July 29 -- software wrestling, and Instagram

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On the 28th and 29th I spent a bunch of time wrestling with software.  I updated the operating systems on both computers, and updated iTunes on the newer one.

I have never used iTunes to do anything other than, occasionally, listen to music that someone else has loaded into it and arranged.

My whole point, in joining the smart phone community, is to be able to USE the phone as a smart phone.  I can send texts, usually, and receive them, and respond to them.  A good first step.  But I want to be able to do many of the other things people do with their smart phones, and I think it will be easier for me to work on that set of learning curves now than when I am any older....................

So I want to get apps, and I want to get music, and I want to arrange music into playlists, and I want to be able to listen to that music on my phone.

After updating iTunes, I updated the operating system on my phone.  Then I managed to sign on to iTunes with my Apple id (which I had, but had never used for anything).  I was -- eventually -- able to find Instagram in the iTunes store, and sign up for that.  I also downloaded Google maps and the Wunderground weather app.

None of this was easy.  It was difficult to find things, difficult to figure out how to do things, difficult to navigate.........  Thank goodness for Google, at my elbow every step of the way, connecting me to people who had (thank you, people!) taken the time to explain how to do things!

Not one learning curve, but many.........................



I also started the ball rolling to update -- and fix -- my husband's phone.  Something happened to it which convinced it it had 4.6 gigabytes of photos on it, making it so full that it couldn't update its operating system.  As he has never intentionally taken a picture with his phone, we knew that "4.6 gigs of pics" was spurious.

I had hoped that trying to update it while it was connected to iTunes would fix it, but no.  We had to restore it to factory settings.  Multiple times.  After multiple calls to Apple support, trying to make sure that we had a way to retain his contacts.............................

Eventually we did succeed, but ... nontrivial, to say the least.  Many hours, some angst, many conversations with Apple (after wrestling with their stupid phone tree that makes it as hard as possible to talk to a person).

Anyway.



Back to July 29.  On my way home from yoga, it had clearly been raining again, but it wasn't raining as I walked home.

I decided to try to use Instagram.  Writing this on August 2, I will give you a glimpse of the future.  I am not all that thrilled.  I can't figure out if I can take pics at one time and publish them later?  I can't figure out why the exposure is so messed up that I don't even bother take a pic, much of the time.  It seems to me that I can only take pics of things at certain distances and have them turn out the way I want (not too close; not too far).................................  This may be user error.  Or it may be restrictions inherent in Instagram?

NOT Instagram's fault is that I am so used to being able to tweak my pics in a host of ways (facilitated by Photoshop Elements) that I'm not happy that I can't do that in Instagram.  I can't easily access the tweaks that are available (another of the learning curves!), and I don't have access to the huge toolkit I'm accustomed to.... 



But.

I decided to give it a try.  So I was standing by a bed of coneflowers, trying to take a pic that I could publish.

I stand and take pics of flowers.  All. The. Time.  You know that.  All. The. Time.  I do it in the neighborhood, and I do it in the grocery, and I do it downtown.  All. The. Time.

No one ever stops to talk to me about it.  Ever.

But on the 29th, standing there with the phone, trying to take pics for Instagram, both of the women who walked by me as I stood there, with the phone, by the coneflowers, stopped to chat.

The first one asked me about the flowers, weren't they echinacea?  She was British, I think.  I confirmed they were echinacea, and told her we call them "coneflowers."  She took a good look at the flowers, and told me she had never really *looked* at them, and that they were very interesting.  I told her I thought so, too, and pointed out some buds, and the sides of the buds.........  She looked a bit more, and thanked me for drawing her attention to the flowers, and walked on.

The second woman had seen an image on my phone's screen, and told me how much she liked the picture, and asked me what I did with the pictures.  I told her I had a blog, and that I had just, just, just joined Instagram.  She said again how much she liked the picture, and walked on.

So that was odd.  No one ever stops to talk to me about taking pictures of flowers, but both of the people who saw me with the coneflowers near the park, as I walked home from yoga on July 29 did so.  Was it because of the rain, having stopped?  Was it because of the incipient full moon?  Was it because I'd just turned on Instagram?  Who knows.



Here's the very first pic I put up on Instagram.  I later took it down, because I just HAD to edit it.  I like this version just fine, but don't think I can put it on Instagram now.  Whatever.

Then I got the camera out, and took this one with the camera.

In any case.  I am on Instagram as ineedorange.  I can't remember if I set it up to just let everyone look, or if you have to ask me.  And I haven't been able to find a place that will let me edit privacy settings in Instagram, since the time I set it up.....


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