Pot luck

Back in May I noticed at reference 1 the irritating but useful library book at reference 2. My phone made easy. Well it did help a bit, but I was only using the book intermittently and I thought that after at least one renewal that I ought to return it to the library and buy something of my own to fill the gap - being old enough for this sort of material to work better in book form than on a screen.

So off to Amazon and see what their search function turned up, a crude technique which usually works out OK. On this occasion, it turned up reference 3, which I selected because it was keyed to my particular phone, rather than to Android in general in the way of the library book, and which turns out to be one of those books printed off by Amazon themselves - which seems to mean good quality paper, good quality binding but a very variable standard of book production, often poor. In this case, the standard of book production - by which I mean more the appearance and feel of the book and its pages, rather than its content or value - important, nevertheless, to me - was indeed poor. For example, the typeface is far too large, although possibly intended to be suitable for the fading eyesight of an older readership. The index, while present, does not work: the book seems to have been paginated at print time, leaving the page numbers in the index behind. The standard of proof reading is poor and there are are lots of typos.

More important, one day in, the book seems to be more of a conversion guide for someone who has had a Samsung telephone before, rather than a reasonably self-contained guide for the older beginner. All kinds of basic stuff does not seem to be covered at all. We are not told, for example, how the all-important home screen is organised, although there are various scattered tips about how one might change it. One of which, to be fair, was useful. Almost paid for the book in one go.

And the use of in-text icons helps a lot. It is usually easy to move from page to screen.

On the other hand, there is lots of stuff in which I have no present interest at all. Like stuff about making contactless payments, about something called tethering and about editing videos. But I dare say there are readers out there who want it. I might, one day!

Last but not least, I am introduced to Bixby, the Samsung intelligent companion, a relative of Cortana (Microsoft) and Siri (Apple). I can now get Bixby to tell me what a picture that I have just taken is about. For example, it can tell me that the picture is a kitchen with white fronted kitchen units. Which is clever, but not yet useful. And she has an irritating voice.

We shall see how I get on in the days and weeks to come.

PS 1: the author, one Glen D. Banks, does not appear on the Internet at all; at least, I could not find him this morning (Tuesday). Does he exist at all? Is he a convenient fiction dreamed up by Amazon or Samsung?

PS 2: I should have been in less of a hurry and bothered to use the 'read sample' feature which had been provided by Amazon at the point of purchase. Can't think now why I didn't. 

PS 3: part of this morning's fix from Medscape, reference 4, tells me that 'Human Rights Watch, the nonprofit that for decades has called attention to the victims of war, famine, and political repression around the world, is taking aim at US hospitals for pushing millions of American patients into debt. / In a new report ... the group calls for stronger government action to protect Americans from aggressive billing and debt collection by nonprofit hospitals, which Human Rights Watch said are systematically undermining patients' human rights ... about 100 million people ... have some form of healthcare debt ... About a third of US adults with healthcare debt owed money for hospitalization, KFF's polling found. Close to half of those owed at least $5,000. About a quarter owed $10,000 or more.'. Hopefully voters here in the UK will work out that the US way of doing health is not a very good way, whatever their Tory leaders might think about it.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/samsung-day-eight.html.

Reference 2: Android Phones and Tablets for dummies - Dan Gookin - 2018.

Reference 3: Samsung: Galaxy A54: User guide - Glen D. Banks - 2022.

Reference 4: International Rights Group Calls Out US for Allowing Hospitals to Push Millions Into Debt - Noam N. Levey, Medscape - 2023.