Got my first PC used. Paid way too much money cuz I bought it from a guy who'd actually paid for it and was mad about the cost. It was outdated yet it cost 350$. MUCH SMARTER to find those even-tempered repair guys who are given pc's by corporations by the dozen. They let them go for a twenty dollar bill!
Back then I had a friend who knew a guy who had a pal who was PC tech savvy. Funny how news of something hot and useful travels. So I reach thru this beaver chain of boy pals to befriend the pc tech guy and tell him I'm a witch and offer him the palmreading natal chart, the life reading of his choice. He says Do a horoscope and give me a home cooked dinner of my choice, and I will totally show you what you have to know: download a neat browser, set up a few e-mail addresses, how to save text you find online either in emails or articles, turning it into HTM files (like what this is here,) inserting graphics, (as I did above, right here.) and how to SAVE graphics to cache, or use graphics that are online in an article, just linking to them.) I will totally show you what's up, what this big lump of steel can do.
He comes over, gets steak, cherry pie, mashed potatoes and black Colombian coffee. I kept it pouring too. And he gave me an hour lesson on the tech needed to use a PC. We had to start from scratch, a browser. We downloaded NETSCAPE vers 4.7 free. On his recommendation. Eschewing the Internet Explorer from Bill Gates that the machine came with. Downloading ZTREE, not using the Internet Explorer of Gates.
He said reason we were getting that browser was he liked its "GOV CANNOT PENETRATE" aspect, as well as its interior MAIL CLIENT called NETSCAPE MESSENGER. I still, 12 yrs later, like it best, never saw the like in all the new fangled browsers. (I use Mozilla Firefox latest version to SURF the net, as it's jam proof) Still use 4.7 for email. It has a neat HTM composer in it, too. You can do all kinds of organizing tricks with its email (a.) see most recent letters, see them collated by date ....or see mail by SUBJECT, useful for my BOOK VENDORS where every letter has subject line DEAR GORKY BOOKS, DEAR JOVE BOOKS. So I can see all my vendors, all correspondence I ever did with them.
Or all subject lines with CATS in them. Or see the senders alphabetized.)
Then he went on to show me how to create the NETSCAPE MESSENGER's LIST OF FRIENDS and do some LISTS like THE WRITERS list, the HOLISTIC list. For ease in targeting groups for emails.
Then he taught me to use the browser to create bookmarks of any page I liked. As I had no favorite pages yet, we just did one or two samples that he knew about. AND MANAGING bookmarks is important, building directories for that or FOLDERS they're called. You save URLS of say...political leftist activism under LEFTIST PHILOSOPHERS.
Then we went on to google up super writers like JIM HIGHTOWER, MOLLY IVINS, and see how to google target then surf the net, find/ save research - make collections, i.e. knowledge or info indexes. In those days they didn't have javaladen pages so this old browser could surf. Today I use mozilla to surf as netscape will jam on code-loaded pages.
NOW, the most important thing, he shows me was ZTREE. A file organizer. Used to be DOS BASED, but now it works on WIN 8. First we DOWNLOAD program for ZTREE, a file manager, it was free online. Then my PAL showed me how to use it. Toggles and commands. Ask for article on this. Or write KIM HENKEL who adapted it to PEACH TREE's famed XTREE back in the 80's support@ztree.com and he'll show you the ztree.com website.
SO WE SAVE the articles on different websites
to my c: drive cache, using the TREE, the directories he builds--
C:\ACTIVISM
C:\BABIES
C:\CLIENTS
C:\CONSPIRACY
bush.htm (these are
files)
cia.htm
" " "
NSA.txt
C:\DAILY DISSENT
C:\FRUGAL LIVING
C:\HOLISM
C:\LUCK IN LOVE
and so on....
All my areas of research/interests get their own directories. And the articles get slipped in the right DIRECTORY.
