Emily L. Ferguson wrote:
Why? Do you want him to become an IT technician?
But I can't imagine any real reason that anyone needs to know how to
"actually use a computer" unless they're going to become an engineer
or IT technician.
Sorry. Computers are for making it less difficult to do the stuff
that matters. and "actually use(ing) a computer" is not what matters
to 99% of the people who use computers.
I think that's a little naive - there's varying levels of computer
geekery, and a certain level is absolutely necessary in the modern
digital dark room. In fact, 'geekery' as I appear to be calling it feeds
rather well into photography among many other subject areas. I'm an
experienced system administrator - I have used Linux as a desktop
operating system from an early age (it's a great learning environment
although I wouldn't recommend it as a dark room - GIMP sucks simply
because it's not Photoshop), I'm also a software developer with a
specialisation in the web, that has been completely invaluable to me in
building my website as a photographer.
It's like saying a basic knowledge of car mechanics is unnecessary as
long as you know how to drive one. Yes, you can drive a car without
knowing how it works, but having at least a basic idea will save you
money, get you out of tricky situations and allow you to drive in risky
conditions more safely.
Just my 2c - Oh and if you wanna rear a geek, don't buy him a Mac. Macs
encourage a superficial level of geekery, give him a second-hand PC
running Ubuntu from day 1. Ubuntu is now so easy to use it's as good as
Windows. It will also break just often enough to require some poking
around under the hood.
--
~Kieran Simkin
http://slinq.com/
http://digital-crocus.com/
+44 (0) 1273 929209
