Week 1: My Comfort Level

I’ve grown up along the outside edge of computer technology.  When I graduated from college with my A.A. degree, computer science students were carrying around stacks of yellow key punch cards that could spell their name… woo-hoo!  My own first hands-on experience with computers involved using a 5 ½” floppy disc to boot up an Apple II.  Once it was booted up, I’d pull that disc out and put in a different one to start doing what I wanted to do, and then I’d take that one out and put in another if I wanted to do something different.  I was often quite agitated by the system since it wasn’t anything like the IBM Selectric typewriter I had previously been using.  Several years later I was learning Lotus 123 and Word Perfect at work, and we purchased our first home computer with 125MB of memory and Microsoft Works.  Wow, how things have changed over the years.

In 1997 I discovered the World Wide Web and became the “go-to girl” for all of my friend’s questions about hoax emails and .tif images.  I learned AC-PAC and Quicken accounting software for my work as a bookkeeper and I utilized my knowledge of Lotus 123.  I took online classes and learned HTML, creating web pages for a while.  I took one class of CGI but couldn’t find a web provider who could host it.  At home we upgraded computers to bigger and faster, and I discovered Ebay and agonized over “first person shooter” games for my sons.  I took an opportunity to learn Power Point at a school district seminar, and I dabbled in Excel.

My home computer is a big part of my life: I look things up on Google all the time and keep up with friends and play games on Facebook.  I keep track of my checking account and pay all my bills online. I have withdrawals if I can't access the internet for any reason.  I haven’t worked with computers for a few years but have recently started a new job using Office 2007 which isn’t anything like Word 2003 which I prefer for it's simplicity.  As I look back, I was always just there, but never submerged in computer science and if I had the chance to do it all again, I’d jump in with both feet at the very beginning.  Now is the time though; I’m comfortable with computers and I’m ready to take the plunge.