The French have struck a blow for women’s rights in the Muslim world, by banning the burqa and niqab in France.  That’s what they say anyway.  My question is, how can you say you’re encouraging women’s right by telling them what they can and can’t wear?  

The burqa, according to wisegeek.com is: is a piece of clothing that covers a woman from head to foot. There is an opening for the eyes, but the rest of the body, except the hands, are covered. The burqa is usually made of light clothing, and is essentially outerwear for some Muslim women in some regions. It is worn when women leave their homes, over their indoor clothes. It's not worn indoors in the presence of family.  The niqab on the other hand:  is a combination of head covering and scarf, or a one piece scarf that covers everything but the eyes. It usually flows down to midback to cover a woman’s hair, and may flow down to midchest in the front. The niqab can be worn with the burqa, or with other clothing as part of modest dress for Muslim women.  I’ve seen women wearing burqas and niqabs.  They are hard to miss even in a predominantly Arab Muslim country.  While burqas are an easy target for the French, I call bullshit on their reasoning for banning the burqa.  

Yes, the burqa is a symbol of women’s oppression in Afghanistan.  It is also becoming a symbol for Muslim women against what they’re seeing as the West’s attack on Islam.  They’re choosing to wear the niqab or the burqa not because of a, perhaps extreme, interpretation of the Qur’an, but instead because they’re being told what they can and can’t wear.  How is that any different than those supposedly abusive husbands?

Comment (11) Read More...

"Mac is for pussies that want their computers to just plug in and work.
Windows is for people that want to curse out their computers on a regular basis.
Linux is for people that want to make their computers their lifemates."  ~Unknown tech support

Way back when I was just a lowly undergrad learning about 1's and 0's, I remember reading a tech article about how everybody would be a programmer by 2010.  They would have to, technology was getting more and more complex and the end user would have to keep up or be left behind.  It put a little quail of fear deep in my stomach.  Was my chosen field about to become obsolete?   Did I once again manage to find something uber cool right on the tail-end of it's ride?  Actually I had, but it wasn't the end I was expecting.  I graduated from the University of Minnesota with a newly minted Bachelor of Science in Business in Management of Information Systems in June of 2001.  Yes, that's right, a year after the dot com bust.  In the intervening years I've avidly watched for the dreaded obsolescence.  Thankfully, I work for the Federal Government where obsolescence is unheard of.  Still, I look around wondering where all the regular user programmers are and what happened to them.  My answer?  Apple killed them dead.

Now before all you Apple fangirls start sharpening your pitchforks, here me out.  Apple makes a beautiful product.  It's simple, it's easy, it just works.  There is very little worry about virii, malware, all of the things that Windows users have to worry about and Linux users send to the Windows users to get them to switch.  It's a great product for those that can't be hassled to learn about the piece of technology that is slowly encroaching on every aspect their life.  The problem with that, is there is a larger and larger population that suddenly can't even figure out how to install a piece of software if it doesn't come from an app store.

Comment (4) Read More...

It's almost November and between the fun and excitement in the US over Halloween, people are quietly scribbling down notes and whispering furtively to each other.  Why?  Because it's almost time for NaNoWriMo!

So what's the deal?  Why is it so popular?  Why would anyone in their right mind even contemplate such a thing?  Well, I'm not sure you can be in your right mind to do NaNo, but you should be in your write mind.  Get it?  Yeah ok, I'll lay off the jokes.  The point is that novel writing is one of those things you thought only Stephen King or Ursela LeGuin could do.  Or maybe you keep thinking "well, when the kids are out of school.  Or when I retire."  The problem with both those thoughts?  You're not writing!  You're making excuses for why you're not writing.

Comment (6)

Remember The Invisible Boy from the movie Mystery Men?  You know, the kid that was only invisible when no one was looking at him?  Yeah, that's not so much a new and exciting superpower, women who love sci-fi have long known that power and we keep trying to get rid of it! 

On the off chance you missed a certain article that has been making the rounds of the blogosphere, women are destroying science fiction.  Women and our girl cooties are forcing the manly men who love science fiction to think about their feeeeeeeelings.  And relaaationships and oh my god the fact manly men doing manly things doesn't always help.  Oh noes!  I mean my god, man the fact that boys might actually like other boys is preposterous and obviously the work of those evil manipulative women that are banging on the door of our guys only club!  The horror!  The madness!  It's the death of science fiction as we know it!!  Pretty soon they'll be doing things like calling it SyFy!

