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Warning - Some posts may cause choking, spitting of beverage and /or a severe giggle fit. This advice brought to you by regular reader Louisa.

Thursday 29 October 2009

Challenges of the Computer Inept



I have been using a computer for almost five years now (I was a late starter), but I'm still woefully inept. I can manage the basic stuff, but that's about it. I've fudged my way through Blogger, pretending to know what I am doing, but for the most part it's just guesswork.




Luckily for me, the handy 'New Post' box is mostly straightforward. Still, I'm continuing to make mistakes as I plod along, no matter how simple the whole process is (it may be simple to everyone else, but to me it's a complete mystery). For example, I have no idea why it happens, but some days my paragraphs are all bunched together, making it difficult to read. I think it has something to do with when I am uploading pictures, but I'm probably wrong in thinking so. Speaking of pictures, I've mastered the art of having a picture as a header (or even having it placed on the left or the right, wahoo!), but multiple pictures are confusing the heck out of me. I took a stab at it the other day and was marginally successful, but my ultimate aim is to have pictures staggered throughout my blog, sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right. One of these days I will master it.*snorts*




Facebook was another learning curve. One of the main reasons I signed up and then forgot about it was that I had no idea what to do on there. There were so many applications to navigate, plus you had their 'Wall' and other such things to learn about too. When I eventually starting using my account, it took a good month to work out the gist of it, and even now I muddle through on certain things. I changed my language settings at one point, but had to change it back not long after. The settings were confusing enough (for me) in ordinary English, but in Pirate mode it was downright baffling (mangle me litany, anyone?).




Even on my first internet 'home', I had problems, and HPANA is just your basic site with a community forum to navigate. HPANA is actually the easiest site to navigate that I have ever come across, but I still struggled with it to begin with. About eighteen months after I joined the site, I became a moderator for it. Lordy, what a learning curve that was! *snorts again* After four and a half years of membership on there, I still can't answer the technical questions in their help thread. I'm OK with the general "Please can you delete my post" queries, but if someone asks a question about formatting pictures and what-not, I pretend I haven't seen the question. *shifty*




On the other hand, I really enjoy moderating, even when I am stumped. As luck would have it, I moderate three specific forums on there, and two of them are all to do with Fan Fiction. It's the easiest job in the world, and as a bonus I get to read endless fanfic while I'm performing my duties. It just strikes me as funny that I am a moderator for one of the biggest Harry Potter fan sites in the world, and half the time I don't know what I am doing....




But honestly, not knowing what I am doing is pretty normal for me, whether I am at the computer or not. I'm just ditsy that way.

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