Here’s the problem. My mom has an old MAC I gave her running OS9. She is computer illiterate and is constantly screwing it up. As I haven’t used a MAC since the mid 90’s and have to provide her with tech support over the phone I am having a very hard time.
Thus I want to get her a cheap machine that she can use for surfing the web and email almost exclusively. Maybe, just maybe, I could get her to do some at home classes to learn how it use it but most likely I will still be solving all her problems over the phone. Thus I am looking to get her a PC (that and that you can’t get a mac anywhere near as cheap as a PC).
I have looked at several places online, Gateway, Dell, Compaq, and HP, and it looks like I could get her something reasonable for about $350. Anyone have any ideas on how to go cheaper? Seriously, the only things she will be doing involve the internet (online dating only) and email.
Second the recommendation for Dell; they’re quite good value and it will be pretty much the ideal PC-solution to your problem, as long as it doesn’t go wrong (their aftersales service is not reputed to be brilliant).
Do you think she would screw up Linux? I would imagine you could install Ubuntu on the existing Mac and this will also ‘just work’ out of the box (well, after installation) for surfing and email.
One thing that might be convenient, if you both have broadband, is to put a VNC server on her computer and a little shortcut that starts it up and emails the ip/display number to you. That way when you have to troubleshoot, she can just double click, and you can take over the screen.
If it’s a Windows machine, remote assistance is a similar, but (IMO) better built-in solution; it’s like VNC with integrated file access and probably some system control features too that I have not explored. If both machines have Windows/MSN messenger running and logged in, the negotiation of the connection is all just handled for you.
This is what I thought, but I have just added things up at their site and it is much more expensive than I thought. First, the stripped PC can come to that little, but you need a monitor (yes, the basic version does not come with one), virus protection software, and a printer. Add to this the S&H costs and you are up to $744.80. That is more than I want to spend. I guess I could scrap the printer if I have to, but other than that it is at bare bones already. Ugh.
I am unfamiliar with this. I have never had need of someone being able to access my machine in this way (and the very thought gives me a case of the screaming heebie jeebies) and have not been in a position to help someone else out. Any info you could give me would be appreciated.
I have never had a problem with them. Of course I have heard that their help for those who don’t have a clue is bad, but if you have some basic understanding it is better. The service I have gotten with my Dell at work was outstanding, but then again when it was time for me to get a computer they told to me to go to the Dell website and pretend that it was Christmas, so I have a rather high-end machine.
Oh God. I thought it was hard helping her with the mac. I have had a good bit of UNIX experience, but little to no Linux. Any helpful hints as to how this would go? I didn’t think changing operating systems was particularly easy on a mac. Hell, I could do it on a pc, but I haven’t a clue where to begin with a mac.
This is a basic desktop computer with a 17" CRT. Ground shipping is free, you pay just tax, and the total (for michigan residents) was 317 bucks. Pick up a cheap printer somewhere else for much less than the 99 bucks Dell wants, and also use AVG free security/virus software instead of paying for virus scanning from Dell. You’ll be all set.
If she is going to be on dial-up, just get a free Win-98se machine…
$50 with a working printer and a 19 inch monitor. Heck, even on broadband I’d do that if she does not go off and do silly stuff and stays with what you say she does…
If you were close to AR, I’d just give you one of my spares…
I honestly don’t know what you did differently, but you didn’t get charged for shipping and I did earlier. Wonder what I did. I think it might be best to go with the free virus scan software. The benefit with the purchasable products I was looking for was that it can be configured such that she never has to do anything, no updates, no nada. How much maintenance is required with AVG?
The thought had occurred to me. She has a fiberoptic connection that was recently installed in her area, so she has a pretty decent connection speed and would definitely be limited by the machine then. The current machine replaced a dead old pc running 98 and she was very pleased with the increase in speed, so I doubt she would enjoy going back.
Just a few days ago i saw compusa offering a machine for $350 w a $150 mail in rebate…just a thought.
As far as tech support…for what shes doing, look into creating a small separate partition for her to save her personal files onto and locking downt the system partition with something like Deep Freeze $24.95. All windows/software/virus/spyware problems are a reset away from being fixed. You don’t need anti virus with this.
I have a client who flat out told me he surfs tons of porn sites and hates having to deal with all the spyware. Hooked him up and he has been a happy camper for 2 months now. He is an extremely inexperienced PC user and has little desire to learn, but an immense appetite for porn. So as far as I have seen and heard, you end up with a basically bulletproof machine that is inconvenient to work on at times.
I use AVG. It scans the system every night and automatically updates itself as well. Dunno what it would do if it found a virus, since I’ve never had one.
