This and That

  

Crocuses in a sunny flowerbed in the neighbourhood on Tuesday afternoon. 

Since then we've had more snow coming - and going - and just now coming again... The weather this March has made it a real challenge to keep track of where we are in the calendar. I only realised today that Easter is coming up already next week! - I had totally forgotten about that!

Some people seem determined to get the "barbeque season" started whatever the weather, though - I just took these photos from my window! It's 7 pm, snowing, and +1°C (33.8F). Makes me wonder what on earth they're cooking for which the electric oven in their flat wouldn't be a better choice, in this weather...! (There's a woman involved as well, and by now three umbrellas - one just to cover the food or whatever, on the table. And lot of smoke from the fire, and quite windy, too...)

Myself, I managed a short umbrella walk earlier in the afternoon before the temperature dropped so low that the rain turned to snow. 

Before that, I experimented with vaccuming the flat while listening to Spotify music in my new wireless earbuds. If I park the phone on the chest of drawers in the hall in the middle of the flat, that works... :)

Another task started is to delete duplicate photos from my Google Photos archives. I never quite understood why GP made double copies of nearly everything from my old phone - but I suppose it's because I kept moving photos from the phone itself to be stored on the memory card instead. And then GP regarded it as a 'new' photo and copied it again. (This is just photos taken with my phone, mind. Most photos used on my blogs were taken with separate cameras, and they're not involved in this.)

With the new phone I'm determined to get better at sorting "along the way"... (Ah well. At least one can always try to start new routines...)

8 pm: Darkness has fallen. The outdoors table is empty. The couple and their food (cooked, burned or raw, I don't know) have disappeared indoors. Only the grill (with the lid on) is now to be seen - left to cool off, I suppose. 

For my own part I think I'll settle for a cup of hot cocoa and a sandwich for supper, while watching an antiques show on TV.

 

 

Making Progress...

Getting acquainted with my new phone is still taking up a lot of my time - and I keep oscillating between frustration and revelations... ;-)

Out on a short chilly walk on Sunday (just my usual turn around the cemetery for exercise) I had my first attempt at shooting some outdoor photos. Or so I thought. Turned out when I got home that what I had actually done was shoot some very short, shaky and blurry videos (of things not supposed to move!). 

Being used to actually pressing a physical button to take photos (even on my old phone), I guess I probably pressed the "screen button" on the new phone too hard...

Yesterday was sunny (even if still rather chilly), and a better day for outdoor photography. I managed a few shots in and near the park downtown; and then at home also experimented with creating collages. Some crocuses had shown their face again after the snow-shock that must have buried them the other day; and I spotted a couple of more unusual ducks among the usual mallards in the river.

I think they must be goosanders (Lat. Mergus merganser, Swedish: storskrake)

The white ones, bottom right, are snowdrops with snow dropped on top of them... (The crocuses were in a sunny spot, the snowdrops in a shady spot.)

- - -

Some of my other experiments have been related to sound rather than images. The new phone turned out to have no headphone jack; so the day after I bought the phone, I decided to also invest in a couple of new wireless (Bluetooth) earbuds. They don't even have a cord between them to keep the pair together... So far I haven't dared use them outside the flat! ;) They're surprisingly comfortable, though.

The photo on the left is a shot from my TV screen today (watching an episode of Foyle's War). Just as a reminder how far technology has come in the past 80 years or so...!

You turn them on/off and change volume etc by tapping on the earbuds themselves. I've still not quite mastered that art... Sometimes if I want to increase or decrease the volume, I manage to turn them off instead. Or suddenly an automatic voice cries "GAMING MODE" in my ear...  It seems I'm also supposed to be able to answer a phone call by a tap, if I happen to be wearing them when the phone rings. (That still remains to be tested.)

Getting the earbuds also inspired me to look into how to transfer music to the phone from my laptop (where I have pretty much all my old vinyls and CDs saved as mp3-files). Grasping how to do that turned out another headache. I'll just sum it up by saying I tried things more than one way without success... Finally, yesterday, I somehow managed to transfer two (2) albums, though - still hadn't got a clue why only those two (out of several more attempts) were successful!

