What is this, the XX Century?

I neglected to mention add-on irritants on the three weeks of really heavy, tedious work last month. One was the "remodeling" going on on the floor above ours. It seems more like slow, unending demolition. There was very loud hammering, sawing, and assorted loud tools going on all day long. We had to negotiate some form of truce with the office manager(s) on that. They took us seriusly onlyw hen our ceiling began to colalpse, cracks developed on our walls, and two doors fell off their hinges (the joke aroudn the department was that they wouldn't finish the third floor until they finished off the second floor).

But even more annoying, as it persists to the present day, was the change in office-issued cell phones.

The powers that be (more like REMFs for those of you who know what that means) decided to "upgrade" us all to a type of "smart" phone. I won't talk about brands, but this one has a thumb-operated keyboard. I'm having three problems with this:

1) I can't manage to transfer my contacts from the old phone automatically, so I need to type them all a little at a tiem (I'm at about 15 of 100+)

2) These phones are configured to receive email. After mine went off with a loud, obnoxious sound at 4 am once (junk mail), I set it to be quiet when email comes in. So now I have to check my email in the phone, too. If that were not enough, the email manager sucks. I can't even tell it to block spam.

3) The battery life is like that of my very first cell phone, or perhaps a little better. I need now an office charger, a phone charger, and a car charger. For good measure I'm thinking of getting a second battery (paid for by my employer, of course). You know, like we used to have to do in the 90s. I maliciously call mine now "The Brick"

So, does anyone know whether I can downlaod audiobooks into this otherwise near-useless excuse for a phone? I figure Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" would be a good one to listen to in my next innevitable long road trip.

Quote: Nareed

So, does anyone know whether I can downlaod audiobooks into this otherwise near-useless excuse for a phone? I figure Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" would be a good one to listen to in my next innevitable long road trip.

Well, that's going to be hard to answer if you don't tell us what kind of phone it is :)

But probably.

you need a chromebook LOL

Quote: AcesAndEights

Well, that's going to be hard to answer if you don't tell us what kind of phone it is :)

I thought only one known brand came with a tiny keyboard.

I managed to force-download an audible app on The Brick, but when I tried to transfer the actual book into it, the audible software on the PC claims The Brick is not connected...

I also get bizarre error messages from The Brick. Like one claiming the USB port cannot charge the battery, whiel the battery was steadily charging.

I'm so glad I've never wasted any of my money on a "smart" phone.

Quote: Nareed

I thought only one known brand came with a tiny keyboard.

I would guess you're talking about a Blackberry, but there are plenty of brands that come with tiny keyboards. My Android has a slide-out keyboard, my mom and one of my friends each have a different brand/model of a "texting"/"kind of smart" phone with a QWERTY keyboard but no touchscreen.

Quote: AcesAndEights

I would guess you're talking about a Blackberry, but there are plenty of brands that come with tiny keyboards.

I dind't know that.

Quote:

[..]but no touchscreen.

I swear if they ever give me a touch screen phone, I will experiment how high it needs to fall in order to shatter into a million pieces >:)

Finally I got the Brick to accept both the Audible app/player and ome books (one book, actually, broken up in parts, namely Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" Volume ][ ). I tested it and it works, it even plays in my car stereo.

So all is well, yes?

To paraphrase Peter David's favorite literary vice: all is well, no.

See, for some reason the combination of Audible app and loaded books drains the battery at astonishing speeds. How astonishing? Well, I finished charging the "phone" around 11 PM Friday, and the low battery alert woke me up at 5:43 am Saturday. I recharged it, but had to leave the house at 8, with the Brick not fully charged. The battery ran out, again, by noon.

I fiddled with the memory settings, which I had to change to load the books, to no avail. I tried deleting the books, but the battery kept trying to consume itself at relativistic speeds. The bleeding of wild electrons ended only when I delted the Audible app.

I'm going to have to transfer the books to CDs. You know, like we did in the XX Century...

Update:

I decided to give the brick another chance. I figure since I must lug it around everywhere anwyay, I might as well get it to do me some good once the Hisotry of Rome podcasts run out (I'm about 40 episodes from the end). Besides, some titles on Carhtage and greece have caught my eye. So I re-installed the Audible app and the book. So far it's been working well, without draining the battery. I've no idea what i did differently this time, but I must have done something.

Unfortunately the brick cannot be used on board aircraft...

Quote: Nareed

Update:

I decided to give the brick another chance. I figure since I must lug it around everywhere anwyay, I might as well get it to do me some good once the Hisotry of Rome podcasts run out (I'm about 40 episodes from the end). Besides, some titles on Carhtage and greece have caught my eye. So I re-installed the Audible app and the book. So far it's been working well, without draining the battery. I've no idea what i did differently this time, but I must have done something.

Unfortunately the brick cannot be used on board aircraft...

You should be able to use it on aircraft - put it in "Airplane mode" right before you shut it down for takeoff. Then once it's okay to boot up "approved electronic devices" (basically anything without an antenna) you can turn it on and use it for listening to podcasts that you have saved to the brick.

This is assuming it has an "airplane mode"...but I'm pretty sure all of my phones back to 2005 have had that..