Open Letter to Sherman E. DeForest

"The trick is to educate them on what can be done so that they can decide what they want to do"

Dear Sherm,

Your articles are providing me with both inspiration and soul searching challenge.

I may not fall into the 'senior' category officially if you use a calendar, but I retired in 1990 and my first Windows and PC came in late 2000. My limited computer contact at work was on a UNIX trying to make sense of a data base tracking program with conflicting logic reflecting the design by pros with no appreciation for the work the model described or the users entering the data. (With grep and bat files I did manage to find and create most of the 'logically needed steps' that reality and the field user didn't need or document.) To say I understood computers would be exaggeration. What I did was examine the problem from both sides and find a way to get to the desired goal. A computer pro would have fixed the logical model -- I massaged the data.

When I began learning about my PC and Windows, I felt lost, but I was encouraged by the community of help that seemed to be everywhere online. That many were merely marketing something was a bit daunting. That many were actually sharing their expertise open-handedly made the process exciting. Much of what I read and found went over my head like a roof -- I still say I understand about 80% of what I read.

I stumbled into a chatroom while troubleshooting a problem and met a wild bunch of Senior Netizens. Some had had data entry experience before retiring, many had never met a keyboard before they got their PC. But all recognized this was a way to reach out and communicate. To fill the voids that time and health sometimes created in their lives. Quickly they became the dearest and closest friends I'd never met.

Even the Net changes, so we moved from that chatroom invading MSN Groups and spawning several dozen private, semi-public or public Groups. Some found message boards and custom pages; and others discovered graphic tools and blogs. Along the way I have tried to show the possibilities lending a hand when I can. Trying to find, fall into and learn the way out of most pitfalls.

The internet is what we make it.

Sincerely,

AsparaGus