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April 26, 2004
The Weekend at the MiL's
This past weekend was spent at my Mother-in-Law's. She's a great lady, but about half a decade behind on her technology. Her only connection to the Internet is a Pentium III machine running Windows ME [ack!] and AOL [blech!].
I'm not kidding when I say that my Treo 600 makes a better, faster Internet tool than this machine of hers. Moreover, there's no Wi-Fi to be found in her entire condo complex (I checked), so the entire weekend suffered along at dial-up speeds.
Also, I introduced her to the concept of Windows Update. This 4-year-old machine had never once been updated. 6 hours, ~30 MB, and 7 reboots later, it was completely up to spec. I fully expect to perform a smaller version of this ritual each time I visit her.
I'm currently suffering major Internet withdrawal. Hopefully the shakes will end soon.
Comments
My mother-in-law insisted on keeping everything on 3.5" floppies till last Christmas when I gave her one of the USB keychains I got at a trade show for free. (No it wasn't her Christmas gift.) I then spent a half-hour explaining that there was plenty of room on her hard drive for almost anything she could create.
Also, she used to be a teacher and had a really old Mac she paid $2500 for some time in the mid-90's that she didn't use. (It had been on her desk for 2 years and never turned on.) I told her to throw it out, that it was worthless. She insisted it was still worth at least a thousand till I found a similiar one on eBay for $10.
Its strange how that generation is quick and willing to adopt the new technology, but doesn't really stay on top of the advancements. I think they view buying a computer like buying a toaster, when its really more like buying a car.
Posted by: Aaron at April 26, 2004 8:56 AM
Aaron, that's pretty funny. :-)
Posted by: Craig at April 27, 2004 11:13 AM