Comment (3) Read More...

The show chronicles the lives of Dr. Sheldon Cooper, a verifiable genius with more than a few quirks, and his long suffering roommate Dr. Leonard Hoffstader. 

Comment (7)

Pirate.  Depending on you look it brings up images of Jack Sparrow and Captain Hook or four dorky looking guys in Sweden.  Or maybe bands of murderers in Somalia.  Either way the point is that piracy exists and it's illegal, but is it the end of the world as we know it, like the media conglomerates would have us believe?

The answer is yes and no.  Certainly the large pirate systems like in Russia and China aren't helping and they should be the real targets of the MPAA and the RIAA.  Unfortunately, due to the obvious fact that those operations are in Russia and China and not in the US where the RIAA and MPAA have bought off enough politicians can force them to shut down, the piracy continues.  It's definitely hurting their bottom line and anything that hurts the bottom line of the mega media conglomerates usually ends up being bad for us geeks.

But wait, didn't I say yes and no? 

I did, and it's the no that I really want to talk about.  Here's the thing, what most companies want is viral marketing.  The whole word of mouth phenomenon that made My Big Fat Greek Wedding and The Sixth Sense such a run away hits at the box office.  They want everyone and their sister talking about movies, music and all the things, that lets face it, we'd be talking about anyway.  This usually isn't a problem for mainstream shows.  Shows like Grey's Anatomy and Law and Order already have a good fanbase and people talk about them all the time.  Hell, the industry talks about them all the time.  Someone in Grey's sneezed, we totally have to talk about it.  That's a great thing, since that means that those shows get advertisers and time and bigger budgets and better writers and well, you see where I'm going with this, even if you happen to hate the show. 

Where this is a problem are what the networks and the industry call "genre shows."  Those a the ones like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Files, and Firefly.  They're the quirky shows that are awesome but probably are not going to generate mainstream appeal.  Unfortunately for us geeks, that's most of the shows we watch.  This is a problem as networks that create the shows, not to be confused with the networks that air them as they're two totally different entities, are leery of genre shows in an already iffy market.  If a show has been "green lighted" so to speak it might only get twelve episodes to prove itself worthy.  That can be difficult when the creator doesn't know if they'll be getting another season or hell even another four or five episodes to create.  So how do you generate a buzz when you have a production company that's leery, a television network that's leery, but the creator thinks this is the next greatest thing since sliced bread?

That's where the piracy comes into play.  Back when Dr. Who and Battlestar Galatica were resurrected and brought back to the small screen, it was only being shown in England.  This is because of marketing and rights and all that.  Fans of the show in England were raving about them, about how awesome and cool they were and like all good fangirls, the fangirls in the US and else where in the world said "gimme!"  The English fangirls did just that, bless their fangirl hearts, using technology like bittorrent, sendspace and plain old DVD creation.  They send over the product so the fangirls overseas could salivate. 

 And what happened when those shows finally did air in the US?  They had the highest ratings of any show on the Sci-Fi channel ever.  They were huge hits because the fangirls knew what the product was, but instead of watching in on their computer screens this time they could watch it on their huge (or not so huge -- that entirely seems to depend on if there's a man present in a house) television screens.  They wanted to support the show that they already loved and so watched and made sure the ratings were good.  Dr. Who and Battlestar Galatica are only the start of this phenomenon.  Torchwood had similar results as well.  Going the other direction, Supernatural has had some stellar ratings when it's finally aired overseas because of US fangirls sharing out the content.

All of this is great, but there is a definite danger to downloading content off the Internet.  The production companies right now don't seem to be correlating the data between downloads and ratings.  Or if they are, they're not saying anything.  Why?  Mostly because of how trademark and copyright is in the US.  They have to fight to protect their copyright and trademark or lose them.  That would be bad on many different levels, no matter what the average fangirl thinks.  So of course, they're going to go after piracy.  Also, don't forget there are very very large operations outside the US, where copyright laws are vastly different and it's much more of a gray area.  By going after the users, they're hoping to stop the producers.  Which is all well and good but not helpful.

Still, things are looking up.  There's been a rash of legal sites going up over the last few years that give access to shows and extra content.  Right now most of them seem to be country specific, meaning that the CW doesn't allow you to come into their site without an US based IP address.  This also pertains to Amazon.com and iTunes.  Both of those companies, while they allow you to download your fix, won't allowed you to do so if you're overseas.  Which, coming from someone that's a US citizen that usually works overseas, sucks big donkey balls.  The reason is pretty basic.  Overseas downloads don't count toward ratings and it's ratings that advertisers like to see.  More advertisers, more money from the network that's airing it, which means more money for the production company that's producing it.  Since advertisers are usually different overseas, the US advertisers don't really care how popular Chuck is in Spain.

