Thursday, July 29, 2004

Giving 'em enough rope

In the next couple of months, there are going to be a bunch of new computers at the library; this means that there'll be word-processing facilities for the public, which we don't have currently.  People will also be able to bring their CDs and disks into the library, for use on the new computers.

I think this will open up a can of useless-user worms.  We have enough to do trying to help people use Hotmail on our sole Internet-enabled PC.  Most people have no trouble, but plenty come in to send e-mail, and don't know which website to go to, whether they have a Paradise e-mail account or a Yahoo, a Hotmail or whatever. 

One woman yesterday didn't know because her computer at home has been set up to download e-mails straight to Outlook - and she didn't  know her password either.

A little old lady (God bless 'er) was game to use e-mail, but didn't understand the difference between the Caps Lock key and the Shift key.  When she had finished typing in her e-mail, she tried to push the Send button with her finger!!

I can just imagine that, with Word etc available, we're going to be inundated with people who don't know where they've saved (or not saved) their documents, people who try to overwrite system files and people who can't understand why it's taking so long to download that lovely 3Mb photo of their grandchild....

I'd make a terrible teacher.

So it was nice to find Buffy Downunder.

1 comment:

No Milk Please said...

your comment about the little old lady made me crack up. i was picturing this lady poking the screen to send her e-mail--hilarious!