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[Justin Bailey]

I sent my dad a gmail invite last week (which he didn't accept until a few days ago) and I got a call yesterday explaining how "he's never had to type in so many numbers" or something like that. At first I thought he was talking about his user name/password, but then I find out that he printed the original email and actually typed out the invite link character by character :lol I then introduced him to the world of copy/paste.

Anway, that about sums up my dad's skills on the PC. My mom is much better, but she tends to experiment a little too much and things tend to "break" under her supervision. So how about your folks?

 

[Jotaro]

Mom asking me to fix the PC when we first got it. She was pointing the mouse directly on the screen instead of using it with the mousepad, and the usual point-and-click.

 

[Triumph]

My father actually worked with computers for about 9 years, and probably knows more than I do.

I'm going Linux here soon, though, to further my Marxist ideals. So I'll probably end up knowing more than he does.

My mother knows how to turn a computer on and use word. That's about it.

 

[evil ways]

My mother's a teacher and her school recently implemented a system using a Grade Quick program where the teachers themselves have to pass all the grades from all their students from the roll book to Grade Quick so that it's saved on a floppy and then handed over to the main office.

She's clueless as far as copy & paste or even simple things like right clicking so she calls me up to help her whenever it's report card time.

 

[Azih]

My father is pretty comfortable.

My mother eventually gets used to doing things on. But lord, she can't move from that one thing at all. Moving her from hotmail to yahoo or worse gmail would screw her up for months.

 

[xsarien]

My father worked for IBM for about 25 years, he knows his shit pretty well. So do I, although my mother is an entirely different story.

 

[lexi]

My parents are not bad, but can both operate a computer, just have no idea what to do when something goes wrong.

A friend of mine's though.... His mother at one time believed the computer could obtain your credit card number THROUGH THE AIR. She also was under the impression that the monitor was the actual computer.

 

[Tarazet]

My dad's been working with computers since 1970. He knows his shit.

Mom can type well, since she worked as a secretary during college, but all she knows how to do on the computer is write letters in Word, check Hotmail and print recipes from FoodTV.com.

 

[Zep]

I sent my dad a gmail invite last week (which he didn't accept until a few days ago) and I got a call yesterday explaining how "he's never had to type in so many numbers" or something like that. At first I thought he was talking about his user name/password, but then I find out that he printed the original email and actually typed out the invite link character by character :lol I then introduced him to the world of copy/paste.

Anway, that about sums up my dad's skills on the PC. My mom is much better, but she tends to experiment a little too much and things tend to "break" under her supervision. So how about your folks?

hahaha...about your mother, mine is the same fucking way...good at the computer, but breaks a lot of shit in the process.

 

[pestul]

My Dad has a wireless network with 4pcs connected and maintains it well..
My Mom is the administrator on a message board..

They know thier shit. Not quite to my level, but they're very competent.

 

[Jotaro]

My dad it's funny, he knows computers but not a whole lot. A big part of my job is to help him with technical support over the Internet, he travels foreign and I have to support him and his co-workers here and there. It's boring, but quite funny sometimes.

 

[Minotauro]

My mom still doesn't grasp simple concepts like when to single-click and when to double-click. She always ends up double-clicking on the quick launch bar and ending up with two versions of every program open.

In addition, she has absolutely atrocious email habits. All of her emails are littered with elipses, extra punctuation, and repetitious letters at the ends of words. She also still struggles with the caps-lock key apparently since I received an email this morning that screamed at me.

My dad is better but he still leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, he can install a program but he'll end up forgetting where to run it from. This is particularly strange considering the fact that he's an electonic whiz who repairs televisions and ice machines and everything else that needs fixing.

 

[FortNinety]

My dad this past Xmas expressed interest in getting a computer, so went to Circuit City. It was then when I realized how very little experience he had with them. He couldn't even understand how a mouse worked, the whole concept of using a arrow onscreen to navigate, folders, and other very VERY basic stuff. I mean, you'd think one could just pick some stuff up from watching TV. Then again, I can't understand how some adults can't read, but the problem is out there...

 

[fallout]

My mother eventually gets used to doing things on. But lord, she can't move from that one thing at all. Moving her from hotmail to yahoo or worse gmail would screw her up for months.

I'm in a similar situation with my mom.

She knows what she's doing very well, but she can't for the life of her apply any of the those skills in other computer realms. I'm not talking about a change of OS or anything. Showing her how to run two programs was insanely hard. My dad and I had no idea what the problem was, because she was always asking for help when running things that she downloaded.

Her: What do I do?
Us: You just click on it.
Her: How?
Us: Like you do with your other programs.
Her: Oh.

And God forbid you ever move something to another folder. It's gone man.

