On my happy travels from sick PC to sick PC each day, it is heartening to see an ever increasing number of silver surfers.
Whether it’s more spare time following retirement, a desire to keep in touch with an ever distant family or the need to use online grocery shopping because getting out the house is too difficult, there are more older people using PCs each day.
So when someone has plundered their pension to buy a computer or plucked up the courage to learn this daunting new language, we need to do everything we can to avoid making life difficult for them!
A significant proportion of PCs I see that are owned by grandparents have been attacked by their grandchildren.
Icons are moved around, toolbars installed, instant messaging apps downloaded. Homepages are changed, music copied and preferences, well, unpreferred.
Imagine someone came into your kitchen, put the teabags in a different cupboard, put the spoons in the fork section and used all the milk. How frustrating would making your morning cup of tea be?
Now imagine the cupboard is out of reach and you have to wait for someone to deliver the milk because you cannot get down the shops. Never mind your eyesight isn’t up for sorting cutlery.
Ground rules for children and computers are important, even more so when the computer is owned by grandma:
- Set up a second or guest account with limited privileges for children to use
- Explain that making changes or installing software without permission is wrong and unfair
- Make them take their laptop / iPad / DS / whatever with them instead!
Rant over. We now return to our normal programming…
A Microsoft Certified Professional with many years of large corporate experience and training, he now focuses on helping small businesses make the most of their IT.
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