Still Clickin

Because they can be used to call for help, cell phones often provide senior citizens with a sense of security and independence. Although I currently don’t choose to have one, my wife does, but it is old and has started to fade. To give me a project, she placed the search for a replacement into my hands. This is what I found in June 2009.

To make the best selection, I narrowed the search by first answering some key questions, i.e.
1. How is the phone going to be used? That choice determines both -

• the kind of phone you should pick as well as
• the type of billing plan you should select.

2. Of the major networks (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile), which provides the best signal in your immediate area?
3. Of the many service providers, which combines the best answers to the prior questions with stability, service, and price?

First, you need to pick your network. Despite all the ads, cell phone signals travel in a straight line between your phone and the nearest tower for your network. Hills and valleys matter. Don’t listen to the commercials; listen to your neighbors. Ask them which network they are using and how well it works for them. On the major highways, all of the major networks work well. However, at our last home, AT&T worked well and Verizon did not. Now, at our new home, the reverse is true. You can try this web site to assess the local terrain, but asking your neighbors is the best.

One improvement over the past year is that the networks in the USA have become more “open” as they are in the rest of the world. That means that you often don’t have to buy a new phone if it already has the technology (GSM or CDMA) that the network supports. CDMA is used by Verizon and Sprint / Nextel. GSM is used by AT&T and T-Mobile.

But if you don’t own a phone or have a “tired” one, how you answer the questions on usage can determine which model of telephone device you should select. Are there other things you want to do with this phone beyond telephone access? Today’s cell phones come in three major flavors, and there many additional features that you can pick to suit your taste. While their prices may vary from nothing to over $500, they allow you to do a lot more than just dial a friend. Listed by increasing cost, the categories are -

• Basic - allows you to talk and listen,
• Media - also lets you take pictures or video, play music or games, and
• Smart - acts like a mini PC for email, texting, and Internet access.

Next, you need to decide what your usage patterns will be, e.g.

• How many calls will you make per month, and how long will they last? Remember, you are charged for every minute that you are connected to the network whether you made the call or simply received it.
• What time of the day/night will you use your phone the most? Night and weekend calls are typically charged at lower rates.
• From what geographic area will you make/receive most of your calls? This choice can affect both the quality of the service as well as the cost.

The challenge is to pick the billing plans that best fit your actual usage because that will usually offer you the best value. There are two major types of billing plans -

• Contract - provides a year or two of service at a fixed monthly fee for a certain number of anytime minutes as well as a much higher number of night and weekend minutes, and
• Pre-pay - requires payment up-front for a fixed time period, and charges either by-the-minute or with a combination of daily (or monthly) access charges coupled with a lower by-the-minute fee. There is no contract. For many seniors whose usage is less than 200 minutes per month, a pre-pay usually offers the best value.

Once you have an idea of your network, phone, and billing plan, start searching for service providers. You can deal directly with the major networks or you can choose an alternate network (MVNO’s), who buy bulk time on the major networks and resell it to their customers. Often, these outfits offer more creative billing plans and solid customer service. Names you may have heard of in this group include Page Plus, Jitterbug, Consumer Cellular, TracFone, and Virgin Mobile.

My search ended with a pre-paid billing plan from the service provider, Page Plus Cellular, which uses Verizon’s network. The LG VX5200 media phone offered more features than we really needed, but at $15, the price was right.

The very next thing we need to do is enter the phone number into the Do Not Call Directory. I don’t want our minutes to be used for some tele-marketer’s solicitations.

Some links that may be helpful for your search are -

• WirelessInfo.com - provides reviews of many devices
• WirelessGuide.org - a buying guide for phones and services
• PrepaidReviews.com - extensive reviews of the prepaid plan
• CellGuru.net - nice comparison chart of the prepaid plans
• National Do Not Call Registry - critical for cell phones

Click below to make a comment. Even better, expand on the original article by going to wikiSenior and clicking on ‘edit’.

Sometimes I feel that I am committing a capital offense in today’s society. But I feel I must confess it outright and post it here today.

