Winter (aGain) and Thoughts of Samsung devices

​​Well, it's the last day of March and even after a week of daytime sunny days with highs in the 50s but still with a chill factor of up to 20 degrees LESS, Mother Nature has again whipped up her cape last night and this morning to bring more whiteness to our area. Looking out the window minutes ago, the snow is still falling. Though the heat of the streets is still enough to keep the road surface black, the parked cars and trees are covered in yet another thick white coat! 

Sheila and I are still snapping our pictures, and even now are wondering where we will go later to capture the beauty of this yet-again winter scene. It seems 95% of the ice in the Niagara River is gone, though there are still little icebergs floating towards the Falls every minute, it's not the more than half ice-filled river it was just weeks ago.

A recent Niagara River scene, complete with ice on the water (bottom of pix).
Yes, it was cold and very breezy!

On the other hand, I am still struggling in using my Samsung SSG S5 though I am not touting loudly of its image sharpness and usefulness as I did in the past. It has been almost a year since being advised by email by a Samsung rep that my S5 will no longer be updated, and almost immediately after that news, my S5 use has been a daily nightmare!!

I turn on bluetooth to transfer files between my S5 and other laptops and devices, and the bluetooth turns itself off numerous times. 

I see this error a LOT of times
every DAY. Thanks Samsung!

Images are turned sideways and though I rotate the image to its correct aspect, it will still NOT display correctly.

Of course it's only right that
even stupid samsung apps
are dying left and right too! 

Samsung and other apps do not function correctly or not at all. 

Error messages pop up almost nonstop. Just to have this S5 even work, I must either turn off and enter the recovery mode, or restart it many times a day, or both!! There are many times when these options must be repeated several times within a few minutes!!

Even the Samsung S5 camera refuses to behave. As you can imagine since I am a photographer, I use my S5 camera many times in a single hour, and many times more in any 24 hour period. It is not the fun, sharp and listening camera it was before, and nor are the results the greatest any longer. It is, as are the rest of this S5's functions and reliability, a disappointing shadow of what it once was just months before.

The list continues on and on, plus it is growing by the week! I can seriously understand why devices cannot be updated until it breaks, but to have a piece of crap that I paid a very pretty amount of my money to have, and now it's useful for practically nothing, and might as well be used as a fishing line weight, and should be utterly illegal and a crime to sell!! The first app on this S5 was the phone, and it still does not work correctly if at all! 

What if everything we owned just ceased to function properly as when it was purchased. Granted that most products on the market shouldn't be allowed to be sold anyway, but to have something so important and such a valuable and important piece of everyday life, shouldn't be crap and a nightmare to continue owning is an insult to the buying public, and should be an embarrassment to the very company that designed such planned obsolete equipment is a slap to the face of the company CEO, its workers and the public. 

This is my third Samsung smartphone, and it is going to be the very last Samsung I will buy. I am seriously considering buying a flip phone instead.

Now will Samsung care should they read this post? No, they will probably not care at all because I am just one individual who is not happy. But if this nightmare with my S5 is happening to me, then it is surely happening to you and others also. When I think of the millions of Samsung phones being used throughout the world, I am thinking there are millions of Samsung users out there suffering through this thoughtless planned obsolescence!!

I personally challenge all manufacturers of any type of electronic device, to build a product to function to the best of its ability, and that Samsung CEO and employees should ensure its operation long after updates are no longer provided, and ensure their equipment continues to function well after its first day of no longer being updated, and to continue functioning well as it should, well past a decade of not being updated!!

As a company THEY should be embarrassed and ashamed of manufacturing such a piece of crap that had been a joy and pride to use previously, but is now just a personal reminder to never again buy Samsung!  

My next smartphone will NOT be a samsung!!

Western New York Winter Storm (Yet Again)

Since we have returned from Michigan four months ago, there has been a "winter storm" seemingly every week! 

The cracked slabs of thick river ice

A few more nights of frozen nights and you'll be able to walk
on the river to the Falls, and beyond to Canada!

The car is covered with snow....   wait a day and the snow removed naturally by the heat of day. Wait another few day's and it's covered with snow again!

The news has been going overboard with scenes of the last huge snowstorm of 1977, when the area was hit with massive snowfalls, even burying cars, with another 10-20 feet of the white stuff on top of the vehicles!!! WoW!

It's been snowing for a few hours, then the huge flakes began to dance its way from the sky. So gorgeous to see, but such a pain to drive in! But in more simple times it would be great, but not in this modern age!

There's a RIVER somewhere in this image!

Across the Niagara and blowing snow, 

is Grand Island

We shoveled our way out of the house then took a little walk. Everything is white, and everything is just gorgeously covered with the snowflakes. We wanted to take our cameras but I didn't want to sizzle the electronics neither! I was snapping with my smartphone, and it was being covered with a bit of snow, and the screen and controls were going crazy! 

My phone is a "waterproof" S5 smartphone, but am guessing it didn't like the snow since it was zooming all by itself plus snapping a picture every half of a second for about a total of ten snaps!! Fortunately the device did capture some pixs correctly, though I am sure this will be my last samsung device since I found out a few months ago my S5 will not have its androidOS updated any longer. 

Since that was discovered, I get so many android error messages daily, plus screens that flash, bluetooth that doesn't stay on, galleries that don't want to display its images, and images snapped that have disappeared into thin virtual air, among many other annoying problems. If I knew this would happen, I would have NEVER purchased a samsung anything!! 

What do you say to that samsung??? I used to toot your smartphone and tablet's abilities all over my social media, then I dropped that a few months ago due to lack of time and still trying to "live". I am almost sorry I built up my amazing sharp samsung imagery (like those here) and everytime a iphone user hears my ability to snap a smartfone pix simply by saying "shoot", and being able to snap a sunset and having it look completely golden without any need to touch any button for special apps or effects. Well, I won't be doing that anymore! One of my daily chores is to clear the S5 cache, and of course even that action does nothing now  :(

These trees are gorgeous in their frozen state

While we were out it was snowing and by time we made our second walk, probably just under an mile, our foot steps were already almost covered by the newly falling snow. It just takes a measly 12 minutes if we're walking slowly, but we rarely walk slowly!

Even frozen the Niagara looks marVeLous!

Tomorrow the weather will be more extreme and lower temps, almost all day in single-digit temperatures (all below 4°f) with windchill temps of -18°  at sunrise with 18mph winds, and a nice temperature of 0° and a windchill of -25° , dropping throughout the afternoon until it levels out at sunset (set sets here at 5:25pm) of almost -16° , dropping even more through the evening till just before midnight, it'll be a windchill of almost -30°f!!!

As I was typing this, I looked out the windows for a second to observe complete white-out conditions!!!

Please be CAREFUL while driving in icy conditions

Stay safe, careful and if you are in an area with some of this white weather we are and have been "enjoying", then be sure your headlights are on, and drive slow. You don't want to be a sliding steel carriage in those slick wet and snowy roads!