An Old Dog

There is a saying that you can’t teach on old new tricks. Well, although I would hate to be termed an old dog – I am far from a spring chicken. I remember the days without computers and the internet. GOD bless they people who brought us the internet! I can’t imagine life without it – researching things- making people and places so far away – be at the tips of our fingers. I digress….

I first learnt about computers in ’95 when I enrolled in a local TAFE course to upgrade my skills. Teachers were in over supply and there was no work out there for me – so I thought I might change careers and be in admin. I remember the frustration of learning to use a mouse. I remember learning the codes for word perfect.( how archaic is that?) and how about this – I remember learning to use a really old database program that was still in DOS – I think it was called DB3??

Spring forward a few years to 98 when I worked at Portsmouth Tech Uni as a tutor– I remember going to a training day on the world wide web. We whispered it that is awed tones and staring eyes. We sat amazed at the demonstration of going to a website. Eyes glazed over and mouths drooling – we went to Cadburys site. The IT person knew his audience well.

Fast forward to now. My mum thinks I am so clever ( well – what can I say.. modesty forbids…) Jamie, has built ( well – Mum and Nev actually have done all the hard negotiations and work involved here) huge amounts of storage sheds and they need some advertising. Apart from media press and ads in the local shops, they have approached the real estate agents – who really can’t be arsed to do much. One would not take on the listing as they already had one companys sheds ( the only other storage sheds within 60 kms) SO – I have been asked – as I have a computer and obviously know all about it – to build a website to advertise it.

SO – last week I got online and did some tutorials. I did a bunch of searches for free webs building sites. I was fine with getting a domain name and getting it hosted – done that a few times before. I started to build a website a few times – but came unstuck when they started to ask for money to host it etc. sigh, back to the drawing board. I lifted a few things from the sites I had started and as I had seen HTML before – on my blogspot – I was happy to play with these. I found a cheat sheet on HTML code and set about playing and getting frustrated and crying about how stupid I was and why on earth couldn’t I ‘get it’. Its an eternal question for me. Why can’t I do things easily – why must I ensure I choose the hardest, most frustrating, soul destroying path?

I began to understand some of the IT guys – how obsessive it must be. I would be in the middle of making dinner and then leap over to the computer typing in some extra code, testing it and whooping with joy to see it had worked.. oh god… I am a geek. I asked Age if that’s what it was like- being a coder – and he just shook his head. His words were that he just wanted his fluffy Annie back – the non geek who didn’t understand technology.

After nearly 3 days, I have produced a three page website that links to each page – whoopee.. but I can’t seem to get the graphics to load up. They are all there on the dummy site – but once I load the whole thing up and the images separately – nope – not there… I have thrown my hands in the air and am leaving it stew for a while…. And to ponder up on why everything I set out to achieve I must make an arduous task….