinking it was Saturday, and that Wednesday was Good Friday.
Use it or lose - you have been warned!
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But how do you afford it? I have 3 bottles of Speckled Hen in the cupboard and I *savour* them. Have to blow the dust off and everything.
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>> Nineteen and counting:0)
Teeth left? or Teeth Missing?
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Run out of HobblyGobbly last week, Mart.
Last lot had orange labels, usually blue...what's the difference ?
We have a chain of supermarkets up in 't Noorth called Booths. They usually have summat nice on offer. Windermere branch last week had Shepherd Neame at £1, had a bottle of ' Early Bird ' last night...very nice.
Had one of their Spitfires with me dinner tonight followed by a Marstons Pedigree chaser. Then a drop of Chenay white.
Both very good ! No need for teeth, real men just smash the neck off the bottle and drink from the jagged end.
Could do with a beer forum on here !
Ted
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I have been drinking beer from 7:30 till 3:00am oh dear! I promised my doctor I will cut down!
Its just my life though, going out with a few mates in town and then bumping to all of Manchester. Before you know it Manchester owes you a drink and you end up being best mates with the bus inspectors and a patient copper.
They really should not let me out! It will do my belly the world of good!
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All I want is a cup of coffee.
MIL has got a new kettle since we were here last, it says John Lewis on the side. Why doesn't it say ON & OFF?
I get up early and they are used to that, I'm greeted by 2 delightful dogs who just want to be let out and lick me ( quietly) all over while I try not to wake up the rest of the house.
I still can't find how to swith the kettle on.
Start opening cupboard doors to look for sausepan to boil water in, then have to navigate multi switches and combinations to get a red glow on the hob, dogs barking to be let back in.
Finally dongle has found a miniscule signal and connected, saucepan still not boiled, but the kettle is sitting there laughing at me.
Shhhhh, stay calm Pat, it will soon!
Heaven, one dog either side so pleased to see life before 8am, coffee in hand and all's right with the world.
Do I confess or do I hide saucepan and fill kettle with hot water from the tap and pretend, when they all get up?
They knew this would happen when they found out their son was marrying an older woman and she was a lorry driver:)
Pat
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Pal of mine has a 'designer' kettle from, possibly, Fenwicks in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
I couldn't see how to turn it on.
He did it, so I never found out.
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My friend who lived up on the moor always used to boil water for tea in a saucepan,
He was a 'real' character you see, and when I used to drive down from London to see him,
He would put the kettle on, but be so engrossed in reciting Gray's Elergy or some Shakespeare to me,
that the kettle would actually burn right through (gas hob)
He had a very simple life though, no car, no children (not for the want of trying though te,he!)
Never married, although he did live with a Woman 20 years his senior who left him her Cottage + 30 acres :)
Before coming to Cornwall, he had travelled the world though - Australia, Canada, USA, Europe,
and that was before he joined the merchant navy!
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I'm greeted by 2 delightful
>> dogs who just want to be let out and lick me ( quietly) all over
Desr Girl, Why on earth are you worrying about your shower being faulty then ?
Ted
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...2 delightful dogs who just want to be let out and lick me ( quietly) all over...
Pat,
You could probably make quite a bit of money out of the video. :)
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Hmmmm....RSPCA might get involved there, Iffy !
Ted
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The doglovers knew exactly what I meant:)
Pat
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On/off rocker switch is most probably in the top of the handle and has a tell tale light buried within it. Nearly all made in China nowadays. Make sure the lead is plugged in to the mains and the switch on the outlet is on then press really hard with your thumb on the rocker. Tell tale should then illuminate. best to fill with H2O first.
Happy Tea making.
A lady capable of taming a 38.5 Gr.Wt cannot be beaten by Chinese Tea pot,
Phil I
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I tried that Phil and it opened the lid...............many times!
There was a small lever on the bottom of the kettle that you pull upwards???
Mr pda was the next one to get up and he solved the problem so I managed to bribe him not to tell anyone. Of course over breakfast he decided to anyway:)
I can cook a great Camion Stew on a camping stove in the cab though.
Camion Stew= tin of Irish Stew, small tin of new potatoes and an even smaller tin of peas. Empty all into a small saucepan and heat up while finding a signal on cab TV. When hot it has to be eaten with a spoon straight from the saucepan. Always tastes best eaten in a remote lay-by with a field of young lambs to watch playing, as the entertainment is better that cab TV!
Pat
Last edited by: pda on Mon 5 Apr 10 at 06:21
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...Camion stew...
Sounds nice enough for a one pot/one gas ring meal.
