FED UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[doglegg]

There is a 'disconnect' here for me and likely a few others as well. I can read posts by Mr. W & 2FL but i do not fully understand them or if there could be implications. I cannot function with my computer at that level because i lack basic computer/internet knowledge plus all that has expanded to become: the craziest complex dangerous 'jungle' of all & everything.
I have paid for instruction but so far have found that those who are computer savy have not been good as teachers. So i gave up and AAPK is the most complex thing i do online.
What seems odd is that i never had difficulty learning anything until computers took over and i just have not been able to learn what is necessary to fully surf.
Mr. W. & 2FL are surfers, on their board in a big curling wave while i am under water being tossed like a rag doll in a mixture of sand and breaking wave.
kj

Joe I barely surf and am by no means competent on a computer but your last line is about as descriptive and elegant as anything I have read. You nailed it.

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

IMHO, Microsoft made a huge mistake in Windows 8 & 10. They decided that everyone wanted the same experience on their computer that they have on their phone and tablet - namely, that the primary navigation is done with a finger touch & swipe. I suspect the hardware manufacturers had a hand in that decision, as it allowed them to try to sell you new computers that included touchscreens. The problem, of course, is that using a laptop with a touchscreen, or even worse, a desktop monitor with a touchscreen, SUCKS. And since it does suck, you end up trying to use Windows 10, which was designed to be used with a touchscreen, with your mouse instead of the touchscreen - and that sucks too!

The key to using Windows 10 is to get off the start screen with the big block icons and get back to the "desktop" that works pretty much the same as Windows 7.

There is a common problem that affects many people, and that is when you let your knowledge stop when you memorize the buttons to push and the icons to click, without taking it one step farther to know that (for example) you are clicking the "Start" button because that is where all the programs you have installed on your computer live, and you have to click the Start button and then find the button for the program you want to run. If, instead, your knowledge stops at "I click the blue button that is 3 inches to the right of the bottom left corner and that makes AAPK show-up on my screen", then you are going to have a very bad time if ANYTHING changes about the way the screen looks when you turn the computer on.

Have you ever driven a manual shift car that had the gear shift positions in a different location than you were used to? If 2nd gear was always straight down from 1st, and now suddenly it was to the right of 1st, you are going to have a bad time if you insist on believing that whenever you hear the engine rev-up after you take off from a stop sign, you always move the gear shift lever straight down. You don't need to know how a synchro transmission works, but you do need to know that to successfully use it, you need to know where 1st and 2nd gears are located so you can move the gear shift correctly.

[Quick Steel]

Ditto the comment on woodwalkers illustration above. The one piece of advice concerning technology I have followed is this. Whenever a new design, say a Windows 10, or any other thingamabod comes out... wait. Don't be in any hurry to adopt it. There will invariably be gremlins that have to be worked out and this takes some time. For much the same reason some good doctors recommend that if one has to take a medication, ask for one that has been on the market at least 7 years. By that time the number of injuries and fatalities the drug causes should be well established.

[knife7knut]

Sorry that I opened such a large container of night crawlers! I guess my frustration with my Fred Flintstone computer will have to be tolerated for awhile longer. I really have no desire to "learn" another computer system as I can barely navigate the present one.As for a phone I still have my Fred Flintstone model flip phone and have no desire whatsoever to get one of those allegedly "smart" phones that my 4 year old great granddaughter knows how to work better than my wife does. I will also continue to drive my 60 plus year old car that I can still work on and diagnose a problem with should it stop running.If my wife's car stops running it gets towed to the repair shop;I refuse to even look under the hood(can't see anything anyway except a sea of plastic covers). I'll continue to buy knives instead.
BTW Thanks for all the replies and suggestions.

