OSNews put up a story, How to Get and Keep Windows XP After June 30 , and I remembered my wife saying that her Aunt got a new computer, and was unhappy with Windows Vista. I'm tempted to say, "whatever... learn it and move on". However, if you're gonna learn something, why not learn something that doesn't lock you into a bunch of crap. I'm not going to detail what "crap" that is at this point. Just know there are alternatives.
Anyway, I recently took some spare parts and did a replacement of my mom-in-laws computer and discovered a couple of problems. Her old box was an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ with 1 GB of RAM and was supposedly "slow". Windows XP gets slow, and I did a few things to try to alleviate the "slowness" with not much effect. I built a machine with an AMD BE-2300+ processor a gig of RAM and an NVIDIA 8400 GS, and did a quick install of Windows Vista to see if that would work for her. I didn't get a chance to move *everything* over, so she's a bit concerned about not having her important programs installed.
I'm tempted to just put her old machine back. Besides having to "learn" Vista (she doesn't like learning new things on the computer). There were the following issues:
- She had an old parallel port connected BJC-2000 printer. The computer I built had no parallel port. Okay... I had an old BJC 2100 printer that I got from our old baby sitter who was going to throw it away when she moved. It even used the same cartridges... and had a USB connection. Awesome, I thought... Turns out that the printer is *so* old, Vista didn't have a driver for it.
- PrintKey .... this program is ancient, but again... the whole learning new things... yeah, okay. So she wants that installed, so she can press her "PrintScreen" key and send stuff to her printer (which is unsupported in Vista). I tried to download it, but there's only a paid version available. I was going to just show her the snipping tool in Vista (which is great, by the way) but it would have involved more of that "learning new stuff..." My kid started writing on her wall with an ink pen, so we had to go.
- Windows Contacts is the new Windows Address Book, and Windows Mail is the new Outlook Express. I really think she should have stayed with AOL if she's not going to do this new learning thing. That transition was pretty rough for her. I'm not sure if she'll be able to do everything, but she's making it along, after I imported her address book from her old hard drive. The hard thing is, I don't use Windows Mail or Windows Contacts. I didn't use AOL, and I didn't use Outlook Express. I offered Thunderbird, and AOL Open Mail Access . However, she wasn't comfortable with that. That's what years of AOL use will do to you. Unable to use any other platform, even for the same mail.
- Then there's the whole Kodak EasyShare thing. I installed it on the computer before I brought it over, but I didn't move her pictures. We imported some from a CD her aunt sent her, but that didn't really work out... too many questions, and she wasn't really into it. Then, I couldn't import her old pictures, because the hard drive enclosure I brought her old drive in didn't want to work in Vista on the new computer, even though it worked on my computer at home. I'll write that up to a bad enclosure... The EasyShare backup was like 4.8 GB... too big for a single-layer DVD. I guess the next time I head over, I'll just physically put the drive in the computer and move the files. Ugh. I don't use EasyShare, but I suggested it to her, based on her buying a Kodak Camera, thinking it would be easy. It was, but its still in that, learn it one way, not what is really happening kind of phase.
All this said, my mom-in-law isn't dumb. True, she's not really into learning new ways of doing things, but that's not a specific computer-ish thing. That's just her. Vista is for *new* computers, and *new* peripherals. However, the development is rooted in backwards compatibility. It's just this weird mish-mash of new concepts that are superficial and lack of support for old things that were changed without need.
The real question... of course, is... if I just said, "look, learn this Linux thing, and I'll support you 100%, would it really work out? I don't really use Linux for the things she does. The photos are really important to her, being able to read the e-mail stuff is really important to her... all those silly messages with weird things going on in the world that I'll casually glance at, because I've been "on the Internet" since college, and have seen them already... it is important.
They aren't important to me in the same way they are important to her.All my assets are a bit more digital... transient... I have a picture online, of my kids, if someone wants to see it, I send them a link. I don't really store anything important on my computer, so I don't do backups... She keeps the memory cards from her digital camera archived, and visits a store to print. It isn't really the same, but I know it is a completely valid way of using the computer.
Should I invest in using the computer like she does, so that I can help? Should I work on showing her how to use the computer the way I do, so that she doesn't have go through the struggles. She's not quite to the point where she realizes that everything is digital, and she can't "break" it. When she doesn't know how to do something, she asks, rather than simply trying. People make serious money writing books and stuff to help people out with this line of thinking/usage. I think I should write some "user friendly" books about how to do these things without Windows. I don't know if it would get published, but I do think it would be a worthwhile effort. If anything, I can use Deb as a guinea pig. LOL. I'll write that in the front of the book...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment