Hi! The object of this blog is talk about issues in and around the Home PC. I've been messing about with computers since the mid to late 80s so I guess you could call me an early adopter. That was a phrase that was around the 'net back in the early days of the World Wide Web when the word Internet evoked the response, "What's that?"
I started introducing businesses to the idea of obtaining a 'web presence' and the common response, after explaining about the Internet, was, "Oh, I think it's just a fad. I don't think it'll take on really. Nah, I don't think I'll bother". I would then move into my blurb in order to convince them how sorely mistaken they were. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I didn't. Generally, things did OK, and then one fine day, the Internet was suddenly center stage and I no longer had to explain what it was, everybody knew. The it was like era of the Gold Rush. In New Zealand it was down south in Otago etc., in America the name most often thought of was the Klondike. Check shirt millionaires appeared over night. With the Internet we had the same thing. The Nasdaq was invented and just having a web site made you think you had struck it rich! It was just like staking a claim. Fortunes were made over night -and then the bubble burst and Nasdaq tumbled and it was all gloom and doom. Then, of course, it all found its level. But the world has never been the same again. History could well be divided into the days Before Internet (BI) to the days After Internet (AI). Well avoid any connotations that might arise in the minds of farming folk to those letters!

Now the astronomical cycles have turned over many times and names like Google, Microsoft, the Net, Apple, Mac, PC, software, online, chat, and so many more are all household names. Children by the age of five have inherited a world we had no concept of when we grew up. Connectivity is just a normal part of life. 'Getting away from it all' really means severing yourself from computers, mobile phones, etc for a break -and it's not easy to do. Rather like an addiction, we find living without a computer handy and mobile in your pocket leaves you feeling like the proverbial 'fish out of water'.

I'm going fishing on Saturday, out of the briny blue, and do not intend to take any forms of communication. I'm going off-line, and I can't wait! But, I know I'll feel that comfortable feeling of getting back to normal when I return. Such is the normalcy of being wired into the world-at-large.

Anyway, back to the purpose of this blog. I anticipate talking, and hopefully getting feedback and comment, about all sorts of topics related to the Internet, technology, computers (primarily and particularly as they affect the home user, but also small business), PDA’s et al.

Please send in your tips and tricks. I don’t know everything, not by a long country mile -as my adult children make me acutely aware! I’m a learner along life’s journey and all the help I can get is always gratefully received.

I’m trusting, that in the process, many will benefit. So, here we go.