In the past, I’ve composed many photo essays that took viewers on virtual tours of distant countries. Today, I decided to do the same thing, but focus closer to home, collecting one recent photograph from each of the 50 states in the United States of America. The photographs are not necessarily meant to represent the whole of any state. They are simply interesting, noteworthy, beautiful, or otherwise caught my eye. Sit back and enjoy a quick jaunt around the USA in 50 photographs from mid-2012. [50 photos]
A cowboy rides his horse through town as he watches a Cinco de Mayo celebration in Beardstown, Illinois, on May 6, 2012. There are approximately 900 immigrant workers from 34 countries employed in Beardstown at the Cargill meat packing plant and most are willing to work hard at just about anything for a better life in the United States. While both longtime community residents and immigrants agree that most people accept the newcomers, the beginnings were rocky and some problems still remain. (Reuters/Jim Young)
As everybody who is reading this now is likely to be a geek, living in a bubble where all their friends and family use computers on a daily basis, it’s easy to imagine there is no such thing as a noob these days. This is far from the truth. In fact, at the end of last year it was estimated that only around one-third of the world’s population had access to the Internet. This means that around 4 billion people aren’t online, and most of those will also not have the first clue about computers.
Inspired by Yaara’s article detailing six basic tech skills everybody should possess, we wondered what the starting point of the conversion from noob to geek should be. Imagine sitting someone down in front of a computer for the first time… where would you begin? This formed last week’s We Ask You column, and the responses we received were both varied and enlightening.
What Should Computer Noobs Be Taught First?
We asked you, What Should Computer Noobs Be Taught First? The response was fantastic, with dozens of people suggesting the first thing(s) they would teach to a computer noob. The variation in answers shows just how complex computers are, and how being presented with one for the first time must be absolutely overwhelming. Especially to those of a certain age for whom learning new skills does not come naturally.
There is no right or wrong answer to this question, and the responses were so varied they may be worth a full article in the future. However, just a few insights for those who don’t want to read through the whole thread include: Keep it simple, keep naming the hardware and software until it sticks, get them familiar with the OS that is installed, keyboard and mouse operation requires practice, teach the basics of staying safe online. Oh, and that tray is for discs rather than cups.
The suggestion to experiment with a computer in order to build confidence is an important one. It’s extremely unlikely random clicking around will do any real harm. As long as the operating system can be reinstalled, or the hard drive replaced, then letting people learn the intricacies by themselves isn’t a bad idea.
Comment Of The Week
The comments section was awash with great insights this week, making it difficult to choose just one winner. Several names deserve a mention… Rob Hindle for his fantastic (and lengthy) comment detailing a more hands-on approach to teaching a computer noob. Nicut Alexandru and Vipul Jain for intelligent lists of different steps to take. The several people who recommended Solitaire as a tool for learning how to use a mouse.
Comment of the week goes to Sumaiya, who, as well as the respect of myself and hopefully everybody reading this, receives 150 MakeUseOf points to use for Rewards or Giveaways. Their contribution:
I taught my mother the basics of computers..this is how i did it:
1. taught her the names of basic hardware like mouse, keyboard etc
2. how to start up and shut down windows
3. windows desktop/taskbar/menubar/icons and things like that
4. typing on notepad for familiarity with keyboard
5. game solitaire for using mouse
6. basic controls of microsoft office word
7. using the web browser (google chrome)
8. websites google, youtube, and facebook
im still teaching her..so far shes going great (and she absolutely LOVES youtube)
This comment wins because it offers a very common sense approach to teaching. Starting with the names of the hardware, then moving on to booting up Windows, and then getting used to using the keyboard and mouse combination. Then, and only then, do you take the computer noob online, where they can explore somewhat to their leisure.
We will be asking a new question tomorrow, so please join us then. We Ask You is a weekly column dedicated to finding out the opinions of MakeUseOf readers. We ask you a question and you tell us what you think. The question is open-ended and is usually open to debate. Some questions will be purely opinion-based, while others will see you sharing tips and advice, or advocating tools and apps for your fellow MakeUseOf readers. This column is nothing without your input, all of which is valued.
Four words on a previously unknown papyrus fragment provide the first evidence that some early Christians believed Jesus had been married, Harvard Professor Karen King told the 10th International Congress of Coptic Studies today.
Do you remember when a company called Macromedia introduced their rich web plugin, Flash? Back then, Flash was an exciting new prospect. It introduced the ability to animate, using frame-by-frame and using motion-tweening, add sound, buttons and interactions all from a relatively approachable interface.
