A Smart Phone For Grandma

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Boomer Voices program and have been provided with a wireless device and six months of service in exchange for my honest opinions about the product.

So, with Christmas just around the corner you are probably finishing up your holiday shopping. You might want to reconsider that sweater, slippers or bottle of cologne you got grandma. Take my advise grandma wants a smart phone. Of course you already know all the wonderful things a smart phone can do. But I want to give you a list of some of the features a grandmother like myself might find useful.

The following is a list of how I use my smart phone.
1. Obviously, I call and text with my phone.
2. Keep up with my email.
3. Pay bills and check bank accounts.
4. Blog
5. Keep up with social media, Twitter, Facebook and more.
6. Read books.
7. Skype with my grandchildren
8. Hangout with my grandchildren.
9. Take and share pictures of my grandchildren.
10. Use a GPS app VZ Navigator to travel to my grandchildren's homes. Their families have moved twice over the last year. The VZ Navigator has saved use many times.
11. Watch movies with my grandchildren. Usually when we are traveling in a vehicle together.
12. Play toddler games with my grandchildren. I have several apps loaded on my phone just for my grandchildren.
13. Sharing my mobile hot spot with my grandchildren's tablets. That way I can use my phone while they play their educational games.
14. With all the apps I have on my phone now. I could list at least a dozen more uses such as my calendar, alarm clock, radio and more.

When picking a smart phone for grandma you should take into consideration what features would be convenient for her. For instance if she takes lots of photos then a good camera on the cell phone is a must. If grandma has a vision problem a large screen might be appropriate.

Let's compare the three smart phones I am currently carrying. Yes, I have three smart phones I have been using for a while now. I purchased a Samsung Galaxy S 3 in January 2013. In June 2013 I became a participant in the Verizon Boomer Voices program and was given a Droid Razr Maxx HD to review. Just recently Verizon has added the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 to the program to be reviewed. 
I will just highlight the features of each phone. If you would like to go a little deeper you may want to stop by a Verizon Wireless Store near you. They will be happy to help you select a phone just right for you or your grandmother!

They all have great features.Being all are android phones I can easily use and switch between each device. 
The Samsung Galaxy S3 is a winner for being light weight which is easy on arthritic hands. It has a fantastic camera which is easy to use. I have no complaints about the battery life which is good but not great. 
The Droid Razr Maxx HD is a winner for its battery life. It is rugged which if you are hard on a phone this is great for that accidental drop. The camera is good but not great. One complaint it is heavy for arthritic hands. Using a blue tooth head set helps with this complaint.
Finally the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. It is the winner in my book on all accounts. The large screen is great for reading. The S Pen is perfect for writing notes instead of typing. The battery life is totally awesome. The camera beats the other two phones with out a doubt! 
Readers, What do you think? Which phone would your grandmother like? Which phone would you prefer?

Keeping My Favorite Photos Safe

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Boomer Voices program and have been provided with a wireless device and six months of service in exchange for my honest opinions about the product.

Blog photos, family photos, and just everyday photos boy, oh boy have I got photos.  As a Grandmother, blogger, wife and traveler I have tons of photos I would like to keep safe. Today I am going to share a little about my photo saving problems and the solution I was able to come up with to solve this issue. I started out by asking myself a few questions. If you would like to join my brainstorming session and see where it leads. Please answer the questions with me. Feel free to express yourself in the comments section of the post. I would love to hear your ideas and solutions to this problem.  

How often do you use your cell phone camera to take pictures?

Many times I have found my cell phone camera useful in capturing that spur of the moment event that I would not have been able to because I did not have a camera on me. I think about the first time my grandson started walking. No one was expecting it at the moment. There were no real cameras lying about. So we all whipped out our cell phones and started snapping pictures as fast as we could.
Conclusion to question one. Cell phones are great for capturing life's most important memories.

How many photos do you have stored on your phone?

I have over 1,500 on my new phone. My new phone is only a few months old. The last cell phone I used had over 5,000 pictures and videos stored on the phone. I am wondering if I am the only person who does not delete photos.
Conclusion to question two. Cell phones sure can store a ton of photos. But are they safe?

How do you move your photos from your phone to your computer?

This is the one problem I have not solved until just recently. In the past when I wanted to move photos from my cell phone I would email each and every photo to myself. Although this was tedious and only allowed me to move one or a few photos at a time, this was my first choice of action. When I decided I had an over abundance of photos stored on my phone I would plug the phone into my computer and move the photos to a folder on my computer. My method was working fine until I lost my cell phone. Then I realized it was not the answer to my problems.
One would think I would have learned from my mistakes but I guess I am a little hard headed when it comes to changes. A few months ago my computer decided to just up and quit with out notice! What an untimely death. I was very lucky because my dear son was able to retrieve my photos off the hard drive and a few uncorrupted documents.
Conclusion to question three. After serious some thought. Storing photos on a phone or computer will not keep them safe.

Do you have a back-up storage system for your photos and important documents? 

I have always thought of purchasing an external hard drive for back up of our important documents and photos. I need to look further into a external hard drive for this purpose. In the mean time I remember at some point during the Verizon Boomer Voices blogger training program a speaker mentioning being able to back up photos taken from my phone automatically on to G+ or Google Drive. There is that ah ha moment! A little light bulb just lit up and was getting brighter as I thought about the memory. 

