聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 It appears that my four-year-old granddaughter knows more about computers and 鈥渢ablets鈥� than me.聽 She grabs the mouse, scrolls up and down, moving the cursor and clicks on her icon; amazing.
That brought me back to when Marion and I owned Market Place Insurance and added a printer to each staff office. The techie hooked them all up and left. Later that day I tried to print a report, but nothing happened. I checked all the connections, turned the printer off and on and I even gave it a slap; still nothing. I called the techie and asked him what kind of junk he had sold us, as my printer did not work. The techie calmly listened to my frustrated diatribe and when I finished he quietly asked me if I had put paper in the printer. Oops.
My son Justin brought me a wireless mouse, and installed it on my laptop. It worked really well close to the laptop so I decided to check out the range. I took the mouse and moved to the dining room table, turned the laptop on my desk so I could see the monitor from my throne at the table, put the mouse on a pad moved the cursor around, nothing. Then I scrolled both up and down, as well as clicking both left and right buttons, still nothing. I called Justin and told him that the mouse he had installed had no range. Justin calmly listened to me, and then told me that it was a wireless mouse, not a remote.
Spell check: what an aggravating feature. It seems that the laptop knows better than me how to spell certain words, and I normally heed the suggestions, but there are times when I just click on the Add to Dictionary button. My laptop dictionary has been greatly expanded. Part of the spell check feature is also suggesting deletion of 鈥渆xcess鈥� words (i.e: really well; suggesting that I leave out really). Really? How else does one emphasize? And of course, the grammar feature: my English grammar is pretty good, so the grammar corrections only come up about 100 times each time I write a short story.
Google thinks that I am old and forgetful. Whenever I prepare an email and before I send it, Google will ask if I also intended to add a couple of more addressees. It frustrates me to no end. Of course, if I wanted to send the mail to those suggested, I would have included them in the first place. I totally ignore the suggestions. Well, that鈥檚 not quite true. I did use some of the suggested names a couple of times as I had indeed forgotten, but so what?
Our newly-acquired iPad or tablet has the Autocorrect feature on it, but I didn鈥檛 know that. Just recently I was 鈥渃hatting鈥� with my nephew Lt.-Col. Jan Erik Askildt of the Royal Norwegian Air Force, who is currently serving as a Norwegian NATO representative in the US.聽 I wrote a long 鈥渃hat鈥� to him, and without checking, I hit send. Then I looked at what I had sent, and that鈥檚 when I learned that the tablet has Autocorrect.I had to send another 鈥渃hat鈥� correcting the corrections that Autocorrectcorrected.聽 Next time I鈥檒l write in Norwegian and see how the Autocorrect handles that. Don鈥檛 mess with us seniors.
Of course, with today鈥檚 new-fangled cell phones, texting has become the latest fad of communication. Time-saving acronyms that refer to a combination of words have become internationally recognized.
Ole and Hilde鈥檚 daughters Inger and Cathy had been texting extensively for a couple of years. Hilde just got her phone and got a text from her son Baard at the University of Saskatchewan. In an answer to Hilde鈥檚 last question and before ending the communication, Baard sent the following message: 鈥淚DK, LY, TTYL.鈥�
Hilde asked Ole if he knew what that meant, but Ole didn鈥檛 know, so she asked Cathy.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know, love you, talk to you later,鈥� Cathy said.
鈥淥h really?鈥� said Hilde, a bit upset. 鈥淚鈥檒l ask your sister Inger then.鈥�
Morten sat on the bench in the shelter waiting for a bus early one frosty January morning.聽 A middle aged woman wearing a thick parka and a toque sat next to him. She was in deep concentration while trying to text on her phone. With a sigh, she looked at Morten and said, 鈥淚 make a lot of mistakes when I try to text in cold weather.鈥�
Morten smiled at her, nodded knowingly and said, 鈥淲ell you know, it could be a sign of typothermia.鈥�
Line phoned tech support and said, 鈥淚鈥檓 not able to connect to the Internet.鈥�
Tech support sighed and asked, 鈥淥h, OK, what operating system are you running?鈥�
鈥淓xplorer,鈥� answered Line.
鈥淣o, no,鈥� said the techie. 鈥淲hat version of Windows are you using?鈥�
Line, in a tentative voice, answered, 鈥淗mm, uh, Toshiba?鈥�
鈥淣o, no,鈥� said the techie. 鈥淩ight click on My Computer, then select 鈥榩roperties鈥� on the drop-down menu.鈥�
Line, 小蓝视频 a bit confused, said, 鈥淗uh! Your computer?聽 This is my computer, and I can鈥檛 see your computer.鈥�
The techie, getting rather frustrated, said: 鈥淣o, no, click on My Computer on your computer.鈥�
Line, getting very confused, said in a loud voice, 鈥渉ow the heck can I click on your computer from my computer?鈥�
The techie is now totally frustrated and said, 鈥淭here is an icon labelled 鈥楳y Computer鈥� on your computer, right click on it.鈥�
Line, getting very angry, said, 鈥淲hat the heck is your computer doing on my computer?鈥�
