Learn Something New On The Computer [Challenge]

Matthew Gates http://notetoservices.com 2m 471 #computerlearning

The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.

Challenge of the Week: Computer Software and Web Application Learning

Whether you work in an office or somewhere else, if there is a computer in your life, you can always learn something new on a computer. Knowing how to perform specific tasks on a computer will always give you some advantage over someone who does not know. For example, if you know how to use any of the Microsoft applications, including PowerPoint, Excel, Publisher, and Access, or Outlook, you know a lot more than many people do. In addition, if you own a Macbook OS, you might want to learn how to use a program known as “Terminal”. If you are a Linux user, you are already ahead of the game, as most of us get spoiled with having to know nothing when it comes to Microsoft Windows and a Mac OS X.

There are many applications you could learn about including Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Fireworks, Inkscape, GIMP, Microsoft Visual Studio, Aptana Studio, Apache Open Office, LibreOffice, or navigating to TreeHouse and learning about programming – from Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Javascript, Java, HTML, CSS, Visual Basic, C++, C#, Google Go, PHP, Python, Cocoa, or an SQL Database language application including phpMyAdmin, Microsoft Access, Oracle, MongoDB, mySQL, NuoDB, or newSQL. You could learn an online web application including Salesforce, MailChimp, Google Drive, OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive), Infusionsoft, and adding resources and information to Wikipedia, etc. In doing so, you will add value to your knowledge base, your skills, your resume, and you may even have the potential to earn a lot more in your lifetime than you could have ever imagined.

Some of the programming languages and applications mentioned above are not going to get you anywhere without properly learning how to use them and training on them. YouTube is filled with tutorials and a Google search will lead you to many beginner tutorials for anything you want to know. TreeHouse or Code Cademy are also a great web resources to learn about many programming languages and get you prepared for some real world applications. Lynda is another extremely resourceful website that contains just about any knowledge and information you want to know. Hopping on YouTube will yield some great results for resourceful learning information.

You are not going to become a programmer or graphic artist overnight or sometime this week, but the fact that you are learning something new and willing to be open to learning something new, at least with the concept of it, may just point you in the right direction.

As an alternative, if none of the stuff aforementioned interests you one bit, at least familiarize yourself with HTML and CSS or the world of E-Commerce Shopping Carts and the WordPress Content Management System.

Let us know in the comments what you decided to learn this week!

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