Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for June 25, 2014

With sugar on top…

Love that clumsy conventional cordless phone that she’s using. Get the joke, guys?

Get a no-contract XYZ phone and forget all your worries! Only pay for what you use and your minutes roll over!!!!I use mine as a phone with an occasional text message from the vet reminding me of an appointment. Phone cost me $26 on Black Friday – add in triple minutes and days so who worries about insurance?

I just can’t see carrying something costing $200-$600 around everyday..I just have a simple flip phone..The smart phones have too small of screen and keys for me to use..Good luck Janis, because in this instance, nothing else is on your side.

The point of a smartphone has nothing to do with talking.

Just because it has “phone” in its name, everybody tries to tell you how you could find a way to talk cheaper….

If that’s all you want… great.You don’t want a smartphone.Fine.But smartphones, like tablets, are for people who want the magic of having the internet in their pockets. Or who want their devices to be a decent quality camera, a screen to share pictures with friends, a map of wherever you find yourself….a reader of codes on products, a place to store addresses and shopping lists, a calendar with pop-up reminders…oh yeah, a translator that can tell you how to say something, and pronounce it aloud…I could go on and on.

You can have a tablet or iPod or some such and do most of that stuff wirelessly, without paying for phone service… but only where you can find an open wireless network. And you can’t talk on it.

If you want to have more access, you pay for phone service… and you can talk and text on it also.

Somebody said yesterday phones are cheap…no, smartphones cost hundreds of dollars, $600 or so for a high end one like Janis probably has….if it’s not time for your plan to pay for an upgrade…. or doesn’t offer them.At upgrade time, you might pay $100-200…. or get a slightly lesser model (last year’s whiz kid) for free.

Usually that’s every two years, if at all…. so if you lose or break it in between, you have to pay retail, buy a cheaper type phone…. or rely on your insurance.

My plan no longer offers upgrades, and there’s no way I could pay hundreds… … so you bet my phone is insured.

I may have to give it up soon, anyway…. but right now, it’s like having a science fiction device…. not just a phone. I hardly talk on it cos my landline is unlimited… but I love to carry the internet with me.

Just read a couple of posts above…. want to say before I submit this…the virtual “keys” on my smartphone are way bigger than the keys on my old flip phone.

My cell phone is so old it has a rotary dial. 8^)

I don’t understand what’s happening in the strip. Is getting the phone wet not covered by Janis’s (or my VZW) insurance?

Most cell phone insurance is a rip off. They go out of their way to hide the deductible in the fine print, and it’s almost always at least half the cost of the phone.

All that Susan says is correct, but I can get most of that on my home computer – or my GPS. M landline phone is always on my desk and never gets lost, the answering machine works fine, and as a rule, the only person I ever need to call is hubby. I bought 1,000 minutes in January and still have 700.

Oh! And if I misplace my phone, if the thief manages to use up my minutes before the battery dies, I’m not stuck with a bill for a gazillion text messages to Bizerte.

Two tin cans and a string was good enough back in my day! And get off my lawn!

Every 2 years, I get a new phone (“FREE”) and pay for it over the next 2 years. As a result, I have a box with 3 good phones. If i trash the current model, I activate the newest in the box. When I get a new phone, the oldest in the box gets wiped and sent to the local Women’s Shelter.

Yes, I know, there are cheaper ways to do this, but it is less hassle.

My Nokia cell phone is so old, it still has a party line!

The whole point of paying for insurance on a cell phone is that it is supposed to cover accidental damage like this. That’s why it’s an extra $7/mo when the phone comes with a 1 year warranty against manufacturing defects.

I think Janis didn’t realize what she was paying for, or she didn’t read the fine print.

Anything you make by the millions has to be cheap because there just isn’t time to put a lot of money into the process. Ever wonder what it really costs to make a car? No, less than that. I doubt that the actual cost of the smartest phone is over $35. The rest is gravy onto someone else’s plate.

When dealing with wet electronics, time is your enemy because water and electricity do not play well together.

The most important thing you can do is remove all power immediately. Seconds count, so turn the device off and remove the battery. (Sorry iPhone users, you’re out of luck. Complain to Apple about their poorly thought-out design.)

Second, since the water in your device is most likely not clean and contains contaminants (dirt, salt, minerals, urine, etc.) you need to remove those contaminants from the phone.

And although it sounds counter-intuitive, the best thing to use to remove them is… WATER!

But not just any water. Clean tap water will do in a pinch, filtered tap water is better (fewer minerals), bottled water is better still (not mineral water, it contains minerals, duh), and the best is distilled, de-ionized water, which is what the electronics manufacturers use to clean the boards after soldering.

You don’t need a lot, you just have to be thourough. DONT DUNK! Just splash some into the device in one direction, swish it around and shake it out. Repeat in a different direction. A few seconds per rinse is all you need, longer will not necessarily help and may actually do harm. You should do this within a couple of hours, before the water inside the device dries and the contaminants become dry and hard to remove.

Now do your best to dry off the outside and shake out as much water as you can from the inside. Use a soft cloth, clean napkin or paper towel to dry as much as you can.

At this point you have two choices: oven-drying or rice.

To oven-dry your device, place a soft, dry cloth on a baking sheet or rack in your oven and place the device on the cloth with the open battery compartment facing up. DO NOT place the battery in the oven. Set the oven for between 170 and 200 degrees Fahrenheit. (75 – 95 Celsius) and leave the phone in for 4 – 6 hours. Turn off the oven and allow it to cool for at least an hour before removing the device and inserting the battery.

To use the rice method, place 2 cups of uncooked, dry rice and the device (with the battery removed and the battery compartment open) in a sealable (zipper) bag, squeeze out as much air as possible and seal the bag. Leave it in the bag overnight, 24 hours if possible. Hulled, ‘60-second’ rice works best, drying electronics and tossing at weddings is actually the only thing it’s any good for. DO NOT use any kind of seasoned rice, they all contain salt which will leave a salty residue, which will draw humidity and corrode the device’s electronics.

Remove the device from the rice, shake out any rice fragments and use air (your breath is fine) to remove any residual rice dust. Insert the battery and you should be good to go.

I have heard that some people have had success with putting the rinsed phone on the dashboard of their car all afternoon in the summer or next to a heating vent overnight in the winter.

I repair electronics professionally and I’ve successfully used this technique for years to recover phones, music players, two-way radios, pagers and hearing aids, among others. It works about 90% of the time provided the battery is removed promptly. Although I have used rice many times successfully, at my job we pack the wet device in moisture-absorbing silica crystals and then put it in a drying oven for 4 hours.

But every so often, someone brings in a wet device that’s been sitting for several days with the battery still attached. They usually make the excuse that they ‘forgot’ about it or that they just set it aside for a few days to see if it would ‘fix itself.’ That’s when I hand it back to them and say, “I’m sorry, I can’t fix it.”

It is actually possible to bargain successfully with cellphone companies over rates. Some offer senior discounts. If you threaten credibly to switch companies, you will be handed off to a specialist authorized to offer you a deal to stay with your current company. Both my wife and I have done this successfully. It doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a try.

Biggest scam ever from.

I got a sony acro s. It’s really tough and no case required. Its fallen onto concrete and tile floors numerous times, and its been soaked a few times. The screen is micro-scratched to heck by my keys and jean rivets, but otherwise, it’s still ticking.

Nobody calls me on my trac phone anyway….