cellphone that plays audio ads at 0300 in the morning--I could go on and on, but it would be boring....
Those automated telemarketers are among the more maddening aspects of modern life. Who woulda thunk there'd be something worse than traditional telemarketers? And I don't know if I should just block their numbers, because perhaps this will inform them that my number is active, after which they'll sell it to millions of other telemarketers...
If you're getting robo calls, or a lot of telemarketing or probe calls (phone rings and if you answer it hangs up... they're just checking your number works) you
need TrueCaller in your life. It identifies phone calls and will tell you 99/100 times if it's spam or not. I choose to share very little with it (it will try to use your phone book to resolve people's names, for instance). But all-in-all it has made my life a zero tolerance zone for phone marketing, and I always know who'se calling before I answer. Some company keeps calling? You can block them too. Works for texts too, it can automatically block known spam numbers... but I don't use it for that because I've worked in the sms space and the concept of a "number" is a pretty flexible one in that space. A number that is legit today can be spam tomorrow and versa vice.
A month or two ago I finally got a smartphone as birthday gift. Actually a neat toy. But boy, did I have my work cut out for me to work out how to switch off its autocorrect function, which insisted on correcting all messages typed in Afrikaans. I just hate it when machines presume to think on my behalf. -)
If it's android based,
Multiling Okeyboard supports afrikaans autocomplete and swipe gestures. Very configurable, a bit of getting used to how to install and switch languages, etc. But I love it.
"Monkey killing monkey killing monkey over pieces of the ground, Silly monkeys, give them thumbs, they make a club and beat their brother down. How they survive, so misguided, is a mystery. Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here" - Tool