Two Dads: One computer-maniac, the other computer-phobic.

I have two Dads. That sounds strange doesn抰 it? One is my genetic father, and the other is my geneticist father. The genetic Dad I抳e only ever lived with for one year when I was an infant, while the geneticist Dad is what you would call a step-father, but I抳e lived in close proximity with him for more than 20 years. I feel close to them both. I connect differently with each of them but on a pretty much equal level. The reason I抦 sharing my personal information with you is because I抳e just had a realisation about my fathers in relation to the area that I work in: computers and the Internet. It抯 really quite interesting.

One father is a computer maniac. Whenever a new technology, software, gadget, or website emerges he is one of the first to grab it up and evaluate it. My other father has an old piece-of-crap box that looks something like a computer, with a tediously slow dial-up connection to the World Wide Web. Compared to the wireless, broadband Mac personal computer and mobile-connected Mac laptop of the enthusiast, they couldn抰 be from further parts of the galaxy.

Then there抯 me. I could be construed as being a walking paradox, an enigma, or just plainly twisted when it comes to my relationship with the computer and Internet sphere of life. Nature/nurture, genetic/environmental匜or whatever strange reason, I have turned out to be a combination of the two papas. I work as a creative writer for an Internet web-hosting company. I love the ideas and valuable functions and tools that the Internet has brought to humanity (or was it humanity that brought it to the Internet?). However, I have issues and challenges when it comes to using these awe-inspiring machines.

Currently I am away from home in a different city visiting my girlfriend. At home (I am currently living with my parents-Mother and geneticist, as I抦 going to live overseas soon) all I have to do to get on the Internet is open up my laptop and I抦 on-line. If I抦 at work, I go to my PC and all of my settings are stored and ready for me to use. While in a new place, things haven抰 been running as smoothly as I would抳e liked. The answers are probably simple and easy to do, but this is one of the kinds of challenges that cause me to stumble. Although I am deeply interested and have a true faith in this new technology, I am a real novice when it comes to getting things done on someone else抯 computer.

I brought my laptop with me. My girlfriend only has a dial-up connection which she uses with her laptop. I could use hers?but she抯 Chinese so a lot of what comes up on the screen is illegible to me. I don抰 know how to change her language configuration. I抦 used to doing it quite easily on my Mac, but her computer is a PC and I抦 not as practiced in this other format. That抯 one of my problems. I only have so much patience when it comes to working these technological issues out; it could be a trait passed on by my ice-age father (No judgement is being laid here. He just doesn抰 feel that he can work new technologies out. He抯 had a digital telephone answering machine for two years which he still hasn抰 set up. He feels bad about it but his manual one does the job, so he sticks with it.). I抦 also a little afraid to hook my laptop up to her dial-up line as I know from experience that I抣l have to change some settings of which I am not confident about doing.

So the next answer was to go to her university where she said people use their laptops wirelessly in the library. That sounded cool so I went in and tried it out. I even tried changing the settings to get it to work (It took courage.) but I couldn抰 get it to work. I was weary about asking for help because I wasn抰 really a student at that particular learning establishment. Instead, I抳e been using the library抯 computers. This is OK, but since I can抰 walk away with the files I create (I borrowed my girlfriend抯 thumb-drive but an experience from the past of not being able to transfer information from PC to Mac deters me from using it-again, an irrational fear. I know it, and I will give it a try this week. I抳e resorted to saving my files in my email account as attachments. It抯 not conventional, but it works.

Another issue I抳e had is getting onto my messenger service. The university computers don抰 have it on their desktop, and when I tried to download an on-line version I was told that I didn抰 have the authority to do so. I went to an Internet caf? and I could do work there (I抦 working on the road) but I feel kind of silly paying to get paid. It was cool there though as they had messenger with voice and video and I was able to have a conversation with my brother who is travelling around India. He could see my sister and me, but we couldn抰 see him as he said the Indian computer devices (webcams, headsets) in that town were looking a little bit crappy in design and also looked worse for wear. It was heaps of fun making funny faces knowing that he would be seeing us. I think he抯 getting lonely as he抯 only 19 years old and has been away from home for over 7 months.

As you can see I抳e inherited beliefs about computer from both of my Dads. I find things more difficult than most, I believe, but I抦 not going to give up doing my best to get the things done that I feel are necessary. Over time I hope to get over these little obstacles and hurdles and become proficient in all of the cool aspects of this new realm of human endeavour. I also have faith that the technicians and engineers are probably working hard to make things simple for the rest of us.

Whatever happens, I抦 going to stick with it, and when I go to see my genetic father next I抦 going to do my best to inspire him to buy a new computer with a Broadband connection. Then all I have to do is show him a few of the amazing things that this human created Internet tool can do. One of the aspects of the Web that affects me most profoundly is the simple fact that if you think of anything at all in the known Universe, you can then look it up on your search engine like Google and in the time it takes to blink your eye, immediately start to learn. It sure beats catching the train to the library, looking up a book in the card catalogue, searching for it, then finding out that someone else has borrowed it and is late bringing it back.