Computer Literacy.......................,

In 1997 before I was engaged, I did d a stint with 3 things, typing, shorthand and veena classes. All with the same family friends. All was good for 3 months. I did the typing class with the last sis, veena with the second one, short hand with both the second and third sis. The eldest happened to be my tutor in college. Mostly alternate days I had to attend these classes.

So typing initially was not problem, shortand was like my left hand job. [Deftly I cld do] Veena I had my athai’s veena at home specially brought for me from Sastri Nagar to Tambaram Sanatorium. All I did was to come and play them at home not only this, I had my amma’s song book , so with the little knowledge of carnatic music I know, would play in veena at home . I acted smart in veena class, naturally the teacher did not like neither could she tolerate my smartness.

In the mean time I got engaged and married in 25 days.

So a type writer was never a dragon for me. When the PCs were introduced, it was not at all difficult for me, unlike the first timers, I do not have to literally look for the letters. This familiarity came handy when I attended the compulsory computer class in school. Later we were to prepare ppt for the items we were to teach. I conveniently took a colleague who had PC at home so we could do some home work and could present a presentable one on ‘Child Labour’.

Learning to mail was the problem, opening the account was done for me by my colleague, and later I became an expert in sending ‘NO’,’ NO’ forwarding umpteen mails to jam my friends and relatives mail boxes!

When I was in Anand, I did not know much about browsing but learnt to play a lot of games.

After settling in Bangalore, I literally troubled Arjun, my son for each and every thing. First for using the mail, how to forward the mails received and deleting the unwanted text portions, later the use of cc, bcc, the directions given in mails. Once I joined some groups, I did learn by trial and error method.

The best part was down loading songs from Sangeethapriya site. It took me some time to understand and follow the instructions given by my son. When he taught me, I wrote down in my diary and in his absence I tried them, when ever I had encountered the problem, I would disturb him and ask him. His friends started teasing him for running a ‘call centre’. Same for burning them in CDs for listening.

One thing I should say, that initially he was impatient, later he understood the pain in the neck will not leave him. It was an advantage for him coz later I have helped him in down loading movies in Bit comet for him.

In a short time I have learnt, uploading photos from digital cameras, attaching them, etc. In my free time I browse a lot of news sites and Tamil sites, blogs and even small information I try in net.

One does not need any books, everything you get by browsing in the net. Here I am building my blog, designing the pages, layout and incorporating jpg. I know how to convert to jpg and also to make a movie from the handycam, upload from a camera, I am a very computer friendly person.

All that cost me was time and trial and error method . Nothing comes without hardwork and interest!!.

I contribute a lot to news papers’ letters to the editor columns, local news week.

I have joined some groups and actively participate in their discussion.

The only thing which I am yet to understand is the margin alignment in MS Word, till now I could neither get the feel nor anyone is ready to teach me!.