Saturday, October 27, 2012

Anohter Episode of Why & How i Hate Computers !

i did it again.

And “Gawd! i hate computers !”

So Earlier today, i did ‘Something’ to my iPod Touch, which locked The Screen into Portrait mode.
i do not know how i did this.

What’s worse; is that i seem to distinctly recall that i had seen this phenomena previously,
a long time ago; And now i have forgotten how to set & unset this.

So i checked ‘Settings’.
This is The Catch All App that contains numerous subdirectories of things to set ‘just so’. Many of them pertain to The Individual Local Apps & some to ‘Global’ User Preferences & so on.
i searched & searched through these subdirectories for about 3 hours, growing increasingly frustrated & becoming more & more clinically insane.
Then i looked through The Manual that i had for about an hour.
Then i discovered a Second Manual in a different folder, in a Different Folder, That was in a folder that made a certain amount of sense that it was there, but now where it really should have been.

Another thing about this; is: To find what you are looking for with a Search Engine, you have to know what The thing you are looking for, is called.
In The olden days, you could just flip through a book until you found it, but nowadays, you can’t flip through electronic books or The internet.
You have to know what you’re looking for, before you can find it.

So by some miracle, i found what i was looking for.
It only took me about 6 hours.

The iPod is broken into parts so that there are three ( 3 ) ( ??? ) places where Preferences may be hidden.
One s The Settings App.
Another is The 3 Taps to The Home Button, which brings up a menu of three or four ‘special cases’ for Display Choices.
And The ‘Last’ ( ??? ) is The 2 Taps to The Home Button, which i am very familiar with, but i’ve never ( previously ) thought of it as A Preferences hiding place.
The 2 Finger Tap will bring up a Carousel of all The Apps which may be activated ‘beside’ another App that is already running. This is actually very useful in many cases. This also allows you to turn The music on or off, jump ahead or back a track or even go to The Music Application.
What i never use, & didn’t even know was hiding at The Far Left Station, Was a Button that locked The Screen in Portrait Mode.
i must have accidentally hit this at some time earlier in The day, & that set The Screen to Portrait Mode & Locked it.

So that many of The Applications would not work properly, & i had no idea how to fix it.

Several months ago; Some time after i first got The iPod Touch, i accidentally hit The screen with 3 fingers. This is a rather peculiar function which blows up The Screen. ( Enlarges it ).
There is something very much like this; that can be done with one finger, & two taps.
So why would there be a separate function with 3 fingers & one tap ?
Are they Different ?
Subtly so.
The One Finger, Two Taps; will bring The Image of many Screen Displays up to about 2x, & from there, you can pinch & pull The size to just What you want.
From this ‘Mode’ you can also push The image around with one finger, left or right, up or down.

The Three Finger, One Tap; will allow you to set The enlargement to a much larger magnification by three finger, one tap & hold, then move these three fingers up The screen, magnifying it more & more, or pulling The fingers down, & reducing The magnification. Then when you Three Finger Tap The next Time, it will Enlarge The image to your previous setting.
In this ‘Mode’ however, you Can Not move The Screen around with one Finger.
You need to use all three fingers again. ( ??? ) !!!

Another Difference between these two Magnification ‘Modes’ is that with One Finger, Two Taps, & Pinching; you will only be allowed to Enlarge The Image to its Maximum Resolution, or seeing The Individual Pixels as Discernible Squares.
With Three Fingers, One Tap & Push up To Enlarge, you can go beyound this, so that The Individual Pixels are much larger.

Anyways; After i accidentally bumped it, in my pocket with three fingers, i had to go down to The Apple Store to get someone to tell me how to fix it.

One very annoying aspect of this story is that The iPod would Not Reset after i turned it completely Off & Back On. That is supposed to be a Universal Fix All for Most Problems.
And after you’ve hit The screen with 3 Fingers, One Tap; & turned it off- -
If you’ve set The iPod to LockOut, & you don’t know that The Screen must be moved up & down, side to side with Three fingers, you can’t even operate The Keypad Entry to unlock it & turn it back on.

This seems wrong to me.

Gawd! i hate computers.

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