PCB Blog - Life Online
Life Online |
| 2011/06/17 |
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By Charlotte Kemp My limited cooking skills extend to pressing a few buttons and hey presto! There’s a guy at the door with a pizza. But imagine pressing those buttons on your home computer instead of calling from your phone! Imagine reaching for your keyboard instead of your speed dial to get that Hawaiian delivered to your door by the local pizza parlour. The first time I saw this was in (the then) amazing futuristic movie, The Net with Sandra Bullock in 1995. I waited with fascination and eager anticipation for all this technology to become mainstream so that I too could communicate with work mates and colleagues and even the pizza guy all via my computer keyboard. Perhaps it is because I sometimes feel a little awkward around people that I found the concept of life online so appealing. I thought somehow that I would be safely cloistered behind my keyboard and not have to deal too much with people. Turns out I was wrong! And I eventually confess, I am happy to be proved so. Far from isolating and causing people to withdraw, the internet and especially social networks online, have allowed people to make new and better friendships and connect with people that they had lost a long time ago. We also have Skype. Besides its business applications, its best reported use is that of keeping grandparents and grandchildren in touch, especially those who are separated by distance. In fact I think Skype should open up kiosks in airport departure lounges with a free tutorial thrown in with every camera purchased. It really is so simple that long before your family have landed in the UK or Australia, you will have installed the software and camera, tested everything out, and be ready to have a long chat with your grandchildren about the exciting aspects of airplane toilets and funny airline food, while their parents are still busy unpacking. Skype has two main parts – the first being the text messaging function. Think of this as your cell phone sms’s on your computer instead. And the second is the camera and voice option where you can actually see and talk with the person you calling, over the internet. We may not be able to share a pizza with our online friends or grandchildren, but we can share a piece of our lives with them, a part of our lives that before now we had no other way of communicating. Take that step and connect with someone online today. Charlotte Kemp is an author, speaker and trainer and can be found online at www.nichetraining.co.za or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/nichetraining |
| Tags: Online(1) Skype(1) Internet(1) |
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