I DID NOT want to spend on a domain name or website as I had been gifted a lot of free websites from my server earthlink.net so my tekkie pal showed me how to download, i.e. GET A FILE TRANSFER PROGRAM free online... we downloaded it. To do this one looks up FREE DOWNLOAD + FTP software and there you go. Dozens of choices.
So there's this collection of files, we FTP the files to those freebie websites, i.e. place them in cyberspace. Takes thirty minutes for someone to show you all the above.
He took me to IRAFAN VIEW where I downloaded a free graphic editor, to change size on graphics. He taught me how to go to Google and then hit the images button, and instruct SEARCH to look for pictures that suited my writing. I put NEWBIE into google just now and got the graphic at the top. APT, isn't it. Thank GOOGLE! I used IRFANVIEW to resize it, half size for this article.
And now I was loaded for bear, ready to WEBPUBLISH! Why I'm doing this is, I am driven by this need to get holistic, political information out to THE YOUNGER GENERATION. The need was urgent, so the info I collected was always offered for free, like the internet, itself. No registering at any website...necessary. No catches. No fees. Just TO get readers! CYBERSLUT right? FREEBIES for one and all.
Next, my PC GURU showed me how to list myself at SEARCH ENGINES, and folks began to find me but nothing like the tidal wave of people that came when I found that putting ads at craigs list worked.
I send kids who search CRAIGS LIST for LESSONS
or JOBS....to the different pages I'd posted in cyberspace, to STUDY up
on HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN GUERILLA CAPITALISM BUSINESS, or on other subjects.
LIKE, "HOW TO MARRY A BILLIONAIRE" My first recommendation besides being
beautiful and skinny is to BONE UP on pertinent, planetary ISSUES CONVERSATION
101 INDEX and Political realities at well, for POLITICAL TRUTH,
http://home.earthlink.net/~astrology/index2.htm
I suggested folks bone up on the charming FRUGAL LIFESTYLE at the FRUGAL KANGAROO index, http://home.earthlink.net/~loveguru/frugindex.htm and an OPRAH debt diet based on home cooked, FRUGAL EATING http://www.luckinlove.com/foodindex.htm
MORE Frugal living tips at http://home.earthlink.net/~loveguru/frugalindex.htm
and a MONEY SAVVY INDEX full of secret tips on taxes, laundering money at http://home.earthlink.net/~anitaastrologer/index6.htm
and I suggested to readers that they find cottage
industries in case economy doesn't offer
good jobs, via the GUERILLA CAPITALISM page,
http://home.earthlink.net/~anitaastrologer/
and I'd show the ARTISTS among my readers how
easy it would be to write radical songs or
flicks over at the FILM WRITER's INDEX
http://home.earthlink.net/~loveguru/FILMINDEX.htm
and the Actors/Writers page, http://home.earthlink.net/~loveguru/holywodbound.htm
and another WRITERS' index, http://www.masterjules.net/writindex.htm
THEN how to free oneself of the mind and have
faith at the NEW AGE INDEX,
http://home.earthlink.net/~loveguru/newageindex.htm
and learn the basic WEBTECH, http://home.earthlink.net/~loveguru/webtech.htm
and the ISSUES index, http://www.masterjules.net/issueindex.htm
My contribution on holistic health is at the HEALTH
INDEX
http://home.earthlink.net/~loveguru/index4.htm
ASTROLOGY/metaphysics, how to read a palm, lessons
http://home.earthlink.net/~astrology/
And so it went. I now have a few more websites and pages and indexes but that's basically what I did with a PC, what he taught me to do with the cost of a steak and cherry dinner.
Now, I was the type who could never figure out how to assemble anything out of a box, screw in a lightbulb, NOTHING remotely technical. And if I could turn beef and cherries into this, you could too. ANYONE who knows those little basic gambits could teach them for the price of a meal. You don't need to hire some restless clock is ticking, money-hungry tekkie. In fact, those are the worst.
FOLKS who care about knowledge have charisma and want others to see the tools and use them. Find one such. Maybe he'll work for the price of a fried chicken dinner. I know I WOULD!!!!!!
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