Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Which is the Greater Indignity of Aging: Wrinkles, or Falling Behind on Technology?

I swore it would never happen to me, I would never become part of the 'older generation' who couldn't get the hang of that new-fangled technology. I can open up my PC and add or replace boards or memory; I can run (if not understand) computer diagnostic tests and fix my own computer, and I perform regular maintenance on it so as not to fall behind. I certainly don't shy away from new things.

But I began to worry that I was becoming like 'them' when it became necessary for me to begin using Twitter. It wasn't a problem of 'How,' but rather of 'Why.' Part of the problem was that I resisted it but for the good reason that I did not need another distraction, which all of social networking is likely to be for someone like me who gets distracted easily.


It wasn't, however, until this week that I finally met my match. I had prepared a direct mail campaign that was going to be sent out to a small, targeted email list. The gentleman who runs the email company was kind enough to advise me that, instead of sending out a letter, I should design my pitch for maximum visual content, ie, create a web page. OK; I hadn't done that before but I knew that people did it all the time. I could learn. And I quickly found a site called Wix.com which purported to have easy tools for creating web pages. Great. It wasn't exactly 'easy,' but I finally accomplished it. Only to learn that all I could do with the page was upload it for hosting by Wix. No way to transfer it, copy it or do anything else with it. And I couldn't find or figure out any other way to create an HTML page to give to the mailing company.

I was at a loss, so I asked each of my kids for advice. (Of course, I didn't really understand it). But, fingers crossed, between the two of them I 'might' just be able to accomplish what I want. Just in case, does anyone have a suggestion for me on where/how I can create a standalone web page that I can transfer to someone else?

I await the advice of the younger and more experienced among you.

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