and bought smart phone. Evidently it's a lot smarter than I am.

It's a Samsung Galaxy 5 so it should be apparent that I don't fool around....I go to the front of the class....except I couldn't answer a phone call until I went back to Verizon and the guy, about 50 years old, talked to me like I was the village idiot. He's lucky I didn't bust a cap in his a** before it was over.

He said I didn't need an owner's manual. That's good because they don't give you one. He said go to YouTube and you can learn everything you need to know.

I went to YouTube and the instructional videos are either made by tech reps from Pakistan or some nerdy geek who speaks like the fast talkers reading a disclaimer statement and try to get 50+ tips crammed into 10 minutes.

Some time back I bought a throw away phone from Wal-Mart with 50 prepaid minutes, more or less, but they don't tell you that if you don't use them up in 3 days you lose them. I'm going to Wal-Mart and we're gonna hold hands and pray about this phone.

There, see what happens when Ya don't listen to your parents.

Mickey bought a smartphone....

I'm waiting for the moon to turn to blood, followed by a Great earthquake....

TFF

I feel your pain Mickey, I was looking for the manual for my iPhone 4S when i first got it over a year ago and the guy told me it was on my phone.

If I knew how to find the manual on my phone, I wouldn't need to use a manual in the first place. lol

The end times are here for sure!

Just play with it and all will become second hand in no time.

My 89 year old mother in law got one and was afraid of it,she didn't want to mess it up.

Now she is an even older pro with it.

Don't give up.

Thats why I have never had ANY type of cell phone.
I lived this long with out one!
Still have a old land line phone for the house.
Heck this PC I am on now was made back in the 90`s.
OLD AMRA

Mickey, I believe you have finally gone round the bend, time to put you in a home. Even I am smart enough to know I don't want a phone that is smarter than I am!

Be prepared to evacuate at a moment's notice.

Do you mean to tell me that I won't really go blind? For real?

LMAO!!! Priceless... I'd have one of those if I could find one!!

Terry,
The phone ain't the only thing I own that's smarter than me. You can start with 14 dogs......

Is there anyone you actually want to talk to that much?

Jim

Mick, I can totally relate, especially about "busting a cap!" I am thinking about getting a Blackberry Q30, hoping it is simple enough to learn how to use. I wouldn't touch an iphone or a Samsung with a 10- foot pole. Much too complicated.

Stepped in to the iPhone 4s 2 years ago. Best thing I have done! I get to FaceTime with my grandson

I'll bet he could teach you a thing or two about your phone.to suggest that Mr. Coleman recruit one of his grandkids for tutoring his new fangled phone.

Kinda like IT departments that say to email them when you have a problem with your computer. Generally when I need their help, I'm unable to send an email

Back to Mickey, when I got my iphone it was a bit frustrating figuring out how to use it, but I must admit it is a very powerful and handy tool once you get it figured out.

I avoid the smart phone as long as I could. The in January my old brick died and I was forced into one. I got an iPhone 5c and would be with out it now. In fact this post is being typed on it.

still without a cell phone here. would be nice, just don't want the bill.

That looks like shoe phone Maxwell Smart used to use!

It's really not as nice as what you might think.

I had an envy 3 forever and loved it. Now I have a statosphere 2, it sux. But I don't use a computer any more. Never been on the fire on a computer, only this POS phone. At least it has a real keyboard.

good luck Mickey

Funniest stuff Mickey has ever written. LMAO!

Good job. I'm proud of my 94 year old grandpa. He sends emails from his outdated computer. It took 4 hours to download recent pictures we sent him.

My phone is on a contract until Dec, then it'll be a Wally's prepaid phone of some kind. I'll go for days without using it and then it's usually my wife. She, however, spends a couple hours a day talking to her daughters and sisters.

i may sucumb also. i am thinking about getting my 1st cell phone. what is the world coming to?

ked

I avoided a smartphone as long as I possibly could, but finally took the plunge 2 or 3 years ago. Now, I would be in awful shape without it. Damn Angry Birds.....

That's how I was but the current job changed that now I stuck on the phone every day.

Holy Jitterbug!

I kinda like it when I am in an area where the damn thing won't work.
Wife doesn't have one by choice.

I've been asking for 2 years -






Who thought it a good idea to issue a smart phone to an idiot ?????

Mark

I spent 31 years as a telephone man in rural southern Arizona. I had to install them, repair them, splice cable, place aerial and buried cable, all in order to maintain telecommunications service.
When I retired, I absolutely could give a rats ass about a telephone. I do have a land line, or "intrusion device" as I like to call them, but I rarely use that, much less care to carry one in my pocket. My kids and friends shake their heads at my resistence to fold and pack a portable intrusion device. Ive made it to 60 without one, I suppose I can make it the distance without succumbing.

