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The internet of everything or Everything's got to have a bloody computer in nowadays.

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    The internet of everything or Everything's got to have a bloody computer in nowadays.

    The - only 4 year old - oven was playing silly buggers turning itself on and off randomly. Turns out the mother board's gone so costs a fair bit to replace. The thing is we only use about 3 functions of the 548 that are on there and I am fairly sure they would be on an analogue one.

    When we first moved in together, we had a microwave that had clicky mechanical buttons for ever. Lasted 15 years. Didn't even have a digital display which apparently uses more energy than the actual microwave. We have gone through about 5 in the 15 years since.


    #2
    If you're on Twitter, you need to follow the Internet of Shit account. It chronicles all the ills deriving from having every appliance connected to the internet nowadays. Avoid if you are intolerant to learning how close to a Black Mirror dystopia we already are.

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      #3
      When we bought our current washing machine, we deliberately chose one with as few complicated functions as possible. It works. It cleans clothes.

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        #4
        Things to do with computers are also needlessly complicated. Specifically printers. I bought one, expecting to connect it to my laptop with a USB cable. No. It is supposed to connect to the internet, and then somehow to what you want to print. I still haven't got it working...

        ...which is annoying, because another aspect of this 'fuck the consumer' business is that modern electronic equipment rarely includes a manual. You're supposed to go and download it from the website, and presumably print it off. Some manuals are over 100 pages long.

        Oh yeah, and then there's my 'smartphone' which for some reason can't be seen by my laptop, so I can't move photos to the device where I'd actually like them. I'm baffled as to how smartphones got so popular, using the internet on a phone is like attempting to use a screwdriver wearing boxing gloves.

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          #5
          Originally posted by delicatemoth View Post
          Things to do with computers are also needlessly complicated. Specifically printers. I bought one, expecting to connect it to my laptop with a USB cable. No. It is supposed to connect to the internet, and then somehow to what you want to print. I still haven't got it working...
          Yeah, printers are the worst. Can't help you there.

          ...which is annoying, because another aspect of this 'fuck the consumer' business is that modern electronic equipment rarely includes a manual. You're supposed to go and download it from the website, and presumably print it off. Some manuals are over 100 pages long.
          Well, if I buy a new bit of equipment which does come with a manual, the first step that I follow is to throw the manual in the recycling along with the packaging. Then I charge the thing, turn it on, trust it to tell me how it works, and if it doesn't, I ask Google. On my side of this coin, manufacturers including a paper manual with their products are just wasting paper and ink, so the environmentally friendly thing to do is not send me manuals.

          Oh yeah, and then there's my 'smartphone' which for some reason can't be seen by my laptop, so I can't move photos to the device where I'd actually like them. I'm baffled as to how smartphones got so popular, using the internet on a phone is like attempting to use a screwdriver wearing boxing gloves.
          I imagine that the majority of smartphone users don't care where their photos are. Those users just snap a photo with their iphones, the picture somehow moves to a cloud, and they can somehow access it on their devices; those users do not worry where the actual photo is. I don't tick like that, so I make offline backups of my photos (hence I do feel your pain here), but I'm afraid I may be in the minority here.

          Does your smartphone run Android? If so, have you tried the following steps? 1) turn on both phone and laptop. 2) connect phone to laptop with USB cable that came with your phone. 3) on your phone, on the home screen, drag down the menu from the top, and see if it says something about how to use the USB connection; default is to begin on "charge only", but change that to "USB file transfer" or somesuch. 4) on your laptop, find phone in "This PC" window.

          This may tell you things you already know, and if so, sorry. I think that particularly step 3) is not very intuitive at all. It tripped me up when I bought a new smartphone lately, so I thought others might be helped by learning of my mistake. The exact phrasing and menu may vary depending on your Android version.

          If your smartphone runs another operating system than Android, I cannot help.

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            #6
            Last Xmas when we were allowed to travel (2019..?) a grandchild had bought my in-laws (in their 80s) an alexa.
            So we spent about a day and a half with online manuals, mainly discovering that nothing they owned was new enough to be compatible

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              #7
              I love it when things don't have dead tree versions of their manuals. It's hard to throw them away, but I really don't want to have them cluttering up the place. Much better to have a copy I can look up on my PC. Or Chromebook. Or phone.

              My main objection to "the internet of things" is how unutterably shit the name is.

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                #8
                I've come to the conclusion that the setting up of wireless printers and Bluetooth headphones and speakers relies solely on hope and good fortune. No need for instructions as "Turn it on and pray it connects" is the only useful advice one can offer.

