How do you do the Forum and why?

Just depends on where I am.  Right now I have a few moments at work and checked in on my computer.  If I am mobile then the phone takes the task.

I usually look at the list of recent topics on the right and chose what interests me from that list.  I hardly every go right into a category unless posting.

Desktop, Laptop, but never on the phone.  I use my phone for calling and texting.

I find it more relaxing sitting at the computer.

Desk top, iPad never the phone I hate using the phone for the internet to small and hard to see things. I generally start with my alerts review them and them review the current topics. Why, I enjoy the folks, the photos and have learned a tremendous amount of knowledge and met some great folks in person, Mark , Dave and GRJ just to start. Besides it is fine and relaxing.

I mainly use my iPad. I purchased a spring loaded floor stand last year that makes it hands free. It’s very easy to type, read and watch videos without having to hold the iPad.

Gene

I have it on my desktop at work ,and when I'm waiting on someone I read posts. At home it's on my iPad. I hardly ever use it my phone unless I feel I need to reply to something I'm involved in while out. Pretty rare. I don't have much knowledge to share at this point. Hopefully someday.

i have used my phone once or twice (but i've only been here a year) i find the phone typing thing frustrating due to my vision and a need to visit the eye doc. i don't have a tablet/ipad. the laptop is always my primary.

and I LOVE all the pics & video, the knowledge base & continuing ed. , the depth of experience and advice, the layouts and ideas.

- (my wife says the emojis could use an update)

EDIT: and if you haven't done it yet, sign up and pay for a subscription/membership! the cost for the OGR publishers to keep us all together and this board running and available is significant!    ain't this forum worth at least $3 a month?

As a retiree, most of my time is spent at home, so I almost always use my laptop, which is connected to a 24-inch monitor, a real keyboard, a real mouse(!), or rarely my desktop computer. Never use the phone to look at the Forum. Screen and keys are much too small and when I'm away from home, I'm involved with things other than the Forum.

I read the "Recent Posts" on the right side of the window and rarely bother to select and read a specific forum.

I prepare two (somewhat long) posts with text, photographs and videos each week - for Switcher Saturday and Steamday Sunday. The phone is my camera. After taking pictures, I copy them into a directory on the laptop and use a word-processor to write the text. When it's time to post, I copy and paste the text onto the website and "Add Attachments" for the photos. I can't imagine doing the text on a phone...

For a reply like this, I use the real keyboard to type it directly into the "Add Reply" window. Using a real keyboard helps to avoid typos, spelling errors and incorrect grammar. I've been a computer user since 1963.

MELGAR

Laptop at home.  Lunch hour only if i'm at the office (hope thats what you others mean by "at work" ).  The phone NEVER enters the bathroom...knew one person (which is one too many) who dropped it "in the ....LOL."

Well Arnold, another one of your unique forum topics. I've been a MAC guy for about 6 years now and you know what they say, "once you go MAC, you'll never go back."   So I have all recent MAC stuff, including an iMac desktop, a new M2 15" MacBook Air, an  iPad, and the iPhone (13 Pro Max). I seldom use the desktop, but use the MacBook and iPad almost daily. I find using the iPhone a little difficult, because of its smaller size, so use the iPad while in my man cave for surfing the Internet and to get the layout photos onto this forum. I use the iPad to read forum threads while in the recliner.

I use my desktop computer exclusively for everything internet. I currently do not have a smart phone. Mine finally died. Also, due to arthritic hands, I have better luck typing on a full-sized keyboard then the small, smart phone keyboard on the small smart phone screen. Also, the desktop computer allows me to see the GREAT photos you all post on a large, high-definition screen so I don't miss any detail.

When I was still in business with my musical instrument repair shop, I used my smart phone as my business phone and Wi Fi hotspot. When I closed my business for retirement at age 70 at the end of 2020, I used my home, desktop computer for everything including E-Mail, Facebook, writing and music arranging. Yes, I am a crotchety old buzzard. I like my big desktop computer better than any other device.

I have never used my iPhone to access the Forum or our Digital issues. I don't care how good the phone is, you never have enough screen to properly view photos and/or even to read full lines of text in many cases. I use a desktop computer (Dell) with a large-screen monitor, but also have an older Mac desktop computer with a similarly large screen in case I want or need a backup (I much prefer Mac computers in the real world).

If I ever truly need something smaller, perhaps my 6-yr-old or 4-year-old grandsons will let me borrow one of theirs. They each have their own iPads.

My Mac laptop is set up as my “desktop” and I use that when  I’m at home. For mobile use (or when I’m away from my laptop), I use my IPad and less often, my IPhone Max.

Due to upgrade everything because my Mac is over 10 years old and my IPad nearly the same.