My IPhone is easier to operate than one of those simple phones. It is great! Yours should be also. You just need to spend a bit of time figuring out how to use it.

There are a few. None that I want to text, though.

And when you are finished pissing about with it you can give it to a teenage relative and go get yourself something with big buttons that will just make a call...the teen will adore you (for five minutes) and you will retain your sanity.

That is exactly what I've done. He will be here the first part of July.

I can't imagine trying to navigate the 'fire from a cell phone. I'm always here at the house and I never log off the fire so I'm a PC guy. That ain't politically correct, by the way.

I watched a video about the Galaxy 5's capabilities and it is astounding at the computing power in this little bitty thang. A few years back I bought a Nikon D300 DSLR camera with 12 mp of resolution for $2,000. This little phone has a 16 mp camera! Now all I have to do is to find out how to get pictures out of the camera and into the computer......

Exactly. I ask my 15 year-old son. I gave him an iPod so he cannot run up phone bills, but he can tell me all the bells and whistles on my iPhone.

The things that irritate me about the damn things is they are made for itty bitty jap girly fingers, and every time I actually get a finger on the right thing it zips off into the never-never to never be seen again.

You guys are making me so happy I bought a TracPhone. No contracts just buy a few hundred minutes, install, and go.

Smart phones are amazingly useful for those who have kept up with technology over the years in general, but for those who haven't, they're pretty mind boggling. My mom, seeing all the diverse uses I make of my smart phones, always wants to get the same phone (first the Droid, then the iPhone), despite the fact that I inform her that she'll never be able to make any use of it. When she goes ahead and gets one anyway (first the Droid, then the iPhone) I do my best to instruct her, but it's always in one ear and out the other, completely forgotten within days. They end up being very expensive, and hard to use, Jitterbugs, i.e., just used as phones, and not very efficiently as those. There's a reason they make Jitterbugs.

I'm an old timer and for years resisted getting a cell phone. Finally a couple of years ago family talked me into getting a simple phone. Used it for about a year (either 24 or 26 minutes worth) then lost it. Due to my limited usage I didn't bother replacing it for maybe a year. The replacement was programmed with a limited amount of talk time but included texting. Because it is slow the texting keeps communication times short. My s-I-l likes to send me pictures of his time in the field. Right now there are pictures of he and a buddy with the four turkeys they took in two trips afield.

On the weekend my s-I-l mentioned that on his smart phone he has about 1450 photos. The capacity of these tools is amazing!

Jim

Well, i have a cell phone[mostly because of my job], but it's a dumb one.....flip phone, that I use for talking. If you get more than a yes or no answer, from me, that's the extent of my texting.


Reminds me of a something that happened a couple summers ago. I was at my local AMVETS, one Sat. pm, having a beer with a buddy. This gal I know, walked in, and was talking to her new "smart" phone. We got to talking, and I told her the only thing I could operate was a dumb phone. This went on for a little while, and I asked her..."if that phone is so smart, ask it if you are going to have sex tonight". She did, and it locked up the damn thing and she had to shut it down, after 20 minutes! I saw her the following week, and asked her what the phone finally told her....she said shut up, I'm not talking to you.[with a grin on her face]


maddog

I have an old flip phone. Its usually off unless I need to make a call. I dont use it very much. I think I sent one text with it a while back. Never much cared for phones.

I'll never own any such 'smart' phone IN MY LIFE!! If the standard, cheapo cell phones go away it'll be the day I'll be cell phone-free...

All these newfangled 'smart' phones do is captivate the owners into poking the screen for hours on end while ignoring all people and surroundings.

No thank yew...

I love my i-phone. That thing gots apps!

Navatronic maps of all the lakes including the good fishing holes.

Also has a wifi fish finder / sonar app. My pucking phone's a fish finder! (try saying that five times real fast.)

Prior to my retirement I was a Park Ranger, they called me a District Supervisor, and wanted to provide a so called cell phone, fortunately those didn't work at my remote location. But I was permitted to drive the patrol SUV home as I was on call. That SUV had a fantastic communications radio, and I carried a portable, that hooked me into every emergency service from CalFire to County Communications Center, the parks administration headquarters, the sheriff, every city and district fire department, ambulance service and medi-vac helicopter to guide rescues. Even my little portable handheld could communicate from San Jose standing in the uniform store to crews working near Half Moon Bay, I was connected.

