Free Phone Service

If you're connected to Wi-Fi, free phone service is available from Textnow.   The app is installed on your tablet with a free phone number to receive calls.

For free cell service Textnow supplies a SIM card at $4.99.

The services are supported with advertising.  Without advertising the cost is $9.99 per month.

What to do when Internet Freezes

Recently I have experienced the Internet situation where the speed drops to zero.

In other words no service.  Dead.

So what to do when you have an urgent need such as communication with the doctor.

You reach for your cell phone of course.

So how do you get cell phone data cheaply?

I have been using Tello.   Not only do they offer plans and less than $10 a month, but for $25 you can get eight gigabytes a month.

That might be enough to handle all of your internet without any other service.

Even better you can modify your usage at any time.

Whoops

In my last In my last posting I indicated that it was difficult to find a satisfactory medium size tablet.

In the meantime I have found that the Kindle Fire 7 9th Version is pretty satisfactory and can be had on sale for as little as $35.

Getting up to speed

With technology and our needs constantly changing, we are faced with the task of getting up to speed.

Speed is pretty much what it's all about when it comes to computers and internet.

So I have been in the process of doing what's needed so that I can do my activities in the least possible time.

After a long time I finally decided that Wi-Fi slows everything down too much.

When it came time to put down new carpet I had flat ethernet cable laid under it to make direct access to Internet available wherever I needed it.

Other efforts to speed up Wi-Fi really were just a crutch which did not work very well.

I have the latest routers now at the furthest distance apart.

I have adapters which enable me to plug in tablets.

I bought an Amazon Kindle Fire 10-in tablet on sale at $80 only to find that this device was way faster than any that I had ever used except an iPad.

I attributed that to the octocore processor which I also have in my Android phone.

That obsoleted my older smaller tablets.  Trash.

I simply replaced them with an old iPad Air version 1 and a second Amazon Kindle Fire 10 for my wife.

I also resurrected an original iPad for use at the piano. I downloaded sheet music from the Internet Archive to Apple Notes where I can read it at the piano or print it out.

I switched to YouTube music and added VLC to play music from my digital library on SD card.

I got rid of some old large space taking speakers and replaced them with Echo Dots plugged into the wall with adapters.   These these also enabled me to play to a tiny quality MP3 speaker.

I do play music through my hearing aids for a quality experience.

With Alexa I'm able to direct music to any of the plugin Dots.

The Alexa app also enables me to play music from a variety of sources, such as Amazon music, Pandora, and so on.

I use a Moto G4 older smartphone with its wider screen in addition to a narrower screen on a newer Moto device.

I am not changing from my great Apple iPhone SEs,

but I did drop expensive plans.

A new plan from Hello costs me just $5 a month for a 500 minutes and half a gig.  I can buy a gig of data anytime I need it

At a price of only $70 I could not resist a projector, just for movies and TV shows available on line.  it needs a dark room and a convenient place to place the projector.

One thing I could not do was find a seven to eight inch tablet that was fast enough for me.  My latest Moto does have an octa-core processor and is the only alternative at 5 in.

I use Windows only in a pinch when nothing else will do, only because it is sooo slow.