Book

The Digital Migrant

a guide to computers for the curious and confused

I have been teaching people how to make friends with their computers in one way or another since I was in high school in the late 1990s. Over the years I've spent a lot of time reflecting on the way people engage with technology and the barriers that hold them back from having a good experience with it. In 2008 I found myself with a fair amount of time on my hands and decided it was finally time to consolidate what I knew and condense it into a form that could be easily digested and would help people be able to tackle more of digital technology on their own, as I was by this stage contemplating a change of career.

The Digital Migrant is the result. It took about 9 months to write and ended up being a lot shorter than I had originally imagined, but I think this a good thing. It doesn't tell you everything you need to know, because no book can do that—it would be like trying to boil the ocean. Instead what it tells you is the stuff you need to know but don't know how to ask for. I thought long and hard about the questions people always ask me, the things that always trip them up and the little morsels of knowledge that, when passed on, never fail to light up people's faces with understanding and possibility. Then I tried to put it all into some sort of sequence that made sense and attempted to give it a narrative that would make the whole thing feel more like a novel than a dry technical manual.

I'm quite proud of my accomplishment. It's by no means perfect and I can already see things I would change about it, but it's my first book and I've worked hard to make it something people will find interesting and useful.

How can I get a copy?

For more information or to get a copy, visit the official website for the book at www.thedigitalmigrant.com