When All Else Fails, Read the Manual

My dear sister-in-law, Mur, was notorious for never reading nor referring to any manuals. We had to laugh when she bought a new car and never learned how to program the radio, or even play more than one station in the car. She had a marvelous air-conditioning system in her house that one could program to cool individual rooms at specific times and to specific temperatures. It was marvelous. I think her daughter-in-law programmed it but Mur’s idea of a good thermostat was one that she could turn on and turn off, so she had the complicated system taken out and a very simple one put in but she would still just turn it on when she was too warm and turn it off when she was too cold.

Now those of us who have computers and PDA’s and things like that are somewhat like that too. We just jump in and start using equipment. We look at the manual when we run into trouble or want to find something specific. Mmmm gave me a new PDA for my birthday and I just beamed all my old stuff over to the new one and started using it. I have been frustrated the last few days because I couldn’t find some stuff on it so, reluctantly, I pulled out the documentation and decided that perhaps I should take a tutorial tour.

Imagine my delight when I found my menu again and imagine my surprise when I discovered that I could get email on my PDA and could use Wi-Fi and could use Bluetooth. Will I do it? I am not sure but it is intriguing, isn’t it? Those manuals have a place after all.

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