Tonight I am sitting by our front door answering it for all of the trick-or-treat kids in our neighborhood. Right now it is still the young kids and we always hand out glow-in-the-dark bracelets. The chemical kind that you get at night in amusement parks. My logic is that the lights will help the kids be more easily seen. As the night goes on, we will switch from young kids to older ones and they are more interested in candy and we have a giant bowl of that.
While handing out treats, I am also fixing a couple of technical problems. Tonight is probably the worst night to do that as I finally get a problem figured out and the doorbell rings. Fortunately I have solved two cumbersome issues and feel like I have accomplished something while still answering the door every couple of minutes.
While waiting for kids to come by this evening I noticed that our Amazon Show device had a really dim screen. I looked for an adjustment knob or button but there isn't one. As the device is supposed to understand verbal commands, I asked, "Alexa, how can I brighten the screen?" The device quickly replied, "Go into settings-appearance and adjust the brightness there." What a useless response, I thought as there are multiple setting menus on the stupid thing. Did I need to go into the settings on my wife's phone which controls the device? There is also a settings on the screen when you touch it. I started with the one on the screen. That only seemed to control where the pictures are coming from for the constant slide show we get to see.
I asked my wife for her phone. I went into the Alexa app and looked for settings to control the device. I couldn't find anything and so I headed back to the device. This time when I touched the screen on the Amazon Show, I noticed an icon that looked like a "V" at the top of the screen. That usually means to swipe down and so I did. It brought up yet a 3rd setup screen which had the appropriate controls for device brightness. I cranked it up a bit and now I can see the pictures clearly on the screen.
With the Amazon Show visible I thought I would sit down and crank out one more blog entry for the month. I had the option of going upstairs and getting my personal laptop, going downstairs and getting my work laptop, or using the Chromebook I keep on the desk next to the kitchen. Following the path of least resistance, I reached for the Chromebook. This turned out to be the most lengthy choice.
I opened the Chromebook and didn't see anything on the screen. Sometimes it can be a bit slow to respond but it needed to be turned on. I pressed the "On" button and saw that it had unexpectedly quit. I logged into my account on the device and it needed to do 2-factor authentication. Chrome being a product of Google likes to try to authenticate on our Android phone. I thought it would be simple as the desk by the kitchen is where we keep that phone. Unfortunately the first attempt didn't work and I got instructions similar to the ones from the Amazon Show. I ran through them without any luck only to have the doorbell ring from candy goblins. By the time I got back to the Chromebook and my phone, both had gone dark. I had to turn on the screens and discovered my Chromebook started the login process all over.
Fortunately when I entered my login information the Chromebook sent the MFA signal to my phone and I just had to confirm it was me logging in. I didn't need to follow any of the convoluted instructions that didn't match what I saw on the screen. As you can tell by this post, I solved the problem and used my Chromebook to write this post. Now it is time to go back to answering the door for the children in the neighborhood.
