Dear Parents of school-aged children,

2006-06-30T12:19:00.000Z

Dear Parents of school-aged children,

Chances are you have a computer. Possibly a notebook computer provided by your workplace, maybe even a desktop computer that you bought yourself for the whole family to share. Whatever the case may be, you are probably running Windows XP and your children use your computer more than you do.

Evidently most children use computers for chatting to friends and the odd browse of some cool websites. Some of them install random applications from the internet or even have their own webpage. They will inevitably screw up your computer.

You proudly tell everyone you know that your children are good at computers. You are sadly mistaken.

Desktop computing has undergone extreme change in the past 20 years. Gone are the days of command line's, orange tinted monochrome monitors and spending days configuring devices. This grueling process results in a customised computer and more importantly you will have to learn how your computer works (at least to some degree).

These days, everything is too easy. Installing your operating system takes under 1 hour (in most cases), almost all of your hardware is automatically detected and supported but when it isn't, there's windowsupdate. Installing applications often requires 3 clicks of the next button and nothing more. Updating your system requires a visit to a website and a reboot or two. Its too easy. The end results obviously being that you don't learn anything useful about computers. This is a very desirable solution for us adults who lead a demanding, fast-paced lifestyle.

But think of your kids man!

They are growing up discovering a world where computers are an entertainment device, just like you did with your TV and/or Radio. While this is just fine and dandy for some people, in my opinion it would be a disservice to the next generation by denying them the opportunity to learn about the very technology which took off in the same decade they were born.

But how? Here is what I propose:

"Linux is too hard for me" I hear you saying, it won't be for them :)

Computers and me

2006-06-30T11:42:00.000Z

As a child I had come into contact with a computer while visiting a friend from school. We spent hours and hours playing around with it, mostly playing games. One day while the two of us hunched over the keyboard he offered to write a program to demonstrate his newly found skills. I was glued to the screen. He proceeded;

c:\>edit test.bat
@echo off
print hello n
c:\>
c:\>test
hello n
c:\>

I was astounded. I asked "What else can you do with computers?", after very carefull consideration he replied "anything!".

At this point, even as a child, I knew that my life would never be the same. Riding a bicycle, while fun, was overshadowed by computers. Watching TV, while fun, was also overshadowed by computers. I had to get one and eventually I did.

This was the beginning of something BIG.

How did you get started with computers? did computers have such a profound effect on you as they did on me?

I like...

2006-06-29T15:19:00.000Z

Blue

solo discussion

Dear Parents of school-aged children,

Computers and me

I like...