The Computer, Internet and the privileged generation.

Today is 25 years for the Internet. Someone like my son who is 23 years old, had the internet with the mouse his entire life. Last summer there was a summer student, the same age as my son who did not know that people used computers without a mouse. He didn't know nearly everything you can do with a mouse, you can also do at the Command Prompt. I didn't understand this because his degree was Information Systems. He should have at least studied the history of computers.

Some nice  things at the Command Prompt.

Try these

• Click Command Prompt
• Type cd\ and press enter
• Type dir, you will see list of all the folders. The old days, we called them directories
• Go to any folder by typing cd then space and the name of the folder
• You can even create a new folder , by typing md then space and the name of the folder

Not many people know these things. The mouse clicking of everything is really just telling the computer to do all the dir, cd, md things above.

The internet gave us emails and it is slowly killing the 'snail' mail. I love online banking so much, no more standing in a bank line to cash your pay cheque every week. No more paying of bills by putting a cheque in an envelope, licking the envelope and mailing it off. I mean mailing it in a mailbox, not clicking on the send button.

What will we do without Google. Google this, Google that all day. How many of us ever use a physical dictionary anymore. When I moved from London England to Toronto Canada more than 25 five years ago. I packed my approximately five pound Oxford dictionary, typewriter and our very first computer with no hard drive, only a floppy drive. It was called the Amstrad PCW8512 / 8256 Personal Computer word processor. These days only my dad uses my old heavy dictionary.

We can now do online research, no more sitting in the library for hours and hours to write a paper. The internet has helped a lot with plagiarism. This very post that I am writing here can be checked sentence by sentence if I am using someone else's words. 

Without the Internet, I would not be able to work from home (Telecommuting). I can sit at home, check my work emails, write a few lines of code, fix a few bugs. I can then have a break, sitting in the garden with a cup of coffee and looking at the birds. Telecommuting can save me three hours of commuting time everyday.

I prefer online shopping to mall shopping. I don't think anyone does 'window shopping' anymore. Well expect my 75 year old parents. They go to Walmart everyday to look around everyday . These days we browse around on the internet for what we want. I really believe the days of the malls will slowly go. Its been a while, since I went to the mall to walk around. 

Computers and the internet has changed how we do everything. It has brought the entire world closer together.  The young people today are a very privileged generation.