Somewhere in between, it also occurred to me to explore Spotify (music streaming app). Wow... Somehow I've been under the impression that the free version of this app would also involve lots of unwanted ads and interruptions. (Perhaps in the beginning it did?) But I find now that it does not! And so easy to find old favourites... And once I started marking those, the app started making automatic playlists for me, and bringing up even more suggestions that I hadn't thought of... But you can also listen to full albums. (I bet some of you are laughing at me now. You probably knew all this since like forever.) Anyway, I got spellbound for hours yesterday afternoon, just exploring this whole world of old/new  music... Conclusion at the end of the day: No need to have tons of music files downloaded now - only perhaps a few, if I also want to be able to listen offline sometimes.

Still... Always unsatisfied with unsolved mysteries, today I returned to the problem of how to transfer music from the computer - and think I managed to figure it out. Somehow, after the two successful downloads yesterday, I must have broken off the procedure and failed to start over correctly. Like it seems essential that I turn on the phone first, before connecting it (by cord) to the computer... Never mind the rest of the steps, as it probably varies between devices anyway (which apps are involved etc). Suffice it to say that I have now also downloaded a limited number of my own albums for "offline" listening. 

However, in the process, I've probably also developed an addiction to continue exploring Spotify...

A Snowy Start to Spring...

... and more updates on the Phone/Computer Situation

 

    

Today it was time here in Sweden to change our clocks to 'daylight saving time' - or as we usually call it: "summer time" (sommartid). I still have several that need to be reset manually, and I did that before I went to bed last night. (Probably forgot at least one, because I nearly always do. But if I did, I haven't yet discovered it!) 

When I looked out of my window this morning, the view was far from summer-like, though. It's snowing again! (Still going on when I write this, hours later...)

It's been a strange week, very much dominated by the Phone and Computer Situation.

The Good News is that my SIM card arrived by post on Friday afternoon. Inserted it into the new phone, and abracadabra, my old phone number was back in use - including the account balance attached to it. Not, however, my contacts - so I had to enter those manually. Which made me realise that these days I probably don't actually have a valid phone number for a whole lot of old friends any more - as, like myself, many have chosen these days not to have their number listed as searchable online any more, and FB/Messenger has taken over as the primary way of staying in touch... 

Having my phone number back on my phone also allowed me to re-establish the all-important 'Bank ID' (as mentioned in previous post - almost as essential here these days as having a physical ID card). Phew!

On Friday, "with fingers and toes crossed", I also started the process of moving vs. copying all photos stored on my laptop to an external hard drive. I did have copies of most old stuff before, but still wanted to make sure I got a fresh back-up of everything, as I also needed to permanently delete some stuff from the laptop now. This procedure literally took all day, and I kept checking on the progress frequently, to make sure the laptop did not seem to be getting overheated. It did not, though, and it managed to complete the task without any major problems arising. (Phew!) We're talking of ALL my digital camera photos (going back to my first digital camera from 2006) and also all edited versions + all scanned and 'photo-copied'  and downloaded images (including lots and lots of both new and old postcards + copied old photos from family albums). 

On Saturday, I continued to also transfer/copy Documents, plus all my collected Music and Audio books (other than the Audible ones, which are thankfully safely stored online).

So now, knowing I have a fresh back-up of everything 'personal', I feel I can relax a little about the computer situation. Besides Windows' protests about lack of storage space for important updates earlier in the week, I do also have another "issue" with the laptop though - which means I'd still better start looking into finding a replacement a.s.a.p.

 Yes. It's sort of "coming apart at the seams" (reminding of my old phone after the battery overheated). I did notice some time ago that the 'mouse' part had risen a little - but it still worked then, and I always use the laptop with a separate keyboard + 'roller mouse' anyway...

However, it has got worse; and the 'click' function on the laptop no longer works at all now. So looking into getting a new laptop popped right up to the top of things to do next...There are a lot of things to consider, though, so I don't want to be too hasty about it. (And no need to be, now that I know I have personal files safely backed up.)

