15 Jan 2015

HOW A VINTAGE LADY LEARNED TO USE INTERNET !

Letter : I



In 2005 I discovered Internet. Mr. G had a computer since ages they were his work utensils, but to me it was an annoying thing, on which he spent hours and was only there to collect dust. He had shown me how to write letters on this thing and print them out but that was it. I didn't even know what an email was. The last company I worked for in 1995, didn't have computers yet.

When I came back from holidays in Egypt this year, I wanted to know more about Egyptian cats and their history and I asked Mr. G. what I have to do to find some documentation on Internet. Meanwhile I had heard that you can use it to find things. This was the beginning of my battle with a computer ! First I had to understand how to use it ! He tried to explain me file and folders and then the whole Internet stuff, I didn't know why I had to use a browser to have access to Internet, I only knew the verb "to browse" and I didn't know through which cupboard I should browse to find a cup, in short I was a blockhead. Google was somebody living in England or in the States maybe was an actor or a millionaire, I didn't know.

Websites, never heard. Webs I knew from spiders, and sites from historic places, but what has a spider to do in sites ? making webs ? A homepage ! what a word, I have a home and I have pages in my books for example, but what should I call a homepage in my house ?

While looking and learning slowly to very slow, I suddenly discovered Forums. I understood rather quickly that this had nothing to do with the old Romans or with justice. I used my new knowledge to invent a username, after having found out what that was,  using  Google for the first time and a choose an easy password and logged myself into all forums which I thought were interesting for my cat history researches. But I didn't know where to write, answered to the wrong people and mixed up everything. For a cat owner I would have given the following tip, "if he barks during your absence, put the TV on".

When I stumbled over the word "Blog" nobody amongst people around me didn't know what it was and even Mr. G. who knows everything, this time didn't know.

And there I really discovered Internet and its advantages ! For the second time I asked my new friend  Google who gave me an explanation which even I could understand. I found this idea not bad at all and logged in once more, this time into Yahoo, there I got a blog ! I was very proud and without knowing anything I made up my profile and started to write. Without success, nobody found me, nobody read me and I didn't know at all what to do to get some visitors.

I gave up and after a while I found Blogger and very helpful people who explained me what to do.  Once I read in blogs where especially elderly people asked themselves what would happen to their blog if they died and if they could include it in their testaments ! Never have thought of that ! I would leave 4 Blogger Blog cadavers behind me plus the Yahoo one, who is floating somewhere in the Internet sphere.

Today I couldn't live without Internet and whatever browser ! I have a question I google and get the answer ! I can call and see my little Grandson with the help of Skype ! I can even watch movies when there is nothing on TV ! And I can do shopping, online banking, Hotel and flight bookings and all that without leaving the house !

How the heck did I live before ???





Jenny Matlock
more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday

14 comments:

  1. When I am writing a post more than just a family tale, I google all the time, to check details, to check spellings, to check locations. If my partner asks me something I don't know the answer to, google it. I expect young people take it all for granted, but I really appreciate what we have on the internet.

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  2. I've always used a pc for work, but Internet was a thing new to me too till 2001 when we bought a pc for my daughter at home. A new world was ready for me to discover.....

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  3. Blogger Blog cadavers? What a thought! What would we do indeed without the net?

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  4. I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way about my smart phone now. How did I live without it?

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  5. I don't know how we did a LOT of things before the Internet, Gattina! It's a wonderful tool!

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  6. Hi Gatina ~~ I'm with your husband, I had one in the early 80's. Before that I worked as an Aerospace Engineer at NASA Houston and was programing them and other digital equipment. By 1984, could have been earlier, we had an IBM desktop in our home. Mrs. Jim did word processing and Internet with it too, we shared.

    I do like your write up on your learning experiences. Seems like ages since I had been using 'google' as a word and that became official in 2006. Here is the history:
    "The transitive verb to google (also spelled Google) means using the Google search engine to obtain information on something or somebody on the World Wide Web. However, in many dictionaries the verb refers to using any web search engine, such as Yahoo! or Bing. A neologism arising from the popularity and dominance of the eponymous search engine, the American Dialect Society chose it as the "most useful word of 2002." It was added to the Oxford English Dictionary on June 15, 2006, and to the eleventh edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary in July 2006. The first recorded usage of google used as a participle, thus supposing an intransitive verb, was on July 8, 1998, by Google co-founder Larry Page himself, who wrote on a mailing list: "Have fun and keep googling!" Its earliest known use (as a transitive verb) on American television was in the "Help" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (October 15, 2002), when Willow asked Buffy, "Have you googled her yet?"" ... (there's more) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_(verb)

    You would like the British Isles. We've been there quite a bit as our daughter lived there almost five years. They are back now but we would visit about four times a year, her here in the summer and for Christmas. We would generally go in the spring and fall and sometimes in the summer also. Generally we would travel around Europe or take cruises while we were there. Strange, it wasn't until last spring when we finally took time to go over to Wales. It was lovely, I will blog about that (again) when we get to the "W's".

    My first overseas was in 1980 when we did the Mediterranean cruise and Holy Land tour. We haven't stopped our visits since. Some time I will post a list of places we've been all in one place. We really don't want to go to most of the places we haven been to.

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  7. I've learned so much through internet and I can't imagine how my parents lived before without it! ;)

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  8. Amazing how things have changed! I think our first computer was bought in the very early 90s and was used mostly for games! Today I rely on the internet for virtually everything!

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  9. I know! I have no idea how I lived before the Internet. Any question I have, I put into Google's search box, and Voila! a great answer, a good-enough answer, a no-I-don't-care-for-that answer. Great post!

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  10. Wonderful post Gattina ~ I think we all wonder how we got along without blogger or the internet ~ I know I glad to have connected with you! ~ xoxoxo

    Happy Weekend to you,
    artmusedog and carol

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  11. I love this post! I could have written this post (if I were as good a writer as you are! ...). Aren't we lucky to be alive !

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  12. Great post Gattina. Google and blogging has changed all our worlds...for the better mostly I think.

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  13. very amazing how the world changes with new tools. And the words they make up to talk about it! I still don't know anything about Skype, but that it's a photographic telephone call. Do I really want people looking at me, as I sit in front of my computer? What's behind me.... {:-D

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  14. Blogging is loads of fun. It connects us to people we'd never meet otherwise, it's inspirational, and it's very creative. Glad you are a fellow blogger.

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