Droid within range

“DROID!”

About a month ago, yrs trly purchased a Motorola Droid-X® Smartphone from Verizon.
It came without a manual; I was on-my-own.
First requirement: get it to operate as a phone, which of course it is.
It seemed rather unfriendly compared to my previous cellphone.
I couldn’t delete any of the calls I had made, at least not the way I did with my previous phone.
The phone keeps a record of all the calls you made, plus my old phone kept separate records of all calls received, plus missed calls.
If you missed a call, you could call back.
You can do that with a Smartphone too, but it’s lumping everything together.
There are tiny indicators on each call to delineate sent from received and/or missed.
Two days ago (Monday, January 2, 2011) I visited my hairdresser.
He has a Droid himself, although an earlier model.
He is half the reason I purchased a Droid-X.
The other half is I can’t resist a technical challenge.
My brother-from-Boston and I were in Altoona, PA (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”) to visit Horseshoe Curve, the best railfan spot I’ve ever visited.
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-two.
We are in a convenience-store to buy subs.
I see the store has a computer touch-screen for ordering subs.
“Hmmmnn, looks interesting,” I say.
I start fingering the screen.
“I speak English,” my brother rudely bellows.
The clerks started trembling.
I was unable to try that computer touch-screen until my next visit, when I was alone.
The Tops supermarket in nearby Canandaigua has “U-Scan” terminals.
Scan your order yourself; no check-out clerk.
I can’t resist; I should be able to drive them things.
Like every technical challenge, it throws mysteries at me that require quick reasoning.
Lest I get the dreaded “Call Attendant” message; in which case the attendant comes over and implies you’re stupid.
Strong Hospital in Rochester has computer gizmos to process your parking-fee.
They also have human attendants at the parking-lot exits.
Not this kid!
We’re usin’ them gizmos; I should be able to drive those things.
So I drag out my Droid-X at the hairdresser.
He grabs it, to compare it to what he has: an earlier Droid.
Mine is small, but bigger than his; a display-screen about 2&1/2 inches by four, instead of 2&1/4 by three.
People probably complained about the small screen.
But a larger screen makes it larger. My previous cellphone was about one-plus by three inches — pocket size.
With my Droid I can no longer put keys in that pocket.
“You got a lotta apps,” he said. He had brought up the app-screen.
“Except right now I’m trying to get it to act like a phone,” I said.
“For example, I can’t seem to delete my recent calls,” I said. “With my old phone it was a slam-dunk.”
He fired up “recent calls,” hit “Menu,” and then “clear-all.”
“WHOA!” I said. “You just made it as easy as my old cellphone.”
Then we started looking for “Missed Calls.”
Could not find.
“So I’ll call your phone, don’t answer, and we’ll find the ‘missed call.’
There it is; it’s in your ‘Recent calls.’ See that red arrow? That’s a missed call. ‘Recent calls’ is everything. That arrow tells you if it’s sent, received, or missed. —If it’s red, it’s a ‘missed call.’”
Probably the most important thing he said was ”menu everything.”
Okay; e-mail — we’ll try it.
My Smartphone is downloading the same e-mail my ‘pyooter gets.
There they all are.
I hit “menu.”
“Clear-all?”
SHAZAMM!
Easy as pie! Before, I had to open every one just to trash ‘em.
What a pain that was; and what if there’s an e-mail I don’t wanna open — like I suspect a virus?
I don’t filter everything. I usually dump spam every day.
“Okay, next issue,” I said. “I can’t get voice-recognition to work.”
We hit Google and the virtual keyboard appeared.
“See that microphone over there? That’s your voice-recognition. Try it!”
“That keyboard is a pain. It’s too small,” I said.
“I never use that keyboard. Voice-recognition, baby!
“MyCast,” I said, my Internet weather-site.
BOOM; there it is — my MyCast login screen.
“Verizon has classes to show you how to use a Droid,” he said.
“I know; I’m thinking of doing that,” I said.
“But what I’d rather do is pick the brain of a user like you, not some elitist technocrat.”
I headed out; the hairdresser started working on his next customer.
I thought I’d call my wife on our landline; I have it in my “contacts” as “Home.”
“Please say a command,” my phone said.
“Call home,” I said.
“Did you say ‘call Adam?’”
“No,” I shouted.
(Adam is my baby-sister’s oldest son in VA — he’s going to college.)
“Did you say ‘call Colvin’ (“COAL-vin”)?”
“No!” Since when does “home” sound like “Adam” or “Colvin?”
(“Colvin” is Gary Colvin, a retired bus-driver like me, and also a techie.)
“Unable to process your command; please try again;” and into the ozone we went.
“Don’t use that!” my hairdresser said; “it never works. Just scroll your contact-list.”
Which is what I finally did, and thereafter called my wife.
Before leaving his shop I tried again; this time a different approach.
I fired up my contact-list, hit search, and then said “home.
There it was! “Home,” right in my search-result.
I showed the hairdresser.
We’ll figure that sucker out.

• Every time I fire up my Droid, about 15-20 seconds into boot-up, it says “DROID!”
• “Verizon” is my cellphone service provider, also my hairdresser’s cellphone service provider.
• “Horseshoe Curve ,” is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is now a national historic site. It was a trick by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades — the railroad was looped around a valley to stretch out the climb. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use.
• RE: “Tops supermarket in nearby Canandaigua......” —“Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• RE: “Retired bus-driver like me.....” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke ended that. (I had a stroke October 26, 1993.)