The early Internet, or “Web 1.0″ if I dare use that term, exploded with nonsensical, bizarre and downright impressive animations from all over the world as geniuses, weirdos and bored teenagers got their hands on the software. Authors went on to make money, build brands and become demi-ambassadors for communities like b3ta, Something Awful and Newgrounds, and left a bounty of Internet culture in their wake.
These animations are relics of the Internet’s golden age of emergence, when your social network was your phone book and a cloud was merely something that rained on you. It’s time to feel old, kiddies.
I was probably 13 when I first saw this animation, and I fondly remember being amazed at the detail, fluidity and effort that must have gone into the series. Even today, the Xiao Xiao series of stick figure animations are impressive.
The creator was Chinese animator Zhu Zhiqiang who later went on to receive commissions for advertising from the likes of CityPlaza and Heineken.
There are alledgedly 10 official Xiao Xiao cartoons, and you can watch them all – along with numerous spoofs, parodies and blatant rip-offs – over at Newgrounds.
In the early 2000s, Joe Sparks created Radiskull & Devil Doll – a rather simplistic and crude Flash animation which soon gained traction and earned a loyal following. Joe initially worked for Paracomp a company who in the early 90s merged with Macromind to become Macromedia.
Joe was an intrinsic part of Shockwave.com and the development of rich media, with Radiskull & Devil Doll being his own personal project. He animated and recorded all sound and music himself, which served only to inspire further random animations. Joe now works for Google and has been featured in a huge range of publications, having worked on some fairly exciting projects. You can read his bio and watch the cartoon on his website.
There were a great number of stick animation websites back then, though StickDeath was probably one of the first to really gain traction – with many animated GIFs present that pre-date Flash. Once Flash landed, however, the site became infamous for its graphic and crude content (ok, some swearing and animated violence) which lit-up the faces of children in classrooms the world over.
StickDeath is unfortunately no longer online for one reason or another, so instead you’ll have to turn to the WayBack Machine in order to view the content.
David Firth is probably best known for his weirdest creation, Salad Fingers, but also enjoyed success with many of his other webtoons. The dark, disturbing world of Salad Fingers (quote: “I like it when the red water comes out”) isn’t as old as some of the animations featured here, having being released in 2004.
Another of Firth’s series was Spoilsbury Toast Boy, an equally weird and unsettling series of animations that featured a silent boy and lots of cockroaches.
Finally there was the try-hard but ultimately useless superhero, Burnt Face Man which also debuted in 2004 and became somewhat of a hit.
The creator of a great many Internet phenomena, Jonti Picking is probably most famously associated with Weebl and Bob, the adventures of two very simple eggs who took the world by storm when MTV picked up the series and renamed it “Wobbl and Bob”. The original episode entitled “pie” was uploaded in 2002, and can be seen here.
Jonti is also responsible for one of the web’s most annoyingly catchy animations, simply titled “Badgers” which you’ve probably seen more times than you care to remember.
Much of Jonti’s materials consists of looping musical stories that make very little sense. If that appeals to you then you should probably check out the thousands of animations on his site.
I really don’t know where to begin with this one, there are so many to choose from and I’m really not sure which are a good idea to put on this page, so I’m just going to say take your pick from this lot.
One particular series that sticks in my mind was Tales of the Blode, a badly-drawn blonde blob with a friend called “Food” that ended up doing something with a zeppelin involving a crab? Yeah… Internet jokes.
The funny thing is that if you’ve seen any of the dancing kitten with rude words and/or loud music videos from the early 2000s era there’s a good chance they were from RatherGood.com, which helped kickstart the whole “lolcats” thing that eventually gained so much real-world traction that there are now actual printed books on the subject available. Joel, what did you do?
Conclusion
The days of Flash are undoubtedly numbered, with extensions like Flashblock increasing in popularity and newer technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 replacing our old plugin-dependent friend. It’s nice to take a trip back down memory lane to when Flash was a brand new fangled toy to play with an exploit, even if the animations look a little rough around the edges now.
If you’re searching for more nostalgia of this ilk then one of the finest resources has to be Albino Blacksheep, a huge collection of Flash goodness – including games, videos and animation. Of course, there’s also Newgrounds which shouldn’t be missed either. Finally if you’ve ever seen this content hosted on a certain website called eBaum’s world then here’s a video just for you.
As everybody who is reading this now is likely to be a geek, living in a bubble where all their friends and family use computers on a daily basis, it’s easy to imagine there is no such thing as a noob these days. This is far from the truth. In fact, at the end of last year it 
Do you remember when a company called Macromedia introduced their rich web plugin, Flash? Back then, Flash was an exciting new prospect. It introduced the ability to animate, using frame-by-frame and using motion-tweening, add sound, buttons and interactions all from a relatively approachable interface.