My mum and dad have bought a PC. They've never had a computer before but decided that the time has come when they are starting to feel left behind in this current, digital age and they want to catch up. There are so many “dot-com” adverts around, on television, on billboards, on buses etc, that they were beginning to feel at a disadvantage, particularly when for holidays or car insurance for example, there’s often the celebrated “10% discount if you buy online” to reckon with. For ages Mum and Dad fought the trend to dive into the digital pond, having heard stories of bank fraud, phone jacking, identity theft and such, but finally they succumbed and came home one day with a spanking new laptop and printer.
My dad is nothing if not thorough and he made sure he read up thoroughly on broadband connections but unfortunately being a complete novice in this particular arena, none of it made much sense to him. Even his old friend British Telecom seemed to be talking in Greek; Norton monthly wireless hub with wi-fi and home hub security and hub phone. What does it all mean? Even the payment plan made no sense. Half price for three months billed as credit on your first bill? What’s that all about?
Undeterred, with help from my brother and myself, he waded through the jargon and decided to bite the bullet and go the whole hog (I’ve always loved mixing metaphors) ordering BT’s top line connection, including a man who comes and sets it all up for you. The thought of Dad trying to set it all up himself having no prior knowledge filled all of us with dread so this seemed like the best option.
I’d just got home from shopping on the Sunday afternoon when the phone call came.
“Help!” was the cry, “I think I’ve broken it!”Following a fruitless hour and a half on the phone, trying to visualise what he was seeing without a great deal of success and no nearer to a solution, I told him to hang on whilst I popped round. Unfortunately, as I live in York and Dad lives on the other side of the Welsh border, popping round means two and a half hours each way. I don’t mind, he is my Dad after all, and as I argued when he objected to me driving all that way, I often drive further for work, so I’m kind of used to it. In the event I was really glad I did, as I never would have sorted it over the phone. By the time I left, Dad could get into his emails again so all was to the good.
Last weekend, Mum and Dad visited us in York and partway through the afternoon, Dad sheepishly admitted he was still having problems. He’d got the laptop in his boot – could I have a look? He’d bought a Bluetooth dongle in order to transfer pictures from his phone to the PC, but hadn’t been able to install it as the drivers supplied were for Windows XP. My brother had downloaded drivers from the manufacturer’s website for him, but he was still struggling to make it work.I really feel for him. I like to think I’m reasonably computer literate (my day job is in I.T.) but having now struggled with Vista myself even just to achieve basic things, I dread to think what it must be like for anyone coming to it with no prior experince of computing at all. There’s so much information on the screen at any time, it’s near impossible for a newcomer to understand which bits of it are important or indeed relevant, and which aren’t.
Following further problems with his BT email facility – it just doesn’t appear to be compatible with his PC – I’ve spent two lunchtimes on the phone to him this week (one of these spent learning that MSN Hotmail just repeatedly killed his browser!) resulting in setting up a GoogleMail account and coaching him in its use. This now appears to be working. Which is nice. I’ve always admired my dad’s persistence but more so now than ever as I know he’s been tempted to throw “that damn computer” out of the window on several occasions and is currently putting a great deal more into it than he’s getting out. But he sticks at it, just like I’ve seen him do with everything else in life (did I mention, he once made me a car) and refuses to be beaten. His tenacity is slowly paying off - in the last couple fo days I've arranged for him to receive "Vista For Dummies" (Amazon's great isn't it?) and with its help he's been able to save some attached pictures of Luca that I've sent him. He's ahead of me in a way as I've only just tonight figured out how to post pictures on this here blog thingy. Maybe one day Dad’ll find his way in here. If he does he’ll find a warm welcome waiting…
"Hi Dad! ‘Kettle’s on, you just sit down and put your feet up and I'll be right there..."
2 comments:
Hello to Deej's Mum and Dad if you pop here :-)
Got my Mum a mobile phone after years of trying to persuade her that it would be useful and wouldn't really fry her brain and give her cancer. She threatens to throw it out of the window on a regular basis :-)
She's still not got the knack of it. A couple of months ago we were in Tesco's and I lost her, rang her mobile - no answer, was walking up and down the aisles trying to find her and kept ringing her number. Eventually I found her in the bread aisle bopping away, when she saw me she said 'Where do I know this tune from?', I said 'it's your bloody phone!!'.
Last month I decided it was time to teach her about the beauty of texting after she told me there was a little flashing envelope showing on her phone, when I asked her did she open it she said no, she put the phone in the cupboard. Spent ages showing her what to do, how to read texts and how to send them. I asked her to send me a text later that evening and I was chuffed when my phone beeped to say I'd got a text off 'Mobile Mum', I still have it and it reads as follows:
Ggddkjjjj ghgliamm
:-) Don't think I'll be recommending a computer to my Mum and Dad just yet.
"Bluetooth Dongle"? Aren't they shooting cows down south for that?
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