Can of Worms

It's August and it's Samsung upgrade time. Samsung bring new phones out twice a year, January and August. I open the new Samsung store app, and look around. Mm.. nice. Wow, I love this new Samsung Fold 5. They have got the hinge sorted and it closes well. Ah, but I will stick with the S23.

So I wondered away from it. Then one day I noticed, that the case for the S23 is peeling on the edges. In all these years, that I have been using the Samsung phones with stylus, I have never had this issue with their cases. I started looking for other cases, but none have the Smart View.

You spend all the time in the world, looking at specifications, but you never think, how does the cases's corners wear out? 

JerryRingEverything goes on about his cases, but I bet, he has never looked at the simple fraying on the edges. None of their cases deal with the Smart Window.

The old LED cases never wore out. This one is awful. It has a very rubbery feel to it. But you are stuck with it, because it has the Smart View, to show you the analogue clock and more importantly the messages. 

I said, forget the window. I bought a cheap leather one. Guess what? The stylus wouldn't work. The leather or some insulation against waves blocks the signal. So back it went.

Now I am more annoyed, about the bleeding cases (literally, it is bleeding), than the phone. Madness. Can't sleep. Distrubed emotional balance etc.

"Is it in the Stars Ali", you are shouting at me.

Well yes it is. 

"So, how come you didn't prepare for it, using your positive thinking etc"?

Sun opposition to Saturn. It happens once a year. This year it is all about detailed, fussy, finicky, stuff you handle with your hands, because Sun is in Virgo or Shahrivar شهریور ♍. 

Saturn is in Pisces or Esfand اسفند ♓, on the other side, which deals with imagination, art, visualization. 

Below is the situation right now with Moon making a perfect Square.

Designing images for Astrology diagrams, can get very taxing. You can feel the tension between the Sun and Saturn. Saturn is making life hard enough for us, going slowly through Pisces or Esfand اسفند ♓. So having the Sun opposition as well, does not help.

I kind of said, "that's ok, I can swing this". The rule is, see the forces and rise above them. Think outside the box, as it were. Go back to the Samsung shop app.

I went to the shop, to look at the cases for Samsung Fold 5. It is a one piece plastic. It won't fray and bleed. Let's see what Samsung will give me for my S23. Wow they would give a lot for a trade in. 

I got excited. I have cracked the conundrum. At the check out, I realised the colour of the phone and case didn't match. So I went back and changed the phone. Got the stuff the next day in an unbelievable delivery speed. 

The new phones were synchronized, and then realised that Samsung hasn't sent me the return details for the trade in. 

So I called them up. They said I didn't get the discount. I told them what I did with the colour change. They said I need to return it and repeat. She sent me the email with the return label. Cool I will print it. Cinch.

Like most people, I rarely use my printer. In fact, the only time I seem to use it, is when I have to return something, because it is faulty. The irony is that, the printer is of course faulty as well, because I rarely use it. With all the upgrades to software and hardware, these devices rarely get updated - so the network just doesn't recognise them, and of course, the cartridges have dried up.

What began, as a simple curiosity journey for a case for my existing phone, has ended up with a massive replacement for a new phone, and a new printer. 

Why a new printer you ask? Because it is cheaper to buy a new printer with cartridges, than new cartridges. 

Luckily I managed to get one decent print after ten test pages, somehow Windows troubleshooter spat it out. 

Wow. What a crazy story eh? Talk about a can of worms. I sort of saw it coming, but it was hard work with all the astrological aspects. 

How to promote toys and morality at the same time.

Obviously we all know about the feminist movement around the world. As an expat we have seen it take on the Ayatollah Regime in Iran. But how do the women in United States get justice? 

The one movie, that immediately comes to mind, is of course Barbie. Personally I found any comment made about Barbie, was totally destroyed by sour political activists. That's how potent this whole affair has become. They need to make a movie about, the activist's abuse of power in social media.

Anyway, moving on, I thought I would turn on my Apple TV last night, to see what's new, and I came across this movie. It seemed goofy on the face of it. So why not just enjoy a bit of light entertainment? I liked some of the actors and actresses in the description. It should be good then I thought.

And it is good at the beginning. I could identify with the challenges, of convincing the world what invention you have. You are on his side. Then suddenly, you see him get a huge telling off, by a single mother (with of two girls) business woman, like you have never seen. 