OK, I have a G+ account. Most bloggers I know have a G+ account. How hard can it be to set up my phone to automatically save my photos to my G+ account? This is kind of a technical issue and I am not the greatest at figuring out technical problems. 

Conclusion to question four. Saving photos in the cloud on G+ will make a great solution to safely storing photos. That is if I can implement this feature on my cell phone. 

I had to start somewhere so here we go.

My first step was to look up information on auto backing up photos on G+.from a mobile device. 

They have some great step by step information that is easy to follow on that web page. Next, I opened the preloaded G+ app on my Droid Razr Maxx HD. I looked into the settings hoping to find the camera and photos settings. I did not see this listed in the G+ settings. I must have opened and closed the app multiple times. I was fairly certain it was there I just was not finding the right listing in the settings. At this point I was frustrated and had thought of making a trip to the Verizon Wireless store near our home. (The time being 10:30 pm that was not going to happen.) I have on many occasions taken a trip over to one of their stores just to get answers or help with cell phone problems. I think it is the simplest way to get answers to technical problems with a cell phone when you just can't figure it out by yourself. I can tell you from experience that the Verizon Representatives are very helpful and extremely knowledgeable.

I have had a few application problems in the past on other cell phones. I thought back to other instances and came up with four steps I could take to get the G+ app to work correctly.

Step 1. Sign out of the application and sign back in. 

Step 2. Reinstall the application or update. 

Step 3. Get knowledgeable help. In this case I would ask my husband or son.

Step 4. Contact or visit the cell phone provider.

I am happy to report after following step one I was able to find the Camera and Photo setting listed in the G+ settings.

I followed these steps to set the auto backing up of photos on G+ from my cell phone.

This is such an amazing feature for a cell phone and application. I am now going to upload my photos to a photo printing website and have prints made of my most precious photos. .

My readers, What do you think? How do you back up your photos?  

Our New Pound Puppy

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Boomer Voices program and have been provided with a wireless device and six months of service in exchange for my honest opinions about the product.

About two weeks ago when my granddaughters were visiting grandpa decided we should visit the local Dog Pound. This was totally a spur of the moment thought. I decided this might be a great learning experience for our granddaughters. On our way to the pound we talked about the reasons a dog might be in a pound. We talked about how the dogs are cared for in the pound and how it was different than a home for the dogs. The entire drive I kept thinking that it was just a trip to look at the dogs. We would certainly not be adopting one today.
When we arrived at the doors our conversation went like this.
Grandpa (my dear hubby): Casually "If we see a dog you like we can bring it home."
Grandma (me): "Cough, cough, cough what! Your kidding, right?"
Grandpa: "No, if you like one and the girls like it we can bring it home."
Grandma: Mumbling " I don't know about this! This is not really going to happen."

So we go inside. We had to wait our turn. There was a couple applying to foster dogs for the pound. Another couple was picking a dog to take home with them. We sat patiently in the lobby and talked to the receptionist. There was a cat just hanging around in the lobby that helped keep the girls occupied.
We then went into the back to visit the dogs in the kennel cages. I wish I had thought at the time to take a few photos but I was a little overwhelmed to say the least. In the third cage down sat a little Pomeranian dog. It was so small and cute. The dog's report hanging on the cage had the name labeled Nelly. The report also said she was found abandoned on the side of a road. Weight 5lbs., friendly with other cats and dogs. I wanted to hear more about her so we asked a few questions. We learned that Nelly was a boy. The pound did not know anything about him aside from the fact that he was probably 8 years old, friendly, house broken and loved lots of attention. They thought his owner may have went into a nursing home or passed away. The owners relatives must have abandoned him. I thought this little dog might just be perfect for us. I was worried that I did not know anything about a Pomeranian's temperament. Would he be OK with children? Would he make a good family dog? I quickly took out my Droid Razr Maxx HD and asked Google to search Pomeranian dogs. This is part of a clip of what I read.

Thanks to my Droid I was able to decide to take this needy little fella home that same day. If I did not have my phone I may have been even more hesitant to take this big step.

The pound assured us that if our new friend did not get along with King Arthur or had problems being around little children we could return him with out any problems. 

Meet Scooby-Doo

Our Grandchildren chose his name after lots of thought. I think it fits him just fine and he answered to it right away. I have a feeling he would come to any name as long as he has lots of love and attention. 

When we first got Scooby home he got a bath right away as his fur was tangled and matted with burs. He had only been at the pound a few days. They said they had been working on his coat slowly as it was in pretty bad shape. I could only imagine he must have been a sight. Scooby is terrified of brooms. I believe he may have been mistreated with a broom. He also gets very defensive when our feet get near him. I have to wonder what he has been through. 

Scooby-Doo meets King Arthur

Scooby did not care a bit about King Arthur even though K.A. was so sweet and got down on Scooby's level and tried to play with him. 

At this point we have decided to keep Scooby-Doo and give him the loving home he needs. 

What do you think? Have you ever adopted a dog or puppy from the pound. Are you an animal lover? What animals do you like most?