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                  #9
                  The one that makes me scream and shout is trying to get my phone to show things on my telly. It sometimes works and it sometimes doesn't. Mostly doesn't. But it ever does. So I try. Cos it might work. It doesn't.

                  I don't print, though, so that's something I don't need to worry about. Except that other people do print, and then send me bits of paper, the buggers. So I need a scanner. And I inherited a printer/scanner/copier, so I use that. So I do have a printer. I think it's more or less ok, being wifi'd up. We'll see next time some bugger sends me something important via snail mail. The buggers.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by delicatemoth View Post
                    Oh yeah, and then there's my 'smartphone' which for some reason can't be seen by my laptop, so I can't move photos to the device where I'd actually like them.
                    I had that for a while. It turned out the phone wouldn't connect whilst it's screen was locked. Possibly a security protection. I unlocked it and voila, I could access everything. Not saying that is your problem here, but is that something worth mentioning as a possibility.

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                      #11
                      I do go to some lengths to avoid IoT devices, or at least not spend much money on them. However, it was a bit of an effort to find a dumb TV.

                      I do have Google Chromecast speakers around the house, but they're fairly inexpensive. Purchasers of early Sonos speakers nearly found themselves with bricked devices, until a public outcry saved them.

                      I'm struggling, however, to understand why someone would repeatedly want to download photos from their phone to their computer. Much easier to sync with Google Photos or iCloud, then periodically download those files to your hard drive.

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                        #12
                        For the second day in a row I cannot do any work because my employer has decided to changed its authentication system to one that requires a smartphone, and I don't have or even need one. Back to thumb twiddling.

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                          #13
                          I had a lot of problems when I got my new phone last year. I don't understand phones, so my tactic when anything needs doing is take it to my pub, and ask one of the barmaids to sort it out for me. Unfortunately I got the new one at the beginning of lockdown, so it took a month's swearing and three Teams calls from a very long-suffering colleague (who fortuitously used to be a barmaid) until I could turn it on.

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                            #14
                            Everything seems to have built-in obsolescence these days. I understand why - if you're selling microwaves, or hoovers, you want people to buy a new one every year - but it does piss me off. There is no fundamental reason those things shouldn't last for decades, and work as well on their twentieth birthday as on day one. These new lightbulbs that were marketed as "long life" are a bloody ripoff and all. They go just as often as the old ones used to.
                            Last edited by Rogin the Armchair fan; 07-04-2021, 08:05.

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                              #15
                              We never had a microwave until the guy we rented the house to while we were in madrid left his in our garage. Still working, 15 years later, tho I did buy a new one in Lidl during lockdown as it was 40 pounds and a good brand

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                                #16
                                Fifteen years ago, we'd go to Blockbuster, and for three quid, rent out a DVD of the latest film. I understood that; there were a limited number of said DVDs, and a demand to rent them. Then everyone said "oh, we'll go to streaming films direct to your telly. You won't have the hassle of going to the store, there will be unlimited choice, and unlimited supply, because we won't have to physically produce DVDs any more". Sounded fantastic. So why do we now have to pay Virgin or whoever six quid to download the latest film onto our telly?

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                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by Wouter D View Post
                                  Does your smartphone run Android? If so, have you tried the following steps? 1) turn on both phone and laptop. 2) connect phone to laptop with USB cable that came with your phone. 3) on your phone, on the home screen, drag down the menu from the top, and see if it says something about how to use the USB connection; default is to begin on "charge only", but change that to "USB file transfer" or somesuch. 4) on your laptop, find phone in "This PC" window.

                                  This may tell you things you already know, and if so, sorry. I think that particularly step 3) is not very intuitive at all. It tripped me up when I bought a new smartphone lately, so I thought others might be helped by learning of my mistake. The exact phrasing and menu may vary depending on your Android version.
                                  Again, dependent on using Android, and also may run into the same internet problem as the printer, but I highly recommend using Airdroid to access files and other stuff on your phone. Much simpler than faffing about with USB cables.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                                    I love it when things don't have dead tree versions of their manuals. It's hard to throw them away, but I really don't want to have them cluttering up the place. Much better to have a copy I can look up on my PC. Or Chromebook. Or phone.
                                    You'd have thought by now it would be standard for a manual to come with some text on the cover that says something like "Download this manual at www.thistechnologyfirm.com/guidance with the code ABCD" and you could go there and get it as a PDF.