As for my dad ... well, I turn to him for Linux help. He's no expert, but he's an excellent problem solver and knows his shit. His only complaint is that he usually can't remember how he fixed something if it's been more than a few weeks.

 

[maharg]

I'm the third generation of my family to be heavily into computers, although the first generation would more aptly be described as an "engineer who got to play with them because he worked for a large phone company when they were first installing large mainframes."

So my father and my grandfather are largely the seed of most of my knowledge, though I know far far more about current technology than either (grandfather is dead).

She knows what she's doing very well, but she can't for the life of her apply any of the those skills in other computer realms. I'm not talking about a change of OS or anything. Showing her how to run two programs was insanely hard. My dad and I had no idea what the problem was, because she was always asking for help when running things that she downloaded.

The biggest roadblock in most people's quests to become better at computer related things is to think that everything is a special case that must be learned individually. I see it a lot when people ask for help coding, and it often shows up at lower levels of learning as well.

The difference between someone who can use a computer and someone who is actually competent with computers usually boils down to whether they are able to apply their knowledge generically to multiple problems.

 

[Mrjellybeanct]

My dad has been into computers for just about forever, since home computer were introduced at least. I grew up with the latest in computers most of my life, pc and mac. Still knows much more than me for the most part, but i've shown him how to use a lot of things too, bit-torrent and stuff like that.

 

[Tuvoc]

My dad hates computers. Put he'll play spider solitaire on it for hours. One time I took the modem up to my room so I could connect it to my Xbox and play Halo2. The next day he woke my up at 7 AM to have me connect the modem back to the computer because he thinks its the reason he can't open solitaire. All it needed was a reboot. I was pissed.

 

[Justin Bailey]

The biggest roadblock in most people's quests to become better at computer related things is to think that everything is a special case that must be learned individually. I see it a lot when people ask for help coding, and it often shows up at lower levels of learning as well.

The difference between someone who can use a computer and someone who is actually competent with computers usually boils down to whether they are able to apply their knowledge generically to multiple problems.

Yeah, I've noticed this with a lot of old people. They want to write everything down step-by-step, like how to print something or how to open a file from a disc. Then they don't use the same principles in other situations and they're back to square one.

 

[missAran]

Father: he's a physician, so he works with computers often. I'd say he's about average.

Mother: very basic skills; Email, Internet surfing (barely), and word-processing (weak).

I'm going Linux here soon, though, to further my Marxist ideals. So I'll probably end up knowing more than he does.

Why not use OS X, instead?

 

[yoshifumi]

my parents are pretty good with computers, well most aspects of them.

my mom is really good with excel and other spreadsheet software but understands nothing of how the internet works or how computer parts work, and my dad is pretty much decent with computers all around. they know nothing of keeping their computers free of spyware and crap like that though.

 

[Lemurnator]

My mom absolutely loathes PCs. When my mom was married to my dad, my dad would spend all of his time on the computer and not with us or our mom. He'd get home and go right down into the basement to do whatever it was he did on the computer. I was very young so I can't recall many specific things he did on his computer. Thinking about it now I wonder how much he could have possibly done. I'm not sure if at that time we had an internet connection, and the machine he was running was some computer by the name of GoldStar running on Windows 3.5 or something like that. That computer and the time my dad spent on it is a major contributing factor to my mom divorcing my dad. I don't think that had a good affect on my moms opinion of computers.

Now we own several, and my mom has her own laptop that she uses. She has to use it to stay in contact with my schools, my doctors, and at the time she bought the laptop, clients. She has to type at a rate of 10 words per minute since she only types with her left hand and has no idea where any of the keys are at the keyboard and looks for them eachtime. She tries to stretch her hand all the way across the keyboard to use the shift key. I remember having a hissy fit out of frustration because the color font she had made for a report thing she was writing wasn't solid black and she didn't know how to change it.

You can't explain ANYTHING to my mom about computers because she gets hung up on the stupidest shit. I've never seen anyone more afraid of the Minimize button in my life. It really is impossible though to explain anything to her because she gets so frustrated. Even when simply performing mundane everyday simple tasks in order to answer her specific question she snaps at you asking, "What are you doing? What is that? Why are you doing that? Go back." For example, right clicking and picking a folder to save a file.

My dad has embraced technology as it comes along, but who cares because he's an asshole anyway. He has his strengths and he has his weaknesses. He does a lot of video editing now when he's not working. He seems to have taken an interest in digital photography. He knows a lot, but is paranoid about virus security. I can't go on his computer (when he lets me), I don't have the will to suffer through all the popups asking me if I would like to proceed with a certain action every time I click something. It makes me kind of suspicious. His wife notices he's a computer control freak and finds his computer unusable as well.

