Using a computer

I am learning things every day on my computer, things that make me wonder what planet I have been on for the last 20 years or so. Today, I tackled the language, changing it from English, USA, to the New Zealand version. It was so simple, I wondered why I had not done it a few months ago when I realised my computer was wanting me to use zs when I knew that s was the correct version of spelling. I don’t always remember my computer being that way so perhaps it got inadvertently changed at some point. It was certainly easy changing it back. I had searched once before on the home panel, not realising the answer was down by my word count.

Another thing I learnt a few weeks back was using a new page when on the internet, then switching back to my original page. In the past I had always seemed to erase everything when attempting that manoeuvre. I had seen other people do it, but not actually realised how.

And then a while before that, I learnt that the roll on the middle of the mouse enabled me to page up or down far more easily than the arrows on my keyboard I had used in the past. Heaven only knows why I hadn’t learnt that before.

Then of course there are all those buttons at the top of my keyboard, ones that I’ll probably never learn the use of. I think there is a certain fear still around computers, that touching the wrong thing will somehow erase all my work, so I’d rather not run that risk by experimenting. Years ago, when I first worked on a computer, I pushed the insert button by mistake and no amount of erasing would return my computer to normal. I hadn’t realised that was what I had done. There is one plus with this kind of error though and that is, if it happens again, I generally know the cause.

I would call myself computer-illiterate. I don’t even want to try to understand half of the techniques that are needed, especially in regard to publishing my books or website construction. I’d much rather call on the help of somebody else and pay them for their expertise. If I have something written down and easy instructions to follow, then I can generally do that, but it is no use telling me something. Verbal communication goes nowhere for me as far as understanding computers.

I just casually clicked on the Accessibility investigate, an icon that sits next to my language version at the bottom of Word, out of curiosity more than anything else. A little panel came up to the right of this document with an explanation and the words ‘’got it’’. Well, no, I didn’t get anything or have a clue what it was trying to tell me. I have learnt how to use the x though, so that was promptly where that box ended up.

I guess I never will be comfortable with these machines. I do know enough to get by and that I suppose I should be grateful for.