Chapter 1 Review and Comments

Remembering my childhood days in which we had a party line black rotary phone and only 3 channels (2,4,7) on the television, reading this chapter was essentially a review of my own history. Sort of like a “This Is Your Life” episode. My father from Texas got me started on computers and our first one was purchased in the late 1980’s and basic. Once we beefed up and had a modem, wow the world was instantly opened up to us with Prodigy and then AOL. Nothing was neater back then when logging in and hearing “you have mail”. Instant Messaging (IM) soon followed and to then be able to communicate with someone long distance without those phone associated charges was and to quote MasterCard, “priceless”. Page by page of the chapter reminded me of what I needed to learn in similar order for operating the PC, the software and also the online features that back then were very basic but soon had surpassed and overwhelmed. I remember in my early ignorance to the terminology used that I almost corrected a colleague for misspelling internet with intranet. I thought best to research the word instead and found it meant our own organizations server and networking system. With this in place, soon email became a fast and in my opinion now an impersonal method of communicating with each other. Face to face of phone calls now are close to being obsolete and always remember to not send an email if full of emotion. But on the other hand, email capability has developed better ways to communicate with other business associates in easily receiving information, quotes or other items of interest. The WEB has evolved into a whole new world of shopping, finding information quickly, banking, going to school etc. And all thes same technology that at one time was on a large desktop or heavy laptop is accessible on a small smart phone. It’s amazing what I’ve witness and lived through these past 20 years, can’t wait to see what is next on the agenda.