blogs.lydgate.org

I’m Anne Wilson.  My life is fairly evenly split between my work with KDE, where I’m known as annew, and my family where it could be said that I ‘manage’ four generations.  Each generation has its needs, and three of the four generations use me for computer technical support.  My mother, approaching her 90th year, refuses to have anything to do with computers, which is a blessing

So what about my time away from the computer?  Well, there’s not as much of it as there should be, for a start.  I would list my interests as gardening, sewing and embroidery, music and reading, but in truth very little time goes on any of them except reading, which is mostly last thing at night and first thing in the morning.  And yes, even some of that goes on reading my 3 computer magazines each month.

It’s almost 10 years since we first set up a family LAN, and making changes to it is fraught with problems.  The house was once a farmhouse, and was built over a period estimated to be around 1500-1790, in stages.  Consequently it has walls 30″ (90cm) thick on the oldest part.  The walls are dry-stone built, too, so taking a new cable through is not something you do for fun, and wifi struggles to get through one of those walls, so using it for the whole house is simply not an option.

Funny how I always end up talking about computers, isn’t it?

So what about the family?  My husband is a technophobe who uses Linux because that’s what I gave him, and it does the very limited things he needs without needing any attention.  My two daughters are both computers-are-a-tool people.  One has just been introduced to Linux when XP’s SP3 made her laptop unworkable.  My son-in-law is a Windows user of the type that needs a wide berth – he installs with regularity that makes Linux must-have-the-latest types look tardy.  That leaves my grandchildren – both at university.  The granddaughter, Micky, is a ‘tool’ person, and I’m just starting to explore the possibility of converting my grandson, Andy, to taking an interest in something beyhond games and films.  Interesting times ahead there.