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Flog of the Prokonsul

Internet fluency, digital governance and Wikipedia propaganda. You have been warned.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

On digital fluency: how some things stay the same

Inspired by a few comments today, I looked back through some of my old blogs for a digital fluency tidbit that is just as relevant now as it was two years ago. Yes, the web evolves quickly, but some tricks for making your life online easier haven't changed. So, if you have a few minutes, check out how to easily manage your files. A few times recently I was forced to use Windows Explorer and I was so annoyed at its inefficiency, that I added Total Commander to my pendrive. TE is to WE what Firefox is to Internet Exploder. One I calculated I save 12h a year by using Fire; I probably save more using TE. And people ask me why I have so much time... :)

Consider using SeaMonkey instead of Firefox if you don't use other dedicated email software. Another fluency tidbit is that html email service (i.e. accessing your email via browser) is very bad compared to software solutions. I find it hard to imagine how people can live without years of their emails (I have access to 99% of my emails since 1997, searchable), without autosort assigning my incoming mail into one of several folders (friends, family, work, etc.), or without good junk mail filter (although I think I need to look for some better solution, SeaMonkey build-in one still lets some through, to be honest).

Seriously: knowing the good software and teaching others about it is certainly part of lessening the digital divide. If one is teaching people to use inefficient software like IE or WE, one is doing them almost a disservice. Many of those folks will have little time or will to search for better softs themselves, and we owe it to them to teach them what is best.

1 Comments:

At 1:38 PM, Blogger jceja said...

Interesting tid bits I will take into account. Has your computer ever crashed? Are your files backed up on an external drive? I assume they are.

 

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