There's no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computer. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help. Here are a few questions about computers I've received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about teaching kids to program, sharing a dial-up Internet connection, and transferring home movies to a PC.My elementary-school age son is interested in learning how to write (program) software. Do you have any suggestions for products/languages from which he could learn, while still having fun?
Well, a great programming language for kids is Logo. One of the leading companies in the Logo field is Terrapin, at www.terrapinlogo.com. Kids can also do well with the BASIC programming language. There are many versions of BASIC. Microsoft makes a widely-used one called Visual Basic, which is available in a Learning Edition. See www.microsoft.com. A company called Kidware also offers a tutorial that works with Visual Basic called Visual Basic for Kids. See www.kidwaresoftware.com.
How do I bring Internet access to my daughters' new PCs from my existing dial-up account? Our current dial-up Internet connection is restricted to our previous "family" PC in the basement. The two new PCs are in my daughters' bedrooms upstairs. The phone line that we use for our current dial-up connection is only in the basement. We are stuck with dial-up service, but I'd like to extend that service to the two new units without tripling (or worse) the monthly cost for our dial-up service.
The two simplest solutions are home phone line networking and wireless networking. Even though they are usually recommended for people with broadband connections, they also work for dial-up connections. However, there are catches in such networks. Home phone networks like Intel's AnyPoint just plug into any phone jack, and allow you to use the same phone line for both the network and the dial-up Internet connection. But they're designed to work over a single phone number. So, you'll either have to install jacks in the girls' rooms for the phone line that you use in the basement, or buy some sort of line-bridging gizmo, which might get complicated. Wireless networks, like Lucent's Orinoco (www.wavelan.com) or Intel's wireless version of AnyPoint, (www.intel.com/anypoint) avoid all of these phone line issues. I like them better. But they are a bit costlier and are trickier to configure.
How do I get my old 8-mm home movies into my PC for editing and storing?As far I know, you have to first take them to a place where they can be converted to video tape, and then follow the instructions I gave last week (http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/mailbox-20010111.html) on how to get analog videos into a PC for editing. I'm unaware of any method that lets you put filmed images directly into a home PC, but if any readers know of one, please speak up.
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