Nothing Happens At Ten

I did it. I reset the Tablet back to its Factory Defaults. Just in case you decide you need to do this yourself, here is how I did it.

First of all, I wrote down all the stuff I had installed on it so that I could remember what to put back.

Then, I wrote down all of my passwords since I will have to set everything up again.

Yaaaa. I blurred it all out. Duh. I wasn’t born yesterday.

I charged the Tablet up to 100% while it was still off.

Well there’s an excellent photo fer sure. I think the camera focused on my reflection instead of the screen. It really does say “100%”. Trust me.

Next, I rebooted the Tablet (slowly…. it always works slowly now).

Go into Settings. That is the picture of the gear.

That takes you to the Settings page, where you scroll down to the menu item “Backup and restore”.  Take your finger and touch “Backup and restore”. That takes you to the page where it says “Factory data reset”. Both are circled in red in the image below.

Touch on “Factory data reset”, and that takes you to the “Dire Warnings and Scary Statements” screen. It has the button called “Reset Device”.

This is where it tells you that all your stuff will be gonzo if you do this. Don’t read it. It will scare you. Just do it.

Click on “Reset Device” button, the one inside the red oval…… are you ready?….. just do it…. you know you want to….. and…..

Oh. Wait. There’s another one. This one says that if you do this all your stuff will be gone… really really really (really)…. I really mean it….. really !! gone!. The button says “Delete all”. So click on it!

The Tablet shuts down.

Then, it starts erasing stuff.

It showed me the S^msung screen for quite a while….and then…….. it went dark. Dark dark dark. Creepy dark. Dead done dark.

Moment of truth. I turned it back on.

Yay!

It made me sign in to The Google again and answer some questions about what to call it and what language to use and stuff. But it did come back up. It took a long time after it booted to update itself. In fact the Google Play Store automagically re-installed a bunch of the apps I had on it in spite of the dire warnings “All your personal information and downloaded applications will be deleted and cannot be recovered“. So much for Truth in Advertising. It told me after it was done that it had updated 22 things.

But there it is. That is a pretty empty Tablet there.

I put some of the stuff from my list back onto the main screen. I don’t think I will clutter it up quite like I did the first time.

It seems to be running again. I don’t know how long it will last, but it is running.

OK. Now it is YOUR TURN. C’mon! Grab your phone! Let’s go….. You know you want to do it!

NO! WAIT! STOP! That was a joke! Don’t do it! Put it down!

Jeepers. That was close!

Nope.

The Tablet went away again. It totally locked up, drained the battery over night and would not do anything this morning. After pushing the ON button a zillion times I finally got the screen to light up only to see this.

Wait a minute, you can’t read the message. Here’s a closeup.

Well OK then, Mr. Wiz, be that way. Here are my options.

• Continue waiting for another day.
• Close it.

I decided to close it.

Nope. Neither of those buttons actually would do anything. So I did what any self-respecting Professional Software Engineer would to. I frantically poked at the ON button muttering (well OKthen, shouting) things like “shucks” and “darn”. It finally posted a box behind that box asking me if I wanted to turn it off. Sorry no photo. I was concentrating on saying “shucks and darn”.

However, I managed to fat-finger around the first non-functional modal dialog box to the other non-functional modal dialog box and got the blasted thing to turn off. It is now charging the battery, and when that is done, here is what I am going to do.

I am going to do the dreaded Factory Reset.

Take that, Mr. Wiz.

I have one question. Don’t you have something better to do than read about my tribulations with the Tablet?

If you are still interested, stay tuned. Otherwise, go have a nice breakfast.

The sky was on fire this morning when I got up. Check it out.

Yeah. I know. Isn’t this the stuff of Facebook? You know. Here’s what I had for breakfast. Here is my dog sleeping. Here I am doing the laundry. Yada yada.

But still….. wow!…..

Since I no longer have to chase trains in the morning, I woke up and decided to make a batch of flapjacks for breakfast. What to cook them in? I went to the basement and I found this:

I bought that electric skillet when I was in Flight Training down in Laredo Texas at the A.F. Base BX. That was in….. (wait for it)….. 1970.

Yup. That skillet is now (using all my fingers and toes….) 47 years old. Yikes!

And I still have it! And it still works!

To cook flapjacks, I set it to 200° F, and wait until it is hot. I use the old-fashioned way of telling whether the temperature of the griddle is right. I toss in a few drops of water, and if they skittle around like little balls, without evaporating, then the temperature is just right. If you look closely at the following photo, you can see some of them.

It was tricky getting that shot because those suckers move fast. Here is a closer view of one of them.

If the little water balls pop when they hit the pan, it is not hot enough. If the water just vanishes and doesn’t make little balls, it is too hot. When the temperature is just right….. the water makes little balls that chase and dance around on the pan for several minutes. It’s kind of fun just tossing the water into the skillet and watching.

It’s called the Leidenfrost effect. Click on the link. Use caution; there be equations in there.

OK. I am easily entertained. Back to the flapjacks.

After the skillet is up to temp, I dump in the batter.

I cook it until bubbles appear on the top of the batter. Then, turn it over.

Yum!

This skillet is soooo old….. look at what is written on the bottom of the pan.

Can you see what it says?

GENERAL ELECTRIC

ELECTRIC SKILLET

MADE IN U.S.A.

An electric kitchen device that was made here. Now that’s old!

Hmmm.”General Electric Electric Skillet”. Isn’t that redundant?  I think “General Electric Skillet” would have sufficed.