To Err is Human ...

… but to really muck things up requires Technology.

O2 are ‘upgrading’ their system and a have sent me a new SIM card to put into my mobile phone.  A nice lady has even phoned to remind me to do so before April the first.

The day before yesterday I took the plunge, opened the envelope, followed the instructions on the leaflet and successfully installed the new SIM.

I phoned my mobile from my landline; that worked.

I phoned Middlesister to check outgoing calling; a short call as she was waiting for her GP to ring (nothing serious).

I asked Thunderthighs to text me, moments later received the message “Happy St Patrick’s Day for tomorrow” and texted my thanks reply.

Then I realised ...

The phone was working perfectly, apart from the fact almost all the stored numbers in its phonebook had vanished.

 

So I sent a panic email to friends and family and appealed to Facebook friends

“Great!  Thanks to O2 insisting we all replace our SIM cards my mobile has now lost almost all its stored numbers.  The upside of this is that those numbers of lost friends I couldn't bear to delete are now gone.  The downside is, if I had your mobile number the likelihood is I don't now.  And of course in this digital age I have very few mobile numbers written down on that exceedingly useful material - paper.  So if you want me to have your number, please text me and I shall save it, again!”

 

As you read on, dear younger readers please bear in mind that my generation is the one that took Information Technology from inputting data into computers the size of small busses by feeding them postcards with holes in, to how things are now.  Some of my friends have been quite involved in this: one developed deep vein thrombosis from the number of times he flew to the States for conferences and techy work stuff; another managed university IT data systems and organised an annual international conference of people who do webby things. 

As you will realise from my vocabulary I have the same attitude to computery and IT communications stuff as I have to any other machine.  All I need to know is how to get it to do the things I want it to, with as little pain and fuss as possible.  For example: dirty clothes go in the washer, detergent goes in the drawer, I select a programme, press go and sometime later take wet clean washing out – I have no interested in what happens in between or why.  If something goes amiss I’ll find someone who knows what they’re doing to fix it, or get a new one.

 

IT techy minded friends offered advice by text, online and in a (coincidental) Zoom meeting of mates from our early twenties.

The gist seemed to be “put your old simcard back in and move the numbers off it and into the phone’s memory” (it was news to me the phone had its own memory)

Fine, except I have no idea how to do that, and I wasn’t convinced the phone would even turn on with the old card in.

One offered me his sim-card reader with the text “What model of phone do you have?  I could have a dig and see what I can find about storing numbers.”

I had to reply “Sorry, no idea, the box went ages ago.  Good news, haven’t cleaned text in/out boxes for ages so I'm gleaning loads of numbers from there.”

 

The senders’ names on text messages had reverted to their phone numbers, so by opening a text 

I could find out who sent it, then save and allocate names and numbers through “Use number”.

Laborious, especially with some people sending cryptic messages anonymously, but effective.

Once a number was allocated a name, the name appeared as if by magic wherever applicable all over the in/out box. (During that exercise I realised I don’t half text Mrs Leftfoot a lot.)

I still had no idea how to put numbers into the phone’s memory.

It is possible on my little Nokia to put an icon of a house, face, phone or building next to the contact name and in trying to do that I came across “Change type?”.   

When I tried that it came up with “Can’t do that on SIM memory.  Do you want to store on phone memory?”

I posted on my Facebook thread “Yay! I found how to save the numbers to the phone.  It's "change type"!  How on earth would anyone not find that!!!”

Sheamus Murphy replied “I have my contacts on Google Contacts, so no problem in changing phones, and can also access from desktop PC.

Miss Fiddle remarked “but you need a smartphone to do that...”

I truly believe many people don’t comprehend how basic my held-together-with-sellotape little Nokia is; or how much I like and want to keep it that way.

 

Fortunately many friends have been kind enough to email or text me so I could save their numbers.   

Some even thought to include their name so I didn’t have to text back “Thanks but my mobile doesn’t know who you are.”  

It took 3 texts to winkle out one person’s identity.

I had a happy little half hour allocating icons to names, and saving them to the mobile’s memory, before a thought struck me.

 

As I posted on Facebook

“The thing is with transferring the numbers onto the phone, which am I more likely to change sooner; the SIMcard or the phone?  Given the age and condition of the phone, and the fact I've had the same SIM for as long as I can remember, that's more likely to go first.   

Then I'll have to get all the numbers back onto the SIM.   

Ain't technology grand!?!"