For somebody like me, the land of Joe User is nothing short of awesome. Literally. AWE some. I know that techno-type people have come to the point to where they take their knowledge for granted and they are either indifferent to the painfully ignorant, or worse, they act incredulous that people do not know what they know. Thankfully, the people on Joe User do not seem to fall into either category and that is one reason I am happy I decided to set up a blog here. (READ : I need help and I think these people are nice enough to offer it.) Here are some small examples of my getting into computers and technology:

#1. Figuring out online music. MP3s, wav files, download this, upload that. I mean, maybe people are taught this stuff NOW, but growing up I didn't have a computer and all my music was from a cassette and later on, CDs. So figuring out THIS burning speed and WHAT DO YOU MEAN "BUFFERING"? Didn't you BUFFER ALREADY? How many times must you BUFFER?

#2. Learned a painful lesson about properly using and installing virus protection software and keeping it UP TO DATE. Ditto on the Microsoft Updates. It made me wonder, how many more MILLIONS of people are like me and just don't know about computers and NOBODY tells them "uhhh... you really should get updates from Microsoft." I've learned that what you don't know CAN hurt you, er, well your computer... and with everything so centered on technology, ignorance is NOT bliss. It was probably THIS episode that has inspired me to learn more.

#3. Learning HTML. Mainly a lot of it seems just unneccessary for a blog, but knowing how to throw in links is nice.

#4. A website. Okay so I've had a few ideas for a website and I decided that even if you don't have a GREAT idea for a website maybe everyone will have a web "presence" anyway. So the first step is to register a domain, which I've done a few --- and then I guess the people you register your domain with can also be your severs for the site and at this point I am in over my head. So... it's time to get to the LIBRARY. I KNOW KNOW, some of you find this extremely amusing that I HAVE NO CLUE, and that's OKAY. That is why I am making this a part of my BLOG. So you can see how I transform into someone ignorant into someone who KNOWS.

#5. I have a job coming up that is going to teach me computer operations for FREE. If everything works out.

#6. "skinning". Had no idea what this was when I got here. I guess you are not into possum soup but rather best I can figure designing your own layouts, or "skins". Yeah I seem to remember MP3 players on computers having multiple "skins". Okay. Got it.

#7. Well I decided that as long as I spend 15 minutes everyday going over Microsoft Calendar and then my wall calendar and my big organizer with expenses and schedules and shopping lists and whatnot, why not bite the bullet and get a PDA? So I solicited reccomendations on here a while back and so far out of the ones I checked out, the VIEWSONIC has been my favorite. It's available at COMPUSERVE USA for only 250.00 plus it has 100.00 rebate on it. So that's 150.00 And it seems to do everthing I want... but Oh CRAP here we go it's ORGANIZING software runs is MS OUTLOOK. Now, I have Outlook at work but I just use it to check email, my work computer is so slow it drives me nuts. At home I rememember trying to get OUTLOOK going once and it was over my head. It wanted all this info that I DON'T KNOW. But that brings me to

#8. A Permament (hopefully) email address based on one of my web domains. One thing I would LOVE to do is STOP using HOTMAIL and instead have a real email address. I guess you do this by setting up your website with the server people and they also give you an email. And I guess then you need a program to CHECK said email and I guess OUTLOOK would do that. And , hmmm, yes I am going to figure out OUTLOOK. ANd get my email. And then get my VIEWSONIC and have that going in conjunction.

I tell you this much. I will never ever forget the feeling of this being so HARD and CONFUSING right now so that in the future when I DO KNOW all this stuff I won't be smug when trying to help people who DON'T. Which will be fewer and fewer. I mean, holy crap, have you talked to KIDS these days? Okay we laugh and say education is horrible, but I mean, these kids know all about HTTP this and POP3 that and they have a website set up in 15 minutes and they make a million dollars in the blink of an eye, it's NUTS! Where do they find the time in between playing GRAND THEFT AUTO for 9 straight hours?