I have mentioned before that I have an older cell phone as I love the Organizer software I use on my computer. I love it so much that my husband had to set up a virtual Windows XP “side” to my desktop computer as I could not use the software with Windows 7.
Well, what I have been afraid of has happened. As (I am pretty sure I mentioned before) my cell phone - a classic Blackberry stopped accessing the Internet or email (email is something which I almost never access on my cell phone anyway) through the cell phone signal and started working only through wifi a little more than a month ago. I could make telephone calls and send texts without a problem. I have previously described my attempts to resolve the problem. Nothing worked. Husband was upset at the idea of my continuing to pay the full price for my cell phone service when I was getting only part of the service - but also knew what a major upset the change would be. We let the phone renew for another month to give us time to think. I had three choices - keep using (and paying for) my old phone service with my phone it was - my choice, update to “the modern world” and get a (low price) android phone, or go the other way and get a flip phone that would make calls and texts and just about nothing else - either of the latter two options was cheaper per month than continuing the service I had.
Husband has tried to be very gentle about this and help me as he knows how much change in general and this particular change especially, upsets me. My life was in that phone - it kept me - yes - ORGANIZED. My phone numbers were in it. My calendar was in it. My memos were in it. It synced with the software I love on my computer. (The phone did not sync with the software for todos/tasks something very important to me and I am still carrying my older phone - a Palm Centro (the first “smart” phone) around the house to deal with the todos as most of them are in the house and I learned to make a secondary calendar notation for todos to be done outside the house to get by.
I was happily getting by until this past Monday. We had needed to renew prescriptions. I telephoned the doctor from home and he was to call the pharmacy. When we went to pick up the prescriptions two of them were missing and I tried to call the doctor from my cell phone - it did not work. I then tried to text my husband to tell them about the problem and it would not text. Oh boy!! I found my husband who was looking at cell phones for me - his major hobby in Walmart these days - and after using his cell phone to call the doctor’s office and correct the matter - told him that I guessed that this was it.
I have one “real” (meaning a not just my craziness about things problem) problem with cell phones. I don’t carry a purse. I don’t wear a belt. The phone has to fit in the front pocket of my jeans. We have been looking at android phones to try to find one that would fit. He had me try his phone in my pocket for size - much too large as were almost all of the phones we found. He found two that were small enough - and only one was reviewed to be good. So that was the only choice. We bought the phone Monday when the Blackberry did not work - although it started working again later.
I have another problem which he insists is me - I haven’t been able to get anyone else’s android/Idevice to work. At the dentist office he used Square for our charge card and handed me his tablet to sign - I didn’t show up on it - husband had to sign it. So I have to learn deal with this. Husband has given me a stylus which will work with the phone and he found out that the “space pen” I carry will also work as stylus with it. (The space pen fits in my pocket.)
So for three days now we have been working with the new phone. It is on a different service provider and it was a bit confusing setting it up (my phones are both prepaids), but we got it done. Somehow it changed immediately; husband had been worried about me not having a phone for a few days - how could he text me when we are in stores and I walk away?
I have been learning to use the phone - I have a problem, believe it or not - hitting the correct letter when typing (and even once the wrong digit when using the numbers, in a situation where I could not go back and correct it). I tend to hit the letter to the right of the one I am trying to hit. I sent a text to him - only took a half hour to write it as I kept hitting the wrong letters. Yes, I am that lazy - I text him to come down to dinner instead of walking up and telling him. I am sure I will improve.
My embroidery chapter board had our annual board meeting last week and there have been followup emails - I answered one of them and said that I have gotten the emails, but I am switching phone which means that I will be totally disorganized until I figure it all out, and to please bear with me - they are nice, they will.
First major problem - I have over 400 contact entries in my old cell phones/Organizer and the only way to move them to the new phone is by copy and paste of each item in each entry. I looked through the sync software I use for the Palm Centro as it is a sync program we bought and it syncs a variety of programs and devices - it has a choice labeled “Google”. We tried setting that up as husband figured I might not only be able to transfer the contacts and my calendar with it, but then I could sync them as I wanted to. No, was set up for too old a version of Google.
He did managed to find out how to export my calendar from Organizer to Google, so after a few false tries, that worked and it is one set up done on the new phone.
I then started copying and pasting contact info. There are two schools of thought as to the order to do this - first one is to start with the first contact in my Organizer (also Blackberry/Palm as they match) and go through one after another - this idea is very organized, hard to miss a listing. The second thought, is copy the contacts most needed - so I can use the phone right away - and then copy the others, a bit each day, which is the more practical of the two.
Since Monday I have had one contact in the new phone - my husband’s cell phone. Today I sat and pasted and copied the listings for our immediate family, two other board members of my embroidery chapter, the head of our reenacting unit, our doctors, and our medical insurance companies. I have out an email to each of my sisters double checking that I have the correct info for them, their husbands, and their children, so I put in basic info for them that I know is correct and will add the rest when they let me know of any updates. I have a lot of contacts as I have all of the members of our reenactment unit and my embroidery chapter in the phone. I also have at least one emergency contact for those in our reenactment unit (there is a campfire and there are guns, so we like to know who to contact - just in case) and one advantage to the new phone is that I can put the emergency contacts as part of the main contact for the members and label who they are for (mom, wife, cousin, friend...). That might speed it up a small bit. In the mean while when we go out I bring my Palm just in case we need another contact - it is smaller than the Blackberry.
My plan going forward is that I will have a “memo” in the new phone - if I make an appointment while out or add a contact, I will add it to this memo and then add it to my Organizer program at home by hand. The same with todos - up until now I have been putting them in the Blackberry as an appointment until I am home and can fix it.
The memos I have are the biggest problem. Some of them are static - info we need for some purchases - how much fabric, what model saw, etc. Others change sometimes - a list of our EZ pass tolls so I can check it against the statement - this one is not a problem as I will have my Palm with me when go out of state any way - but I will also use a separate memo in the new phone to keep track of same. Biggest problem is the constantly changing memos - my shopping list for example - I need to keep both lists - the computer and the phone list the same and that will take some work - then again, right now I am using a list written on paper until all this gets set up and working and anything has to be better than that - I forgot to buy eggs today.
How have YOU dealt with switching cell phones?
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK - What has to be done, has to be done. One can say no as much as one wants to, but when push comes to shove, one has to do what one has to do. When the cell phone did not work Monday (which was apparently a problem with too few “bars” as it worked again later) I took it as a sign that someone (not my husband) or something really wants me to switch and I should just “rip off the bandage” and switch.
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