I’ve had an eMachines CPU for the last 2½ years, and been fairly satisfied with it. I think you can get a package deal with monitor & printer at Wallyworld for about $350, and it comes with peripherals you pay Dell extra for.
A cheap Dell (or any other cheap PC) is the last thing I’d want to give to a “computer illiterate” as they’ll only have it crawling with viruses and spyware within an hour again.
I’d seriously recommend a Mac Mini if she’s already got an LCD monitor. (It’s only got a DVI connector - or you can try using a DVI-to-VGA adapter plug.) OS X is much harder to foul up than any version of Windows.
The lower-end Mini sells for $599, or you can get a refurbished one direct from Apple for $519. You might also be able to find one of the older “PowerPC” ones for less as those are last month’s model.
I use the built-in Remote Assistance feature in Windows XP to help my 80 yr old mother all the time and it is a piece of cake. No need to get the heebie jeebies, it’s simple and secure and makes my life a lot easier. She really doesn’t know enough to be able to tell me what problem she’s having so I just connect up to her box and watch what she’s doing when she runs into a problem and then I take control and she sees what I am doing to make things right. We talk on the phone at the same time so I can say stuff like, “See Mom, you just click on this button here.” It’s virtually the same thing as sitting next to her, except she’s 800 miles away. I love it!
I was just at my local Walmart a little bit ago and they had the basic ‘computer in a box’ eMachines package on sale for $298 – I think. I didn’t look real close. But I bought the similar back-to-school deal for my daughter 3 years ago and it worked real well for her. And my dughter’s usage was a bit more advanced than your mom’s sounds like it will be. Doe used the computer for school, so she was running PowerPoint and Excel on it, in addition to the internet and email.
Thanks everybody for helping with this. I figured out why I was getting charged shipping and handling. I was using the higher education discount version where I was getting no discounts and getting charged S&H.
I checked out the site and didn’t see anything that good. Maybe you need the coupon. Deep freeze sounds interesting, but I think that might make it difficult for me to change the settings on her machine from afar. I will check it out though.
This sounds great. I think I am going to have the machine shipped directly to me so that I can install all this stuff and get it up and running. Then I can bring it up to my mom who lives several hundred miles away.
I thought about this. I think I will go with initial memory and if the machine is too slow I will upgrade. She is doing so little with it that it might not be a problem though.
Checked it out. It looks like Dell will be cheaper in this instance.
Yeah, that is what I was thinking when I gave it too her. She has many different installs of explorer and netscape and so never has the same settings any time she starts it up. She got a “running low on memory” error that eventually progressed to an “out of memory error” so she threw everything on the desktop in the trash and emptied it. That included internet explorer and outlook and took all her email. Oh, she was using those programs because I can’t put firefox on OS9.
I was afraid of this, but I figure I will be a remote user and will maintain the system that way. I can’t help her much with the mac.
She doesn’t have a monitor, this is much more expensive, and I still won’t be able to help her when she inevitably screws it up.
This is exactly what I am looking for. She cannot remember how to do anything and looses the directions I write out for her. Reinforcing it a couple times visually will really help.
I just checked them out online. If they have an offer this good it is not advertised there. I think the $319 machine at Dell is about as good as I am going to get.
-You’re chatting with someone on MSN instant messenger, they click a menu option (the precise details of which escape me at the moment, but it’s something like Tools>Request Assistance)
-a message pops up in your chat window saying they have invited you to assist
-you accept the invitation and (if it works), a window pops up at their end, asking them to confirm that it’s OK for you to connect
-if they confirm, a window pops up at your end, containing a more-or-less live view of their screen, plus a menu/control bar and anoother box in which you can text-chat with them. At this stage, you still don’t have active control of their computer.
-You click a menu option to take control of their computer and again, a dialog pops up at their end, asking for confirmation that this is OK
-If they confirm, the view of their screen that you have in your window becomes ‘live’ - when you move your mouse pointer around in the window, the mouse pointer at their end follows it; when you click on something in the window, it actually gets clicked at their end, and with the exception of a few control keys (notably <Esc>, which terminates control), entry on your keyboard is echoed at their end.
-So you can open windows, run applications, amend control panel settings, etc; you can also use the options on the menu bar to transfer files from your computer to theirs and vice versa.
I use it a fair bit in my IT support role and it’s very good; sometimes it freaks people out a bit when they see that you’re moving their mouse pointer around, but it’s a very useful utility and AFAIK, quite secure. It works better than VNC for me because of the integration of file transfer functions and also the fact that they are explicitly prompted to release control at each step; which is quite reassuring.