Every letter that is typed and displayed on your screen requires 8 switches in order to do that - of course, much more complexity occurs within that little plastic box that sits on or under your desk. For a more thorough overview of binary code have a look at this blog created for high school students here.
So why am I telling you all this? Probably because most folks don't even bother anymore to tell themselves just what it is that they are working with when creating a new document in Microsoft Word or any other application on their PC.
Many years ago when I was first employed as a secretary to lawyers, I was astounded at how some of them thought that their Visual Display Unit (VDU or "monitor", as we used to refer to them back then) was actually the computer! They would try to plug their mouse into the back of it and when they couldn't find the required socket to jack into they became irritated very quickly.
I further came to the realisation that most secretaries approached their PC as if it were a typewriter, albeit a glorified electronic version, but a typewriter all the same. You puts your paper in, you types the words, they appears on the paper in front of you and when you want to, you prints out a hard copy.
This isn't the worst approach if all you are doing is typing simple letters... but when you begin to attempt a more complex task then things can go terribly badly awfully quickly. Want to add a watermark? Ah! Now you'll need to know about headers and footers and anchors and paragraph holders and section breaks and picture formats and so on and so on......
....and for most folks, that's more than enough to send them screaming down the phone to IT when they try to do something and they get some unexpected results.
You see, the problem is that once you enter into the world of virtual paper and virtual typewriters, you can quickly become confused into believing that the computer does everything like magic. It doesn't. It is following (very logically) a series of steps. The computer is always going to be logical but the person operating it often won't be.
So what can we take from this little snippet of wailing about how folks just aren't as geeky as me when it comes to operating computer machinery? I still remember fondly the days when folks were too frightened to even touch the hardware! People were aware of their limitations and sought out an expert to do computer related stuff for them. Nowadays EVERYONE thinks they SHOULD be able to work it out by themselves, so they TRY.... and of course they often fail. This then leads to calling up the expert and pretending that they have no idea how their document managed to get itself into the state it now is in.
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| A helpful sign that used to be in my mother's workplace shortly after computers were introduced to her office |
Be patient. Listen. Follow steps pedantically. Computers do all of this and more every second they are switched on. BE MORE LIKE ONE when you are working with one. I swear it makes a computer crash less often if you do.
And treat it like a friend. Half of the time folks end up abusing their hardware for stuff that they are responsible for - the computer is LISTENING every time you move your mouse and click on something..... so clicking repeatedly on something that isn't immediately responding is a bit like smacking somebody on the back of the head because they're not paying you the immediate attention you feel you deserve! Can you imagine the response if you did this to somebody in your workplace? Still perplexed that your computer is crashing? Well, now that should clear things up for you.
Love your PC and it will love you back.
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