It didn't used to be like this.

[J Peters]

So, my son's cell phone died.

<Gemini starts channeling her inner fogey.> Back in the day, we didn't
have cell phones. If you wanted to call home, you had to find a pay
phone, and use a calling card.

It just happens that his older sister got a new phone for her birthday,
a fancy texting monster.

<fogey> Phones only need number keys. Why, I remember rotary dial
phones. When we got a touch-tone phone, we never used the * or # keys.

I just got done activating the left-over phone onto my son's number. He
was grumping about losing all his information, so I did a little bit of
trickery.

<fogey> Activating a phone? Why, a phone just plugs into the wall,
doesn't it?

[Software engineer trickery]

I saved his calling activity from the last to bills. You can download
it to a spreadsheet from the online account.

Then I created a data source using the spreadsheet file, and used a
query tool (which I happen to work on for a living) and made a report of
his most used phone numbers. So, he got most of his contacts back.

Hey, what are engineer moms for?

gemini

[Diana]

Post by J Peters
So, my son's cell phone died.
<Gemini starts channeling her inner fogey.> Back in the day, we didn't
have cell phones. If you wanted to call home, you had to find a pay
phone, and use a calling card.
It just happens that his older sister got a new phone for her birthday,
a fancy texting monster.
<fogey> Phones only need number keys. Why, I remember rotary dial
phones. When we got a touch-tone phone, we never used the * or # keys.
I just got done activating the left-over phone onto my son's number. He
was grumping about losing all his information, so I did a little bit of
trickery.
<fogey> Activating a phone? Why, a phone just plugs into the wall,
doesn't it?
[Software engineer trickery]
I saved his calling activity from the last to bills. You can download
it to a spreadsheet from the online account.
Then I created a data source using the spreadsheet file, and used a
query tool (which I happen to work on for a living) and made a report of
his most used phone numbers. So, he got most of his contacts back.
Hey, what are engineer moms for?
gemini

Hey, yeah, it's interesting to be on the cusp of the fogey-techy
continuum isn't it? Good job, Gem!

Diana