I do NOT have a Cell Phone! I do NOT Text! I am NOT on Facebook! I do NOT even Instant Message!

It is not that I am adverse to the technology. It neither confuses nor intimidates me. It is simply that I choose NOT to participate. I once used to pay for a cell plan that had more minutes than towers but did not provide a compelling solution to any real problem. In fact, by ringing in the midst of meetings and mealtimes, it often created a few.

When people know that they can access you directly, they seem to feel a sense of entitlement to your time. It is as if you have given them control over your priorities. You either accept their call, and risk the diversion from your priorities, or screen it out, and risk insulting them. If an issue is truly that critical, should you really rely on today’s cell phone technology?

Have you ever listened to the trivial conversations that people carry on over their cell phones? In fact, it is hard to avoid them since they frequently can invade your space in many trains, buses, or store aisles. Unfortunately, this increase in instant access seems to have become inversely proportional to the thoughtfulness of people’s answers. Is this technology really providing an enhancement?

I fully realize that my perspective is not popular. Today’s society seems to thrive on urgency, a fair amount of tension, and a high level of background noise. But does that lead to achievement? Does it lead to excellence? I think not.

It is difficult to escape the noise. People have devices plugged into their ears whenever they walk, ride, or fly. It is as if they are afraid of their own thoughts, of silence. It is as if they fear that they will be diminished if they are not constantly connected. As a result, our society seems to have lost the refinement in our thoughts that is the gift of reflection. The ‘urgent’ has superseded the ‘important’ to the point where the ‘important’ seems to get watered down to the point that it can blend with the ‘urgent’.

For example, compare two newspapers, USA Today and the New York Times. The former presents the news in sound bites, the latter with background and some perspective. Ironically, even USA Today is losing readership to the Web, which offers even briefer bullets.

My career was focused upon selecting and implementing technologies that would enable organizations to leapfrog, i.e. to do more with less. Technologies that did not provide extensive leverage were ignored or discarded.

Today, we seem to have become so enamored with what technology can do that we ignore the vital question of, “Should it?” The right answer, of course, will require some reflection . . . if anybody has the time.

Click below to make a comment. Even better, expand on the original article by going to wikiSenior and clicking on ‘edit’.

Today is the day for our high-definition digital TV purchase. The choice will be a close-out model. The new models may double their contrast ratings and offer novel super-hero innovations, but not enough to make a difference. Frankly, the stuff that is out there now is good enough for most eyes. This close-out model has a compelling feature, it offers the best bang for the buck!

The parameters of this particular HDTV selection are many.

• It is the largest size possible for the space into which it must fit.
• LCD was chosen instead of plasma because -
  • LCD is a simpler, more reliable technology.
  • The side-view, motion-blur, and deep contrast limitations of older LCD’s were nearly impossible to observe both during a fast sport scene or a studio interview setting.
  • The fine 1080 detail, rich colors, and brightness of the LCD display were compelling. It would not require a darkened room.
• It is configured with multiple interfaces to permit future adaptation.
• Since Sony is closing out this model, it is currently enjoying a 30% price discount.

Because of the rapid aging and latest-is-best psychology of technology pricing, a slightly older model can often provide the best value for technology purchases. Technology evolves in a series of plateaus. Be it a TV, computer, or camera, it takes about three years, at any given plateau, for the functionality to mature and the product stability to occur.

Now, LCD TV’s have reached that level. It was reached for digital cameras a couple of years ago. Personal computers really haven’t changed since the year 2000. Once a plateau is reached, these products become commodities, with volume quantities driving prices ever lower.

One technology that is in flux and looking for a new plateau is the pocket tech device. It has left the comfort of its cell phone capability. It has added digital camera, audio player, computer, and global positioning functionality. But none of these changes have brought it to a new plateau. Innovation will continue there until a new set of stable capabilities emerges. It will then become a very compelling product, but you have time. . . . . wait three years.

Click below to make a comment. If you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.

A Bliki or a Wiklog?

A Mediawiki - WordPress integration sounds like computer globbly-gook. It is. None the less, that is what has been going on at wikiSenior for the past few weeks. No new posts, no new topics, no new links - just computer plumbing.

