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My son received an ad for a rental property in Florida along with his candy.  He said that the person who gave it to him told him to make sure to give it to his mom and dad.  I was apalled.  Here is the e-mailed I sent them:

"I am writing this email to express my disgust at the fact that your company was handing out advertisements to trick or treaters last night.  I cannot believe you would take this children's holiday and try to profit from it!  I am going to ensure that everyone I know never deals with your company and will make sure everyone spreads the word.  To hand a child an advertisement and tell them to make sure their parents get it is completely immoral!  I do not think you will get any business out of this sort of practice.  All you're going to do is have alot of irrate parents.  I would seriously reconsider the way you are conducting your business."

This is the first time that I, or anyone I've talked to, has heard of a practice such as this.  I was totally POed as you can tell from my message.

Surprisingly, they answered me back quite quickly.  They claimed that this was no different than dentists giving out toothbrushes to trick or treaters, which by the way, neither of my kids has ever received although there are dentists living throughout the neighbourhood.  One real estate agent in our area was giving out coffee to go for parents but there was no advertising that went along with it.  Just her normal car parked in the driveway that has her name and company name on it.  But, like I said, that car is always parked in the driveway.

The person went on to say that it is hard work owning a small business run out of the home and that they have to take every advertising opportunity that comes along.  They claimed at one point that they were not making a profit from it and at another point that they were.  It was an odd e-mail, to say the least.  It was apologetic and unapologetic at the same time.

So, what do you think?  Did I totally over-react? -- This has unfortunately been known to happen from time to time.  Has anyone ever heard of this practice before or do you think it's just another form of spam like I do?  I'm curious to know what everyone's thinking!

Even though I was in my 50's, it was like being in grade one again when I first got it hooked up and turned it on. I just didn't have a clue how to do anything. Even now, after 4 years, I've probably only scrathed the surface of what even my simple computer is capable of doing.

DUMB MISTAKES:

For months I was giving my email address to any site that asked for it. I just didn't know any different. Finally I had to ask a more computer savvy friend what could possibly be causing the deluge of creepy, spammy emails I was receiving. He explained that some sites latched on to my email address and passed it out like candy on Halloween. Eventually I just cancelled the email address and started over. Only this time I was more careful. However, it was clever how I would get all those sites offering great sex and at the same time be bombarded about penis enhancement. I guess they wanted to make sure I could handle the action.

In those early months, I didn't realize that I often had 5 or 6 windows open at the same time. For some reason I thought that when you left one and went to another, the first one just disappeared. My computer would eventually get all jammed up and I would have to shut it off and start over again.

Then there were the times I would spend a long time typing something into a notepad and then erase the whole thing because I didn't know I was supposed to "save it" before clicking on the pad to close it and going on to something else.

Once I was on one of those sites where you download music or movies and I had downloaded a movie that had just come out. I didn't realize that anyone else in the world could download that movie from me. That is unless I clicked the right button to prevent it. At the time I didn't know the option existed. Finally the cable company called me and asked me what was going on. They had noticed as amazing amount of traffic being generated to my computer. I guess there were hundreds, or even thousands of people trying to download the movie. All at the same time. The cable guy said he was watching it happen even while we were talking on the phone. He walked me through how to erase the site completely from my computer and the traffic stopped right away. Of course I lost the tape of the Beatles doing 'Hey Jude' back in the sixties. Not to mention about 200 songs. Bummer.

WORD 'NOT SO' PERFECT:

Word perfect was an advenure from Hell the first few times I tried to use it. I couldn't get anything to work. I would type things and they would disappear, never to be seen again. All of a sudden the letters would be the size of a small car. Or the size of a large grain of sand. Then they would appear in all different 'kinds' of print. Then the line of print would go two inches across the page and stop--and begin another tiny line. I'm sure all this had to do with all the things I was clicking on at the top of the page. Somehow. I think.

Then I would finally get something that looked not too bad. It might have taken me three hours, but at least it was there. That is, until I turned off the computer for the day. Do you think I could find it when I went back to word perfect?

Nooooooo. Of course not. Turn of the computer and its gone. At least that's what I thought at first. For a while, I thought I wasn't supposed to shut the computer off, because everything disappears if you do. The concept of "save" took a while to sink in.

FOUR YEARS LATER:

I think I've come a long way. Last year I built a website and now on any given month I have about 2000 visitors from over 50 countries. Not 'tons' of visitors, but considering I still don't know how to get my site 'out there' so people can find it, its not too bad.

Also, just last month I published a book online. If someone had of told me 4 years ago, that I would accomplish that, I think they would have got the 'deer in the headlight' look.

So I guess the saying 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks' isn't entirely true. you can in fact learn new tricks when you are an old dog. That is, as long as you are willing to keep trying when the computer Gods trample you into the dust over and over again. So, if you are new to computers and are having a rough time, just keep on keeping on.

Because I promise, it does get easier.