How do people manage tech?

I'm a computer semi-geek - I know what everything does and feel confident playing with hardware and software - though that's only on something running Windows or Linux. I wouldn't know how to approach a Mac. 

The only thing I'd add to Iain's suggestions are to use a password manager.  1password is a Candian firm and one of the most accessible to a novice. It's not expensive, either - only around £2.50 a month. Proton (a Swiss company) offers an excellent free service, but it might be confusing to someone struggling with tech. 

Google offers a free password manager, if you use Chrome. Microsoft offers one if you use Edge. Firefox (another popular browser) also has one.

I've heard of password managers but I'm not sure what they are, how they work or how I'd access one, being my luck I'd do all my passwords on something like that and then forget how to get into it.

I use firefox, I looked at chrome and edge but didn't like them, they felt unfriendly.

How did you all get started with computers? I guess I was fairly late to the party, before the internet I didn't really have much use for one, or as far as I know I didn't, I did try using word processors but I never had any instructions or guidance and questions were never answered, I felt like I was being silo'd by the people who were allowing me to use their computors. Like one ex, who let me type up some college essays, I wanted to print them out, but when I tried I couldn't because he had a whole other computer that was "security" for all his equipment, including the printer that I didn't have the password for. Apart from the inconvience to me being late with my work, he thought it was inconvienient that he had to give me the password for the printer. Another ex would say I could use his computer when he was at work and then not tell me how to switch it on, there seemed to be switches in all sorts of unexpected places, it caused arguments so I just stopped asking. When I was at uni and was given a load of equipment and a teacher for how to use it all, I got fed up as the first thing he did was complain and tell me how disapointed he was that I'd got a lap top instead of a tower. He also wouldn't tell me how to do the things I needed to do for my work, like how to do foot notes and inset pieces, because those things were later on in his teaching programe and would be included in about 6 months time, another friend had exactly the same thing with him, so it wasn't just me. Then when I'd finished uni I moved up here to a place with no mobile signal at all, apparently we were on the edge of several companies ranges, we also had terrible internet connection, so bad that BT offered us a refund because they couldn't run they're own speed test because it was so slow. In many places here you still get a better signal from Ireland than from Britain and there are still blackspots.

I get the issues you experienced with tech - I have seen each of them dozens if not hundreds of time in my career in support.

For the "how do I do this" sort of question - the best approach I always found was to ask nicely about how to do the thing and always remember the thank the person who told me. You often need to be persistent and not take offence if people seem busy or annoyed to tell you how to do something that they are the "gatekeeper" to the info.

A very important thing I found is to learn and store the knowledge when you find out what to do. Try to understand why it is this way if you can, be curious and absorb the knowledge as there is a good chance you can use it later. Keep notes and refer to them a you would have done on your uni course.

The internet has been immensely useful for this since the very early 2000's so learning how to use a search engine well is a key skill to building your knowledge - if you can't get someone to show you then try a load of questions in the search engine on how to use the search engine. Persistence is the key here.

You are intelligent (you trained to be a therapist for example) and can retain complex knowledge (you know a great deal about history for example) so the ability of absorbing tech knowledge is something you are more than capable of. 

Think back to your therapy training - what makes people have a mental block on a particular subject and how do they learn to overcome this? You are probably one of the most capable people here to answer this question.

I just tried your search engine link and didn't understand what it was talking about, it seemed another example of people talking to me at Alevel, level and me still being in infants

I don't know where you got this idea that I have opostitional defiance disorder from, I don't have it, I know someone who maybe does have it, but I don't and I also question the validity of it as a diagnosis. I've read about it, but I'm still not sure how it's different to a child being naughty and/or have a fit of the terrible twos, or if someone is being made to do something they really don't want to do or can't do by adults who are more interested in control than any educational value they might be trying to promote? I've noticed it's something that seems to more applied to women and girls than men and boys, which also raises my eyebrows and makes me question it. How do we know it's real and not another thing made up by big pharma to try and sell drugs? I refused to do sport at school, because I didn't like it and couldn't do it and even when I tried my best got shouted at for being crap, so I decided I didn't like this game and refused to play it anymore. Being caught up in a game and having it forced on you by others, is the sort of thing I'd be advising clients to walk away from, removing yourself from an area of conflict is often the best things to do. I refused to go to school for a couple of years as I was being bullied, hunted down through corridors and waited for outside the school gates to hit, spat at and generally shouted at and pushed around and none of the adults around tried to do anything to stop it or help, so I removed my self from the arena of conflict. School refusal is pretty common for autistic children so I don't think I was unusual in this

I was told that it's a learning difficulty by an educational psychologist, so I'll take her word for it as she will have known far more about such things than I do. She did question me in depth about it before reaching a diagnosis.

