As a senior citizen just being introduced to the computer world, you will have to learn a whole new language of funny words connected with this new phase of your life...words that have a far different meaning than what you normal think they mean. Additionally, you will find strange new words such as "bits, bytes, megabytes, megahertz" and so on, but you may not have to worry about all of them.
When you are working a computer program, you may use a "mouse" which is not the four-legged type but a device with a hard rubber ball on the bottom (or even just a light) that helps move a "cursor (a pointer, that is, not one that uses foul language) on the "monitor" (not a teacher who watches you when taking a test, but a TV picture tube or flat screen nowadays) of the computer that shows you what you are typing or drawing or moving. You move the mouse with your hand (or finger if you are using a laptop (a portable computer) and "click" (attach) the pointer to a specific object to tell the CPU (computer processing unit) to do something.
Other terms peculiar to computers are "CD Rom, discs, hard and optical drives, desktops, laptops, notebooks, spread sheets, mother boards, Pentium families, dot matrix-ink, jet-bubble jet laser printers." There is also DOS and Windows 95 or XP to add to the new vocabulary...and new ones practically every time you look around.
Right now the "in" thing is to "Surf the Net" (that's the worldwide Internet, and you don't use a surfboard to do that)...it's a compendium of interesting facts, business and social relationships, news sources (such as this web site and not connected with a spider if you please) which you can reach through a "modem" (computer connections via a phone and online service that you have to pay for) at "baud rates (rates of speed including "broadband" which is the fastest one right now and will probably change in the future!).
Repairing a computer when it breaks down (freezes or crashes) may require calling in or seeing a "hardware" (equipment) or "programmer" person.
"Hard copy" is exactly what it means: however, with computers it means "print out" on a piece of paper from a "printer" (laser, ink jet or otherwise) of what is shown on the "monitor."
One word after a particularly bad session when things go wrong in "cyberspace" we understand quite easily..."Exit" or "Quit" or "Escape", while another is "Save" (And we also understand the mental anguish when we don't do that and what you have done is wiped out and you have to do it all over again unless you can "revert" back to what you just did which is possible.) The temptation to punch the computer's monitor is an experience we all go through while enjoying the attributes of a computer system and the help it gives us.
And "help" is the one attribute the computer has done for us. When I first started out in the printing business all type was set with metal individual pieces of type to form articles that were printed on a press. Today, if there was a mistake in this column, for example, it probably would take an hour to make the correction--something that takes a few seconds with the current computers.
The latest social words in cyberspace are "YouTube", "Facebook" and the newest, "Twitter" (and we do it too) which makes it a whole new "another" world in social communication.
This writer's last comment: Just enjoy the wonderful world of cyberspace...and surf to your heart's content on the Internet, even without a surfboard!
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