In the house, I drain the tin of potatoes and heat them gently in an open saucepan with a knob of butter.
They can get a bit waterlogged in the tin, so heating them this way gets rid of some of the excess moisture.
I do tinned or frozen peas the same way, but with the lid on - there's plenty of moisture in them without adding any water.
Mmm, I wonder if a cooking thread might work?
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What I want from hardware/equipment is intelligent software and hardware design.
A friendly use interface, if you like, which presents what you need when you need it, with more involved options offered when you want them.
Most of the things I come across are terrible, not intuitive to a western mind - even if you know what the blessed thing is capable of, it's difficult to find - phillips dvd/hdd recorder being an example of how not to do it.
As commented above, the our Humax comes close to being ideal, although the ergonomics of the "Foxsat-HDR" remote are not clever.
Just a shame it periodically fails to record for "unkown reason". If it was an aeroplane, I wouldn't fly in it.
Perhaps one of the best examples of "how to do it", and reaping commercial benefits from getting it right is the i-phone.
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I was won over to Apple products about 6 years ago when I bought an iBook and an iPod. The Mac OS was so much nicer to use than the appalling underdeveloped rubbish slung out by Microsoft and it just simply worked. Installing printers, for example, took a fraction of the installation time required on our various Microsoft machines and the other applications such as iTunes were so intuitive I initially thought it hadn't done what I wanted. It took some time to adjust from the Microsoft world where you just accept that the machine will lock up, produce an indecipherable error message or the blue screen of death so that stuff that actually works becomes a novelty.
In the meantime I've rather gone off Apple as a lot of the applications originally bundled with the Mac OS on my iBook are now expensive add-ons which makes upgrading an expensive luxury.
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...I was won over to Apple products...
I preferred the AppleMacs we used to have at work to the Dell PCs we've got now.
Apples seemed friendlier, simpler, and all round nicer to operate while at the same time being just as capable.
The only reason I don't have an Apple laptop is cost.
I like my iPod, although I've not had another MP3 player so don't know what the competition's like.
I've only ever used iTunes, but again I like it.
It seems iPods can freeze for no reason, but mine has behaved itself so far.
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The Iphone is a model or ergonomic delight for its primary use - A phone and a Music player. I have had mobile phones since the 80s and nothing comes close.
However, its deaf and drops signal that a nokia can hold with ease, it locks up, it single tasks - slowly, unable to change batteries, the camera is rubbish, and it will only work with I tunes.
In short pretty and nice to use, but exhibits steve jobs meglamania.
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Perhaps because I've spent all my working life (so far) on designing electronic hardware, I have absolutely no desire to own the latest 'leading edge' equipment. If anything, I've become increasingly Luddite in my leanings.
I do own a mobile phone - an Ericsson GH388 of 1996 vintage. It makes calls and deals with my one text a month quite admirably. It doesn't have a camera - for that I use a Wista Field 5x4 and a tripod. Batteries last quite a long time too....
It's not so much the technology, it's the content which engenders a sense of indifference. Digital television is a good example of 'hi-tech' misuse. 'LCD' may be an acronym for Liquid Crystal Display - but it is also one for Lowest Common Denominator.....
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My Merc W124 is fitted with an OEM carphone hidden and hard wired into the centre armrest. It's a Motorola, GSM fortunately, and the size and shape of a house brick. Back in 1994 it was a 6,000 DM optional extra.
As we have the internet these days I found the specifications for the credit card sized SIM cards from back then, butchered an old loyalty card and sellotaped my SIM Card into it. Then I put the SIM card into the DVD player sized transceiver unit in the boot and - the phone burst into life. Not only that, the handsfree also works.
Being used to bluetooth based car phones these days I wasn't prepared for the amazing, and frankly rather unsettling, sound quality from this 16 year old device. It's purely a telephone though, does what it says on the tin, so nothing fancy like SMS for example and an amusing far cry from the RAZR that I use as my normal phone.
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why did you not get 4 free PAYG sim cards from VO2? you snap the sim out from the card pre punched holes and stick yours in. Far less butchery required.
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I watch this thread grow with bemused amusement.
Using the most technically sophisticated method of communication any of you will ever use (computers and the internet) to wish for a life back in the simpler days.
Priceless.
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I remember when the Motorola GSM phones took the full size SIM cards (credit card sized). My first was an Ericsson from around 1990 which you had to pop out the SIM from the larger credit card surround (like you do now). As said above, sticking your SIM in one of these (or asking for a new one) would have been easier.
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A simple life is all i want do you? - Avant