The intent behind that plumbing is to create a more comfortable computer environment that would appeal to a wider audience. The wiki format offers a visitor far more complete facilities than a blog - the “edit” tab provides full authoring and edit capabilities, the “discussion” tab permits comments just like a blog, and the indices and links allow for easy access through the site.

But all that functionality can become intimidating. The more familiar feel of a blog, together with its simple format for comments, can make that format far more appealing to many people.

As a consequence, wikiSenior is in the process of becoming a combination of both. Call it a Bliki or a Wiklog.

• The Wikipedia look of the wiki is gone. It has been revised and softened to look more like the blog.
• The Blog, StillClickin, will link more easily to the wiki.
• The Topic Index, located within the Navigation Box, will be one click away for both, with a (blog view) link provided for every appropriate topic.

The idea is to make access to individual topics more readily available while permitting your own entries to use either the blog or wiki format.

So, whether you call it a Wiklog or a Bliki, welcome back. The plan is to have all of these functions finalized before Spring warms our spirits. Thanks for your participation.

NB. Click below to make a comment. Or, if you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.

Last month, before I went “under the knife”, my surgeon asked if I had any questions. I know I mumbled a few things, but I really felt stupid. Everyone tells you that, in this day and age, you must become your own advocate. It is your obligation to learn about what is going on and become involved with and knowledgeable about the process.

I confess. I didn’t do any of that. I was raised in an era where you trusted your doctor to give you the best care and physical pain was something you absorbed stoically. That style is not PC today, but it seems to be how I always react after I turn over the Medicare card.

In hindsight, although I can’t abandon my “boys don’t cry” orientation, becoming informed doesn’t mean that I consider the doctor my adversary. It simply means that I can be a better patient. I need to be aware and provide proper feedback to help the medical professionals provide the quality of care that they want to deliver.

That said, where do you go to learn enough to ask intelligent questions? In today’s world, that means the Internet. The following sites I found after my surgery seem to offer a sufficiently broad range of information to help with the most common health questions.

• The Google Search Engine - This is an obvious place to start looking, but you need to enter your search criteria carefully, not logically. Start with the most important word first and place the following words in decreasing importance. E.g. surgery heart ventricle left, rather than heart surgery of left ventricle. Google led me to The British Medical Journal, which I never would have found on my own.

• WebMD - This is the granddaddy of Internet medical information sites and is quite comprehensive. However, it is broad, rather than deep, so you might want to use it to make sure you are using the correct terms before you dig deeper. It is a commercial site, so you will see a lot of ads.

• The Mayo Clinic - You have to bounce around this site to locate everything you are looking for, but the information goes much deeper. It would be helpful if the site offered more graphics.

• The Merck Manual of Medical Information - This is a well organized resource that has extensive information as well as helpful graphics. It is very easy to navigate through this site. Its inclusion of associated topics can help expand the scope of your search.

• RN Central List of 100 Health Sites - Leave it to the nurses to reach out and lend a hand. They have done just that with a list of 100 health and wellness sites for seniors. These sites not only deal with health, but with aging as well. The RN Central site is actually a place on the web for nurses, but they created this list specifically as a help for seniors.

• The National Health Information Center - A site oriented more toward living a healthy lifestyle than information on diseases. This is a US government service. It has no commercial aspect.

• Tips for Understanding Medical Information - This site contains some guidance from the University of Connecticut about how to deal with all of the medical information that we encounter in today’s world. It’s a dose of common sense.

Hope this has been helpful. Click below to make a comment. Or, if you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.

Personally, I hate web squiggles almost as much as I can’t stand the labels they now put on fruit. I don’t know about you, but I find these jumbles of numbers and letters relatively difficult to decipher. Placed there, right when you want to finalize a transaction or a comment, you are given a challenge test in graphics. Half the time, I fail that test. (Thankfully, they give you another chance.) I’m told by the doctors that my eyesight is reasonably good, but the lines through the characters often make the identification hard to determine. I simply get it wrong.

