Getting older, and new technology.

[byegad]

It's not about age. I'm well past the first flush, but, when our old TV died on the 2nd of January we offed to the shop and returned with a Sony LCD TV. While I was connecting it up I replaced the now defunct VHS recorder which died in September with a spare we had in hand, and had the TV, DVD player, DTR and VHS recorder connected and working perfectly 1st time in less time than it took to boil the kettle for tea. It's about brains, not age!

 

[Headgardener]

Now look! You have missed out some vital stages.

Take it out of the box.
Put plug in power socket.
Switch on at socket.
Switch tv on.
Then follow on screen instructions.

Then read instruction book.

Still missing one very important stage. After taking out of box mount on stand or wallbracket, or it will fall over and break, then plug in switch on and follow onscreen instructions.

 

[Speicher]

Thank you Head Gardener. I will make sure I remember that. I might be buying a new dvd player later this month.

 

[potsy]

Thank you Head Gardener. I will make sure I remember that. I might be buying a new dvd player later this month.

You don't need the wall bracket for that Speicher

 

[Speicher]

No, but I would substitute "put Dvd player on shelf of TV stand".

Consider my current handicap, I think you ought to pop round and install it for me!

 

[XmisterIS]

Introducing my Mother to the Home PC some eight years ago now was nothing short of painful ...

I built her a PC from old bits I had lying around.

Initially, she was a little skeptical because she thought she would need to buy "an internet", which would probably be expensive.

Now, eight years later, she still can't get her head round that fact that she can check her email account from any computer, not just her own!

If she is at my house, the conversation goes something like this:

(mother, fretting), "Ooooo! I need to get home and check to see if so-and-so has responded to that email I sent about so-and-so event at the WI!".

(me, nonchalant), "What? You can check it from my computer".

(mother, confused), "But I sent it from my computer!"

(me, exasperated), "Yes, I know, but you can check it from any computer".

(mother, more confused), "Really? How??!!"

(me, incredulous), "Mother, I have explained that to you a million times! Your computer and the internet are two different things. Do you remember I actually drew you a sodding picture of how the wretched thing works??!"

(mother, distressed), "Oh, I don't understand!"

It's like trying to explain nuclear physics to an idiot. It really is painful ...

 

[Night Train]

Introducing my Mother to the Home PC some eight years ago now was nothing short of painful ...

I built her a PC from old bits I had lying around.

Initially, she was a little skeptical because she thought she would need to buy "an internet", which would probably be expensive.

Now, eight years later, she still can't get her head round that fact that she can check her email account from any computer, not just her own!

If she is at my house, the conversation goes something like this:

(mother, fretting), "Ooooo! I need to get home and check to see if so-and-so has responded to that email I sent about so-and-so event at the WI!".

(me, nonchalant), "What? You can check it from my computer".

(mother, confused), "But I sent it from my computer!"

(me, exasperated), "Yes, I know, but you can check it from any computer".

(mother, more confused), "Really? How??!!"

(me, incredulous), "Mother, I have explained that to you a million times! Your computer and the internet are two different things. Do you remember I actually drew you a sodding picture of how the wretched thing works??!"

(mother, distressed), "Oh, I don't understand!"

It's like trying to explain nuclear physics to an idiot. It really is painful ...

Tell her it is like making a phone call. She can call from her house but she can also call from your house or anyone elses house.

 

[XmisterIS]

Tell her it is like making a phone call. She can call from her house but she can also call from your house or anyone elses house.

Oh, I have tried that and then some!

My mother just has a mental block ... there's a hamster somewhere inside her head, running furiously in a little wheel and getting nowhere fast ...

 

[Cardiac]

Some get it, some don't. My MIL (77 years young) emails, does on-line shopping, games, etc. Now she's just getting her hear around the Virgin Plus recorder box after losing her husband a couple of months ago.

I think the trick is to somehow keep sufficiently up to date. The difficulty is that the pace of technological change can easily leave folks behind. My mum (82) will never get to use a PC, and will struggle when she is forced to use a modern TV or set-top-box in a few months due to the analogue TV signal being switched off.

 

[Night Train]

Tell her it is like the owls in Harry Potter.
They just know where she is at any time the moment she logs on.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Introducing my Mother to the Home PC some eight years ago now was nothing short of painful ...

I built her a PC from old bits I had lying around.

Initially, she was a little skeptical because she thought she would need to buy "an internet", which would probably be expensive.

Now, eight years later, she still can't get her head round that fact that she can check her email account from any computer, not just her own!

