h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yep, I now have a smart phone (though I'm posting from my laptop--much nicer keyboard) Though, if it weren't for the looming fireworks selling season, I'd still be using just my nice little flip phone (an LG Wine II) instead of my new Galaxy S4 mini. Y'see, I've been avoiding getting a smart phone because I' online so much *anyway*... But, since we'll have a fireworks tent in Brookings as well as the booth down here in Crescent City, and Tom's going to be in Brookings in the duration while I'm in charge down here, I needed a smart phone to take credit card payments.

I'm still locked in the 20th, then

Credit card payments over smartphone? Someone please remove this rock that's holding me down?

You get a little reader that plugs into the headphone jack, download an app, and, for 2.75% of each transaction, you're good to go! When we had a dedicated credit card reader for the book store, there was a set monthly fee, a contract (which was a to get out from under when the bookstore closed), *and* a percentage from each transaction.

It's illegal to sell fireworks here in Ireland, although fireworks displays are put on by the government or local councils. They're very rarely in the summer because it's too bright in tge evenings.

It is also against the law here to sell fire-works here, except for 'sparklers', unless it is for vital agricultural need. Should I decide I need to buy several thousand dollars worth of fireworks to scare the birds away from my wife's 6 pea plants on 4 July (Independence Day) I need only sign a form and plan the party.

F S

I sit here listening to Maurice Chevalier and anticipating some Mozart concerti. What is this 21st Century that you speak of, Amy?

If you and your husband ever move to an island off the coast of Alaska, you can say that Tom is an Aleutian. Then centuries won't matter!

Do eskimos call their cell phones iGloos?

still something I have yet to do... "download an app"

As several out-of-state-ers will tell you, we only have "boring" fireworks--California doesn't allow anything that explodes, shoots things, or where the fireworks themselves leave the ground. So no cherry bombs (I think that might be federal, actually), roman candles, or rockets--unless you're a certified pyrotechnic. Of course, the Yurok reservation's only 20 miles away, and since they're technically sovereign, it wouldn't surprise me if you can get stuff that's illegal in the rest of the state there.

The number of times when a smartphone would have been really handy is steadily increasing, and at some point I guess I'm going to have to get one, but I'm sticking with my flip-phone for now. I'm still hoping that someone will make (if they haven't already done so and I just haven't seen it yet) a piece of software that I can install on my laptop and use it as a cellphone as and when necessary. I know I've spoken about this before in other conversations - the word 'phablet' was mentioned.

My first tablet, the Notion Ink Adam, had all the components for a cell phone yet you still couldn't use it that way. It had a mic, speakers, and a sim card slot. But you could only use the sim card for data plans, not voice. I don't know why.

It does seem pretty pointless without the voice, but perhaps it's the penchant people have for browsing, and the money the cellphone companies charge for it, that makes the big profits.

If you have Skype, anything with a speaker and a mic that can go online can act as a phone. A friend of ours used their iPod as a phone whenever they ran out of minutes on their prepaid cell phone.

I probably should install Skype. In fact, as a Sub editor I think I'm supposed to

I know the mic on my headset doesn't work, and the other crappy mic I have is, well, crappy, so I feel for anyone who has to listen to me at their end. I hate it when someone calls a radio station and they're obviously on a cellphone and it sounds like they're calling from Pluto because the phone companies have far from perfected the technology yet (both manufacturers and operators).

That's what I'll sound like on Skype until I can get another headset

You can also just IM with Skype--heck, until min decided to show me the Mouseling, I didn't know that this laptop had a built in mic