The Wonders of the Internet
I was posting a comment on Dave's Raves and started thinking about the wonders of the Internet, and decided it was long enough and of possible interest to enough people (perhaps I delude myself here) to post as a new topic here on Enscussions.
I would be interested in comments from anyone with positive or negative experiences--except Betty--I am afraid we would run out of storage space if she related her problems with the Internet... :-) (JUST KIDDING--WE LOVE YOUR STORIES, BETTY).
I constantly amazed at the Internet. Two weeks ago I went to Turbo-Tax online, signed on, and it brought up last year's tax return. I made a few minor adjustments, then added the ID numbers for the companies for which I worked in 2005, and up came my W-2's, neatly filled in on my return. I checked to see that I had a refund coming and decided not to fiddle with filing a Schedule C, as I did not make any significant money from self-employment, and I would have to stretch to justify expenses.
I checked it all over, created an electronic signature, and clicked a button to send it off to the IRS. A week later my refund showed up in my bank account. So much better than filling out forms by hand, mailing it in, waiting 6-8 weeks, then getting a check I had to carry to the bank.
Every morning I check my bank account online to verify there were no checks or electronic withdrawals I forgot about, then I authorize payment of any bills due. The only thing for which I write a check is the rent.
Recently I discovered I was eligible for a small retirement payment each month from my early days at the airlines. I was able to go online to the Benefits site, make my selection, and authorize payments to begin. Due to IRS rules, they had to mail me a form to sign and mail back, but other than that, everything was done online, and the monthly checks will go directly into my bank account--no checks to get lost in the mail.
I shop online for everything from books to clothes. Research is phenomenal—it is literally like having the libraries of the world at your fingertips. I am often on the phone with friends and we will discuss an old movie and wonder who played some memorable role. A quick search of the Internet Move Data Base (IMDB), and our questions are answered.
I have heard more than one prominent thinker say that the rise of the Internet is the single most significant and life/society altering invention/development of the 20th century. I have mentioned the positive things, but of course we know the negative such as making terrorist networks easier to form and communicate, the deluge of porn that reaches to the very young and vulnerable, and the rise of electronic junk mail with its attendant irritation, not to mention scams.
If anyone else (including Betty) has thoughts on this, or anecdotal frustrations or successes, I would love to hear them. I am interested in reports from students, and how the Internet has affected study and research, and school in general. I would have given anything to have this tool when I was in college.
Personally, I think something as simple as this Blog is amazing. It has brought together distant relatives from around the world, and yet is simple enough that any of us can figure out how to post text and pictures to share with the rest. And what is truly amazing is the process of setting up the Blog and maintaining it is FREE!
A little trivia to end on. Technorati.com, a site that tracks Blog traffic and usage, is currently monitoring 29.5 million Blogs around the world in every major language. Pretty amazing, considering the ability has been here less than 10 years.
14 Comments:
Interesting. I am not quite ready to respond as far as problems go, but a question: Your post, on my computer, has some strange symbols. Does it on yours?
Looks fine on mine--it is probably the way I coded the dashes.
If you can tell me where the strange characters show up--i.e., the surrounding words--I can tell you what they are.
I find it fascinating the path for sales on Ebay, Amazon, and other spots on the internet. For instance: today I sold a gumball machine to a person in Illinois, whom I will probably never see. He made a bid, I accepted his bid, and he paid for it, all in the space of a few minutes.
Once I listed a piece of pottery on Ebay, and it was purchased by a person in Marshall to whom we had earlier sold a house. That was a rather convoluted use of the Internet, but it was the way that she knew that I had it for sale.
We listed a batch of books on Amazon for a friend at ETBU. One of the first sales was to one of his students, who probably walked by his office every day.
Speaking of school: when I was in grad school we really thought we had it figured out when we got a small lightweight typewriter and were able to take that to the library stacks and use it to type the reference material. When I tried to explain that to my ETBU students, they just looked at me with that glazed over here-we-go-again-look reserved for geezers talking about in-my-day things.
Banking, bill paying, ordering, communication (like this blog) have certainly changed our lives. When I do take anyone to pay bills or otherwise handle business in the old slow and frustrating way, I am very aware of just how much I like doing it online. When we first began hearing about a paperless and checkless society, it scared me. Now I know it is not paperless, because we never used to have this much paper floating around, but we don't do many checks.
