5 ms·
I am the opposite of most comments here. Don't stupid her away to a mobile device. We got our mom a computer, a cheap one, and told her to play with it. Break
by Raphmedia 10y ago
I am the opposite of most comments here. Don't stupid her away to a mobile device.
We got our mom a computer, a cheap one, and told her to play with it. Break it. Click everywhere.
Soon enough she was playing with windows settings. Soon enough nothing worked. She now knew you can brick computer, she is more careful.
We fixed the computer and she explored the internet. She asked how she could download wallpapers, we introduced her to torrents and file sharing. She got viruses. She learned that you can get virus online and they will delete your hard worked wallpaper collection. She is aware of the dangers of the internet now.
For a while you would download all the free adblockers, anti-virus, etc., she could find and put them on CDs. She learned to clean her own computer.
Right now she is very comfortable with computers and it allows her to have more freedom. She will easily connect with people online, like we do here. I'm certain it has helped her keeping smart.
She even feel out pain now. Whenever one of her neighbours lady has issues with computers they call her.
- PaulKeeble 10y agoIt is after all how the rest of us learned. Windows 95 (alpha) was so unreliable you had to reinstall it monthly as it ripped itself apart so you got to know how to reinstall windows and get it setup again. I spent time in the control panel after that because I knew how to start over. 20 years later after countless errors my computer gets reinstalled when Microsoft pushes out a garbage patch or I get new hardware.
- JadeNB 10y ago> It is after all how the rest of us learned. Thank you for this very important reminder. Everyone has to learn this at some point, and will necessarily start from a position of relative ignorance; the fact that someone hasn't learned it yet doesn't mean that he or she is stupid, and it's wrong to treat it as such. (Not to say that anyone here, particularly the poster, has said or even thinks this; but it's easy to fall into that mindset, at least for me.)
- JTon 10y agoI like this approach. But how did you mitigate the risk of a more serious data compromise like identity theft? Did you wait until she understood the dangers before allowing her to use sensitive logins like banking and email?
- Raphmedia 10y agoOnline transactions weren't as safe and ubiquitous back then. She already had a paranoia of entering those informations online and we told her that her instinct was right. She does some Amazon orders every now and then but that's it.
- soneca 10y agoGood question and good answer through your rhetorical question too. GP approach with your addendum is the way to do this in my opinion.
- falcolas 10y agoThis assumes an interest, willingness, and time to learn. For better or worse, not everyone can/wants to become an expert in managing these buggy and vulnerable messes we call general purpose computers. It's a big investment, an investment many of us don't remember making since it was effectively part of our childhood. That same investment, in a world with special purpose computing devices, has a very low ROI for people who would rather be doing something else.
- ralphc 10y agoIt's also assuming you live close enough to your parents that you can go over and physically revive a bricked computer.
- Haegin 10y agoThere's got to be money in a service where a company provides your parents with a computer that's set up to be pretty user friendly and safe. If they brick it, the computer is replaced. The company manages the machine so backups are handled and the new machine will be pretty close to whatever they lost wherever possible (in terms of content on the machine). If the hardware gets damaged that'd have to be paid for I guess.
- rthille 10y agoYeah, Google provides that service and many manufacturers sell the products which make use of it. (chromebooks)
- i336_ 10y agoI just thought of a bizarre but interesting idea - an i3/i5-capable server motherboard with IPMI, and a rock-solid router running OpenVPN in front of the IPMI port. Maybe fractionally higher power consumption, and perhaps you'd need a GPU for it, but if both ends have really decent internet, that could very legitimately work.
- pc86 10y ago
- ShaneOG 10y ago> She asked how she could download wallpapers, we introduced her to torrents and file sharing But... why?
- Raphmedia 10y agoEver been to those "super-awesome-hd-wallaper.com" websites? They are FILLED with ads, popups, etc. Instead, you can safely download one of the top wallpaper torrent package on Pirate Bay and get thousands of good quality wallpapers.
- jonwachob91 10y agoOr ya know... Google Images...
- dajohnson89 10y agoIs it that hard for you to accept that people use different tools to accomplish the same task?
- CardenB 10y agoIt's a little bizarre to introduce someone to torrents when you can use google images. Especially someone who is struggling to grasp computing as a whole.
- Raphmedia 10y agoPsst... Didn't want to focus the discussion on the legality of torrenting. Of course she uses torrent for more than only wallpapers. ;)
- ulucs 10y agoI find it a bit ironic that 4chan's /wg/ of all places seems like the safest choice here. Plus, the content is always up-to-date
- WayneBro 10y agoTeaching someone to fish only works when they want to learn. For the vast majority of people who just want to consume the media available on the net, this would be a monumental waste of time. It's like me trying to fix my own car just for the sake of knowing how to fix my own car. Nope. No thanks. I'll take it to the garage when it's broken. For most people I would recommend an iPad or a smartphone.
- totalZero 10y agoThat's pretty much how we all learned. Good on your mom!