Meanwhile, I'm not letting the computer work "unsupervised"; and have also taken the extra precaution of not only turning off the laptop itself when I've finished, but have also added an extra "switch" to the wall socket...

 

Whereas a mobile phone is usually "on" 24/7, the battery in the laptop really shouldn't have a chance to get overheated all by itself.

Testing

Testing something I haven't tried before: Writing a post from my tablet using the Blogger app. The reason: I may find myself needing to do that, because I think my laptop is about to give up on me too... A Windows update just failed because of not enough storage space... I'm now trying to move some photos to an external hard drive. I have waaaaay too many photos and they take a looooong time to move... 

So I need to get a new laptop as well, I just hope the old one will give me time to sort it before it quits! 

Update: Day Four

It's Day Four after my old phone suddenly died on me. (Yes - an incident dramatic enough to start a new "calendar"...) If you read my previous post you already know that I spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday searching online for a replacement, but finally managed to pre-order one at a store in my town where I wold be able to pay for it when I went to pick it up. 

So on Monday, around 11 am, I set out on this errand. It had rained earlier in the morning but the rain had stopped by the time I had to go out. I have about 15 min walk to the station, from where I took a bus "across town" (another 15 min or so). I had received instructions to go round the back of the huge store to pick up my parcel. Never having gone through this procedure before I felt a bit lost, but I found my way there all right, and there was no queue and no problems. Then I went back to the main entrance and into the store to ask if they also had some shell/cover to to fit the new phone. They did, and a good sturdy one too. (Just looked it up online and find it described in English as a "smart full body protective shell stand holder cover"...

I was able to catch the next bus back (buses 30 min apart on that line), and then walked back from the station again, so the whole errand didn't take me more than around 1½ hour.

So far, so good. Meanwhile, however, I'd also found out (already on Sunday) that my old SIM card was the wrong size for the new phone. I was able to order a new card with the same number to be sent to me, but I still haven't got that. As we only get mail delivered every other weekday now, and it didn't arrive today, my next chance is Friday... Can only keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best! (I.e. that they really do send it directly to my postbox, and not to be picked up... Because they usually inform about that by text messages these days; and as my phone is not working, no such messages would reach me...) 

Left: My new phone - Samsung Galaxy A33 5G
Right: My old phone - Sony Xperia Z3 (from 2014)

While I can't complete the set-up of the new phone without the SIM card, I did nevertheless start the process already on Monday afternoon. Got the phone charged, connected it to my WiFi, and got started on trying to get acquainted with how to download apps etc. Phew... I continued with this all day yesterday, and almost felt my own brain having a melt-down in the process. Everything seemed to be in a different place than on my old phone, and as soon as I had managed to find where they'd hidden things, or figure out how to do this or that... it all seemed to slip right back out of my memory again, so that with the next app I had to start from scratch once again...

I've struggled on, though, and by now I think I've managed to recreate most of the apps from my old phone, and get them sorted in an order with which I feel vaguely familiar... 

The all-important Mobile Bank-ID one can't be recreated until I also have the SIM card, though. (I could go on quite a bit more about that but I'll skip that for now.)

As can be seen from the photo above, the new phone is somewhat bigger than my old one - and also a bit heavier - so feels a bit clumsier to me, but I suppose I'll get used to that. You can also see that it has no less than four camera lenses on the back (+ flash +one front camera). I've not yet had time to explore the camera functions much - I just snapped a few shots of some new plants I bought yesterday:

 

 

A Saintpaulia (African Violet), for my living room window, and a small yellow kalanchoe for my ceramic Easter rooster (which I had since before).

And a bigger yellow kalanchoe for my kitchen window.

After having installed my Audible app on the phone yesterday, I also found myself impressed with the sound from this new phone. I've not yet tried it with music, but I'm sure it will get along very well with my audio books...

I'll hold off more "reviews" until we get a bit better acquainted!