Peter

I either use a desktop or my media room 75" TV which is connected to the internet.  Fantastic for reading the forum and magazine sitting in a very comfortable chair!  Sometimes I use my Fold 4....

What’s a forum

I too find the cell phone too small.  Arther Ritis is a constant companion.  I use a laptop.  I like to check the forum during my morning coffee.  Kinda like now.  If I have something to post, I compose after dinner.  Thank you for another great topic Arnold.

Bill

99% of the time on a 27" monitor connected to a Windows desktop.

1% on an iPhone turned to the landscape view. As Arnold would attest, this mobile aspect works surprisingly well...especially while I'm sitting in the car while my wife does all the grocery shopping.

But us old folk definitely prefer the bigger screens!

@Odenville Bill posted:

... I compose after dinner. ..

Yes - I need to start using that phrasing. "Honey, I'm going to spend some time composing on the choo-choo forum."

@OGR CEO-PUBLISHER posted:

I either use a desktop or my media room 75" TV which is connected to the internet.  Fantastic for reading the forum and magazine sitting in a very comfortable chair!  Sometimes I use my Fold 4....

Wow! Imagine reading forum threads and magazine articles on a movie screen. Awesome!

Another great, thoughtful topic, Arnold!  Here I thought you spend your time waiting for clients by thinking up new forum topics.  I never thought you used the time looking at the forum. 

Like others have posted, I use the smart phone when I can't be near the computer.  I only type short answers on it.  As others wrote, it is hard to type on the smart phone.  If I see photographs on it, I go back and look again on the computer.  A couple years ago, we replaced the desktop with out first laptop.  I type longer posts and replies including adding photographs with it.

I usually start by looking at the email replies on topics I am following, then look at current topics on the right sidebar.  It is only occasionally that I look for topics on the directory.  I follow so many people and topics, that I usually have more than enough to view.

Thank you Rick @RJT for following my comments.  I was just thinking of you the other day because I hadn't seen you post in a while.  While I'm at it, thank you everyone who has offered advice that I have been able to use.  Also, thank you everyone for commenting on my posts.  That is so helpful.  I am also thankful for the moderators who tolerantly keep me to task, since I sometimes run off topic. 

I have a pair of 28" monitors on my computer, that's how I use the forum.  I abhor trying to do anything like this on a phone, it's difficult to read, and typing in replies is painful!   Also, many of my responses are technical and I shoot pictures and/or edit them for the post.

I've always suspected that anyone that does stuff like this on a phone is a bit of a masochist, but maybe that's just my bias.

@Randy Harrison posted:

I use my desktop computer exclusively for everything internet.

Also, due to arthritic hands, I have better luck typing on a full-sized keyboard than the small, smart phone keyboard on the small smart phone screen. Also, the desktop computer allows me to see the GREAT photos you all post on a large, high-definition screen so I don't miss any detail.

Yes, I am a crotchety old buzzard.

Holy moly!...A truly kindred spirit, Randy!!  Pudgy-arthritic-finger-syndrome, et al!   Actually, my 'friend' is a laptop.  Strikes a nice balance of portability and workability...IMHO, of course.  I NEVER tried using the phone, smart or 'dumb',  to check Forum...or eBay auctions.  (See below)

Oh yes, I sometimes bide waiting times playing hearts or some other game on the phone.   (I once tried playing Mahjong on the phone...Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ad infinitum. Yeah, right.)   And every so often when I feel a bit bold, I'll glance at the gnus headlines to see if there's any hope anymore anywhere.

Related pet peeve...as a seller on Ebay, dealing with cellphone-obsessed buyers.  Besides not being able to see nuances in anything photographic, we find that detailed written descriptions are very often abbreviated or non-existent when viewed on a cellphone.  Just a couple days ago,  my wife posted an auction offering dozens of small packets of detail parts to complement a group picture of the same.  She provided in the written description a list of every packet and its contents.  Yet, a would-be buyer  wrote, 'What's in the packets?'.  She advised him/her to check the description for the complete, detailed listing.   Come to find out, he apologetically disclosed he was looking at the auction on his cellphone, the complete descriptive details deleted/abbreviated.   Hardly the first time this has been encountered.  Frustrating as a seller, dangerous as a buyer, the latter sometimes not 'protected' by Ebay for missing the full descriptive disclosure through the buyer's choice of cyberware.

Another interesting question, Arnold.  Keep 'em coming!!

BTW...At 79 years, I'm proudly a fellow full-fledged associate of the Fraternal Order of Grumpy Geezers, aka old fogies!  Rule on!

(Wife adds 'Pray for me, ...PLEASE!')

