April 01, 2007
Google's Teaspoon Project...
Just have to promote google's teaspoon project. Read carefully, it's very easy to follow and you might be tempted to order this kit from google... Before you do, don't forget it's April 1 today... :-)
Have been slacking off here with the tech advice. Sometimes I get very surprised what can stump people. Some things that are second nature to many of us is so new to others that we just don't realize that we no longer remember the beginning of the learning curve.
One of my friends is just now getting her feet wet on the Internet. She wants to use email and surf a little. That's all. I've set her up with the google bar in her browser and she is searching and finding already like a pro. She is fine with sending emails or responding to them. But as soon as she wants to save an attachment and find it again later, or use anything else but 'Send' or 'Reply' she gets into trouble. Here is a great website for beginners.
I keep repeating to her that much of what you can do in the program you are in is already on your screen. Read your screen. There are certain conventions that are the same from program to program. The most obvious or context relevant functionality is shown as icons. In a browser those would be icons like 'Back', 'Forward', 'Refresh', 'Stop', 'Home', etc. In your email program the icons are probably 'New', 'Print', 'Delete', 'Reply', 'Forward', 'Send/Receive', etc... you get the picture.
Where it gets a bit more involved is in the menu bar at the very top of the window. Most programs have: 'File', 'Edit', 'View', 'Tools', 'Help'. Clicking on those menus will reveal to you what you can do with the program you are in. Explore them. Every time you want to do something and are not sure how, look at the screen, read what's right in front of you, click on those menus and check what is available to you.
The most important one of those menus is 'Help'. Start using 'Help', pressing [F1] will bring up the program's 'Help', use it and learn.
Have been slacking off here with the tech advice. Sometimes I get very surprised what can stump people. Some things that are second nature to many of us is so new to others that we just don't realize that we no longer remember the beginning of the learning curve.
One of my friends is just now getting her feet wet on the Internet. She wants to use email and surf a little. That's all. I've set her up with the google bar in her browser and she is searching and finding already like a pro. She is fine with sending emails or responding to them. But as soon as she wants to save an attachment and find it again later, or use anything else but 'Send' or 'Reply' she gets into trouble. Here is a great website for beginners.
I keep repeating to her that much of what you can do in the program you are in is already on your screen. Read your screen. There are certain conventions that are the same from program to program. The most obvious or context relevant functionality is shown as icons. In a browser those would be icons like 'Back', 'Forward', 'Refresh', 'Stop', 'Home', etc. In your email program the icons are probably 'New', 'Print', 'Delete', 'Reply', 'Forward', 'Send/Receive', etc... you get the picture.
Where it gets a bit more involved is in the menu bar at the very top of the window. Most programs have: 'File', 'Edit', 'View', 'Tools', 'Help'. Clicking on those menus will reveal to you what you can do with the program you are in. Explore them. Every time you want to do something and are not sure how, look at the screen, read what's right in front of you, click on those menus and check what is available to you.
The most important one of those menus is 'Help'. Start using 'Help', pressing [F1] will bring up the program's 'Help', use it and learn.