[kootenay joe]

The other aspect is what do i, or you, need a computer for ? As an older guy i don't need it for much: loading knife pics & chatting here, buying & selling knives, email to adult children. I'm sure any computer being sold now can do far more than these simple tasks and if i stumble and click 'wrong' things open up that confuse me. I think Silicon Valley rewarded the person who could cram in the most options rather than the person who designed for joe average rather than joe nerd.
Is there any move towards making computer programs leaner, just basic, no fluff included ?
I don't have a mobile device/cell phone. One of my 2 homes is a one hour drive from cell/wireless connectivity, so it is still wilderness. Wilderness means you are on your own, not just a phone call away from help.
kj, The Lud

[Dinadan]

My experiences as a young man without a computer will maybe be as interesting to some of the younger computer whizzes as some of the tails we have heard from the older generations of blacksmiths, farmers and accountants that used an actual pencil and paper to calculate and figure the bottom line.
Treefarmer

That comment made me remember how when I started working for a land survey company, we still had little books with tables of sines and cosines and so forth to use as we worked out trig problems. When I got my first trig calculator it was very close to a religious experience! By the way, in my experience most younger folks are not too interested in tales of the last millennium.

I do think it is a mistake to get obsessed with the innards of a computer these days. When I got my first computer it was like a my 1960s Ford; with the Ford I needed to be able to set the points (remember those?), set the gaps in the plugs and so forth. Now I am driving a ten year old KIA (made in Georgia) and have never needed to open the hood other than to jump off someone. Same with my last few computers: I turn it on and it works.

Some of the remarks here remind me of certain problems that I have. Flower identification, to be precise. I love wildflowers and I have a web site devoted to identifying them with about 150 species that I have photographed. (http://meltonwiggins.com/index.html). Yet, I cannot remember the names of the common garden flowers that my wife likes to plant. I am just not interested in them, and even after a lifetime of exposure (my mother was also a flower gardener) I am doing good to tell a pansy from a petunia. It is not that I could not learn, it is that I an not interested in learning.

K7K - do not be sorry for starting this discussion - it has been quite interesting, in my opinion. I am a bit surprised at how long some folks hang on to those old computers.

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

Is there any move towards making computer programs leaner, just basic, no fluff included ?

Well, there was - about 10 years ago google created the "Chromebook", which was intended to be a simple, low cost computer that could just be turned on and primarily used as a web browser. It did not run Windows, and it was designed to run the google web applications: the Chrome web browser, gmail, google photos, etc. They are used in many schools, where they are considered a bit more secure and less prone to viruses. They still make them, but they don't sell that well to the masses. I think there are several issues: It doesn't cost that much more to get a "real" computer, and the Chromebooks tend to be slower than full computers in order to try to keep the cost down. They can't run Windows games, which means kids don't like them.

Any computer can be set-up to be easier to use - with the trade-off being a lack of flexibility. I have years of experience configuring computers to be used by seniors (my parents). I would buy them a laptop, then strip it down to remove as many programs & icons as I could. So, when they turned it on, all they saw were the icons for the things they needed to do - email, facebook, news and a few games. It worked great - UNTIL my brother's kids would spend the weekend with grandma & grandpa. Without fail, I would get a call on Sunday night from my Mom telling me that the computer wasn't working right and it "looked all different".

Which goes back to what I said earlier, if you make NO changes and the computer lives in isolation, then it will probably run fine for a long time. But as soon as there is ANY contact with the rest of the world, all bets are off.

[kootenay joe]

I find this discussion quite interesting. I am very glad that i grew up and spent most of my life in the pre internet age when you did adventures and talked to people face to face. The online world has changed the experience of life.
2FL likely you too grew up and experienced the real world directly before computers entered your life so you know both 'worlds'.
kj

[tongueriver]

I find this discussion quite interesting. I am very glad that i grew up and spent most of my life in the pre internet age when you did adventures and talked to people face to face. The online world has changed the experience of life.
2FL likely you too grew up and experienced the real world directly before computers entered your life so you know both 'worlds'.
kj

I was a kid in the 1950s; the world has changed more since then than it had in the previous 500 years. That sounds like hyperbole, but in fact it is so. I am doing ok keeping up (mostly) so far, but at some point I will not be able to. I am not giving up; I hope to learn to use many more features of this (here dingdang cell phone. I am thinking- dig right in. It can't hurt me; I am not afraid. Much more rewarding than watching the boob tube. I am presently finding my way all around in Bellingham, WA with the help of my wife and her Garmin GPS. We could absolutely NOT DO IT without this technology.

