Computer woes
In previous blogs I have talked about my difficulties with electronic gadgets when seemingly simple tasks have become complicated and undoable.
Thus, I was pleased when Genevieve offered to show me how to download my photos from the phone to the computer. This should have been a simple task. With my last phone, Genevieve had written a detailed summary of the steps needed to accomplish this and although I couldn’t remember each time, at least I had the written instructions to follow. I thought it would be much the same this time around.
I had tried numerous times to get my computer to recognise that the phone was plugged in, but it didn’t seem to register, no matter how many holes I placed the end of the charging cable in. I had googled downloading photos and tried to follow those instructions and now when my computer is turned on there is a message on my phone telling me it is connected to the computer. So, I must have done something partly right, I figured. But that still didn’t bring me any closer to getting the photos from one device to the next.
As Genevieve pulled up a chair alongside me, I heaved a sigh of relief. Now we had an expert on the job. After about five minutes of trying, my computer whizz informed me that she couldn’t figure it out either, but she knew another way that could work. This involved selecting photos, quick sharing them, placing the link on an email and sending that to myself, opening the email, pasting the link, opening the photos now on my computer, saving in a zip bag, opening again and copying, then pasting into a new folder in my pictures…or something like that. There seemed to be way too many copying and pastings going on, but it worked. Miraculously, we now had 106 of the 900 photos safely in an October 22 folder in the pictures. Yahoo.
The jubilation was short-lived. In our next intake, we selected 186 photos, just to speed up the process. Or so we thought. The computer wasn’t having a bar of that and refused to start downloading. We thought we could try again with a smaller selection, but the computer refused that as well. It kind of reminded me of the pregnancies between RH O positive and negative partners. With the first baby things are okay, but during delivery the body forms antibodies which can cause issues in subsequent pregnancies. It almost felt that the computer had done the same thing. Perhaps it was unaware of what we were doing with the first download, but was not going to allow a second. About an hour later, I pulled the plug, as everything on the computer had frozen. Genevieve was baffled, but for me it was an all-too-familiar story.
I had a beautiful camera once, one that I purchased duty free on my big trip overseas. Everything should have been perfect, but many times when I went to take a photo, the shutter jammed up and the camera refused to work. I took it to numerous camera shops, but because the fault was intermittent, the cause was never found. I had one man ask me if I even knew how to use a camera. Over time, I discovered the camera didn’t work when I would see an exciting shot. I became convinced that it was my energy somehow interfering with the camera’s mechanism. Ordinary shots never seemed to create a problem. Whether that was the case or not, I can’t say for sure but I do know I have had well over my share of non-functioning electronic items.
As I opened this blog – that is another thing. It takes ages for even word to open. The whole starting-the-computer process takes a good six or seven minutes or longer sometimes, but as I was saying, as I opened the blog, I saw the three quick share items in my recent files. I wonder if it is worth trying again. But just to be safe, I will post this blog and photo first.
As a foot note. I did try again and this time the photos downloaded rapidly. I was able to move the whole 900 of them onto my computer.