Technology: Love It or Hate It

LOVE IT:

 There is a cool FREE app I have on my iPhone that I don't use as much as I could. 

It's called "Radio Garden" and it can tune into radio stations all over the globe. My personal favorites are, of course, Bossa Nova and Samba from Brazil and Smooth Jazz from anywhere, and Italian radio. I've listened to several other genres and stations here and there around the world.

It really is pretty remarkable technology. 

If you are not connected to internet you will use phone service data of course but I cannot find any definitive info about the exact amount of data streaming Radio Garden will use. 

The best estimate I've found is just under 1MB per minute or 60MB per hour. (To be honest, I don't really know what that means, but I guess it's not too much unless you are listening for hours a day). If you are connected to the internet you don't have to worry about using your phone's data plan.

Install and open the app and spin the globe to a location you're interested in and let the app tune into a station. You can spin the globe at any time to try another station and you can save stations you like in order to return to them easily.

It's pretty cool, I'd say.

HATE IT:

I don't know what Google or Apple or Blogger has done but the look of Blogs on my iPhone has changed.  It was very annoying and frustrating as I find almost any change these tech companies throw out unannounced to be crazy-making and I think purposely done to make some of us feel stupid. 

Frustrations continued until I discovered the toggle switches which were new or which I had never noticed before - because I had no need to.

There is now an option for "Reader" which not only changes the appearance of the website but also seems to prevent viewing comments or making comments on certain blogs using Disqus. (Such as Joe.My.God news blog which highlights news articles especially those that pertain to political and LGBTQ news). 

You can turn the "Reader" on or off - (and for some reason "on" seemed to be the  new default setting) but I think "off" is preferable as it returns things to familiar format.

HATE IT:

Again on the iPhone - I cannot comment as "me" on blogs that I follow using my iPhone. It allows me to comment as "anonymous" and prompts me to sign into my account. Even when I am signed in I get the same thing. This is true even when I try to reply to a comment a reader has made on my own blog! I cannot add a comment on my own blog using my identity/profile - only as "anonymous".

And I clicked on "Learn more" just for fun

I "checked my browser configurations" (as best as I could figure out), I have gone into settings on the iPhone and on Google but can't seem to find a way around this. So frustrating! Especially as I used to be able to post comments as "me" using the iPhone. Why has this changed?

I just don't get how or why things change for no apparent reason. Why do they have to fix what ain't broke?

Just an aside from a meme I read recently regarding comments on blogs: Do you get the irony in the fact that a computer is asking humans to prove they're not robots?

HATE IT:

The screen shot is visible - in reality it's actually so dark it looks black depending on the ambient lighting

Again with iPhone. I am not a patient person. Occasionally I inadvertently swipe the screen and a different screen will pop up. The other day I did that and the control screen popped up. I got impatient and went to swipe it down and instead swiped down the brightness. Given the ambient outdoor light the entire screen appeared black and I could not see anything. "Take a breath, Frankie," OK, I realized what I had done and had to go into contortions to see the very faint image of the control screen so I could swipe the brightness up. I swear they make these things purposely to drive us mad. 

OK, maybe it's just me.