The web squiggles are placed there to determine if this message or comment happens to involve a human being. Professional spammers use computers to spread their garbage around the net. (Note: Sometimes, they can even enlist our own computers to do the nasty deed, especially if we are linked to the web for any length of time.) The spammers have not yet figured out how to program their way around the squiggles, and there are still enough unprotected sites that they don’t have to.

This blog used to be hosted by blogger, but their introduction of squiggles was one of the reasons I decided to leave and host the site independently. This past week, I faced the squiggles decision once again when our companion site, wikiSenior.com, endured another spam attack.

Wiki sites are extremely vulnerable to spam because they are structured to allow anyone on the web to add a comment or entire article. That openness makes them sitting ducks for spammers. At first, the wiki was forced to ask people to register, albeit using any name they could conceive. (Donald Duck is still available.) But the spammers leapt that hurdle.

Now, just about every spam block has been placed on the wiki site . . . except for squiggles. The squiggles are all programmed and ready to go, but I just couldn’t take that step without trying a more gentle challenge first. You are very welcome to add your insights and experiences to wikiSenior.com, but permit me to apologize for the intrusion of challenge tests.

If anyone has heard of other options for blocking spam, I’m all ears. Thanks for your interest.

This has been a very frustrating week! The automated spam engines are on the attack once again. This time, their attack is deliberately targeted toward wiki sites.

Readers of StillClickin know that another facet of this web site offers WikiSenior, a collaborative senior lifestyle guide. The purpose of WikiSenior is to provide an organized Internet space that permits seniors to freely share their insights on the joys and frustrations that they face at this time in their lives. The index of topics is diverse, and the ease of entry is fairly straightforward. The software is deliberately structured to be welcoming. Unfortunately, that makes it a sitting duck for spammers.

If you are starting a new Internet site, there are a number of firms that offer to boost your ratings with the search engines. They do this by placing a link to this new Internet site on every other site they can locate that will accept it. Essentially, they are stealing the hosting services and infrastructure of the site they invade. When a search engine such as Google crawls through the invaded site, they will note the URL and raise its ranking.

At first, WikiSenior was open for contributions from anyone, even anonymous users. When new porn and drug sites seemed to appear on the site every morning, anonymous users had to be cut off. Only registered users could make postings to the site.

Recognizing that, the spammers now have a new program that will automatically register hundreds of wiki users at a time. They then slip “contributions” by these users containing scads of URL’s into every wiki site they can find. Interestingly, they even follow proper wiki formatting.

Every wiki site administrator has to remove each of these new “users” one-by-one. Last week, WikiSenior received about 500 “users”, so this administrator had no choice but to shut off all new users. Obviously, that is totally contrary to its purpose.

What comes next is a question mark. If anyone has any novel ideas, I’m listening. Frustrated, but listening.

Whether you have a daughter traveling around the globe, a son and his family living on the opposite coast, or a longtime friend in another city that loves a long chat, Skype is a service that you should consider. Last night, we talked to our daughter in South America, and it was great the hear her voice. Of course, there is always email or plain, old long distance, but Skype is a new alternative.

With Skype, you are talking through an Internet connection from one computer to another. The advantages -

• The price (free) is right for everyone’s budget.
• If you have a video camera, you can even see the people at the other end on your computer screen. And,
• It is extremely easy to use.

Slight disadvantages that were noticed -

• There is a greater delay in the switch between speaking and listening, but you seem to quickly adapt to the rhythm of the conversation.
• You need to have a microphone and headset to plug into the computer. You can purchase a reasonable headset pair together with a video camera for about $40.

The wonder is that it works as well as it does. For the free service, you both have to be at the computer at the same time, but we found that it was reasonably easy to schedule that ahead of time via email. (There is also a method to place a call from the computer directly to a telephone, but there is a slight charge for that service.)

