Computer capers

I wonder how many people remember when they used a computer for the first time? Was it a friend's toy? At school? Maybe you, like me, strayed into an Internet Cafe and decided to give yourself a crash course? When I was a teenager in the 80's, a friend's brother asked me to copy a programme from a computer magazine (remember those?). I recall sitting for hours while the spools on the tape-recorder went round and round so that the weird lines I was typing would transmogrify into a game to be played on the computer. All very exciting and hi-tech!

Then a few years ago I decided to have a go in an internet cafe. With phrases like 'double- click' and 'Google' ringing in my ears, I sat a the terminal, typed in my query, and waited for the search engine to magically provide the answers I was looking for. And here is my shameful confession; when told to 'double-click', I did just that - I pushed down both buttons. When that didn't work, I tried again, pushing down left, then right. Still nothing. For half an hour I alternately tried the mouse, then the keyboard, while gazing enviously at those who were whizzing round their mouse-mats while their screens changed over and over. In the end, I sat quietly pretending to read the screen, as if I was waiting for the results of my search. When the manager asked if everything was OK, I lied and said: "Yes, thank you." I was well brought up, you see.
That was the last time I went near a computer until a brief flirtation with a beginners course at the local further education centre.

So it was with both excitement and apprehension that, while the snow fell gently outside the window, I unpacked the parts of the machine that was to take over my life. Things would never be the same again.

The first mistake was to try and open programmes before following the big blue 'continue' button on the Google page that kept appearing. After all, I didn't need it yet as we weren't online. But no programmes opened, or so I thought until I logged off and saw that I had 4 running. At this point, my son, the computer whizkid, suggested that I actually pay some attention to what was on the screen, and click the blue button. For a few minutes we debated back and forth; my argument against it was that it was clearly and advert for the search engine, his argument for it was that there was a big blue button saying 'continue', and there had to be a reason for it. So I clicked on it, to shut him up, and Hey Presto, things began to happen.

My point is, that while the manual tells you where to plug stuff in, nowhere in the literature is there a section for complete novices that tells you what will come up on the screen when you switch on for the first time. And even the most basic of books assume that you have some vague notion of the more commonly-used terms. And yet here I was agreeing to 'end-user agreements', 'terms and conditions' and, for all I knew, signing away my organs to whichever computer component needed them.
If I hadn't known, from my idiot's guide, that lights would flicker on the console, I would have been straight on the 'phone to the manufacturer to tell them I had been given a defective machine.
And when I got a blue screen on day 2 I freaked out. Luckily, it didn't return when I switched back on, because I think I would have lost the plot at that point. This was going to be harder than I realised. Mind you, when I ordered the infernal thing, I let myself down by asking the guy taking my order if the keyboard and the 'clicky thing' were included in the price. Then I rang up to find out if you could play a cd-rom on a DVD drive. I had no idea what most of the invoice meant, and the penny only dropped a few weeks later that OS stood for operating system. All silly things, I know, but I bet I'm not the only one wandering in a bewildered fashion through the world of computers.

Other things that should be made known are things like, if F1 is 'help' (and not Formula One), and F8 is 'safe mode', what are the other 10 'F' keys for? And who, among new users, is going to be brave enough to hit one and see what happens? What is a 'crash' and what does it look like? I'm assuming that you don't hear a loud bang and then discover bits of the system all over the floor. And who came up with the idea to have the keys type different symbols to the ones they're supposed to? For example: the 2 should type " but what it actually types is @, because the @ key is the "symbol. 3 should be a 'pound' sign, but it types#, while the # key types and\. The\ key types ` and ~. So some symbols are missing while the others seem to be at hidden locations around the keyboard, which might keep some users amused, but for poor saps like me, it only makes things even more difficult than they need to be.

I also find that more experienced users, unless genuinely wishing to help, should be avoided like the plague. These people will tell you that the lovely machine you just bankrupted yourself to buy has an obsolete version of Windows ( this just 3 weeks after purchase), that you should have bought a bigger memory ( and I thought 250GB was plenty), before launching into complex talk of processor speeds, graphics card capability, and other over-my-head- expressions, which quite frankly left me wanting to launch the damn thing into the nearest skip, lock, stock, and two smoking mice.

After a few weeks of doing the bare minimum on it, and after discovering the wonderful world of help forums, I got the bit between my teeth, and came to the conclusion that I would understand things better if I opened the programmes one by one to see what they did. Admittedly I didn't have a clue what I was looking at, and just closed them again. Then I opened one called 'Modem helper'. The internet screen appeared, totally blank, with the computer location in the address bar. I clicked on 'Go', and the start bar did just that. Went. Disappeared. No 'See you later', 'Back soon', nothing. Didn't matter what I did, I couldn't get it back. So I did the only logical thing I could think of. I panicked. After looking in 'Help and Support', running a search, and making a frantic post on a forum, I switched off, switched back on and there it was, no apology, no explanation. All I learned from that was to leave that particular programme well alone.

But I've recently discovered that you can have several programmes open at the same time, and that in itself seems to help the learning process. Why isn't there somewhere that has all these things in an easy-to -understand format, preferably with a big red arrow pointing the way? I know that if you ask Google then you can probably find the answers, but it would surely be easier to have them all in one place?

And who's idea was it to have Windows cross examine every request. Confirm that you want to log off, log out, make this transfer, close that programme, by all means, but every time it asks 'Are you sure?'. Well, no, I'm not sure of most things, but when a machine questions your ability to make a decision, you have to wonder if there is a councellor hidden behind a screen somewhere, making notes on the things you do on the computer, and, more importantly, questioning why you made that particular choice, and what significance it has.

Whatever else I may, and frequently may not, be able to do with the console and all of it's peripheral friends, one thing is becoming very clear as time goes on; that a whole new world has opened up, and, with all it's frustrations and puzzling behaviour, I would be lost without it.