CTO & PA

I am the Chief Technology Officer and Purchasing Agent in the house.  Not only do I make all of the tech purchases, I'm also the prime TS (tech support).  I don't make the money, but I do spend it.  Maybe it's from working in technology most of my career and dealing with tight-fisted CFOs that were averse to purchasing technology, but when it comes to devices, I am a tight wad too.  I do not need the latest and greatest, and most (but not all) of my purchases are based on price.  The two items shown here are out-dated by many standards.  One is a MP3 player and the other is a cell phone flash attachment.  The flash was a 75% markdown and the MP3 was 50%.  They both came from Rite Aid.  A lot of our tech accessories come from unconventional sources such as the drug store because those outlets re-work their planograms (shelf and display layouts) at least once a year and these are the things that have to be cleared out.

While one could use their phone to play musics, TBG likes having a dedicated player (his last one died).  Size is important too.  He relies on these to clip to his shirt when he's out on a long bike ride.  He generally keeps his phone secured in a pocket, although I did buy him an arm band (on clearance at Tops).  He doesn't always remember to bring that to camp.  He is also rather clumsy (more on that later), and we fare better when he drops cheap devices. 

The flash attachment was marked down to $4.99 from $19.99 and is being used on my old phone.  I was taking too many dark pictures, even with the flash on.  This is a perfect solution that I stumbled upon.  As for the phone, boy am I glad I didn't donate it.  No matter what I did, the Tracfone network would send texts from TBG to it.  It worked fine for everyone else, but TBG is a Tracfone user too and they have a network issue which they refuse to acknowledge or do anything about, in spite of me spending quite a lot of time with their tech support.

And that leads me to the tech support topic.  It's a good thing I can troubleshoot and fix many issues.  I feel badly for people who don't have the experience.  I removed the SIM card from the old phone (that carries the phone number), ran a network update on both phones, but to no avail.  Tracfone wasted hours of my time doing the same thing on their end and insisting they fixed my problem.  So, I gave up.  I turned off my old phone, reset the new one.  Then I pulled the SIM card out of the old phone, turned off my router (so when I turned the old phone back on, it wouldn't connect to the WIFI and start getting TBGs texts again).  I did a factory reset on the old phone, and made sure no WIFI routers were entered.  Then I started up our router again.  Now I can use the phone as a camera and listen to music, but I can't ever use WIFI with it or the problem will come back.  It still takes a longer time to get TBGs texts, because Tracfone looks for my old phone first (even though I insisted they remove all vestiges of the device from their network on their end).  Now, if you've made it through this all, you'll understand why I take on the CTO role in our house.  I mean how many average people would be able to figure this out?  TBG has an old phone he wants to use, but I'll do the same thing on that first as well.

On another note, TBG dropped his relatively new tablet on our tile bathroom floor and shattered the screen.  He needed to replace it and asked me to order one for him.  This was a purchase that required some research and price comparisons.  He's now happy with a new Lenovo tablet that was about $100 cheaper than the Samsung tablet he purchased from Barnes and Noble.  I also loaded an app for him to take out library books.

I do try to help Tommy learn his devices so that he can maintain and update them himself, but that's just not in his wheel house.  It's enough for me that he brings home the bacon and keeps the mechanicals in our house working.   I will, however, let him be the CPA.  Math Sucks!