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

Cal, that can be said of the last 50 years of any age in human history. Compare the world of 1950 to the world of 1900. In 1900, the horse & buggy was still the most common way to get around, and having electricity in your home was still a new technology. In 1950, we had jet airplanes, rockets and atomic bombs.

Edit: I'll even go so far as to say that our rate of advance is FAR slower than what was predicted. Look at the science fiction that was written in the 1940s & 50s. by the year 2000, we were all supposed to be have flying cars & jet packs and be vacationing on the Moon & Mars. Darn it, I was promised a jet pack, where's my jet pack???

[kootenay joe]

We do not yet know the effects of this new 'computer age'. If you have school age children you know they relate to everything including friends through a mobile device. There is very little direct person to person communication. Also there is very little going outside and exploring life directly: e.g. watch a video of a guy canoeing rather than get into a canoe and try it out.
One effect is that brain development is changing. Much of the connectivity between parts of the brain develops from direct experience of life and others. These connections do not develop from interacting with a screen.
We have no idea yet of what the long term affects on the brain and the ability to learn and the ability to do physical activity requiring coordination (throwing a ball, skiing, etc.)
I believe we will eventually find out that the last 50 years has more profoundly changed humans and how we relate to each other and to life itself than at any other time in human history.
kj

[tongueriver]

Well said, Roland. Strong and disturbing trends. Of course it does not apply to all young folk. One important exception would be sports. Music and dancing participation is spread pretty thin nowadays, and that was an important social medium at one time.

[carrmillus]

I am going on a rant only because I am totally fed up with reading a post where someone suggests logging onto a link and when I do my computer locks up and refuses to do anything! The link shows up but I cannot scroll down on it as it is busy mining any data I might have to try and sell me the latest medication for erectile dysfunction(which I don't have)or some other nonsensical product. The only way I can get free of it is to shut down my computer manually and re-start it.
Granted I have a "Fred Flintstone" era computer but I do have anti-virus software and the like but it seems to do little good. The only site I have found worse than this is Facebook(which I have since opted out of).
Does anyone else have this problem or am I just blowing smoke? Any suggestions on how to correct this situation other than not logging on to ANYTHING or just setting fire to my computer?
Rant over!

..........I'm about ready to set fire to this one , too!!!!............. ......................

[FRJ]

When my computer gets a little sludgey I shut it down and unplug every thing from it. It's a used ACER and not all the keys work so I plug in a key board which I like better any way. Also I use a mouse which I also plug in and the printer which wont print 5x7s like it's supposed to. And the power and then I unplug the modem up stairs. Why the modem is up stairs is beyond me.
And then after a few minutes I put it back as before. It seems to like that.
I really like the computer when it's working, but I have honestly come so close to crashing it a few times.
I wish my son were her to help me buy a new computer and give me some guidance. And help me buy a new phone too.
Ya, and I could use some guidance there too. A cloud?? huh??

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

Burning incense and sprinkling chicken blood during a new moon can also help...

[tongueriver]

My wish to all is that our collective computer experiences could be suggested by this little video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Whgn_i ... Whgn_iE5uc

[TripleF]

Burning incense and sprinkling chicken blood during a new moon can also help...

Fell straight back outta my chair Jeff!!

I used that method to help fix my eight track player......

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

My wish to all is that our collective computer experiences could be suggested by this little video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Whgn_i ... Whgn_iE5uc

I was fortunate enough to see Santana play the last time they came to LA. Awesome show!