Marta: Your diligent pursuit of computer knowledge and resulting mac mastery are legendary and much admired so I hope we will see you at some future meeting. During the spring, when we acquired the computer, the depth of my ignorance(I'll not speak for my husband) was so great that no explanation was simple enough for me to grasp. Even David Pogue's Missing Manuals left me dazed and confused. Now that I know how to work the mouse(better), make folders, burn cds and do a few other essential things, perhaps I can ask an intelligible question to which the answer is comprehensible even to me.
At the meetings we attended, there was no shortage of goodwill or willing help but we were far too bewildered to glean any useful information from the presentations. I think now we might be considered beginners, with some small hope of advancement. We had planned to take the Intro. to Mac courses through JCPS but when I called to sign up, they and the promised Photoshop courses, too, had been discontinued because the only Mac's they had were Apple IIg's so our progress has been random rather than linear. Thanks to a helpful member, I learned to send out SOS's on the Apple support message boards and to read these posts and now and then, ask a question. What an epiphany it was when I learned what extensions are and the consequences of adding something that isn't one after the dot. (the Scott Kelby Photoshop book I was using assumed everyone had heard of extensions) That particular adventure in computing was an all nighter. After many hours spent corralling escaped files scattered like confetti on the desktop every time I tried to move them, someone told me about the "undo" command as well as the "move" command. someone else gave me a mouse lesson. even fellow customers at computer stores have been helpful guides. My husband recently discovered that a photo slideshow means all the pictures, not just one at a time. I offer these examples because experienced users are not only astonished but highly amused. At any rate, thank you for your encouragement. Now that we have progressed a little, we will gratefully attend the beginners' meetings and maybe even the regular ones, too. We have foregone the meetings not because members were not welcoming or accessible but because we needed to know something in order to ask anything. At that point, our greatest achievement was removing the computer from its box and plugging in all the wires. Which reminds me about that worrisome message I got warning me that "a device is drawing too much power from a USB port..." Randy On Jan 8, 2006, at 11:04 AM, Marta Edie wrote: Randy, now let me tell you, those topics need not be too advanced, in fact, if the group would only consist of Geeks to blink into each others' eyes and say: "Ain't we great?" , then the group would quickly dissolve and leave a few oldtimers who might as well gather in the local tavern over a beer . - I myself have learned about everything I know from that group and a lot in the meetings ( right now i have trouble seeing in the dark and difficulty with my equilibrium and had to miss the meetings, but I have promise from a member to take me and I will take advantage), but YOU must ask the questions and insist that the presenter explain himself a bit more. And never think the question is dumb , to ask a question shows intelligence on whatever level it is asked. And you would be surprised how many people have no inkling of what is being said and would welcome someone asking , being too shy of saying something themselves. Then you have to consider that jargon and techno talk is the lifestyle of some, every profession has those "in" expressions, and to get "in", you will have to knock and make yourself and your question known. You have also to consider that not every Guru has those pedagogical qualities to explain a complex subject to the general public ( Leo Laporte and David Pogue are experts in that field), but the interplay of question and answers and the involvement of the whole group can do wonders. - When I joined this group my knowledge about computers was absolutely a tabula rasa, but I asked my way through the whole gamut and thus forced the group to rephrase, explain, be more general, draw comparisons, check their own presuppositions, so that there was never one single meeting that I did not come out to know more than I went in with. Sometimes I wished that somebody regular in the group would welcome newcomers so they would not feel so alienated in their first appearance, because I know that not everybody is as bold as I am and just walks in and talks to the first best one he encounters. My many years of teaching have taught me that. Maybe the group could make a bit more of an effort in that direction. And then there are topics that sometimes are more upscale, they need to be held on one's back burner until the revelation comes or the necessity to delve into that particular subject becomes individually necessary. therefore nobody should judge the whole dinner by just one vegetable not having the right tenderness . So , do not hesitate to come, ask and ask and ask. And you know, giving just one example, our Lee, who knows it all, who can talk on a level that seems more difficult to me than Japanese, but ask what it all means, and bingo, you get it presented in the right portion and the right seasoning just for you individually to swallow and digest. Marta On Jan 8, 2006, at 9:41, rangrsz263 at mac.com wrote: > thanks. We're members and did attend several meetings but they are > way too advanced for us. > > Randy > > On Jan 8, 2006, at 12:18 AM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer wrote: > > You should check out our > monthly meetings on the 4th Tuesday of the month. > > > > | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will > | be January 24 at Pitt Academy, 6010 Preston Highway. > | The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. > | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> > | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup> | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be January 24 at Pitt Academy, 6010 Preston Highway. | The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup> | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be January 24 at Pitt Academy, 6010 Preston Highway. | The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
