Give the Gift of Mac

This NewsWeek article that’s been making the rounds recently struck a chord with me. Since my father retired 5 years ago, my brother and myself have become his default long distance tech support. For the past month, whenever I’ve spoken with him on the phone the conversation has hovered equally around the Thanksgiving festivities this year and the need for me and / or my brother to help him ‘fix’ his computer while we are visiting.

The problem? He’s been on an old PC running Windows ME (ouch!) on cheap dial-up via NetZero, malicious ad-ware and pop-ups are bringing his machine to its virtual knees, and a mangled installation of NetZero’s dialing software has him locked out of his account. My solution? Over our Thanksgiving trip to visit my parents, Kristin and I gave my parents my old 12-inch Powerbook as an early Christmas present and convinced my dad to spend some extra money on a high speed internet connection and a wireless access point.

I set up both my mother and father as separate accounts on OS X, gave them both passwords, enabled fast-user switching, placed some key pieces of software in the Dock for easy access, and gave them each a brief tutorial. Here’s some pointers in case you decide to do the same sort of thing with your parents / loved ones:

1. Set up email for them. My father already had a free email address through Yahoo!, which has been drowning in spam. My mother never had an email address. Since I had a few Gmail invites lying around and Gmail recently added POP support, I went ahead and set each of them up with new Gmail accounts. I then added my email address to their address books, both on the web version of Gmail and in Apple’s Address Book. Since my dad had been a long time PC-user in the business world before his retirement, I also set up his email account in Entourage, Outlook’s cousin. Still, I told him to try Mail.app. If he wants he can continue to access his spam-laden Yahoo! account via the browser, but I recommended that he tell all his friends that he’s moved to Gmail to avoid the spam.
2. Set up iChat for them. I signed up both of my parents for free AIM accounts through this link. Then I logged in to my computer, sent a message to each of their accounts, and added myself as a buddy. Now, tech-support will be an easy matter of a chat session with a few exchanged screenshots (via iChat—>Services—>Grab), and as we will both be on the same operating system, I can go through the motions with them long-distance. Once they become comfortable with iChat and broadband, I’ll eventually get them an iSight so we can do away with the long distance calls.
3. Tell them about basic maintenance. Spend some time covering Software Update and the importance of periodically repairing permissions just to keep everything in tip-top shape. To make this easy, you could install either Onyx or Cocktail and leave it in their Dock. Onyx is free, but Cocktail runs easily in pilot mode. Tell them to run it once a month. Also, stress that they should never touch any files inside the System or Library folders on the computer.
4. Make navigation easy. One of the first things I did was drag the Macintosh HD to the Dock. Then I spent some time showing both of my parents how to get around the Finder. You can click on the disk icon on the desktop and open it up and open the file inside it and so on and so forth, or you can click and hold the disk in the dock and navigate the file via pop-up menu. You can drag files to the trash, or chose File—>Move to Trash. Click and hold the trash to empty the trash. Drag removable media to the trash to Eject. Cover the basics, especially if they have been accustomed to Windows in the past. I walked my mom through creating a Recipes folder, adding a colored label to that folder, placing it in the Documents folder, creating an alias of the Recipe folder in the Finder Window’s sidebar, and saving a file to the Recipe folder.
5. Give them choices. One of the great things about the Mac is how easily you can customize it to your needs and preferences. I gave both my parents info on how to set the desktop picture, change the Dock’s position and behavior, and explained how their customizations would not affect the other’s account. I also explained choices in software. I went ahead and installed Firefox. I placed both Safari and Firefox in the Dock and told them about both of them and explained why IE on Mac was no longer a viable option. Now they can choose which browser they like more. I placed bookmarks to the web access to Gmail, to Applematters, and to my blog in the Bookmark Toolbar for each browser so they can get to their email if Mail.app or Entourage has problems and so they can read what their son has to say. For my Dad, I placed Microsoft Office in the Dock, as he has been a longtime user of that group of programs on Windows. For my mother, I placed AppleWorks in the Dock. I told both of them about the availability of the other office program should they want to explore other options.
6. Introduce them to iLife. Since Kristin and I were recently married, this one was easy. I pre-loaded iPhoto in both of my parent’s accounts with all the digital pictures we have already received from the wedding. Then I showed them how the slideshow function works, in case they want to impress their neighbors and friends with both how computer-savvy they are and how good their eldest son looks in a tux. I had the pictures separated into albums by each person who took the pictures, and then had a fully organized conglomerate of these different albums in another album to show them how they can organize their photographs. Now, I just need to convince them to get a digital camera. I’ll save pitching the value of a DV camcorder and iMovie for after I finish editing the footage from the wedding and send them a DVD of it. iTunes . . . well, I think my dad just stopped calling CDs “cassettes” about a year ago, so I might want to wait a while before introducing them to the whole mp3, AAC, iTMS thing. If they are curious, they do have a copy of iPod and iTunes Hacks sitting on their bookshelf.

These are just a few pointers for giving the gift of Mac. My brother is going to attempt to resurrect my parents’ old PC with an installation of XP over Christmas, so my father may end up reverting to his PC ways. Mom will most likely stick with the Powerbook.

In the meantime, however, after my brief tutorial, both of my parents are learning how much easier and more convenient the experience of OS X on a small portable laptop can be than the experience of Windows ME on a large grey box.