My Dad's New Computer
Posted: Thu 27 Sep 2012, 03:04
I thought I would share this little story.
My Dad is always keen to use a computer, but is generally pretty useless at it. Often when being told how to do things, he responds with questions like "one click or two clicks?" and refers to the return key as "Bent Arrow"!
Anyway, my parents have had the same laptop for about 7 years now, running Windows XP, which has suited them fine for all that time. Except, that it is doing the windows thing of getting slower and slower and slower, so they decided it was time to consult me about getting a new computer.
I suggested I could show them Puppy, Wary in fact, and see if they like it, rather than spend money.
Dad's comment was, "Everyone only wants Windows. I don't want anything but windows."
Pretty hard against that sort of attitude, so off we went to the computer shop and got a nice new i5 Asus laptop running Windows7.
Now, here's the kinda fun part. We get it home, unbox it and start it up. It wants to go through a (in my opinion) painful process of setting up for the first time, creating users and settings etc. In the meantime, I decide to fire up the old PC with the Wary disc in it to pass the time.
I was up and running with that in about one minute as the new Win7 machine is ticking away trying to get itself to its first boot. That process took nearly an hour btw.
Somewhere along the lines there, Dad took notice that the slow, old computer seemed to be running fine, and quick! Not bad for a celeron 1.6ghz with 512MB ram.
Anyway, the new machine was finally set up, and I left.
A few days later, Dad rang me to tell me about his new computer, and how much better it is than MUM's new computer! Of course, he is using the old one, with its new Wary OS and he is loving it!! He is even talking about how he wants to race Mum on her new computer from button press to the banking website loaded, sure that he'll win!!
After an hour on the phone yesterday, he even managed to install his HP printer via CUPS and get it working. He is pretty happy, and I'm pretty happy that I have converted another happy customer to Linux and Puppy!
Thanks to Barry, and everyone that contributes to this great OS project.
The only thing wrong is Dad now wants to know why he has spent $700 for Mum's new computer. Oh well.
My Dad is always keen to use a computer, but is generally pretty useless at it. Often when being told how to do things, he responds with questions like "one click or two clicks?" and refers to the return key as "Bent Arrow"!
Anyway, my parents have had the same laptop for about 7 years now, running Windows XP, which has suited them fine for all that time. Except, that it is doing the windows thing of getting slower and slower and slower, so they decided it was time to consult me about getting a new computer.
I suggested I could show them Puppy, Wary in fact, and see if they like it, rather than spend money.
Dad's comment was, "Everyone only wants Windows. I don't want anything but windows."
Pretty hard against that sort of attitude, so off we went to the computer shop and got a nice new i5 Asus laptop running Windows7.
Now, here's the kinda fun part. We get it home, unbox it and start it up. It wants to go through a (in my opinion) painful process of setting up for the first time, creating users and settings etc. In the meantime, I decide to fire up the old PC with the Wary disc in it to pass the time.
I was up and running with that in about one minute as the new Win7 machine is ticking away trying to get itself to its first boot. That process took nearly an hour btw.
Somewhere along the lines there, Dad took notice that the slow, old computer seemed to be running fine, and quick! Not bad for a celeron 1.6ghz with 512MB ram.
Anyway, the new machine was finally set up, and I left.
A few days later, Dad rang me to tell me about his new computer, and how much better it is than MUM's new computer! Of course, he is using the old one, with its new Wary OS and he is loving it!! He is even talking about how he wants to race Mum on her new computer from button press to the banking website loaded, sure that he'll win!!
After an hour on the phone yesterday, he even managed to install his HP printer via CUPS and get it working. He is pretty happy, and I'm pretty happy that I have converted another happy customer to Linux and Puppy!
Thanks to Barry, and everyone that contributes to this great OS project.
The only thing wrong is Dad now wants to know why he has spent $700 for Mum's new computer. Oh well.