Chin up though, this is a step up from where we were just four years ago.  With the economy spinning, we might just see more innovation as the major production companies and networks struggle to keep their businesses alive.  Here's hoping to the day that everyone can get the show they want, when they want it, regardless of the country.

Comment (4)

That might be harsh, but the events going on up in Bozeman, Montana lead me to think that the shirt isn't that far off.  For anyone that hasn't heard, Bozeman, Montana decided they were going to hire only those people with the highest moral fiber.  This is important to remember, highest moral fiber.  But how can you possibly know if someone has high moral fiber?  Do you ask them how much fiber is in their diet?  Do you call references on their resumes?  How do you really know, in this day and age, if someone is truly a moral person or not?  Their answer?  Ask all applicants that had received job offers conditional on a successful background check for the username and password of all, and I quote, "current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."1

Here's the problem, I don't buy it.  Demanding people give up their passwords is bullying plain and simple.  I would feel outraged about the idiots that gave up their username and passwords, but then again most people will give up their passwords for chocolate.2  It's a hard economy, and government jobs are usually a safe bet.  Bozeman bullied people into giving them info they had no business knowing or having and that isn't the work of someone with the highest moral fiber.

It's none of their business what you say on the Internet.  It's no different than bitching to your girlfriends or boyfriends about your job.  Yes, you can't tell confidential information, but here's the thing, if you're out in the open?  They don't need your passwords.  They wanted the back end, the part you don't put out to the public.  They weren't saying what they were looking for, but it obviously wasn't good. 

For the record, you should never, never, never, give out your passwords to anyone.  System Administrators or your IT department shouldn't need your account to do any maintenance on the system, a banking system should never need to you reconfirm your information (if they do, dump them as they have no system security or backup policy).  Ideally, you should change all your passwords online every six months at a minimum and not use one or two passwords for everything.  Practically speaking, have one password group that you don't use anywhere else for anything to do with your money and another group you use for facebook, myspace, geekachicas, etc.  Change those as often as you can remember, at the very least once a year.  You should always change them if you think someone's managed to get it.  The faster the better and yes, it's a pain but better that than having your information or really embarrassing pictures out on the Internet for all to see.

If you're not harboring state secrets, you can write passwords down on a spreadsheet and lock that down to just you, or print it out and keep it in a lock box.  Best yet, pick something you'll remember but is hard for others to guess.  What does that mean?  Don't use words in the dictionary.  If your online site allows special characters, use them.  Pick a sentence, take out the spaces and exchange some of the letters for numbers.  ex: 1h@vetEnf15h$ (I have 10 fishs).  Starting a password with a number or a special character makes it a helluva lot harder to guess or password cracker programs to figure it out. 

Comment (10)

How often has this happened to you?  You've decided you're buying something new.  You've been good, you deserve a little treat.  So you go down to the Best Buy (I totally only pick on them because they're the only ones left) and you're just overwhelmed.  There are all sorts of cameras.  Cameras that can do optical zoom and flashes and digital and what the heck is that megapixel thing for except that everyone says more is better?  You're confused and frustrated because dammit, you're an intelligent woman!  This really shouldn't be that hard!  Just as you're getting dizzy from all the choices, the salesperson swoops in. 

Ah, yes, you think.  He can totally help me find the perfect camera.  He shows you a lot of stuff and lists off things that you're pretty sure should be on the space shuttle not a little point and shoot camera that you can fit in your purse.  By the end of it, you have a camera that you're pretty sure fits absolutely none of your requirements, costs about double your price range but you were assured was absolutely essential.  Don't be embarrassed, it's happened to all of us.  All of us smart, shopping savvy women have been hoodwinked at least once in our lives.  None of us are really sure how it happens, but it does.  And usually?  It always seems to happen when it comes to tech.

