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Articles ]
| The Road Ahead |
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We live in an area that has begun to use GreenBins for household waste. Our regular garbageis picked up every other week and the onlyweekly garbage collection is our green plasticbins, to be filled with leftover food productsand other organic waste. When the program first started, I was surewe could never change our ways, but beforelong, depositing bones and leftover food inthe bin became automatic. Why am I telling you this? Because using thecomputer will also become easy for you themore you try. Sure, the learning curve issteeper than remembering which containerto use for which type of garbage, but theidea is the same. Every time you perform afunction or solve a problem on your computer, it will be easier than the time before. This week, I read a book written by Bill Gatesin 1996 titled 'The Road Ahead'. Gates said, "Computers frighten almost everyone(everyone but children), before they learn touse them. When people spend more time withcomputers, they understand them better.You can start by playing computer games ordoing other simple things. Once you startusing them, I think you'll like them." With the Internet, we can keep in touch withold friends and make new ones; have virtualexperiences of flying an airplane, driving acar, even dissecting a toad. Pilots and doctorspractice their work without worrying aboutaccidents. Every school can have a wonderfullibrary thanks to the Internet. Gates saw then how much our world wouldchange because of computers. Banking andshopping online, distance learning, the abilityto telecommute and work from home - all ofthese grew as software became better andmore powerful. Gates talked about his own futuristic house. Anyone in the house wore an electronic pin thattold the house who and where you were. Whenit got dark, the pin would turn on lights nearbyand turn them off when you went away. Musicwould play near you and the phone ring nearbyonly if the call was for you. A home control console activated choices of lighting, music,and temperature. That was in 1996, so whoknows what his home is like now! The book ended with a cartoon showing a muttusing a computer and saying "On the Internet,nobody know's you're a dog." How true - onthe Internet, we are all on equal ground. When in my 40’s, the university library where I worked was computerized. The thought of using those machines at my age was so intimidating that I moved to another department. I transferred back a year later, determined to learn. To my surprise, computers were easier to use than I imagined, and so enjoyable that I went back to school full-time. (c) Carol Bremner 2003cabremner@creativehomecomputing.comprojects - hints - productswww.creativehomecomputing.com |
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