Seeing as I've been wanting and trying to learn about tech for over 30 years and failing, I don't think you could honestly say I'm resistant. I was better at it than some of the people around me when I first started, but they all got better than me quite quickly and seemed to take to it easily. It's not something that comes naturally to me, none of us are born knowing how to do tech stuff anymore than we are born knowing how to drive. I know I'm good at learning stuff and it's not always stuff I'm interested in either, I hated geography at school but was really good at most of it, the non maths part anyway. Maths being another thing I've never been good at and don't seem to get better at even with specialist teaching.

How long should one practice for and not get any better at something before realising that theres something wrong? Is 30 years long enough? Would you suggest that someone try  for a baby for that long without going to the GP, or that someone should not be able to get to grips with reading before seeing someone about dyslexia? It seems that all I get is 'keep trying', something I find very trying as I have been trying and failing, repeated trying and failing dosen't help either, trying to keep and open mind and telling myself this time will be different dosent' really help when it isn't different or at best differently crap

I tried my new computer earlier, before I came on here, I was allowed to read the Guardian, but not come on here, I ended up in the same wrong password loop as before without any knowlege of why its happening or how to make it stop, I came on here with my old computer the one I'm typing this on and was allowed straight on, no password malarky or anything, any ideas on why that was?

I don't know where you got this idea that I have opostitional defiance disorder from, I don't have it, I know someone who maybe does have it, but I don't and I also question the validity of it as a diagnosis. I've read about it, but I'm still not sure how it's different to a child being naughty and/or have a fit of the terrible twos, or if someone is being made to do something they really don't want to do or can't do by adults who are more interested in control than any educational value they might be trying to promote? I've noticed it's something that seems to more applied to women and girls than men and boys, which also raises my eyebrows and makes me question it. How do we know it's real and not another thing made up by big pharma to try and sell drugs? I refused to do sport at school, because I didn't like it and couldn't do it and even when I tried my best got shouted at for being crap, so I decided I didn't like this game and refused to play it anymore. Being caught up in a game and having it forced on you by others, is the sort of thing I'd be advising clients to walk away from, removing yourself from an area of conflict is often the best things to do. I refused to go to school for a couple of years as I was being bullied, hunted down through corridors and waited for outside the school gates to hit, spat at and generally shouted at and pushed around and none of the adults around tried to do anything to stop it or help, so I removed my self from the arena of conflict. School refusal is pretty common for autistic children so I don't think I was unusual in this

I was told that it's a learning difficulty by an educational psychologist, so I'll take her word for it as she will have known far more about such things than I do. She did question me in depth about it before reaching a diagnosis.

Seeing as I've been wanting and trying to learn about tech for over 30 years and failing, I don't think you could honestly say I'm resistant. I was better at it than some of the people around me when I first started, but they all got better than me quite quickly and seemed to take to it easily. It's not something that comes naturally to me, none of us are born knowing how to do tech stuff anymore than we are born knowing how to drive. I know I'm good at learning stuff and it's not always stuff I'm interested in either, I hated geography at school but was really good at most of it, the non maths part anyway. Maths being another thing I've never been good at and don't seem to get better at even with specialist teaching.

How long should one practice for and not get any better at something before realising that theres something wrong? Is 30 years long enough? Would you suggest that someone try  for a baby for that long without going to the GP, or that someone should not be able to get to grips with reading before seeing someone about dyslexia? It seems that all I get is 'keep trying', something I find very trying as I have been trying and failing, repeated trying and failing dosen't help either, trying to keep and open mind and telling myself this time will be different dosent' really help when it isn't different or at best differently crap

I tried my new computer earlier, before I came on here, I was allowed to read the Guardian, but not come on here, I ended up in the same wrong password loop as before without any knowlege of why its happening or how to make it stop, I came on here with my old computer the one I'm typing this on and was allowed straight on, no password malarky or anything, any ideas on why that was?

I just tried your search engine link and didn't understand what it was talking about, it seemed another example of people talking to me at Alevel, level and me still being in infants