Its a funny thing about computers and the internet and such - the knowledge kind of creeps up on you. You think that the tools you use today have been around for ages but they haven't.
The other night I was reading a book - just a run of the mill novel which was taking place in the mid to late 1990's. Not only did the characters not have mobile phones (!) but they mentioned floppy discs and "WordPerfect" when doing computer talk. WordPerfect - where did that go? Does it still exist? Well yes it does actually but I only know that because I just did a quick Google search. And I have hidden a link under the word "Wordperfect" so that you can go and have a look if you are curious. But to get back to the book I suppose mid 1990's is 15 years ago and a lot can happen in 15 years but I didn't think so much had happened in the Computer world. Yes I realise that daily things get easier and more "user-friendly" but I remember when we bought this house in 2006 - the then owner gave us his "blog" address so that we could look at photos of the house. I didn't have a clue what a "blog" was but I "googled" "blog" and this is what I got "A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary ...".
Can you see where I am going with this? Computer-ease is part of our daily lives and THAT is what has happened over the last 10 or 15 years. In the days of "WordPerfect" we used computers as tools to get a job done. Nowadays we have difficulty in living without them. I have only had a laptop for just under 3 years and it goes everywhere with me - even overnight!! (Thats a bit sad isn't it - must stop that one!) but the point is that I run my business from it and its my telephone too!! Because we dont have a landline here in Spain we use skype for everything.
What would happen to us if suddenly (like that TV programme that I cant remember the name of but you can tell me in the comments section) where the main character was suddenly plunged from today back to the 1980's? Computers were massive giants back then and only had a "word processing" programme as a bad add-on. I do remember working in ADMA-OPCO (Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company) in the late 1980's and working on a Macintosh - oooooh boy that was bliss and spoilt me for going back to the cumbersome Wang computers that I used in many of the Oil Companies (I was temping at the time - 5 or 6 years of it). I suppose people of a certain age would cope because we could remember "life before ....." but what about the under 25's? They would be lost with what to do with one hand (the hand that constantly texts) and I am not even going to start on mobile phones!
The first computer - possibly - was the ENIAC in the 1940's.
"The ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800 square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons. Although the Judge ruled that the ABC computer was the first digital computer many still consider the ENIAC to be the first digital computer." Why did something invented in the 1940's take so long to get into everyone's home? Hmmm - that is a discussion for a different group - one far more knowledgeable than me. Suffice to say - the last 10-15 years seem to have seen such a explosion of computer technology that you just wonder why the gap?
Finally as I have already mentioned Apple Macs I might just as well declare that I have fallen for the IPad - and finally, finally you will have noticed that I have learnt how to put links under words and am enjoying that far too much!
On that note folks its Adios from me.
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