Tuesday morning — I’m still enjoying my SDR4+ by Cross Country Wireless … its quite a receiver, and it really has me thinking of getting a Flex radio … I nearly bought a Flex 1500, but I really want one that will go 100 watts.
Anyway, I spend most of my time listening … but it would be a kick to be able to work CW or other digital modes from my PC here in the library, operating the rig remotely. At any rate, its been a blast … but not all my eBay purchases of late have been as positive.
I take that back — my most recent one was positive — positively unsatisfactory. And it was simple — my iPhone needed a battery. It isn’t difficult to change one out; I bought a battery and the tools necessary to get the job done. I changed the battery out, which (annoyingly) required me to RESTORE the damn phone! I tried about a dozen times, but kept getting an error message.
Apple’s website has the Apple iPhone equivalent to the old tech support standby, “Did you unplug it and plug it back in again?” Its recommendations sounded more like busywork — guess that’s because after doing EVERYTHING they recommend (short of buying an iPhone 6), nothing helped! Still an error message. Time to hit Google.
And I had to dig a little bit too, but I found someone who did the same thing I did … the guy replaced the home button and the battery, then ran into the exact problem I did. And for this guy, it turned out to be the cheap-ass battery supplied with the kit. Great!
So I tore it down and put the old battery back in, and — of course! — the phone restored perfectly. No runs, no drips, no errors. Guess that’s what I get for buying a cheap iPhone battery kit … but aren’t they all made in China anyway? Where the hell are you supposed to find a quality battery for the things?? I was really unhappy with the Rube Goldberg-like instructions from Apple, and then the bad battery was the cherry on top. I think I’m going to buy TWO iPhone battery replacement kits next time to improve the odds one of them will be good.
My phone was out of whack for HOURS, which in cell phone time feels like DAYS — all at a time when I was expecting phone calls, too. Obviously I didn’t expect to have to screw around with my phone for 5 hours to get it back working again. I was so frustrated that I went on eBay and picked up another identical iPhone 4 … this one will be a spare I suppose. Or maybe I can talk my wife into moving from her crappy Android phone to the iPhone. I think if she ever owns one she’ll never want to use another phone. The problem is that if I push it on her too hard, she’ll like it even less, if that makes sense. The sure way to get her to try it is to never mention it.
I’m going to put my Acer Iconia W500 tablet on eBay soon since I replaced the battery in it successfully … now it has battery life like crazy (as it did when new). The tablet will sell with its detachable keyboard that it came with. It really runs good, just heavier than I like. I picked up an Acer Aspire One with a 10 inch screen that weights less than 3 pounds and will fit my portable needs when I need to talk to clients.
Enough for tonight, have a busy day tomorrow.
73 es CUL de KY4Z SK … dit dit