Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

Abstract

? I forgot already. I’ll just buy a second monitor.</p><p id="7162">When I finally get to Google Drive and find all the stuff shared with me, I still have to first figure out how to download a link, then add it to the story I’m writing, then publish the story, only to find that the link isn’t clickable.</p><p id="869e"><b>Even though its name is “Clickable Link.” Liar, liar pants on fire.</b></p><p id="9a29">While I’m busy scrambling and wandering through a desert of code, Sara announces she’s created something for us on Doodle Poll.</p><p id="a7d5">I wonder aloud if she has genetically engineered another species of Doodle dog, and how that affects us.</p><p id="4a8c">When she says it’s a poll site where you create polls, I again wonder aloud, loudly, why we can’t just use Slack Polly, which is NOT a parrot just like Doodle isn’t a dog, and which I only recently learned to access and use.</p><p id="c13e">The only issue with Slack Polly, is that in order to get to Slack I can’t simply click on the App on my Mac. Oh no. That would be too simple. It’s there, but somehow I’ve disabled it, or forgot the password or the secret handshake.</p><p id="4f78"><b><i>All I have to do is</i></b> go to my email, search for messages from Slack, click on one of those, and my Slack channel magically appears on my laptop from out of the ether of gmail glanceables. <i>All I have to do </i>then is click on the Zoom Link. Wait. I’m just looking for Polly. I don’t need Zoom again until next week. When I will have forgotten all of the above.</p><p id="198c">Here’s what’s sad. I’m a person of a certain age and I pride myself on keeping up. I had one of the very first personal Mac computers in 1985, and cut my teeth on it. When I took a job requiring PC use, I taught myself because everyone was too busy to teach me. And because I was doing scheduling for classes that were about to start, I had to learn fast.</p><p id="5ac7">I can find my way around code, but I don’t enjoy it and it takes a really, really long time. Still, I persist.</p><p id="7584">I have never once said, “I don’t know how to do that,” because I know I can learn.</p><p id="38a3">But if you say to me “<i>All you have to do is,</i>” there better be only one website or App and two steps to get to what I need. Three at the most.</p><p id="fd46">Otherwise, <i>all I have to do is</i> shut down the computer, get a glass of wine, and open a book. I’d use my Kindle but I can’t always get to its library.

Options

Sigh.</p><p id="8d5f">Thank you to <a href="undefined">Andrew Rodwin</a> random tech speak, and to <a href="undefined">Betsy Denson</a> and <a href="undefined">Holly J See</a> for editing.</p><p id="03a7">Wouldn’t you rather be laughing?<a href="https://carollennox.medium.com/membership"> Sign up here for Medium.</a> Your membership fee directly supports me and thousands of other writers. You’ll also get full access to every story on Medium. And — if you’re a writer — you can write. Win/win.</p><div id="7c51" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/iphone-wants-me-to-use-ducking-for-the-other-word-ending-in-ucking-785e1d7cf2fe"> <div> <div> <h2>iPhone Wants Me to Use Ducking for the Other Word Ending in Ucking</h2> <div><h3>Doesn’t it know me better than that by now?</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*we39IOn7hthf-2RUHXOKfw.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="d7d8" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/ten-sure-fire-ways-to-get-your-adult-child-to-leave-home-c7620e643166"> <div> <div> <h2>Ten Sure Fire Ways to Get Your Adult Child to Leave Home</h2> <div><h3>Guaranteed. Especially numbers one and ten.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*xlvqW3enAN4GeeEp1QWkAA.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="317c" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/5-sexagenarian-women-at-the-beach-with-six-good-knees-and-nine-good-feet-between-us-until-now-922ef930ace8"> <div> <div> <h2>5 Sexagenarian Women at the Beach With 6 Good Knees and 9 Good Feet Between Us</h2> <div><h3>Until Now</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*tGlMZAkP-FDRMCvNFcA1yQ.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

TECHNOLOGY TICKLES

All You Have to Do Is

Said the computing nerd to the Boomer generation and watched their heads explode

Andrew Rodwin begins, “Technically, all you have to do is, etc. etc. yada yada, ad nauseam, split the atom, create nuclear fusion and fission, and bob’s your uncle.”

See how he started with “technically” as he attempts to walk us through some technical type technology? He’s a very smart and funny guy. Scary smart and funny. Soon he’s cracking us all up with his cute coding-engineer babble.

“So all you have to do,” he continues, as Holly J See and I giggle and then guffaw in the Zoom meeting. Which, by the way, I have to reinvent the wheel to find every Monday that I attend.

Andrew shares his screen and spelunks through the lists and folders.

“All you have to do is go to Google Drive, which I’m sharing with you here, showing every folder I’ve ever created anywhere and anytime, then go to the Bleeding Edge, and click on the Fifth Generation of the Mudditors folder, look through it for the art folder. Oops, it’s not there. Okay, hold up. I swear this is glanceable if you just follow me and my little dog on the ruby rails down the yellow brick road.”

Sara Zadrima takes pity on me and puts in the chat that to find Google Drive “all you have to do is go to drive.google.com and click on “shared with me.” Great. Perfect. As soon as I attempt to do that I lose the Zoomer boomers and a Millennial.

I can hear them but I can’t find my way back to them. Apparently, all I need to do is go to Toby — an App not a person — and I can keep all my tabs in a special secret holding place, sort of like Guantanamo, so that all I have to do to keep track of my Zoomer boomers and the Millennial is— what?? I forgot already. I’ll just buy a second monitor.

When I finally get to Google Drive and find all the stuff shared with me, I still have to first figure out how to download a link, then add it to the story I’m writing, then publish the story, only to find that the link isn’t clickable.

Even though its name is “Clickable Link.” Liar, liar pants on fire.

While I’m busy scrambling and wandering through a desert of code, Sara announces she’s created something for us on Doodle Poll.

I wonder aloud if she has genetically engineered another species of Doodle dog, and how that affects us.

When she says it’s a poll site where you create polls, I again wonder aloud, loudly, why we can’t just use Slack Polly, which is NOT a parrot just like Doodle isn’t a dog, and which I only recently learned to access and use.

The only issue with Slack Polly, is that in order to get to Slack I can’t simply click on the App on my Mac. Oh no. That would be too simple. It’s there, but somehow I’ve disabled it, or forgot the password or the secret handshake.

All I have to do is go to my email, search for messages from Slack, click on one of those, and my Slack channel magically appears on my laptop from out of the ether of gmail glanceables. All I have to do then is click on the Zoom Link. Wait. I’m just looking for Polly. I don’t need Zoom again until next week. When I will have forgotten all of the above.

Here’s what’s sad. I’m a person of a certain age and I pride myself on keeping up. I had one of the very first personal Mac computers in 1985, and cut my teeth on it. When I took a job requiring PC use, I taught myself because everyone was too busy to teach me. And because I was doing scheduling for classes that were about to start, I had to learn fast.

I can find my way around code, but I don’t enjoy it and it takes a really, really long time. Still, I persist.

I have never once said, “I don’t know how to do that,” because I know I can learn.

But if you say to me “All you have to do is,” there better be only one website or App and two steps to get to what I need. Three at the most.

Otherwise, all I have to do is shut down the computer, get a glass of wine, and open a book. I’d use my Kindle but I can’t always get to its library. Sigh.

Thank you to Andrew Rodwin random tech speak, and to Betsy Denson and Holly J See for editing.

Wouldn’t you rather be laughing? Sign up here for Medium. Your membership fee directly supports me and thousands of other writers. You’ll also get full access to every story on Medium. And — if you’re a writer — you can write. Win/win.