Computing In Poorer Countries Part Two

Continuing on in this short series on Computing In Poorer Countries Part Two.

For many access to computers is limited in all countries that have a population that have an indivual income earnings below what is concidered to be below povety level, that still are able to access the  internet and make post on facebook videos on Youtube.

Of course with the ever growing popular use of smart phones even in countries that we in America would consider to be below poverty level, many have scraped enough cash together to purchase one of these phones on time payments with cameras and Internet access they are able to to upload video's and pictures to Facebook, Twitter and I don't know how many social media sites.

I was forced to start using Facebook as my own family stopped using their Yahoo and and Hotmail email account and well as the instant messaging services provided by these web based in favor of Facebook as have many of our relatives in the Philippines which is the country that I am basing these series of post on.

My daughter-in-law is still in the Philippines she is blessed with a mother who worked hard and earned her nursing degree went abroad as many in Asian countries looking for work do, so Diann was able to go to school at one of the better schools the the area where lives a very sharp young lady who has earned  2 collage degrees one in Computer Science the second in Nursing following her mothers footstep and now works as a nurse. She enjoy using her computer skill to make all kinds of interesting different kinds of picture arrangement of her friend coworkers family on Facebook while raising my granddaughter.

My wife's family is from the island of Leyte which is one of several large island that make up the southern part of the country much of the family still lives there and did not migrate north as many of the sisters and brothers have done. In order for one of my nieces to go to collage the girl had to travel for an hour by bus to go to school guess they live in a rural area her mother works hard in what is called a Barangguy which is a small local community government with in a province at a Well Baby Clinic her income is 1,000 peso per month but has put 2 of her kids through collage.

"Tita" may know how to use a computer I don't know, but when her daughter asked me for help in completing her last year of education for her Computer Science Degree I did so and provided her a laptop that my son took to with him to the Philippines. That I purchased in a Radio Shack store in San Francisco, California took it with me on the ship that I was working on to Guam, where I use to live and gave it to him.

"Elmera" just graduated a few days ago and used the laptop for writing her theses and is now job searching I wish her luck. We communicate via Facebook messages in order for her to access the Internet she has to travel for 20 minutes on a bus to get to the nearest town that has Internet access.

"Tita's" son "Earl" worked his way through a Philippine Merchant Marine School to get his third mate License. When I met him the first time he was working for Shipping Agency that provides crews for ship around the world. He had 2 cell phones and earned extra income from selling loads to people and merchant sailor he was in contact with for their cell phones and wireless Internet connection. Though his income is low his greatest dreams in life are to work as a Merchant Seaman under his License and to own a laptop.

This was during a period of time before my wife passed away, his mother had come up from Leyte to assist in caring for her. It was during this time of of waiting to say good-bye to her that I decided for lack of anything other to do to teach my nieces and Earl basic computer repair. Earl has a great desire to learn more about computers to learn to repair them I sent him and my nieces a book from this website; diy-computer-repair.com which is the site that I found the books that I used to learn computer repair building servers and my favored source for information on computing I have.

I had an email chat with a lady in the Philippines that know a different sister-in-law that lives in a city and rural farming area south and east of Manila called Cavite this lady is a school teacher is raising her children on her own has no idea as to where her husband is, they parted company some time ago. "Daisy" is a 30 old school teacher who greatest wish is to have a computer she cannot afford to buy one not new at least. But she does stop of at an Internet store to use one a couple times a week.

Understanding her desire to have her own computer, I suggested she build her own said that you can buy one part at a time a case or find some one to give you an old no longer working computer and learn which parts are still usable. Said, look you say you have no time to do that but you have time to sit and chat with me in IM video. Go to this website diy-computer-repair.com you will learn most of what you need to do to do so free at this site.

There are people in all of the poorer countries of the world that do the exact same thing daily. Desiring to have a computer but do not realise that they have the power to build a computer, part by part; some parts they can get for free out of trash dumps daily computer cases are placed in land fill that have perfectly good working power supplies memory motherboards CD Rom's, hard drives. The just are not the latest and greatest.

People don't understand  a computer with a MAC or a Windows OS are rich man computers the Linux/Unix operating systems are free most of which will run from a CD Rom, a CF card, flash drive. A windows OS is the single most expensive part of building the computer from parts if you choose to use it $100.00 average additional cost for the build.

So you have an old P3 processor motherboard that is good has 256 meg memory power supply works you have a keyboard maybe a mouse (We are so use to using a mouse that we forget that the same inputs are on the keyboard we have to learn to use them.) Just because the hard drive may be bad does not mean the rest of the computer is.

The point of this story is we as humans have an natural desire to improve ourselves as a whole unless we are a drug dealer that uses their own product and limit themselves to what they have income wise from their product. No I will not get started down that road.

We not only need to do new things our minds require us to do so. I have given examples of people involved  with Computing in Poorer Countries.

What is computing in this world today it is not just the PC I am writing this on, it is the computers in the power plant that create the electricity, I use to power the computer.

The digital watch on my wrist to tell me how late am staying up late, the TV set using a microprocessor to run the LCD digital display, the wireless remotes that we have for our TVs, radios, the radio in your car ( factory equipment on many new cars guess looking for the remote can cause you to keep your eyes off the road same as that computing device called a cell phone) the fan in the ceiling with a light or 4 in it, your webcam, the ignition system of your car everything we do including our satellite communications.

The one thing that all of the people who I have in mentioned have is a deep belief in God; the salvation of Christ and that through daily prayer the will have the means to be able to live through another day and that some day they may own a computer.

The price of a laptop computer made in the Philippines of good quality and 1 year warranty is around $400.00 us or around 20,000 pesos.

On the subject of Computing in Poorer Countries I will include the United States in this list. according to a news story in today's new there are 85 million plus persons in the United States that are not receiving unemployment benefits that are jobless that may have just given up on trying to get a job any kind of job that do not receive any form of Government Assistance.

I a couple of weeks I fear that I will become one of them if I don't get a job on a ship soon.

I may continue with this series at a later date and I trust that you will be reading every one of them.