heisel.org

Explore the digital world in the real world

Friday | September 28, 2001 | 8:55 pm  

Edi­tors note: This is one of sev­eral columns that I wrote for the Colum­bia Mis­sourian. They were orig­i­nally called Your Dig­i­tal World

Let me take my first week with you to explain why this column is called “Your Dig­i­tal World.” It’s because I hope to cover every­thing about this dis­tinct realm that we all exist in and inter­act with.

I hope this will not just be a ques­tion and answer forum, though we will do that, but a guide to your entire dig­i­tal world.

In the “real” world we work, we get sick, we have fun, we meet new people, we learn, we fall in love.

Every­thing you can do in the “real” world you can also do in your dig­i­tal world. Here’s how I hope to help you explore and under­stand that alter­nate uni­verse com­posed of ones and zeros:

Work: I want to show you how to use dig­i­tal devices such as com­put­ers and Per­sonal Dig­i­tal Assis­tants, (i.e. Palm Pilots and Pocket PCs), to get your work done effi­ciently and with the least amount of hassle.

Health: This is the bread and butter of most tech­nol­ogy columns, and it’s some­thing I don’t want to over­look. How can I help you make your dig­i­tal world better? Are you having prob­lems with your oper­at­ing system, do you want to know how to orga­nize your data better, how to avoid viruses? I really want to hear your ques­tions about every­thing dig­i­tal. I’m here to help.

Fun: The dig­i­tal world is not just for cor­po­rate pencil push­ers and Excel-​users. I hope to show you how to have fun. This means let­ting you know about Web sites, games and devices that let you have fun in the dig­i­tal world.

Edu­ca­tion: I know some of you don’t have much expe­ri­ence with com­put­ers, that’s great. I hope that I can use some of this space each week to pro­vide you with infor­ma­tion about how com­put­ers and other dig­i­tal devices work. I want to help com­puter novices become begin­ners, and begin­ners become inter­me­di­ates, and so on.

Com­mu­nity: Just like the real world, our dig­i­tal world has com­mu­ni­ties. I’m hoping to create one with this column. I’ve cre­ated a Yahoo group for read­ers of this column. A group lets you send an e-mail to a single address and have it dis­trib­uted to every­one on a list, (you can also choose to read the mes­sages on a Web site, so you don’t flood your e-mail inbox). I’m hoping you, the read­ers, will use this as a forum to dis­cuss every­thing I talk about in the column, and more.

For now, you can e-mail yourdigiworld-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to join our com­mu­nity or you can also visit the fledg­ing Web page I’ve cre­ated for this column at www.​heisel.​org/​y​o​u​r​d​i​g​i​world. Right now it has infor­ma­tion about me, and a box where you can type in your e-mail address to join the group. (I hope to use input you give me to make the site pro­vide the infor­ma­tion you want.)

Now that I’ve told you what I hope to do here each week, tell me what you want me to do. Send me an e-mail to join our group. Let’s start explor­ing your dig­i­tal world.

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