How do you do that?  First is deciding what you need your tech to do.  Now, this doesn't mean you shouldn't buy tech you don't need.  Oh no, not at all.  I'm just saying that even something you want, needs to do things for you.  So instead of letting the device dictate how you use it, decide how you, the smart woman, want to use the device.  Let's take an example here.  Digital Audio Players.  You want a new one.  Now, what do you, yourself, need it to do?  Do you need it to be able to play iTunes songs?  Do you need it to work with Linux?  Do you have a bunch of songs from Walmart that you need to play?  Do you need to be able to put videos on it?  How much do you want to spend?  Does it need to be a certain color?  Yes, I'm being serious about the color because we are women, and we do like a certain sense of style and won't use it if it's ugly.  So finding something that does all your requirements but is butt ugly means that it doesn't fit all your requirements. 

The other thing is to ask questions.  Look up words and terms you don't understand.  Don't be afraid to say "ok, now seriously what exactly is a Megabyte and why do I care about it?"  My favorite friend is Google, but when you're looking at certain ubiquitous terms it can be annoying.  This site, geek.com, is like a geek dictionary.  The best part is that it's searchable.  So you can look up that term you don't understand and get an answer that's in English.  If you have a geek you can ask, go ahead and ask those terms.  Keep asking until you do understand.  I'm constantly asking my sister for clarification on fashion things because it's all over my head.  Geek shirts and jeans are my typical wardrobe.

Comment (0)

Just as there's three different types of ice cream there are three major types of Operating Systems. First there's soft serve. At some point in your life, you've had it. Every place under the sun has it and it shows up every where. Even here in Libya. It's what everyone knows, so it's the default if you're not sure what to get. Usually you don't get a lot of choice on flavors, but there's vanilla and chocolate and almost everyone can decide on one of those two. Soft serve? Is Windows. It's the comfy familiar.

Then you have frozen yogurt. It's trendy, it's cool. It's what you get when you're trying to lose weight or just be environmentally friendly. It's the hip and cool thing. Might have flavors, might not and you can't always find it everywhere. Which is part of the fun right? It's a bit more expensive but you're always happy with the product. That my friends? Is Mac. More expensive but worth the money and hey, it's the in thing right now.

Finally we come to frozen custard. No one's heard of it or if you have, you have no idea what it is. Is it even ice cream? The name itself brings confusion sounds like something those weirdos up in Wisconsin would like. Something you have to have grown up with to understand. An in joke, possibly. Not something normal people could try. You can't find it everywhere, and yet it pops up in the strangest places. It comes in so many different flavors when you do find it, you're just flummoxed and flabbergasted at what to choose so you end up going back to what you know, soft serve or frozen yogurt. Here's the rub, the part that no one tells you. Once you've had frozen custard? You never want to go back. It's just that damn good. And that my friends, is Linux.

So what is Linux? Linux is an operating system, much like Windows and Mac. It's built to run on most PCs. The main difference between Windows and Linux is that it's free. Legally free for home users and not only is the operating system free but over 40,000 different applications that you could use are also free. There's also one other main difference. It's open source.

Comment (4) Read More...

Due to a very sad set of circumstances, I've gone through not one, but three digital audio players in the last two years. Two were Creative and one was an Apple. The latest, when my Creative Zen ran away from home on the night of the Inauguration, gave me the opportunity to buy what I had been drooling and wanting for over a year. An iTouch.

First, I will say that unless you are willing to jailbreak your iTouch, if you have Linux this is not the device for you.

Due to the new encrypted database that the iTouch uses, it's now incompatible with Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox and all those other iTunes like programs out there for Linux. This gave me serious cause for reservation, as up until now I had been happily Windows-free, and loving it, for over 3 years. There was that blip where I got my new HP and was forced due to the less than optimal Libyan, we-will-cut-you-off-if-you-even-think-about-going over-your-allowed-bandwidth, Internet service to use Vista until some sweet soul could send me the newest Ubuntu install, but I don't like to talk about that. However, as my good friend Kim mentioned, I use a virtual machine for my banking as it was, so there should be no problem putting the iTunes on that. Yeah...that was a good thought anyway and got me over my reservations on not being able to use it at all.

After two weeks of having to listen to either staticy Arabic music on the radio or the one lone CD I had in my car, I received my iTouch. Oh it was just as glorious as I remember my brother's being. It was shiny and pretty and I couldn't wait to just look at all the games on it. Only to find, that in order to even turn it on, I had to plug it into iTunes. So I trudged through the rest of my day, staring at the clock and demanding that it hurry up and make it to five only to remember it was Sunday. Pilates class. D'oh, but then I discovered that Apple was joining with all the other manufacturers that apparently couldn't afford the 5 cents it cost to burn a CD. I was going to have to download iTunes, a 200M file on my less than optimal Libyan internet.

