My local newspaper, The Boston Globe has been running a regular Saturday feature on "Guilty Pleasures". Each week, Luke O'Neil manages to come up with something to be guilty but pleasured about. Last week it was spoiling his nieces and nephews; other examples are particularly yucky junk foods, TV shows, lottery scratch tickets, the list goes on and on.
My guilty pleasure today is the "...For Dummies" series. Yes, those ubiquitous yellow-and-black tomes on every topic under the sun. Particularly when I'm in the "Computer" section of my bookstore, I look all around me to make sure there's no tech savant within site to belittle my lack of sophistication.
The problem is, the books are helpful! They hold your hand through a process without assuming that you know anything about it in advance, a perfectly delightful thing when you truly don't know anything about it in advance. They're also written with a sense of humor, a trait sorely missing in any other book in "Computers". I know we should all be able to operate with on-line help in this era of no manuals. But, I consider it amazing enough at my age that I'm willing to try the technology; just consider it some sort of scaffolding for me that I use the "...Dummmies" book to take my first steps.
For any of you visiting, and still a touch concerned about whether you too can blog, just get "...Dummies" then get smart:
* Used at Amazon.com
* At eBay
* Or at your local library. You'll thank me!
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