Michael McCallister

Summary

The details are a bit hazy, but here’s how I remember this moment: I was in a shopping mail in Milwaukee in the early-to-mid-1980s. There was a person in a kiosk demonstrating Apple computers. S/he invited me to try it. It may have been the first time I’d seen a graphical screen. The person told me to click something on the screen with the mouse thingy on the table. I could see the cursor on the screen. I could tell that the mouse could move the cursor, but made no connection that the “something” was the thing to click. Soon I was picking up the mouse off the table and pointing it at the screen roughly parallel to the image of the button. My guide was probably telling me that the mouse needed to be on the table so the little light on the bottom could find the cursor. I turned the mouse around so the little light would glow toward the screen. When none of this worked, I walked away. Some years later, I learned to use a mouse, and make it do quite amazing things. That said, I get that flashback whenever I have to explain an unfamiliar technology to an unseen user. For nearly 25 years now, I’ve been helping a variety of computer users get work done with their computers, I’m confident that anyone - digital natives to first-time users - can master these powerful machines. I still hope they use these new powers for good. In previous lifetimes, I wrote two editions of "WordPress in Depth" (QUE) with Bud Smith, and two editions of "openSUSE Linux Unleashed" (Sams) all by myself. I also collaborated with Carole Jelen on "Building Your Author Platform: The New Rules" (BenBella).