h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

i find computers are easy to use

as easy as riding a bike

Dear Dimitri,

I had forgotten they were called batch cards.

I wonder if they are easier or more difficult to use than the keyboard.

Certainly not when I see the very clever things that you all do with them.

I mean, Two computers, two keyboards, different languages.

honestly. !!

It is all I can do to cope with one keyboard and one one computer and one language.

I feel I have strayed way out of my comfort zone with all the latest postings.

i suspect that 2010 will find that I not longer have the courage to talk to my friends on h2g2.

I wonder if that was really the intention of Douglas Noel Adams.?

Christiane
AlsoRan80

17/XOO/2009 6.16 GMT

batch cards were evil nasty - although better than having to wire a circuit board!

I do hope you manage to keep here and keep talking AlsoRan80 - we haven't ever really spoken I don't think but I have been aware of you on here for a while now and enjoy your interesting and polite posts. You are a real bonus to this site so I for one hope you stay here and stay talking for a long time yet

As for computers - knowing how they work, you are right, doesn;t help much. But knowing how programmers and designers work - that's the trick! Plus knowing how to find stuff out. Like the cartoon said (think it was an XKCD one) all us geeks do when everyone comes to us asking us to fix their computer and, it is something we don't know, is stick the symptoms into google and then do what it says

For using programs it is usually just a case of transferable knowledge. Most programs have a fairly standard logic to them and interface, it is just familiarity and willingness to click buttons, that's all

you would be terribly missed by a lot of people if you were not here, christiane, so i really hope you will keep posting in the future also

I know people who used to deal with batch cards at a large university, where they were used for grading exams. If you got even one card out of sequence, it threw off the *whole* sequence . So, yes, the modern computers are easier to use, and less prone to train wrecks. They still seem intimidating to a lot of nice people who alreayd feel that the younger members of their families have passed them by. This is something I would like to help alleviate, one person at a time. But I can't explain why you have to do this and that and something else. The people who designed computers originally were designing them for other people just like them, people who understood the same things. Nowadays, Aunt Amelia and Uncle Fred have been *forced* to renew their car registrations online, and they can't figure out how to get to the Registry of Motor Vehicles website. Heck, Aunt Amelia has to be taught how to use a computer mouse, and Uncle Fred's hands shake too much to use it all (in case he wanted to show her how, as she is doing all the driving now...). Maybe there's a senior center in their town, and maybe it offers computer classes. Maybe. Some towns don't have senior centers at all, and some towns that do have them don't offer computer classes, and even some that have them seem intimidating to Aunt Amelia and Uncle Fred. So, they go to their local public library, which is their last reasonable hope, and the staff there would like to help, but maybe the latest round of layoffs has left them desperately short of staff, and they have limited time for teaching computer basics. So, maybe it takes less time for the staff to *show* Amelia and Fred how to renew their registrations, but there's a catch: two or four years from now, they'll need tor enew them again, and they won't remember how the nice librarian did it, so they're back at square one.

everything comes at a price

i remember a time when my grandfather put on his tie and jacket when he had to make a phone call. and of course he was standing up. back in those days it would be impolite to sit down when talking to someone

Hi Paul H,

Nice posting. thank you.

You see, one reaches a stage when really I could not care less whether or not I understand what it means. Providing that I can still keep contact with existing friends is really all that matters.

If I gain new friends that is a bonus. But if, like this morning, I was going through my Freinds list and I found out that there were quite a few that I had known when I first joined and had not been in contct with for yoincks - then I I was saddened/ I think that somehow we should be able to have a method of finding out whether so and so is still alive and kicking or has disappeared. I do not think that should be too difficult to include in the design of this programme. We have lost two good friends this year, Pheloxi and TJ. It would be nice to remember them now and again.

That was a very long post about your Aunt and |Uncle.
Giving up driving was very difficult but it was Keith who suggested it to me at the beginning of oast year when I had difficulty parallel parkiing - which I had previously been quite good at doing. I did not mind, but I do find that taxis are incredibly expensive and of course it is very difficult for me to take public transport

Go well. By the time you need help someone will have invented a pair of flying walking sticks. !!Rather like pogo sticks. ""

CME
AR80

17/XII/09 . 16.55 GMT



Go well

How about a Segway, Christiane? If anyone could master one, you could.

