iPhone

SoCS — No Lack of Options

Fandango7 Comments

3BA9B1F3-0E9D-4B9E-AAE9-D7EDC49C0123For today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill instructed us to “pick up the closest book to you when you sit down to write your post. Close your eyes, open the book, and place your finger on the page. Whatever word or phrase your finger lands on, write about it.”

These instructions for me are easier said than done. You see, the truth is that these days, the only books I read are ebooks on my Kindle app for my iPhone. Thus, picking up my iPhone, going to my Kindle app, closing my eyes, selecting and opening an ebook, and placing my finger on a word or a phrase on a page in that ebook is pretty close to impossible.

2B8F3844-9CD3-4E49-B615-22478763AC8DThe good news, though, is that my wife is reading a physical book, The View From Flyover Country, by Sarah Kendzior. So I reached over to my wife’s side of the bed, grabbed the book, closed my eyes, opened up the book, and placed my finger on a random page. When I opened my eyes, I saw that my finger was either pointing to the phrase, “Being a responsible parent means” or a section header that says, “Lack of Options.” I suppose that means that rather than having a lack of options, I actually have two options.

With that said, I shall now, as Linda instructed, write about how “being a responsible parent means” that you have a “lack of options.”

But wait. I don’t actually believe that. Do you? I think that there are plenty of options available to a responsible parent. For example, a responsible parent can help a kid with his or her homework, therein providing support and encourage as well as helping the kid to understand the concepts the homework is attempting to teach.

Conversely, a responsible parent can refuse to help a kid with his or her homework, in which case the parent is teaching self-reliance, independence, and taking personal responsibility for one’s assigned tasks. This option is especially useful when the homework involves higher mathematics that is well beyond anything the parent could possibly understand, much less assist with.

So what this exercise has proven to me is that being a responsible parent means that you just try and do the best you can and hope that your kids will live through whatever responsible parenting options you choose and will, at the end of the day, thrive.

SoCS —Expectations

Fandango10 Comments

c21f1f19-72c6-4526-a1d1-92be03a02891.jpegFor this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill has instructed us to use “xp” as a word, or to find a word with “xp”in it. When I first saw “xp,” what came to mind was the Microsoft Windows operating system, Windows XP.

I’m no expert in Windows operating systems, but I do know that Windows XP was released in 2001 to replace Windows 2000. Windows XP delivered a more stable operating system with significantly improved performance over previous Windows operating systems, which were notoriously buggy and prone to crashing. 96CC72BC-B0B7-4522-87E7-5859A060ECE1Which of you hasn’t had your heart stop when the blue screen of death showed up on your monitor or laptop?

Microsoft introduced Windows 7 in 2009 and Windows 8 in 2013 as replacements for Windows XP, although the company I worked for continued to run its PCs and laptops on XP until it ultimately migrated to Windows 10 in 2015.

My two-year old Dell laptop has Windows 10 installed on it, but the truth is, I hardly use my laptop anymore. Most of what I would need a computer for these days, including blogging on WordPress, I do on my iPhone.2FE7DDE4-8ABC-415F-A414-A07FEC896D42On a totally unrelated topic, I get monthly credit bureau rating reports from Experian, as well as from Equifax and TransUnion, the three major credit reporting bureaus. I’m pleased to say that I have an excellent credit rating!

But seriously, would you have expected anything else from Fandango?

A Tricky Problem

Fandango17 Comments

49872735-bf2a-41f9-bae5-dac16d379442.jpegWhen we last discussed this issue a few days ago, I was pretty stoked. As I told you here, the WordPress happiness engineers finally acknowledged that my iOS app issue — the one with huge time gaps (3-6+ hours) in posts that show up in my Reader overnight — was not unique to me. They said, “This issue (or something similar) does appear to be affecting other people than just yourself.”

That was a relief. After all, WordPress boasts 75 million blogs on its platform, about half of which are on WordPress.com. I found it comforting to know that I wasn’t the only WordPress blogger out of 75 million (or even out of 37.5 million) who was having this issue.

I was also encouraged to hear that, “Fixing this has been escalated to high priority for our developers….” Great! Help is on the way.

But as John Wayne was wont to say, “Not so fast, Pilgrim.” Today I received another message from WordPress.

“I wanted to update you on the progress of this fix. I have checked in with our developers who have confirmed there is currently no ETA for this fix yet, but it’s something we are aware of and is high priority to get resolved.

However, this is a tricky problem to solve because it’s hard to pin down the exact steps to replicate the problem. We are continuing to do our best to work on this, and hope to have a solution for this as soon as possible.”

No ETA for a fix? A tricky problem? You want the exact steps to replicate this problem? Simple:

  1. Pick up an iPhone 8 Plus that has the latest version of Apple’s iOS installed.
  2. Go to the App Store and install the WordPress app for iOS.
  3. Follow about 175 bloggers, most of whom post multiple times a day.
  4. Go to bed.
  5. Wake up in the morning, reach for your iPhone, open the WordPress app, and go to the Reader.
  6. Marvel at how you see a post from one of the bloggers you follow that was published 8 hours ago and the very next post you see in the Reader was published 3 hours ago.
  7. Go to your web browser on your iPhone, log into WordPress from said browser, and then go to your Reader.
  8. Marvel at all of those missing posts in that 5 hour gap that aren’t showing up in the Reader on the WordPress iOS app, but which are miraculously showing up in the Reader in the browser.
  9. Get really pissed that this has been going on for at least six months and the happiness engineers at WordPress have no clue how to resolve this “tricky problem.”

Share Your World — Not My Lucky Day

Fandango13 Comments

Monday means it’s once again time for Melanie’s Share Your World questions.

What is the best pick me up that you know of to shake you out of the blues?

The good news is that I don’t get blue that often, but when I do, there’s nothing like ice cream to get me back on track. After the news of the release of the Mueller Report and Attorney General Barr’s summary, which essentially gives Trump and his corrupt family a free ride, I’m going to have to sit down and consume a couple of gallons of ice cream later today.19F0E55A-02D2-4A25-A54C-25E27674C421

What would be the title of your memoir?

  “A Life Most Ordinary”

Where do you like to go when you eat out?

Mostly to restaurants.

Do you believe in luck?

No. Not in fate, predestination, or anything like that, either.

Aside from necessities, what is one thing you couldn’t go a day without?

My iPhone.

WTF WordPress?

Fandango11 Comments

8A371390-1E1E-46F7-8DB1-A7E9272C573DHere we go again. Back last October, I wrote this post in which I complained about a four hour time gap in the posts that showed up in my Reader overnight on my iOS app on my iPhone. When I contacted WordPress about the problem, its Happiness Engineers informed me that they were aware of the problem and were working to fix it. And, after a while, they did seem to fix it.

But the fix was short-lived. A month and a half ago, I wrote this post complaining, once again, about how, when I go to my Reader on my iPhone, that huge gap, now typically five hours, has returned.

Once again, the gap issue seemed to have been addressed. When I went to my Reader I’d see a message that said “Loading More Posts,” and then, lo and behold, the missing gap posts would be there.

But now, as of yesterday, it’s back yet again, as can be seen from the screenshot above. Only now the gap has grown to six hours!

I don’t know if each time WordPress makes an update to its iOS app, the problem magically resurfaces, but, as I said to WordPress the last time I complained about this, you need to “get your shit together, dammit.”