To use Skype, the technical requirements are -

• a PC with 400 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 10 MB free disk space, a sound card, and Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, or Linux, - OR -
• a Mac G4 800 Mhz and above, any G5 or any Intel processor, 512MB RAM, 40 MB free disk space, and OS X v10.3.9 Panther or newer,
• an Internet Connection - either dial-up: minimum 33.6 Kbps modem, or any broadband: cable or DSL (you need the broadband for the video),
• a microphone and speakers or headset, and
• the Skype software which you can download for free from Skype

That is the entire deal! If you are intimidated by the technology, have one of your grandchildren set it up for you. Once it’s there, it is very easy to enjoy. You’ll love it! And the price is certainly right!

NB. Click below to make a comment. Or, if you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.

We just changed our small TV in the kitchen and learned a few things in the process. The comments made in the Still Clickin article of Nov 28, 2007 need some further refinement.

1. In this world of new, digital HDTV’s, there are two different worlds that can best be separated by size, i.e. less than a 32″ screen and 32″ screens or larger. For example,

• This big discussion between plasma and LCD TV’s only applies to those that are 32″ or larger. The manufacturers don’t make plasma TV’s smaller than 32″.
• The ability of LCD TV’s to deliver with powerful contrast, i.e. blacker blacks, has improved considerably. The contrast ratio of the model we just purchased was 3000:1. Look for that type of ratio. Just a few months ago, a contrast of 500:1 was considered to be quite good.
• The display density format of 1080p really doesn’t impact the smaller sets and is often not available for them. The issue is really one of physical size. On the smaller sets, it is very difficult to notice any difference between the 1080p format and the 720p/1080i format.

2. Once you have purchased a new TV, you are left with a new problem - Getting rid of the old one. Once you could simply donate a TV or leave it out for the trash. No longer! Apparently, there is a fair amount of lead and other toxins in a TV (as well as computers and other electronics) that will leach into our water supply. So now, what do we do?

• For the full scoop, read the Consumer Reports article.
• For specific locations in your area, go to Earth911.org and enter your zip code. A list of locations in your area will be displayed, but all will likely charge a fee. Another information source is the EPA’s information site
• The best choice I found was the box program at Office Depot. Buy a recycling box (small $5, medium $10, or large $15) and fill it with whatever electronics they permit. They send the items to a plant where they are crushed and the materials recycled. The simplicity of this program is compelling.

Click below to make a comment. If you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.

After I retired and my wife and I followed our children, and especially our grandchildren, across the country to another ocean, we kept encountering new issues that we had to face and decisions we had to make. Looking for some guidance, on the Internet and at the library, I was unable to find any cohesive guide. What I did find was rarely pragmatic and never authored by those with any experience in the matter, i.e. the senior citizens themselves.

In response to that lack, I built wikisenior.com as a technical infrastructure on which other seniors could add their thoughts. Unlike a blog, a wiki is an Internet format specifically built for the collaboration of many people. Wikipedia.org was not the first wiki site, but it is the most famous. However, there are many wiki sites throughout the Internet, and their support of collaboration make them popular at research facilities and universities. Each wiki requires a core technician to maintain the structure, but all the collaborating authors are considered to be equal.

Acting as the core technician has become my ‘volunteer day job’. I wrote a rough framework for a number of articles to get the process started, with the idea that people would be more comfortable adding to an article that had been started rather than facing a blank screen.

Next, I started this blog with the idea that it could be used to promote the wiki. To promote an Internet site, you must make the site known to the search engines, e.g. Google and Yahoo. Since the search engines use different algorithms for blogs, it makes sense to complement any site with a blog.

Initially, I took the easy path toward blogging by using a blog service, e.g. Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad. They are slick and efficient, but they are not tightly coupled to the wiki site. This site, using the WordPress software, is tightly bound to the wiki, acting as an independent facet of the wiki site itself.

Unlike a wiki, blogs are authored by one central author, with appended comments from readers offering the only expansion of the author’s views. Some blogs are really a treasure, but I know I have not achieved that level here. Fundamentally, I’m trying to ask the questions. I’m looking for the wisdom of my fellow seniors for the answers. I hope to find those answers at wikisenior.com.

Hope you like this new format. Please let me know if you find any ‘oops’ issues.