Once I managed to install iTunes, after accidentally downloading the 64 bit version and having to start over, I managed to get the iTouch running. I started loading music on it. I set up my mail to sync with the iTouch and my calendar and contacts to sync with Google calendar and contacts instead of the default Outlook.

Then I discovered the app store.

Oh yes, this is where my life took a startling change for the better. Now, don't get me wrong Libya is in the dark ages when it comes to wireless hotspots and whatnot. But, it was the possibility that intrigued me! The thought that maybe, just maybe, this slick pretty little device could finally be the all in one I had been dreaming of since I got my first PDA all those years ago.

I browsed; I talked; I listened. Now I'm from the dark ages of the internet, when freeware was really free and didn't have any sort of virii or spyware attached. Since that was my first introduction to software download, I have a big problem paying for tiny apps that I haven't had a chance to try out. Low and behold, apparently a lot app programs feel the same way. There are loads and loads of "lite" versions for most of the programs. They'll give you some of the functionality, or all the functionality but are ad-based.

Programs that I currently have installed almost all utilized the built in wifi in the iTouch. I installed the Facebook and Myspace programs that give me access to what's going on with those pages. Myspace, and my resistance and confusion by it, is a blog for another day. I installed the free version of Twitterific, a twitter client that allows me to send tweets anywhere I have wifi access.

I've also managed to find an ebook reader, ereader pro, that allows me to download books from fictionwise.com, ereader.com, and manybooks.net. Manybooks.net is a great substitute to Google Books, especially since a lot of their public domain books have all disappeared since their recent settlement with the Authors. eReader Pro downloads the books right to your device so you don't have to be dependent on Internet access, which is a must for me. Now if I could manage to figure out how to load my own content on the thing it'd be perfect.

Of course, all of that is good to go, but to be the go-to device in my own personal arsenal of tech it had to have one more thing. GAMES. Boy, howdy does it have games. There's just about every game you could think of to play on this thing. My favorites right now are Texas Hold'em and CroMag Rally. CroMag is fantastic but I have yet to figure out the pause button. Which makes it not the best for using whlie waiting for my officers to finish their paperwork so I can close the office up at night, as my officers tend to have questions and not understand that I've just got 2 more laps and then I can unlock a new level!

The best part of all, is that Apple has designed all of this without compromising the basic function of the device. Music! When you start music going it will continue to play in the background as you browse through your other apps. Double click the single button on the device and it will bring up the music menu no matter what you're also doing with the iTouch. So very cool and a great step up from PDAs that will stop if you close the program to go do something else.

There are a few things I'm quite annoyed with. The first being that they're no longer bundling the CD with the iTouch. Granted, their software updates on a regular basis and you don't want to be stuck with an old management system, but not everyone has high speed internet. There are still a bunch of people that have dial up and the 200 plus megabyte file is large enough that would it could take hours if not days to download. It really would be good they bundled the software, even if it was out of date, with the iTouch.

Another thing that peeved me was the fact that apparently all my fancy docks, I had an iPod before that died a horrible death in December of 2007, no longer charge the new iPods. This is simply total crap, in my not so humble opinion. It's not like the iTouch has a radically different plug. In fact, it looks like the same plug it always has been, just slightly smaller in width. I'm not about to spend hundreds of dollars on new speakers when I have perfectly good speakers that simply no longer charge my iTouch. For this Apple gets a big ol'Fail from me. The fact that the iTouch has to continually tell me that it won't charge on this device, like I didn't see that the first time, is also quite irritating. There doesn't seem to be a way to turn off those notifications and in fact they build up, like reminders on Outlook, that every time it turns on it felt the need to tell you that it can't charge on this device. Once would have been more than enough, kthxbye.

In conclusion, I still love my iTouch. It's a great little gadget even in the Great Jam where Internet is pretty much limited to houses. I can't wait to get back to the land of Internet Everywhere and see exactly what I can do with this little thing. Until then, I'll just be over here, jamming to my tunes.

Comment (0)

I'm a software geek. My bachelor's degree is in information systems and I'm currently working as a system administrator for the US Embassies around the world. I play with a lot of different computer systems. I like it. It's a hobby and it's fun. I poke and prod at it, see what makes it tick and why won't my iTunes play on Linux? You know what I found? I've found that the more you play, the more willing you are to be ruthless and fearless, the more control you have over your computer. The mystique and awe-inspiring terror simply starts melting away until you glance at the computer and go, "Well, d'uh, that would be why it wouldn't work."

