From Bay Area to Bangalore - Month 1

Pre-Move
Leaving the place I lived in for 12 years, almost a third of my life and almost the whole of my adult life. Mixed feelings, resentment for having to leave a well settled life, my dearest friends, the work which I never felt was 'work':at the same time hope for something new ,something different, a break from the monotony probably. Scurry of good bye parties from beloved ones doesn't make it any easier to say exactly that.

Post-move:
Landed in Blore. The way the parted brothers greeted each other was priceless. Usual vacation like welcome and environment.A week or 2 go by that way.

Work:
Then comes first day of work. There is a beautiful campus with a clubhouse and other facilities and then there is an ugly building opposite to it where the spill over employees are housed till the 2 new buildings are constructed sometime mid year. No brownie points for guessing which building I get to sit in. I get a very high traffic open cubicle, but on the other side is the full view of outside. I get to keep an eye on the driver from the third floor. He doesn't know it. I am the only member of my team here. All processes are similar to Cisco SJ except for one major difference. When some one says something takes 2 hours , they actually mean 2 days. Hmm few more days go by and I realize that's true everywhere, not only at work. Now only if someone can make my manager understand the IST jargon..specially since I am on Indian payroll it should make all the sense *wink* *wink*.

Observations on life in general:
I feel life is in full color here with a lot of dimensions to it. The roads, the functions(in lieu of parties), shopping scene, the movie experience, everything is so alive. Every day is new and comes with different surprises, some time shocks but it still new :). Currently put up at in-laws, quite far from work. Commute each way takes couple of hours. I leave around 8:00 Am and am back around the same time PM. Sometimes I miss that monotony back 'home'. I miss being able to getup and grudgingly doing my treadmill. I miss making my own tea. I miss having my oatmeal with dry fruits while I browse through my mails. On the other hand, I love the filter coffee being handed to me as soon as get up in the morning. I love the fact that I don't HAVE to drive, and better still I don't ever have to listen KLOK 1170AM again. The radio scene is so awesome boss, what can I say, too many choices.

There are innumerable shopping choices. Getting to each choice takes a good chunk of time and dependence on someone(mostly driver). Sometimes I have to depend more on the driver than I depend on Hubby. Everything looks awesome when you buy it. It may or may not stay that way depending on your luck. How much you pay or where you shopped has no relevance.

Saved the best for the last , the food.THE food. THE FOOD. YUMMY! Everything is Yummy, food at home,food in functions, food in multicuisine hotels, food in international hotels, food on the street side, food in low end veg darshinis, all food is mind numbingly delicious with one exception, my cafeteria food. People really have to work hard to come up with that kind of tastelessness. I have started locking up my lunch along with my other precious belongings after eating only once at my cafeteria.

Lack of privacy is an issue. Maybe it is just the environment I am in. Generally life so far here has been a mix of some good days and some bad days, which is the case with life anyways. Looking forward for better days ahead like always.

More later..

Lesson 1: How to use the mouse and get past the lock

The mouse connects to a USB port on the side if it is a wired mouse. Sometimes a mouse can also be wireless. If you have a laptop the rectangle pad like area with 2 equal sized buttons on the bottom also serves as the mouse. Let us start learning with the regular 2 button wired USB mouse.

The demo graphics of mouse: Left button , right button.

First be comfortable with the mouse. It is a mouse not a bomb. Hold it and move around the screen till comfortable. Now take up a particular task like say move the mouse in precision around a large image.

Once comfortable , learn how to use the left mouse button. This is the most important click action to learn if you have to use the mouse effectively. Move the mouse to places where the cursor changes and try clicking on it to see what happens. Ok! First know what a cursor is . The small image that moves around when you move the mouse is a cursor.

There are 2 buttons on a mouse ,one on left and the other on right. The left button is the most heavily used button. Most of the select and open actions are done using this button .

Mouse single click and double click concept: The mouse button can be clicked just once or can be clicked twice in rapid motion. If you take a pregnant pause between 2 clicks they qualify as 2 single clicks and not a double click. Single click usually selects an item while double click opens it.

Mouse right click. The button on the right is used to do some secondary tasks .We will go to the details in a later class.

About computer security and unlocking the computer: You must have seen a box with some mumbo-jumbo in the center of the screen . When someone types a password into the screen it suddenly takes you into a screen that you want to see in the first place. That is called locking a computer. You lock a computer to avoid others from looking into all that private information you have put into it. A password is special secret word (can be a combination of letters and numbers and more) you type in to let you into the computer. Do not share the password with anyone who is not allowed to look into your computer.

Typing password, removing caps lock, getting in through enter or mouse click:

Type the password wherever it says password. If there is no word password anywhere but just a box with a button near it , type your password into it and press the button. Now you can use your newly learnt mouse moving and clicking skill to click the button after typing the password , or you can press the button in the keyboard with the word “Enter” on it. Both of these actions take you into the computer.

Tip of the day: Don’t click while you move and don’t move while you click.

Assignment:

1>Unlock the computer with your password.

2>Move the mouse to one of the icons(images with some text on the bottom) on the desktop screen.

3>Double-click to open it.

4> Whatever opens press the X button on the top right corner to close it.

5>Repeat steps 1-4 till you are not afraid of the mouse and it’s workings anymore.

Computer Lessons for the senior citizens.

We have an old adage from where I come. It goes " if you couldn't bend the seedling, bending the tree is out of question". This adage manifested itself in front of me more than once as I was trying to teach my double-graduate soft skills challenged mom the basic use of computers. The mistake we do is we 'assume' they have to know some basic stuff. It blows yours mind at the way they struggle with some things which are allegedly simple like say keyboard and mouse use.

I am starting this blog as an ongoing journal of the small baby steps to take to achieve complete computer literacy for the generation that missed out on the wonderful world of computers and internet.

Pre-requirements are:

1>The course assumes you right-handed. My mom is, so ..
2>Ability to read and understand instructions in English.
3> Ofcourse access to a computer with an external mouse.