Tag Archives: smartphone

June 27, 2026

Smartphone Tech Woes

By acflory

I consider myself to be a baby nerd when it comes to computers, but smartphones have always baffled me.

I mean, green is for ‘Go’ and red is for ‘Stop’, right? So how can swiping from ‘Go’ to ‘Stop’ be the way to answer a call?

Ahem…

Despite my utter dislike of smartphones, I do have one – a Samsung Galaxy J2 Pro – and I do use it, but only for making calls, receiving bushfire warnings from VicEmergency and…two factor authentication. My internet banking requires two factor authentication and so does shopping online with both of the two major supermarkets, so imagine my dismay when I tried to login to my bank and two factor authentication didn’t work!

When I first started doing internet banking, I had a ‘token’ that provided two factor authentication when I logged in. Tokens were small devices, about the size of a USB stick, that had a button and a small display screen. When you needed to login to the bank, you would press the button and a random number would appear on the display. You typed the number in and hey presto, you were in.

I had my token attached to my key chain so I would never lose it [I always attached my keychain to a belt loop because I’ve always been paranoid!], but perhaps other people lost theirs, or…or… Anyway, about two years ago the bank phased tokens out in favour of smartphones. Now, after I enter my ID and password, the bank immediately sends a 6 digit number to my smartphone. I type that number into the bank’s login page and hey presto, I’m in, just like before. Except when it doesn’t work like before.

Back when two factor authentication was handled by a simple token, a token that was in my control, if I lost the token, it was my fault. Now, I’m completely dependent on my smartphone, and my smartphone has a limited lifespan that is completely out of my control.

How long a lifespan? Not long at all.

My Samsung Galaxy J2 Pro was released in January, 2018, but I know I didn’t buy it then, so being as generous as possible, the unit I currently have is six, possibly seven years old. The camera still works, the phone part still works, but apparently the SMS/notifications part does not. A simple failure due to ‘old age’? Or planned obsolescence?

Curiously, my current telco – Telstra – no longer lists the J2 Pro as ‘approved’. Despite this, however, all the tech people said that the problem was not at their end but at mine. Either way, I have a perfectly functioning phone that has to be replaced simply because one, vital component no longer works.

I know younger people will find my anger baffling, after all, they replace their phones as soon as a new model comes out, but for me and people like me, even the cheapest new phone is an expense that has to be budgeted for. When it has to be replaced suddenly, it’s a major shock to the bank balance.

Luckily for me, it’s winter, so not getting bushfire notifications won’t kill me. More importantly, I’m incredibly lucky that this all happened before the end of the financial year. With four days to go before the EOFY sales end, I managed to buy a super cheap smartphone that should last me a few years, ‘few’ being the operative word. Once the new phone stops working, or stops being supported, I’ll be stuck again… Late stage capitalism sucks b@ll$.

Am I the only person who hates being at the mercy of a system that favours manufacturers and service providers over consumers?

Not happy,
Meeks

27 Comments | tags: cost of living, EOFY, internet banking, late stage Capitalism, Notifications, planned obsolescence, release date January 2018, Samsung Galaxy J2 Pro, smartphone, SMS, Telstra, token, two factor authentication, VicEmergency | posted in My soap box, technology

August 15, 2016

#Cicret wrist projector/smartphone

By acflory

When I began writing Innerscape, I had a lot of fun dreaming up the kind of tech I, personally, would like to use.

One of those wanna-have gadgets was something I called the ‘chrono’. Essentially, my idea was that a truly useful wearable would be able to project an image or a holo above the wrist so that short-sighted people wouldn’t have to squint all the time. Well….

The Cicret bracelet [pronounced ‘secret’] literally projects an image of your smartphone onto your wrist. You can then manipulate that ‘image’ exactly as you would a real, physical smartphone.

Not exactly as good as my chrono but…in Innerscape the chrono isn’t invented until about 2060. Colour me egg-on-face. But also happy. My thanks to the Offspring for this tip.

cheers

Meeks

p.s. Sorry, you can’t buy one yet, but one day you’ll be able to select a bracelet from ten gorgeous colours, including fire engine red. Get in the queue behind me. 😉

13 Comments | tags: arm, bracelet, Cicret, project, prototype, smartphone, tablet, wearable | posted in technology

February 11, 2015

EmergencyAus – great tech support!

By acflory

I recently wrote a post about a smartphone app called ‘EmergencyAus’. It was not a happy post because I was not getting all the available notifications about potential bushfires in my area.

[Note: one of the things I’ve always hated about summer/fire season in Warrandyte is the fear of not knowing when a fire is nearby. By the time ABC radio 774 broadcasts a warning, you’re already on the back foot. What the EmergencyAus app does is send SMS warnings to your smartphone whenever a fire starts anywhere in your ‘watch zone’, i.e. 5 km around my home. But in order to relax a bit, you have to trust that the alerts will get through to you.]

As well as ranting here, on my blog, I also sent off an email to the EmergencyAus tech support people.To be honest I did not expect tech support to do much – email support is very hard at the best of times.

Imagine my surprise, and delight, when I discovered that EmergencyAus tech support really do provide support. Not only did they finally sort out my problems, but they stuck with me through 28, yes TWENTY-EIGHT emails [I know because I just counted them]. That …is patience with a capital ‘P’!

With another hot day coming up, I’d like to say thank you to EmergencyAus for helping me get my peace of mind back. Thanks guys. 😀

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the problem seems to be an older version of Android teamed with Google apps that haven’t been updated since the year dot.

cheers

Meeks

16 Comments | tags: app, bushfire, EmergencyAus, fire-season, Notifications, smartphone, Warrandyte, watch-zone | posted in Australia, bushfire, bushfires [Australia]

February 8, 2015

I’ve been a victim of an SMS scam :(

By acflory

I’ve always hated my smartphone, but today I hate it even more because I’ve just discovered that I’m the victim of an expensive scam.

This is what I think happened :

– I was browsing [on my desktop, not the phone] and came across some kind of competition – it may have been to win an iPad. As part of the process I had to enter contact details [yes, I know…I KNOW!] Those contact details must have included my mobile phone number.

– I can’t remember whether I actually filled in the whole form and sent it, or whether I got cold feet and tried to cancel. I’d like to think some semblance of commonsense returned at the last minute but….probably not. Money was very tight back then, otherwise I’d never have looked at a competition in the first place.

– Anyway, very soon after, I began receiving scads of spam on my email address. That was relatively easy to deal with as my email client has quite a good spam filter. So…problem solved. Or not.

– In hindsight I now realise that the weird spam texts I was getting on my smartphone began at about the same time as the spam on my email address. I deleted them and got on with things. But they kept coming back.

– Then, I started to get rather large mobile phone bills, but I figured it was just because I was late paying so they all rolled up into one.

Stupidity compounding stupidity, I continued paying those large bills despite money being tight. For months. Only on Friday did I think to query my mobile phone provider about my bills. That was when they told me that I’d been paying for a premium SMS service all this time. And yes, every one of those spam SMS texts was costing ME about 5 dollars. 😦

I had no idea that any of this was even possible. What was a premium SMS service? I didn’t know. How could something online affect my mobile phone? I didn’t know. How could spam cos me money? I didn’t know.

In fact I still don’t know how any of this is possible. But it happened, and I really should have known better.

Making this confession in public is my punishment for being so stupid for so long. I can only hope that my experience alerts others out there to the fact that this is even possible.

If you start getting spam SMS texts [mine were all about general knowledge questions] call your service provider straight away, and get the bloody subscription stopped! And, as always, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

A very unhappy,

Meeks