Then I retired. So I bought a cell phone for myself, just for emergencies, I had already equipped my wife with one. I wanted something simple, but simple still did more than I wanted. They kept getting more and more complex with useless features I didn't need as time went on. The final straw was a smart phone from the crappy generation that preceded 3G, or maybe it was 3G. It had a screen you touch, slide a finger up and down on, and generally can do everything but make a call. It also locked the screen before I could make a selection, a safety feature so I didn't butt-dial the Pentagon and release a missile strike on Poughkeepsie, New York.

The final straw was when I was sage rat hunting in Oregon. What convenience to be in the middle of a alfalfa field and have my wife call from California to tell me my new barrel arrived. But my phone died two days into the hunt. No matter, I went to the AT&T store in Redmond and bought a new phone. I carefully explained that we had two phones, and this one was connected to that phone number - pointing to the label stuck on the phone. Next thing I know my phone rings and its my hunting partner's wife trying to call my wife in California. The AT&T guy programmed my phone with the wrong number and killed my wife's phone. Her SIM card was toast and had to be replaced, and my phone no longer worked to dial out. So back to the AT&T butcher shop and they got my phone working so I'd have it for the drive home. When I arrived home it took a couple of hours and a trip to the AT&T store to get the mess straightened out. So off these not worth a crap phones went along with the AT&T contract, and we got two TracFones. Flip phones at that. Then I had everything annoying shut off, voice mail, messaging, service messages, all of it. Especially service messages and alerts - I was leaving the house one day when my breast pocket made a loud obnoxious screeching beep! I almost tripped on the porch step, not being used to hearing my chest beeping. It was a message that some kid had been "kidnapped" by her father. Oh yeah, I needed to know that, and that he was driving a gray Honda SUV. How many gray Honda's are there?

Now I got the phone configured to a short phonebook of people I may need to call, my wife, my home, GMC Roadside Service, AAA Emergency Roadside Service, and Roundtable Pizza. I press a button and call home, advising the wife that I have killed a hundred or so ground squirrels and now I'm on the way home. Life is good.

yup, got an Iphone 5. Glad I have students to show me how to use it..

I got an s3 a year ago and its still smarter than I am, but it does do some nice things

I have conquered 20th Century technology! Fortunately, I have gone kicking and screaming into the 21st. As a rule it seems I stay a generation behind the latest cutting edge stuff. I figure they've fixed the bugs and I avoid evolutionary dead ends (Palm Pilots, anyone?)

This stuff changes so quickly, you have to stay up on it. I just traded my Iphone 3s that is 5 years old for a Iphone 5s. The 6s will be out in the Fall, but I'll let them sort out all the bugs without me.

I don't think it's a good idea not to try to keep up with some of the technological advances, least we fall so far behind the curve that you can't catch up, as some describe aboove.

But.....some of us don't want to catch up!.....just sayin.....



maddog

Along the same lines, as a father of a soon to be college grad and a middle schooler, I've walked the oldest through this tech revolution and now engage in debates with parents of other middle schoolers about smart phones. Some refuse to consider it and others give their kids unrestricted use. Neither is a good idea in my opinion.

Those who refuse to let their kids have one, are putting them at a disadvantage. More and more will be done with handheld devices, more Apps will be used in school, and at some point they need to practice and play with these things to gain some competency.

Those that give the kids unrestricted use have no idea what they are surfing around on. They also don't realize that too much of this phone stuff stunts the development of normal socialization and interpersonal skills, because the kids choose to communicate with each other via text exclusively and not face to face.

There is a healthy balance.

You understand this thing was invented by a woman,as a tracking device ! The first thing my wife says is "where are you and what are you doing"

AMEN!



maddog

Mickey,

I feel your pain!

This high tec crap passed me by many years ago.

Had a fellow geezer in the gunshop a while back, trying to work his phone.

He says "ohhh CRAP!" I think I just took a picture of my ear!

He had a phone just like mine.(GRIN!)

Virgil B.

Been looking for one of them, ideal IMHO.

I hear ya Mickey but it is the mechanical/electronic stuff I can't stand.

My BIL bought one of those old, heavy black phones that sit on the counter and have the rotary dial. It has a long enough cord on the handset that you can walk around in the kitchen and no farther. He figures when his daughter is talking on the phone, she'll do it in plain sight and earshot of the family. No cell phones allowed.

My oldest is only 6 but I'm already thinking about how or what I should do to keep my kids from becoming techno zombies.

Here's the user manual.........won't get you into a lot the trick & more sophisticated stuff, but it will get you through all the basic usage elements.

Verizon Galaxy S5 User Manual

I have an S4, if you need something specific, let me know.......may be able to help depending on the issue.

MM

Exactly. BTDT. It's like having the NASA Mission Control Center at your beck and call for technical questions.

Thanks, MM. I'll give it a good look.

Hilarious!