@OGR CEO-PUBLISHER posted:

I either use a desktop or my media room 75" TV which is connected to the internet.  Fantastic for reading the forum and magazine sitting in a very comfortable chair!  Sometimes I use my Fold 4....

Hey...you just gave me an idea.  The actual movie screen is 120" and I think it is connected to the internet as well...now I have to go look!!

I use my laptop (MAC) to read, post, and reply.  I can stream videos from the website to the TV, but rarely do unless I want to show my wife something.  I sit back on the sofa with laptop on the arm of the sofa and peruse the forum.   I usually go to subscribed threads first if there was new activity, then to the 2 rail forum to look for new info...and finally down the right side to see what posts may interest me.  I also use the forum for lots of research on different ideas...weathering, building/structures, etc.

I rarely use my phone for the forum unless I am out and about or at my in-laws house. Can't remember that last time I used the phone to look at the forum.    I don't think I have ever posted or replied using the phone...I think phones are mostly a nuisance and there is nothing that is an emergency on any forum to reply when I am out and about.  I'll get to it when I get to it.  YMMV

I sit in my home office and go to the forum on my desktop. I like the real estate of the bigger screen. I occasionally will look at the forum on my iPhone but too much scrolling.

Interesting topic, and I enjoy the "old geezer" comments.  I guess that makes me a member of the club.

Virtually all of my interaction is via my Chromebook laptop, often while watching TV or doing other things.  Easy interface, and it doesn't interfere with anybody else.  Big enough to look at, and easy to type my replies.

On rare occasions while away from home, I've browsed via my phone, but I don't think I've ever posted or replied on that device - way too small. 

Laptop, with a larger monitor, keyboard, and mouse.  That's where all my photos reside.

I use a smartphone on vacation and for work alerts.

Call me a masochist - I “Forum” exclusively with my iPhone.

Curt

On weekends, I tend to use the laptop not the phone. Why? The picture forums don’t populate to my phone and I hate to dig into the separate forum.  Picture threads such as switcher Sat stay available in the main topic for toy trains on the laptop.

The vast majority of my Forum browsing is on my 17" screen laptop (with external full-size keyboard), which in turn is my primary PC owing to space constraints. Sometimes I have posts (such as in 'Buy Anything Cool Lately" that can take a couple of hours to compose before posting (research, rewrites, proofreading, replacing photos that break whenever edits are made ), so having full-sized keyboards is invaluable.

I have done up to semi-long-winded posts using my phone, and have even posted pictures from it, but generally I only look at the forum with it if I'm out and about and have exhausted my usual collection of news articles. My tablets rarely leave the house, so they have yet to experience Forum goodness, being that my laptop is just a few steps away.

---PCJ

Mostly use my iPad at home or my laptop when I am doing other things with it.  I browse daily on a desktop at work during breaks.  And occasionally on my phone if there is something that can't wait until I get home.  I prefer the bigger screens to see pix and video.

Andy

In the morning before I go to work on the iPad while having coffee, …..then maybe a sneak peak at work if I’m running a program I have to babysit, …..other than that, it’s at lunch, or after work back on the iPad to unwind …….I can split this screen and run a program and haunt the forum at the same time if it’s a doozy clock bandit …..

Pat

Big Desktop since that's where I spend too much time already and another good waste of time there is just that.

Never on a phone. I keep everything off my phone other that using it for making phone calls.

Put me in the 'NO Phone' camp as many of you above are for most of the same reasons!

I am a visual person. Much prefer my 10 yr old 27" iMac or 11 yr old Macbook Pro because the darn phone is WAY TOO SMALL.

@juniata guy posted:

Call me a masochist - I “Forum” exclusively with my iPhone.

Curt

You have been so labeled!

Laptop only for me.  Small keys on my puppy-chewed flip phone.

Desktop. I have only a "feature phone", as they call a flip phone these days, and, indeed, my land line is still my primary "phone". No laptop (and with my later-life physique, no lap). I actually spend very little time online in any case. Tedious. But I love the research aspect of it.

I spent 24 years as a computer programmer; keyboards and their cousins still just look like work, deadlines, on-call....to me.

I don't own a computer anymore. I don't have room for a dedicated desktop. I use a laptop for business (ebay) purposes that's located in my "eBay Shed" which is located in the back yard. I use my smartphone for all my personal internet browsing

My handy 10" (web book, so tiny SSD hd, but i put L-Mint on it and it ssuper fast And, easy to read and type.

Movies... like Steam Friday.... smart phone for snapshots. Remember little handy cameras for pocket size snapshots? Ansel Adams was asked what the best camera for photos would be.... "The one you have when you see something you want a photo of, of course"

So, it seems to me that the above responses show that very few people are like me and primarily use the smartphone for their Forum activity.  Do I have that right?