Re-wiring my brain

I don't realise how many things I take for granted just because I have been using a PC for the last six years or so. Simple things like expecting the menu to be on the top of the application window. Because I expect it to be where I think it is, I don't ever see it a mere 2cm above where I'm expecting to see it, at the top of my screen, so I spend 15mins wondering how in the world I'm supposed to rip a CD in iTunes when I cannot find "Preferences".

Now I know why it is difficult for older people who have never used computers in their lives to pick up the skill. There are so many things we know intuitively that we don't teach them what it means to "click on the icon", or "drag and drop" or anything else in between. We have been trained to see what we need to see and when they don't get it from the get-go, we think that they are slow.

It is all a matter of the context of our knowledge. For example, folks who grew up using the dial telephone where you stick a finger in and turn it a full circle, tend to hold the buttons on a modern telephone for far longer than necessary until they figure out that they don't need to do that anymore. What will my generation look like to the young 'uns in 20 years' time?

So I'm starting from scratch. I have to google the simplest of tasks, like the Mac equivalent of Windows shortcuts, how to burn a CD, and embarrassing enough, how to rip a CD with iTunes (that was when I didn't see the toolbar in front of my nose).