He is then humbled, and desperately tries make amends to her family. He is funny. In the process, he gets great ideas from little girls, and makes it big time. He is empathic. But the key, is how he just never gave credit to who or what helped him to promote himself?

How do you promote yourself? It was really hard in those days, before the internet. He hears a South Asian student intern, give ideas and he is impressed. If he was given the same advice, by a hot shot from a massive ad agency, he would have given them more credit. 

This is where morality gets involved. It is all about, how he has used two little girls ideas first, and now an Asian student. No one mentioned any of this, in the reviews I read about the film. They all go on about, mature American women, getting back at men so righteously. But something goes wonky. To sort all that out it, it goes into a time warp, to give them a second chance, of how to conduct business deals with crazy selfish men.

I don't want to spoil it, but you should get my drift. You need to watch it twice, to understand the time shifting.

The best part of the film, is that it shows what an Internet business can do. They were the first one. You can see what an eBay auction can do. 

Very funny and more comical than Barbie, and a lot more entertaining, than watching a commentary on marketing on TED on time shifting and reflection.

Transition from Landline to 5G Mobile Broadband - how to easily test your signal.

I have ignored this blog for too long. So I am reviving it, with this, the latest addition to my household. This is an amazing piece of kit is called SMART 5G HUB. As usual with me I will give you the whole journey, because I talk and write a lot.

Where shall I begin? Well, as the kids will tell you, I have been in the game of IT, from the days I got windows one. As an astrologer we probably write and draw more than most. Our wheels are like a weather maps. So they are updating non-stop 24 hours a day. Communication then is vital. I remember trying to do this with a premium fax line in the first days of Citystats, my stock market astrology service. People paid to get the reports.

Technology is then part of my DNA, and it is part of Astrology. For example I am using the Sun transit my Uranus in Leo to do all this. Look up your astrology at astro-seek. 

Here it goes. My contract with EE is expiring so I got cracking. Lone behold, EE have been working on the terrible situation with getting everyone on the internet. Some rural areas are not able to have wires or cabling put in. With emergency and banking all on the internet, it has become critical. So they created 4G broadband in 2018.

You probably are a bit confused. If you are reading this on your mobile, then you probably are using a free broadband connection. Most probably, it is first connecting via a WiFi signal to your phone. That box then takes your signal and pumps it down the old copper wire to the telephone exchange who then do the rest. 

But imagine that the journey was changed. I am putting in simple terms, as that is what I do. That is why I am a salesman. I simplify. So what happens to your signal with this new box? It gets your WiFi signal and sends it to a very fast tower not too far away. 

The speed that the signal goes from this box, to the new 5G masts, as they are called, (and they aren't as ugly as the old towers), is the main issue. The problem is that when you look up the signal in your area, it can't tell you what is going on inside your home 🏡. 

I want you to try this. Disconnect from the WiFi right now. Wait and see the signal from your mobile service to show. If it shows 4G then you are in luck. If it doesn't, move away from a thick wall. Stand next to the window. You need to check to see if you get what they call 4G. The term 4G is a marketing word. 

If you have 4G showing, then you need to check how fast it is. Download or Google, Speed Test. I use Ookla Speedtest. This app will tell you exactly what the speed is. There is a speed guage ⏲️. 

This is where EE and other providers don't get their messaging right. I told them this morning to ask all their sales team to do this. Once the user sees that they have 50 megabytes per second or mps, then your location is awesome. It means you can get this box. 

What the box has done for me, is it has made me future proof all the way from 50mps (megabytes per second) to 5gbs (that 5 gigabytes per second). 

A film is about one gigabyte of data. So yeah that is unbelievable. But if you have ten people or ten gadgets accessing 500 mps each, as streaming games and other things, then you will need that. 

Most people will never need it. But it's nice to know. Also there is the WiFi signal in the house. This box gives you WiFi 6 signal. So all your new laptops will be able to use it. The WiFi signal is as important. 

I don't know whether you realise this, but it's obvious what the next thing that they want to get people buy, will be to have 5G to manage everything from your car signals to what is expiring in your fridge and medicine cabinet. The new packaging will send signals to the box. They call this, The Internet of Things. That means the internet will connect all the other non computer devices or things to the network. 

So you need to get this box. If you don't, you will basically not get security updates quickly and worry about all that. I actually managed to pay less than my existing contract and reduce it to one year. So to sum up, switch off the WiFi on your phone. Measure the 4G. If you have it inside your home, then Bob's your uncle 👍.

Link to Speedtest

Link to EE