                                    Like you, I'm bad at throwing manuals away because I always fear that I won't be able to retrieve them online. This is even the case when basically all the manual says is "That one screw? Put it in the one hole." If there was a clear download process it could just form part of the set-up process: open box, turn on thing (using manual if necessary), download manual to relevant folder on laptop, recycle manual with packaging.

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                                      #19
                                      Were I the EU, I would require manufacturers to post PDFs of manuals to a single website in order for the product to be sold in the Union.

                                      A central repository would be more efficient than dozens of individual sites with different interfaces, etc

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                                        #20
                                        Thank you for the suggestions everyone.

                                        The reason I'd like files on my laptop rather than my phone is that on my laptop I can easily edit them and post them to places where I'd like to post them. Can't do any of that on a phone, in part maybe due to OS inconsistencies or whatever, but mainly because a phone has a small screen and no mouse, keyboard or other controlling device and is hence extremely unsuitable for such tasks.

                                        As for manuals, booklets may be unnecessary for fridges and washing machines but they are absolutely a boon for complex music equipment where you are liable to be flipping back and forth between pages e.g. https://www.synthmodes.com/modules/disting_mk4/

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                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by delicatemoth View Post
                                          The reason I'd like files on my laptop rather than my phone is that on my laptop I can easily edit them and post them to places where I'd like to post them. Can't do any of that on a phone, in part maybe due to OS inconsistencies or whatever, but mainly because a phone has a small screen and no mouse, keyboard or other controlling device and is hence extremely unsuitable for such tasks.
                                          Like I said, you can do all that in the cloud, using a desktop browser, without any cables and manual copying of files.

                                          Whatever you think of Google, Google Photos is terrific software.

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                                            #22
                                            Google Photos (for Android) or iCloud (for iOS) would be the way to do it. I set Mrs P with the latter, and occasionally export out of iPhotos onto our NAS.

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                                              #23
                                              My tablet has reached the end of its life (for me) and so I am buying a replacement to let another company have their turn spying on me. This will mean my having to download the usual apps, but worse still, try and guess the passwords that I haven't entered or altered in the last couple of years.

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                                                #24
                                                There are a few different reasons why a device might not connect to a Chromecast. With ours, it turned out to be because the router was just a bit too far away from the TV. Since we've moved, the router has been next to the TV, and that seems to have fixed that.

                                                I'm fairly handy, tech wise, but I'm deeply suspicious of anything that has the capability to 'listen' (obviously, I'm aware of the irony of typing this from my smart phone). Just this morning, our TV updated its software and is now Alexa capable, but my answer to that was 'no thanks', but I'm softening up to it, slowly. Privacy is becoming a thing of the past, and any stand that made would feel futile to me, though I completely understand anyone who genuinely cuts all those cords.

                                                Planned obsolescence is definitely a thing, but the only time it ever particularly affects me is with my phone. I get a new one every two years, largely because the batteries are running pretty ragged by then. My current phone is largely indistinguishable from my previous one, in most other respects. Slightly bigger memory, slightly newer chip, slightly better camera, and cost less than its predecessor.

                                                Otherwise, I tend to get stuff which is cheap and which I know has a chance of lasting, with care. I use a Raspberry Pi for our home media network and the audio goes through a 20 year old set of Mission speakers and a cheap amp, but my laptop is my real gift that keeps on giving. I bought it as a refurb in 2016 for ?230, and it's a 2012 Dell with a 3rd gen Core I5 processor, 8gb ram and an SSD. It does everything I need it to do (up to photo and audio editing, I doubt it could cope with video editing), even after nine years. I think it was a former business machine. They seemed to have cost more than ?1,000 new, in this configuration.

                                                It's only got a 1366x768 display, but that doesn't really matter since it's only a 12.5" screen, the speakers are dogshit, and that doesn't really matter either because I almost always listen through headphones or the TV speakers by Bluetooth, and it's miles off powerful enough for any form of gaming, but that's okay because I game on the PS4, apart from old games which are all on the Pi and run just fine. I've stuck a new battery in laptop, bought a new power brick for it, and take the back off every few months to give it a clean, but other than that it just keeps going.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                                  Were I the EU, I would require manufacturers to post PDFs of manuals to a single website in order for the product to be sold in the Union.

                                                  A central repository would be more efficient than dozens of individual sites with different interfaces, etc
                                                  This is one of the times that "the market" has done a pretty good job. At least if you're ever looking for printer manuals, which I do with a depressing regularity.

                                                  Eggchaser what you needed a few years ago is a password manager. I mean you could still do with one but it would have really paid dividends now if past you had got one. Not that I have a recommendation as I'm still looking for an alternative to lastpass.

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