You’ve heard all about how much easier computers have made the lives of your friends and family. You’ve heard about Spam, the internet, and you know that tweeting doesn’t have a thing to do with birds conversing outside in your back yard. You’ve heard all the daunting words like giga bytes, mega bytes, terra bytes, Jaws and Window Eyes, Spam,Facebook, Send Space, and Twitter too. Friends speak glowingly of doing internet research and listening to internet radio around the world, but with all that looms before you as a new computer user, is there too much to learn? Just recently, you heard two people talking while in a local restaurant about the importance of anti-virus protection. As you listened to them walk down the memory lane of computer experiences, you heard one mention something about a computer performing an illegal function? What will you do if you get a computer and that happens to you? Will the police show up at your door? Who needs an experience like that?? How much should you spend if you do decide to take the plunge? What determines the cost? What programs are essential? Is it possible to add programs over time? Who will teach you to use this scary new technology? It seems everyone knows so much more? Are there questions you don’t even know you should ask and what are they? Is there a time when you are too old to learn to use a computer?

You’ve had your computer for 8 years and know it won’t be long until you will have to consign yours to wherever it is old computers go. The thought of buying a new one fills you with apprehension and dread. What will it be like to use windows 7? Xp and older versions of Windows are so familiar and easy to use? What are all those ribbons in Windows 7? How much memory should you get this time? Are there programs or concerns you should have you can’t even name? What is the current cost of all those programs and the computer itself? Should you have one sound card or two? Are there new uses for computers of which you’ve never heard? Is there a way to protect your computer from being outdated? When buying, are there future changes in computers that will affect what you choose now?
On the next Classroom Of The Air, Rick Harmon will unravel the scary process of determining what we need to know when buying a computer. Whether you are getting one for the first time, buying a new one and have had several before or are just thinking about the possibility, the computer world is a fascinating and fast-changing arena with new choices available constantly. A computer opens your world and life to new experiences and people, but it is expensive and daunting to new and old computer users alike. Join Rick as he tells us what we need to know on this great adventure.

Group Discussion Leaders
Ruth Ann Acosta,
Email: ruth1244@gmail.com
Sherry Wells
E-mail: sdwells@us.ibm.com