Because here's the thing. Those Geek Squad guys? They want you to live in fear. They want you to think this box you've purchased is so mythical and magical that you can't touch it without a Ph.D in engineering. They want you to think that because then you'll go to them to install your wicked awesome WOW expansion pack instead of just doing it yourself. This is their bread and butter, so yeah, they want all of you intelligent women out there to quiver in fear before the magical box. Well, screw them! Let me tell you, I make it a point to stump those Geek Squad guys whenever I see them, so I can tell you a little secret:

They aren't any smarter than us. They're just less afraid of the box.

There are some basic things you want to remember before you start on your new path of a fearless computer geek girl. The first and most important thing to remember is to back up. Anything that's worth value to you, which could be anything from your bank statements to every episode to Star Trek:TGN, should be in more than one place. External harddrives are getting cheaper and cheaper these days and CDs and DVDs are getting to be pennies per disk. At the very least a monthly backup is totally worth it. Even if you don't start playing around with programs, there are virii, malware, all sorts of evil doers that will take advantage and make you reload. Not to mention that it's Microsoft's position that you should reload Windows XP every six months. Yeah, that's a rant for another time.

There are a lot of backup programs out there; Mac and Windows even comes with their own backup software installed into the OS. If you run Windows XP here's a great easy to use tutorial on how to use NTBackup here. Mac also comes with it's own backup service in OSX 10.05 and there's a good tutorial here If you want that external drive just for backup purposes Maxtor makes a one touch drive that will do all the work for you. But, if you want it to do all the work for you, then this really isn't the article for you.

So, now that we've backed up, the second step is to make sure you have a copy of all your essential programs. Nowadays most computers you buy off the shelf come with a CD that has an image of your computer from just before you bought it. Which, really won't help you as you've added WoW and Second Life and that really awesome cooking CD that has recipes from around the world. So drag out that image CD and make sure you have the CDs from all the programs you've installed. If you've downloaded them from the internet, well, make sure you add that folder to your backups or even better burn a CD of all those little programs. That way? You've got them all at your finger tips.

All right, we locked and loaded and are ready for battle! We've done our backups and we know where all our programs are. Do you know what time it is now? It's time to banish that fear. That's right, you heard me. Banish it forever. How do you do that you say? Well, for example, start playing. Computer not saving your document? Try the save as command. That email's just not sending, try cutting the size of it or check on your internet settings. Got a new fancy wireless router? Take a look at the directions, try it out! See if you can't get it up and running by yourself and remember, don't panic if things go wrong. Just ask yourself:

What's the worst that could happen?

Hardware is rarely affected by software. Yes, the software tells the hardware what to do. Yes, there are some horrendously bad virii out there that can and will destroy a system, but just reloading the operating system? Usually doesn't do a darn thing, and in fact, a lot of times will fix any sort of fiddly problems that you might be having with your hardware. Video game not responding like it used to? Try uninstalling it, reboot the computer and then reinstall it. Give it a clean fresh start and see what happens. Really pissed that you can't get that stupid cooking software to run without a bunch of piddly steps that totally aren't in the user's guide? Play around, don't be scare of pushing buttons. Just like you have to suffer to be beautiful and break a few eggs to make an omelette, sometimes you have to be willing to break things in order to understand and fix them.

Need a concrete example of someone learning to break things? A woman that's not a geek, but has managed to banish that fear? Let's talk about my mom. She's just your typical average user. Uses her machine for photos, finances and catching those episodes of Grey's and Lost that she missed. Yes, she's lived in a house full of geeks for most of her life but she, herself, would not be classified as a geek. But you know what? She's lost her fear of that magical box.

My mother installs her own programs, deletes her programs, updates her virus software and makes sure she backs up on a regular basis. Heck my mother has even installed her own RAM.

Why does she do this? Well, mainly because I'm usually at least one continent away from her and she doesn't want to wait until I might be home to play sudoku or spider solitare. She's done it out of necessity and because she knows that those Geek Squad guys are not the computer gods they would have you believe. Because she's seen how easy it can be to fix things on your own and the power that comes with it. She's broken that mystique and in doing so has gained her independence. Learning to install programs was the first step. She's now starting to research her computer, see what she needs and wants from it instead of simply allowing the sales clerks tell her what she needs.

So go ahead, play around, break it! Just remember, don't be afraid to fix it.

Comment (6)