Friday, October 3, 2008

“I have a tip that can take 5 strokes off anyone's golf game. It's called an eraser.” Arnold Palmer

Teaching computers and answering questions can be easy and straightforward as long as you don’t make assumptions about what others know or don’t. The problem I have is not so much with students but with friends or family that I know have been using the computer for years. You immediately make assumptions that they know what you know or use the computer the same way you do. The small extras like double clicking and triple clicking seem obvious. Because of this I was so happy to read David Pogue’s newest column. He explains that he will be writing a new book that is all basics of the computer. The part I wanted to share with you is the lengthy list he gives you to begin. Most of them I was very familiar with but I did pick up a couple of things I did not know like the useful shortcut of hitting the space bar to page down on a website. The second part that makes this a great read is the readers that have commented on the page leaving their own basic tips. If you have five minutes stop and take a peek at the article and the comments. As I always say in class you have to slow down and read to truly speed up. The time you spend checking these tips out will pay off almost instantly. Give it a try.

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