If she is at my house, the conversation goes something like this:

(mother, fretting), "Ooooo! I need to get home and check to see if so-and-so has responded to that email I sent about so-and-so event at the WI!".

(me, nonchalant), "What? You can check it from my computer".

(mother, confused), "But I sent it from my computer!"

(me, exasperated), "Yes, I know, but you can check it from any computer".

(mother, more confused), "Really? How??!!"

(me, incredulous), "Mother, I have explained that to you a million times! Your computer and the internet are two different things. Do you remember I actually drew you a sodding picture of how the wretched thing works??!"

(mother, distressed), "Oh, I don't understand!"

It's like trying to explain nuclear physics to an idiot. It really is painful ...

Ha ha. My mum, mid-70s, is pretty good on computers, all things considered. Mind you, the last time she started up a video chat with me, she couldn't understand why she couldn't see herself on the screen, she could only see her bedroom ceiling.

''Mum, that's because the camera's pointing at the ceiling, not at you!!''

 

[ColinJ]

Introducing my Mother to the Home PC some eight years ago now was nothing short of painful ...

Don't - I spent a very painful 40 minutes on the telephone yesterday explaining to my sister how to find, then visit a website!

I realised that it wasn't going to be simple when her first words were "I don't have Google on my computer!"

I explained that we don't have all the websites we want to visit pre-installed on our computers.

Then I had to explain what a website is, then what a browser is.

Eventually we ended up with her typing the address of the website in as dictated by me, having done the searching on my computer. No joy.

I confirmed that she had eventually typed the address in the right box, had spelled it correctly, and this time hadn't just appended it to the end of the previous address. No joy.

I asked if she had pressed the Enter key. "No, what is an Enter key?" The big one on the right of the keyboard, below the Backspace key (which she had by then located). No joy.

Had she pressed it? No.

"Please press the Enter key." No joy.

Had she pressed it? No.

"PLEASE PRESS THE ENTER KEY." No joy.

"Did you press the Enter key down?"

"I don't know!"

"Hang on a minute..."

I left the room, buried my face in a cushion and screamed into it!

"Is your finger on top of the Enter key?"

"Yes."

"Press it down."

I waited. And waited. And waited.

I blinked first, so I lost of the game of I.T. chicken!

"So, what is it doing?"

"It went down!"

"What?"

"The Enter key went down when I pressed it"

"No, what is the computer doing?"

"Nothing."

"What can you see on the screen?"

"Pictures and writing."

...

After 30 minutes we had finally both ended up on the same page of the same website, so I tried to help her navigate to the page she wanted. I got her to describe exactly what she could see to confirm that it was what I could see. I told her to click on the one link in a particular paragraph. Next thing, she had clicked on a completely different link and ended up somewhere else.

I pulled out what was left of my hair. We got there in the end...

I wouldn't mind so much if she hadn't gone to computer literacy evening classes for a year and been awarded a certificate showing that she knew how to use the internet!

My sister isn't stupid, but she takes one look at a computer screen and freezes with fear. I just don't get it!

 

[Cardiac]

.
.
.
"No, what is the computer doing?"

"Nothing."

"What can you see on the screen?"

"Pictures and writing."
.
.
.

Can I recommend that you try an application called TeamViewer. It's a pretty friendly remote control tool - easier than others such as LogMeIn, in my view. It is free for personal use, and you can set up the remote end so that you can connect to the application without input from the remote user (best if you do it when you visit, perhaps). You can then control things if you wish or at least see what they can see. The biggest problem I have when offering remote IT support to family is getting them too tell me in detail what is on the screen while not clicking things with the mouse because they "think something might work".

 

[ColinJ]

Can I recommend that you try an application called TeamViewer. It's a pretty friendly remote control tool - easier than others such as LogMeIn, in my view.

Only trouble with that is, that I'd be getting calls every night to get me to do things for them! At least now, they have to suffer with me so they don't ask that often!

My niece calls in to see her mum a couple of times a week, so she normally helps out in person but she wasn't available yesterday.

Some people have asked why I don't supplement my income helping local people with their computers. Answer - it would do my head in!

I purged a careless PC user's computer of multiple viruses once but they complained a month later that the computer had caught some more so it must be my fault! Had they been downloading dodgy stuff off t'interweb again in the mean time? Of course they had!

 

[Cardiac]

Only trouble with that is, that I'd be getting calls every night to get me to do things for them! At least now, they have to suffer with me so they don't ask that often!

That's also a perfectly understandable strategy.