Paul, you've got an excellent point about the ubiguity of the computer and its challenge for the elderly.

I am using my father's computer to type this. He has just bought some more ink for the printer, so if I can get him to tell mee where it goes, I will print him something.

But I still can't get him to allow me into his network when I'm here, which causes problems when I need to use my laptop. You see, somebody, probably my brother-in-law, encrypted it, and...

But he's using his computer. A lot.

Hi, Christiane.

I am sorry to have confused you about the aunt and uncle in my earlier post. They weren't real people, but composites of real people I have tried to help over the years. I really have had to help ladies who wanted to use the computers but their hands shook so that using the mouse took a lot of effort. And recently, there was a lady of advanced years who cursed the Registry of Motor Vehicles for making her go online to renew her registration. This sort of thing is happening more and more. There is also an older married couple who often asks for help with various web sites. The husband has no clue, and the wife is doing all his computer work, but needs a lot of help as well. For my part, my eyes are no longer very good, and it takes me a while to figure out what the icons on the web pages say. There are hundreds of millions of websites. They're all different. It's impossible for me to be an expert on all of them on the spur of the moment.

Amen about websites that are not friendly to the visually impaired - including this one if it gets rid of Brunel...

Pierce, I'm having one of those enlightenement moments about folks so formal they got dressed to make phone calls.

You know, that sounds odd, but it does affect the way you talk on the phone.

I used to do radio, and I remember somebody saying, 'Smile when you talk on the phone or on the air. It comes out in your voice.'

You know, it does...

i did a little radio myself once and you are absolutely right, dmitri

i am smiling whilst typing this. i hope it shows

I think the age and computers thing is more about just the very basics. I mean I have friends younger than me who come to me for computer help. Then again I know of at least 2 guys in their 70s who are the go-to people for their social group for fixing computers. One actually builds to order for his friends as it is his hobby.

I guess in their day they were building crystal sets and being leccy/telecom engineers and the like.

I think it has always been a case of a large number of people who can use them in a run of the mill fashion, pressing the keys they've always pressed, and a few techy geeks who support them in their social network. And that goes for any age group.

Just like any technology, really. Most of us can drive cars but only a few will service their own and even fewer are fully competent mechanics.

Heck, even my niece, who is a science geek, has a rather hands off approach to computers. Simply not really her thing.

friend of mine just turned 69 and is one i often turn to for help

he used to be a radio and tv mechanic so of course he is not afraid of modern technology. au contraire, he sees every new gadget as a challenge and i am sure it keeps his brain w*rking

A few years ago, the family gave my parents a "Net TV" set so they could use their television set to go online. My father took to it readily. My mother didn't. It isn't always the guy in the household who picks up on computer tehcniques. I know a couple in which the wife handles all the email, and the husband doesn't bother with it.

Indeed not. And it is to do with interest as much as ability.
I mean, I grew up as part of the first console games generation. Never had one, never wanted one and still don't have one. Terribly archaic and out of touch to some people but I just don't see their point.

Oh, and yes you are right - it isn't always the male. Sorry if what I wrote read like that, didn't mean it to!

In some workplaces, the women employees have an edge because it is they who work with computers the most. All that practice helps them become proficient. Also, they realize what *crap* a lot of computers and periphals (especially printers) are!

ah, yes, printers.
Amazing really how far they have come in 20yrs. Unfortunately people just don't really need them like they used to. So they get mass produced on the cheap. Lots of wonderful clever technology (mine is a printer/copier/scanner and does all three very well) all boxed up in flimsy plastic which doesn;t quite do the job.

If you're willing to pay a lot for a printer, you can get a high-end one that is excellent, but if you only do a little printing it seems a lot of money for infrequent use.

true enough. Works well enough to print out maps (I refuse to buy a GPS map device thingy)

Mind you, I always wanted one of those cad 3d printers. I might use that a tad more but I'd end up with an awful lot of plastic objects cluttering up the house!