I can remember when if you telephoned someone and they were not at home, they simply didn’t get the call and you would have to call them back later. #mbnov
I can remember when if you telephoned someone and they were not at home, they simply didn’t get the call and you would have to call them back later. #mbnov
@klandwehr I remember too that if they were home and on the phone, you'd get a busy signal. You'd have to try again. The "improvements" of answering machines and call waiting presaged the mixed blessing of email.
@macgenie you reminded me of running to the phone and almost killing myself because someone decided to move a piece of furniture slightly, only to pick it up just as they were hanging up.
@klandwehr Oh right! Let’s add portable phones to the list of phone improvements that are welcome but have a less desirable side effect, i.e. the phone could be anywhere in the house, not limited to the one spot on the wall in the kitchen or nightstand in the bedroom.
@Munish That happened to me last week! (This apartment doesn’t have a fixed internet connection, so I’m using my phone’s data plan. Sometimes I can call and browse at the same time but it’s not guaranteed.)
@Munish No, I abandoned my old phone while I was moving. It happened again today: I was remotely connected to someone’s network and on the phone to them at the same time when the internet connection dropped. (I think it may have been the same person as before.) Anyway, managed to work around it. I don’t think it will be a major problem.
@macgenie I grew up without caller ID so I set up a way to screen calls with friends by having them call, hang up and pause, then call again. Based on how length of the pause, I could tell who was calling. It wasn’t perfect, but better than having to talk to a telemarketer 😉.
@Munish No, because I just got a desktop Windows computer (for the first time in years) a few weeks ago and I haven’t got speakers or a microphone. I could have used the MacBook Air, but when I do things scroll off the edge of the screen and I forget they’re there. So I hung up the phone, emailed a link to the other party to let me connect remotely, did most of what I needed to do, then called them again, when it no longer mattered so much whether the connection dropped.