Is This Thing On?, revised edition: A Computer Handbook for Late Bloomers, Technophobes, and the Kicking & Screaming

by Abby Stokes

Now updated and revised, the user-friendliest, most reassuring, jargon-free, smartest, and most comprehensive nuts-and-bolts guide for seniors, who are the fastest-growing demographic among social networks.

Abby Stokes is the perfect guide to the digital She’s taught more than 140,000 seniors how to use a computer.  In an easy, authoritative, hand-holding way, she covers it how to choose, buy, and start using a computer. How to connect to the Internet, sign up for e-mail, and use search engines. Plus, how and why to get digital in the first the ins and outs of online shopping, banking, travel planning, dating, research; how to take and share digital photographs and videos; how to discover online communities, and use social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube; the world of apps, online music, and streaming movies; and, importantly, online security and “netiquette.” There’s information on iPads, smartphones—including the Blackberry, iPhone, and Android—and e-readers like Nook and Kindle. A companion website—www.abbyandme.com—plus a Facebook page and Twitter feed provide easy and safe access to this brave new world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Technology, Self Help

448 pages, Paperback

First published August 22, 2008

About the author

Abby Stokes has single-handedly helped a quarter million Digitally Challenged people cross the Digital Divide and get online. Over the past 20 years, she's visited more than 22 states, 120 public libraries, over 100 senior centers/computer clubs and has hosted webinars across the country.
Like a personal trainer for the digital age, Abby is the hand-holding, motivating expert that newbies—specifically older newbies—turn to when they want to become digitally literate.

Abby has taught courses in basic computing at both Cooper Union and New York University's School of Lifelong Learning, as well as computer skills to private and corporate clients. She has lectured on the topic across the country. A firm believer that "if my mother can learn the computer anyone can," Abby is confident that everyone can master the computer and navigate the Internet.

Abby is the author of "Is This Thing On?" A Friendly Guide to Everything Digital for Newbies, Technophobes, and the Kicking & Screaming, Dinner Party Disasters: True Stories of Culinary Catastrophe, and It's Never Too Late to Love a Computer. She splits her time between New York City and Niantic, Connecticut.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this useful for realizing all of the things about computers and the internet that I take for granted, and which might be unknown and overwhelming to new users.

[Marci]

It was a decent enough book, but I had to give up on it because technology moved faster than the information in the book. So, it was left unread for so long because technology left us in the dust. But, I have been learning to keep up with info from the web. The book, due to its age, is now in the recycling bin. I do give the author is big thumbs up for writing a book to help the technologically challenged!

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finding a lot of good analogies in here to use in my computer classes.