 

[SteveMeister]

My dad got a computer science degree in 1972, and has always been a technophile. We've had computers in the house since 1979 (TRS-80). So yeah, he knows his stuff

My mom, on the other hand, only in the past 2 years started using e-mail & AIM. My wife's mother knows nothing about computers whatsoever, although she is curious about using the Internet, so we might try to set up something for her.

 

[MIMIC]

My mom always asks me, "Am I supposed to double-click, or click once? And which one?...Left or right?" :lol

But she knows how to open Word, search via Google and check her email. So does my dad (which I say is borderline average )

 

[NetMapel]

My mother knows the applications for her computer quite well, ranging from Hotmail, MSN to Microsoft Office stuff. She also plays the usual solitare games and whatnot that came with XP. However, she is not very familiar with solving whatever problems on a computer. If some sort of virus infected her computer, she wouldn't know what to do with it. But we keep her computer very well guarded with various virus scanner and spyware scanner, so she has not experience any problem with her computer yet.

 

[fallout]

My dad got a computer science degree in 1972, and has always been a technophile. We've had computers in the house since 1979 (TRS-80). So yeah, he knows his stuff

Heh, we had a couple of those (still do) and a 1200 baud modem. I think the modem came later from a garage sale or something. He's never been known for buying bleeding edge technology. In fact, you might even say that he's a cheap-ass. I do.

 

[sonicfan]

Mom asking me to fix the PC when we first got it. She was pointing the mouse directly on the screen instead of using it with the mousepad, and the usual point-and-click.

Hello, Computer!

 

[Instigator]

Anway, that about sums up my dad's skills on the PC. My mom is much better, but she tends to experiment a little too much and things tend to "break" under her supervision. So how about your folks?

Funny, my mum's much better than my dad too. And she's broken her share of computers as well. :lol

 

[Jotaro]

What, nearly all of you have heavily computer-skilled fathers? :lol

 

[Grimlock]

My dad can websurf and email and do basic Word functions, but that's pretty much it. My mom litterally does not know how to turn the computers on-but that's cool, as it makes it easier to hide the pron.

 

[weehomer]

I showed a guy I work with how to copy/paste.

Also, my mom thought the monitor was the computer.

 

[Raxel]

.

 

[Scrow]

They both do that "press caps lock, type letter, press caps lock again" method of capitalising letters :/

:lol

My father has a pretty basic knowledge for using the MS Office suite of programs and some accounting software, but when it comes to the nity grity (anything done with Windows settings and the like) side of computers he has almost no clue...

My mother however... I've tried to be a good teacher, but to no avail. I think more than anything her problem is she doesn't actually use computers enough to become proficient at them. It's as simple good teaching to begin with and practice, practice, practice.

 

[Hooker]

My parents know how to start up, do their stuff (browse, chat, play online casino ) and shut down properly. My little brother of then 5 could already install programs, play games and such.


They didn't need to know more 'cause if anything was wrong with it they called me to fix it. But since I've gone out of the house my dad is trying to pick up that task. He does fairly well but things tend to get icky he always phones/email me about what to do.

 

[Deleted member 4784]

Hello, Computer!

ROFLMAO!! That's my favorite scene in that movie (next to seeing Sulu's ass when he hijacks the copter. =[

Anyways, my daddy knows more about computers than I do and I've been using them since I was about 6 and a half. I always go to him first whenever I have a computer question and usually he knows the answer. Although, I think I'd have less questions if I just RTFM more often. @_x Maybe this is why I can never set the clock on the VCR... LOL

The only lack of literacy my dad has when it comes to computers is the internet, but he's been getting better. I remember when my dad first used LexisNexis to look something up online, he left the window open after he was done. Several hours later I happened to walk by and notice that he still had the session open and had to explain to him about logging out and/or closing the browser when he was done. My dad learned about timed sessions the hard way when he got a bill for like $1,000 later that month. :lol

 

[speedpop]

My mother doesn't even know where the "on" button is for the PC.

My father? I don't think he even realises that there are computers.

 

[cloudwalking]

My parents double click on EVERYTHING.

My mom thinks that if she closes their home page on IE (can't get them to switch to Firefox), it'll disconnect her from the internet. So she always has 2 windows open.

 

[mrkgoo]

It's funny now, but no matter how technically capable you think you are, there will be a day that common modern technology will surpass your ability to keep up - probably when you are your parents age. It's scary to think what that technology will be... if there's anything I've learnt in life so far is that as you grow, you follow the exact same patterns as generations before. You'll develop some kind of generation gap and wonder when the 'good ol' days' ended...

My parents can't program VCRs to save themselves, let alone operate a computer. MY dad calls text messages on his phone e-mails.