I always see the commerical, and at $0, it seems like a good idea (programs of any sort have a lot of feautures you’ll never find unless pointed to, so I’m happy to see there is a copy of Photoshop CS in there), and a seemingly great user interface.
So I ask my dad, ‘how’s the program?’
‘oh great, I am learning alot!’
‘Oh, what’s something you’ve learned so far?’(remembering all the quetions I’ve been asked because I’m a ‘computer guy’)
‘Well, if you are typing a memo or something, and you want to center the title, there is a button you can press for that, you don’t have to count the spaces on a line and space it out manually’
I almost failed HS typing 'cause I’d learned “touch typing” at home on my C-64… of course, it wasn’t “real” touch-typing, but by then it was too late and I couldn’t unlearn
I’ve thought about getting one of those video professor videos for my dad, but he doesn’t really want to learn, he just wants to do. He knows his GPS inside and out, and his LORAN, but if it’s not navigation equipment or a flying machine, he won’t spend the effort.
My mom mostly knows, but doesn’t want to learn how to admin their XP box, and so I’m the one she comes to when Mozilla needs upgrading or something. Which I find ironic because up until 4 years ago her job was QA testing for Sybase database software, which meant using both Windows NT (AKA, XP without the Fisher-Price theme) and Unix/Linux command lines.
The woman can code in C++ and use Unix ftp, but she can’t download an exe and double click on it.
Both my parents are little better at computers than Brian MacKenzie’s dad, but when my mom is watching me use to computer or wants me to do something she gets frusterated and yells at me for doing things “too fast”.
when showing my mom and grandma how to do something on the computer I have to slow down to about half the speed I normally do things same with my sister, anyway anytime my dad or I try to show them how to do something we have to slow things down and write it out or they ask us everytime they need to do something my grandma has a sticky-note on ther monitor for every thing she ever needs to do on the computer and a full notepad or two anytime she forgets or tries to do something new we have to explain everything step by step and then repeat about four times and we can’t tell her more than one way or she gets confused and can’t do it. luckily My dad is more computer savy than I am so if I can’t figure something outhe shows me and I remember.
Oh geez, I’ve taught my mom how to attach a file to an email several times and she still doesn’t seem to get it. Oh, and she has a college degree in computer science… I guess if she can’t use punch cards to do her email, she just doesn’t comprehend it.
My dad, who also has a computer science degree, and has a title of software engineer also jokes about me sending a bill to his employer for consulation services.
See, my mom went back to school for her CS degree, she graduated in '92 or 92. Yet she doesn’t read error msgs. How did the woman write an OS in C for her final project, if she never read the error msgs???
