In 2005 or so, just before she emigrated to New Zealand, my mother bought a Windows PC laptop. When she did this I said that she was unequivocally rescinding all family help-desk rights from me. I would not be on hand to fix the bloody thing when it inevitably went wrong and she would have to factor this in to the initial financial savings and alleged “work compatibility” advantages.
As the years went by she honoured this agreement although in time it wasn’t necessary as my stubborn refusal to help with Windows issues has rendered my knowledge of them pretty useless, which suits me fine. But, as you can probably imagine, a relatively inexpensive Windows PC laptop bought in 2005 is unlikely to be in top shape by late 2011 so the time was coming for a replacement.
Last week I got an email (Burchell is her maiden name).
Golly. On the one hand, PC vs Windows aside, she finally had a computer that might be able to make it through a Skype conversation without bollixing up. On the other hand, my days freedom from mother-related tech support were over. I would have to help out.
On Sunday she took it out of the box and switched it on. On Monday I talked her through some basic stuff and gave her some homework mostly to do with playing around with the basics. Today we got iChat working, which meant I could share her screen. This was kinda magic as did I mention she’s in New Zealand? I’m controlling a computer that’s in New Zealand, and not through the command line either. I see what she sees. Here’s the setup.
At one stage I had Facetime (Apple’s stripped down video chat app) running on my Macbook and her iMac, the latter of which was mirrored on my Mac Mini so I could see myself on her computer. It was a bit of a headfuck, so I pointed the Macbook’s camera at the screen to make it even better. Epic fun times. But the main thing is I can watch what she’s doing while I talk her through stuff. That will save a lot of time and frustration.
I’m not a big fan of the Mac vs Windows wars. I just know what works for me and I’m more than happy with my Apple computers. But it was notable how scared my mum was that she might break it by doing something wrong and how teaching her how to use this Mac is mostly about reassuring her that she won’t break it and she should just play around, something she’s evidently learned not to do on the PC. Three days in and she’s much more comfortable as she’s realising that on a basic level she can’t do things “wrong”. It’s quite illuminating, like watching someone recover from PTSD.
Windows may well be a fantastic operating system and I know many friends who swear by it. But I have to say, for her sake, I’m so glad my mother isn’t using it anymore.
I loved talking with my parents via Skype. Even though it took a phone call before hand to to warn them to have their PC switched on. My father would arrange the pair of them at their end like a couple of old Victorians having photographs taken. Then we would spend the first 5 minutes of the call working out who had their camera/mic switched on or off. I think tech is becoming easier to use… when it goes to plan. When it doesn’t it’s an unfathomable black hole that you’re looking into.