The two biggest changes in teaching connected with technology were the use of the computer, especially the Internet, in the classroom, and using online grading and record-keeping. One of the things I like the least about online grades was the split second between the time I clicked the SUBMIT button for the grades and the students began calling, emailing, and coming to the office to complain about their grades. I think they were checking on the computer in the kiosk in the hallway. Registering students changed entirely. In the space of a few short years registration changed from being a major undertaking to an easy online process. I think it really hit home just how dependent we were, however, both in the classroom and the office, when they shut school down because the system was down.
Very insightful, Carolyn. I never knew libraries would allow a typewriter to be used at the shelves.
I was one who hated paperwork and standing in line all my life, so my complaint was that online services were not available fast enough. I would make choices in banking, etc., based on the availability and features of their online capabilities.
To this day I have friends who still write checks for everything, and are afraid of online transactions. In my experience, the only payments I have lost in the last two years were two checks I was forced to send through the mail.
Yes, on-line banking makes keeping track, even of multiple accounts, quite easy. No more spending hours trying to make the balance of a checkbook check-deposit record come out right (as if I ever dit it correctly in the old days anyway). Just log in and there it is, instantly! How far have we come and what will they come up with next?
In rereading the comment (above) about the typewriter in the library bit. I do not remember doing that, however I did develop a system for getting through school efficiently (for the time). I did not have the love of libraries that some in my family seem to have. So, when assigned a paper to do, I would go to the library and check the then online (it was called ERIC, I think) reference for my topic. The system then in place only gave the titles of publications but not the whole thing like the internet will do today in many instances. Anyway, once I had a list of possible books (enough to satisfy the number of references the professor required) I would wonder the stacks, get the books and go to one of the copy machines with a pocket full of nickels (it was five cents a page back then) and I would quickly look through the books and pick out a few pages that seemed appropriate to my topic and make a few copies from each book, take my copies and go home and get a pair of sisors and some tape and make a long chain of selected quotes, fill in some transitional material by hand and go to the typewriter and craft my paper. I do not know that this method netted me a lot of actual learning but it did result (usually) in an acceptable paper to turn in for gradd and it enabled me to accomplish an education in my later years (mid 30s) while having to spend a lot of time working on jobs to help (along with Carolyn)keep a family of seven housed, eating and clotheed and etc.
Copying library books is considered a breach of copyright (which is illegal), but maybe since it has been over 30 years, perhaps the statute of limitations has passed by now.
Looking back, this is pretty good stuff, maybe it would make a start on a chapter in Daves Raves.
You could title the chapter "The Sins of the Fathers..."
I never remember spending that much time in libraries. I would usually get the book I was assigned to read and wait till the night before the paper was due and create something ad hoc. When references were required, I am sure I found them somewhere. That's probably why I barely skimmed through graduation, and never made it to grad school.
OK--the strange characters showed up on my screen. It was the way I did the dashes. I was attempting to do a true em dash and it showed up correct in the text box, but apparently the browser cannot handle it.
As Katelynn says so sweetly (I am taking lessons): Okay.
Hmmm, now what was that you were saying about length of entry??? I agree with all the +'s and -'s listed. However, for me, this has become a dangerous trap. I was already far too sedentary for my own good, and now the fascination of the Internet has made it even worse. Maybe this is truly the first stage of the predictions of 60 years ago that mankind will eventually morph into creatures with extremely large heads, enormous thumbs and forefingers, and all the rest will be weak, withered, and spindly.
PS: The information provided in online bank statements is no more error-free than the old hard copy. I'm curious about how many people still reconcile their bank statements.
Betty
First of all, welcome back on line. I start to get concerned if I do not see you post or email in several days.
You are right about the sedentary lifestyle of the computer and the Internet. I have to pry myself loose from the chair and force activity.
Of course being online does not ensure the accuracy of the bank's computers, any more than when the statements were printed. I do not reconcile unless I see something that does not look right. Since I check it every day, I can compare against the previous day's activity on my check card plus any money coming in and bills going out.
I used to write down every transaction in my check register, but I have stopped doing that. I record the few checks I write but not the bulk of withdrawals on my check card. That is probably because I have been working, getting a check auto-deposited every week. If I go very long now without a new contract, and the money gets real tight, I will probably start recording every penny going out again.
David, since you mentioned filing taxes online, how long should it take for them to come back? I filed on March 1st, and it said that the IRS accepted it that day, but it is the 8th, and I haven't gotten the direct deposit yet...should it be here soon?
I only use online checks for things inconvenient to pay with cash. Cash is easier to keep balanced. Having only about 10 transactions a month makes keeping them straight pretty easy.
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