Thursday, November 16, 2006

Just for You Mom

Now that my mom has a new Dell laptop that she doesn't know how to use, she's complaining that I'm not updating the blog enough! We live a mile from my parents and see them quite a bit. So now I don't write enough?

I got my Dad up and running on email a number of years ago. Once he got past replying with attached text instead of attaching the email as a file, everything was good. He still won't delete all the headers for widely spread email (hint, hint) but he knows the basics.

Mom is going to be a challenge because she wants her laptop to interface with her sewing machine. In case you care, her sewing machine is running embedded XP and has PCMCIA, USB, serial connections and a 5 inch screen all built in. She's even got a portable CD drive for it. She going to class to figure out how to make it all work. My job is to explain that unlike a sewing machine, there's no foot pedal. That thing is a mouse.

Right now we're working on the basics. Email with Gmail. We showed the kids (ages 11 and 10) her gmail screen and they said "that's easy! It's just clicking!". Maybe they can help, but they're not allowed to put games on her laptop. I don't know how clean viruses off a sewing machine. So mom has email now. If you want to say hi, it's epolino@gmail.com.

What's funny is that my grandfather used have me come over to set his digital clock when the time changed. My parents still call me over to change the time on their cell phones because they don't change automatically. I'm wondering what I'm going to ask my kids to do. Change the time on the flux capacitor in the Delorean? Calibrate the chrono chip on the hyperdrive?

Somehow I think that all this is payback for enduring all those driving lessons with me so many years ago.

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