I’m today battling with the technology behind carte de séjours, as I start to renew online my EU family member one. I dread to think how I would find this process in my 80s, baffled when the system says you literally can’t proceed as there an “error,” without telling you what the error is (there really isn’t one!). I find this type of situation stressful enough now, let alone in later life, especially for things that absolutely have to be done and are not voluntary.
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But how do I know what topic I want? Make our TV work is a bit vague!
AI? “Recommend some reliable YouTube tutorials on setting up a Samsung MegaTV”?
What annoys me is to open up a webpage that one knew how to use yesterday, and which worked perfectly well, only to find that someone has decided to ‘improve’ it, resulting in having to waste my time bumbling about trying to find out how to work it now.
By the time I become conversant with the ‘new’ system someone decides to change it again.
I’ll just go back to phoning I reckon, and the taxman will receive paper forms and like it or lump it.
If I really get stuck then there is always the Mairie or the Community of Communes to which one can turn.
Perhaps it’s all because I am the sort of person who has just altered the ending of the previous sentence twice in order to avoid ending said sentence with a preposition.
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I fondly remember the field in the original WARP CdS application page that asked you to do simple mathematics with zero guidance to the required answer format.
Probably Babylonian base 60 I would imagine. 
Today’s trivia fact: we get our 24 hour day, / 60 minute / 60 second way of enumerating time from them.
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Hope they can’t see us, sitting in my Onslow string vest in front of the TV might be giving someone the fright of their life 
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Yes I use AI to help me stumble through tech issues, but it is so frustrating and takes so long. And doesn’t do anything to help me actually understand.
So I then spend hours down rabbit holes trying to differential between LAN ports and WAP ports (?), or similar stupidities like where has my photo folder gone ND can I make my desk top work via wifi.
So this is probably just a rant as the likelihood of me following an OU course on computer technology is rather unlikely.
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Haha! I understand.
I think I’m suggesting something different: using AI to recommend resources : it’s a lot easier to assess the quality of the source when you can see it. AI too often hides its working.
Did you find your photo folder?
The simplest way to get a desktop connected to WiFi is using a USB WiFi adapter.
Plug it in, it loads a Windows driver (assuming you’re not one of those Linux weirdos), you tell it the WiFi network you want it to join and give it the password.
Never heard of one of those. They seem to be as cheap as chips, we always makes me worry! But will that stop us having a cable trailing up the stairs to the desktop (livebox is downstairs) without secondary effects?
Which is my other bugbear. You sort one issue only to find it has created another.
We are hoping that the external hard drive that we think we backed up to should have photo’s and otehr missing folders. Of course if only we could find the box the hard drive is in - it’s only been 5 months since we moved and most still in boxes.
(edit - there seem to be millions of these wifi adaptors from €6 - €100. But what do I want? Nano I presume means I have to have a tiny USB slot in the tower - which I can’t see that we have? I guess we have to have a wifi one not a blue tooth one? Double or triple band? Speed? USB 1300, 2.0, 3.0?
All these stupid things that are obvious to most of you just make me want to revert to parchment and a quill pen)
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I got one of these for when I was using my PC (which doesn’t have built-in WiFi) in the dining room and it worked a treat:-
TP-Link Powerful N150Mbps WiFi Flash Drive, Nano USB WiFi Adapter, WiFi Dongle, Compatible with Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP/Vista, Mac OS X 10.9-10.13, Linux., TL-WN725N TP-Link Powerful N150Mbps WiFi Flash Drive, Nano USB WiFi Adapter, WiFi Dongle, Compatible with Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP/Vista, Mac OS X 10.9-10.13, Linux., TL-WN725N : Amazon.fr: Computers
For those of us who haven’t a clue, this is a very good example. No idea what it does? Do I need one?
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Sue….I mean @JaneJones do you have anyone close by who could set up your ‘systems’ in a way that suits you rather than have to wade through all of the jargon? Well done by the way in configuring something, even if it’s clunky.
I don’t know how at the moment your photos are stored, and where they are stored but I’m guessing you want to archive and or back them up them in a central accessible ‘place’. If this is the case, you might want to consider buying a ‘plug and play’ ‘external hard drive’. A decent one of about 1 terra byte size (it’s huge) will cost no more than 100 euros and you plug it into a USB port and drag and drop the files. (Sorry if you already know this).
Personally, I avoid anything branded as ‘smart’ and this includes watches, fridges and the like. I don’t need it for the time being but so be it if folk love it. Voice activated stuff like Alexa and what Google do, I avoid too. If it adds no value to life, it useless.
If you pc is new, I think it’s worth paying a subscription for decent antivirus. If an old machine, you might want to consider replacing with something simple and affordable. We use ‘mini pc’s because they are tiny of course, silent and are packed with usb ports and so on.
Finally, if you want to streamline your home IT network, I’m pretty sure you can pay the company you get you internet from to set up a simple network (‘a mesh’ system). These are also plug and play but if you feel overwhelmed by the prospect, I’m sure a new neighbour could help as well?
Mansplaning here:
Mesh WiFi
External Hard drive
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Only if you need a PC or a laptop which don’t have a working WiFi module built into them to connect to a Wifi network.
There are versions the above with far better antennae for when the WiFi signal in the location you want to use the PC/Laptop isn’t great.
USB Ethernet adapters also exist for when you want a cabled connection to PC or laptop which has a faulty Ethernet/LAN module.
The most important thing to note on all of the above is the maximum throughput speed which should be shown as AC or AX followed by a number indicating maximum throughput speed such as “AC900”. Older devices might use N followed by a number to indicate this, for example “N150” on the Tp-Link adapter on Amazon above.
Hi Mickey - I think this is aimed at @JaneJones ?
I’m guessing not here in France then, as we have an ethernet /home plug system or straight into back of livebox.
In Chichester we have a wifi system throughout the house and I’m assuming OH’s pc is modern enough to have wifi module.
Exactly so.
I purchased the one linked above so I could download SW onto my 2011 vintage gaming PC during an upgrade as it doesn’t have a working wireless card and it was way cheaper than a home plug.
Ah!!!…well spotted and sorry 
We have them on USB keys, our phones, my ipad, OHs laptop, our very ancient windows 7 desktop and god help us, some on CDs! Plus whatever we did manage to backup onto our external hard drive - which is also not sorted!
For about 10 years we did a sweep every year and selected what we wanted to keep and printed into a book (we are paper people). But of course didn’t properly get rid of everything else so there are duplicates and triplicates littered everywhere,
It is a mess, and it annoys me. I had a vision that in moving here and fully retiring I would spend my days doing fun things like curating my photo life. But 6 months on and haven’t got to the retired bit yet!
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