I have never had a problem logging on to SOC. On my i-Phone and Mac I use only Safari and on my Android table I use only Firefox.
What year did you first start using a computer at work/for work? My year was 1988, when I was hired as a Stockroom Supervisor for an electronics company. From taking three years of typing classes in high school and using an electric one in libraries, I was pretty accurate on a keyboard. That is, unless the adjustment for touching the keys was too high. My 10-Key "by touch" skills weren't that good, until I started my first Purchasing/Inventory Control job a few years later. Typing out Purchase Orders on an electric typewriter was ok, but using the Tab key really got tiresome going from one part of a Purchase Order to another. Doing Inventory on 3 x 5 cards got to be a pain as well. Then came the computer, and my job got very, very easy. Basic 4, MAS 90, Platinum and Solomon was the programs I used. IOW, Accounting programs that included Purchasing and Inventory Control. One place I really wish I would've had a computer is the Navy onboard ships. Today, computers are used in farming, ranching and rodeo. Basically speaking, I absolutely loved using a computer and still do! And, no "hunt and pec" for me!
My first job with a computer was 1982. I was managing Purchasing, and bought the early Macs (for the folks who created User Guides) and PC clones (for the finance/contract types.) I also worked a deal for the folks to buy PC clones for their home use. I was a two-finger typer, and could not cope with learning DOS without knowing how to blind touch-type. (I also had to learn hexadecimal to apply fonts with my old dot matrix printer.) So I taught myself to touch-type by creating a replica of the keyboard with graph paper, color-coding the squares for each finger, then placing a towel across my hand so should I try to look at the keyboard, it would do me no good. If I wanted to remember where a given key was, I had to look at the chart and not my hands. I type over 50wpm with minimal errors (but who cares about errors with spellcheck?) At some point, that color-coded keyboard learning tool became available for sale by others. I missed an opportunity... When I was getting my Associates in the 70s, I took a Business Math class. They taught us how to speed-use a 10 key adding machine. I was already fast with the one at work, but since they were gonna teach me from scratch, I re-learned how to use it with my left hand so I would not have to keep putting my pencil down to use the machine and picking it back up to write down the numbers. Since most computer keyboards have the keypad on the right, I keep a USB keypad handy so I can use it with my left hand. I also started buying left-handed keyboards with the keypad on the left. I've done a lot of number-crunching during my career, and keeping my right hand free has made it easier.
1982. I was in IT for my entire career, starting out with IBM mainframes and dumb terminals before desktops were rolled out to the entire company around 1985 or so. Then I moved into desktop support and LAN administration, system security and finally project management.
Before people were using computers, I worked for a company that controlled and monitored security systems from a remote center in Rosslyn (Kastle Systems.) We used DEC PDP11-VO3s. I worked for a few companies that had mainframes (mostly the DEC VAX.) I recall the dumb terminals: VT50s and VT52s. Then when desktop PCs were deployed, you used Terminal Emulation software so you could connect your PC as a dumb terminal to the mainframe.
Late 70's Dos era... walked in to work one day and was told so and so was fired your IT. I knew Nothing at all. But never really got comfortable with computers we bought our own in about 1992.
I just read an article in PC World online saying Windows 11 security is good enough to not buy third party security like Norton and others,
I recall in the 60's/70s when computers began to surface everywhere I thought it would make no difference in everyday living. A friend of mine back then went to work selling them. I don't know what company he started with but he thought I was nuts. I kinda think he was right.
I can remember in 1966 when I went to work for a large national insurance company, the "mainframe" (I think that was what it was called) took up the entire fourth floor of their 9-story office building. You could see it through the glass wall when the elevator stopped, but Noone was allowed to get off unless you worked in that department. The men (mostly) wore white coats and there was a special air lock-type entry to the area. I was told it was quite chilly in there. You could see big walls of reels moving jerkily and a lot of lights and switches. My first brush with computers was mainly in the area of word processing when the large metro newspaper I worked for in the 70s went computerized....slowly....and with much downtime.
I took a course in "theoretical" FORTRAN programming in the math dept in college around 1966. You learned the language but weren't allowed to run a program. I think they had just got the first computer on campus and only the professors were allowed to use it. First real computer use wasn't until 1974. You had to type programs on punch cards, carry them to another building where the mainframe was, wait in line, and give them to a guy to run them through the card reader. Next was around 1976 with an IBM 360 mainframe at least in the same building. They had a room set up with IBM Selectric typewriters modified to use as printers/terminals. First home computer was a Commodore 64 in 1982 that used BASIC language with storage on cassette disks.
I got my first office job circa 1977, working in a finance department. Our checks/deposits were done on a carbon system, and we sent the copies to Hughes ADP, who converted them to these as the method of data entry to maintain our books: I visited their facility. Lots of chads on the floor.
When I was in high school, some friends took computer classes. The computer was in a remote location (probably on a college campus), and they scheduled programming time. We had a terminal that communicated via phone line to the computer. Their programs were saved on paper punch tape:
I remember, when we lived in Jacksonville, FL, going with a group to visit a Navy Guided Missile Destroyer docked in Mayport. I was completely amazed at all of the computer stuff that was onboard. When I was in the Navy, there was a Rate called ET (Electronics Technician), because there was a lot of equipment run with electronics, but no computers.
When I was hired as the program chairman for what became the second-largest (by enrollment) program at a state college with two campuses, only one computer per building were available for the use of program chairmen and teaching staff, and this was in the 1990s, and we were not allowed to use our personal computers for college business. I found a way around this, however. Initially, while my program was in a couple of large portable buildings that had been joined together, since we did a lot of evening and weekend stuff, for the purposes of computer use, I was assigned the use of the computer in the adjacent health services building. I had very good relations with the assistant dean, who was my immediate superior, so I was able to persuade him that two portable buildings joined together could not reasonably be termed portable, so it should be viewed as a separate building. He went with that, and I was assigned a computer for the use of myself and my additional teaching staff. The second campus that I was in charge of also had access to a computer, and, since it was a satellite campus in one building, there were more computers available relative to the staff that would be using them; plus I did the administrative stuff from the computer on the main campus. After a year, the computers were upgraded, and I was given a date and time when the new computer would be installed in my building. Prior to that time, I hid the old computer in a closet and pretended I didn't know what they were talking about when they asked about about the old computer, which they were supposed to pick up. As I had expected, no one ever followed up on that so, after a couple of weeks, we quit hiding the older computer before going home at night, and we had two computers in our building. I also did a lot of work on my program from my computer at home, but I wasn't supposed to do that.