Tantrums of logging on.

It was a normal day when I was doing my usual work at office. A known tune started ringing on my cell phone. Without even checking the number/name flashing on the phone I knew it was from home - [Ring tone is set to the song "masakkali masakkali"]

Dad on the other end wanted step by step procedure to logon to my laptop and then he needed to logon to gmail. We've (Sis and me)been telling him to learn this bit from quite some time now. Not that he is unaware of the keys,he does have first hand experience working with Url's and other computer basics while he was in his tenure. But this techie stuff is something that doesn't get onto his heads now at this age within a go. I proudly admire his attempt to learn and excel it.

Now, it was a day when sis was still in Australia and Dad wanted to catch her online. Why now? Can we do it tomorrow.- Asked I. No we have some relatives at home, so it would be nice if we can get her online now - came the respone. (Some relatives who had come from a rural village would definitely be wondering on seeing the technology that has grown so wide.Now you know the intention behind this exercise :) ).

Here goes the lines between the two of us:


Dad: Hey Ashwini, I have switched on the power button and the Windows has come up asking your password? What's it?

Me : Okay Type in Caps(X)then rest in xxxxxx [of course encrypted here guys]

Dad: It did not accept. Tell me the password again.

Me : Appa[I address him this way] , did you make sure you have only the first letter in Caps and the rest in small notes.

Dad: Oh maybe the Capslock was on for the entire password. Let me try....... [second hit it let him in] .Now your photo is appearing. Nice one it is.

Me: Ok so you logged on. [I not stop my smile]. Next hit on the Start button at the left bottom on the screen.

Dad: There is no start button. only one windows circle is what I see.

Me: Ok appa, click on that only, that is the start.

[Now came the problem of using the inbuilt laptop mouse for clicking. It was fun explaining him how to find the right and left click buttons on the laptop. I almost jumped in joy when he said he successfully managed to click]

If you are not able to click on that , you can hit second key left of the spacebar on the keyboard and that will bring up the start menu.

Dad: Yes I that came up now. I found the IE and was able to click on it.

Me : Good appa. Now on the URL type - gmail.com and hit enter.

Dad: how to delete the existing URL[this was a little challenging for him as the delete button was not in its usual place and to backspace the characters the cursor was at the start of the URL. Finally with a little adventure he was able to figure out the way to type in]

Me : Now go and enter the user id and password.

Dad: okay. [By now he had mastered the clicking and he was pretty fast.]

While he was doing this I somehow guessed that battery might be dying out and asked him to plug in the power chord. Whoa that was yet a lovely discovery. Getting him pick the right adaptor from a heap of wires and asking him to plug it to the correct point.

Me : Now do you see "Compose mail", "Inbox", ... "Chat" on the left hand side.

Dad: Wait it says still loading.

Me : hmmm ...

Dad: Yes I see Chat and under it your name is there , below that it says "you are invisible"

Me : Okay that is fine, now click on it and make is "available"

Dad: I did it.

Me : Oh god you got it done right. Now scroll down a bit and do you see "Archana"'s name ?

Dad: Hey there is one other name something - xxx.sssd , if I delete that then I will be able to see her name I think?

[He had missed the scroll bar on the right and by the time he realized it, the network at home had taken a toll.I got to know about it as I see my name go invisible again - I was logged on to another gmail account from my desk. Clever me :) ]

Dad had got in right after taking all those troubles and when he was almost there it was all gone. I can guess how he might have felt. Then he said "Leave it Ashwini. Ask her to call up now. Lets check this out in the evening".

I instant messaged Sis to make a call on the telephone. I was actually messaging her on the otherside of how I am teaching appa to login. We were having some fun and smileys exchanged

So that night after I reached home first thing I showed Dad was the right scroll bar and how one can find names of people who are online. He learnt a new thing being an obedient student. 3 cheers for the success - Logging on to the laptop on his own.




PS: Please check the new page for the Url of my photoblog - Unveil the colors - a short colorful journey of my captures. Also have a flash version of it.

12 comments:

Sujatha Sathya said...

this "offline tutoring" on how to use system/browsers/open mail account etc etc is a really tuff task. simple things like d humble start button becomes 2 complicated @ times. not just for ur dad. even for ppl who r tech savvy!

once i asked my husband to register a complaint on d epf (PF) website & by d end of d exercise i wanted to pull my hair out! i was goin too fast & he had a prob with my tone & d damn website which was too slow!

btw, ur dad was a quick learner i must say & an enthusiastic 1 too - must be d village audience waiting for him to come up with the "miracle" that spurred him on! cheers to appa!

Sahana Rao said...

Ha Ha! That is a real adventure Ashwini..
It is very difficult to teach over phone..
I have tried doing this with my mother, finally she could chat with me after 4 full hours of effort when I was in Chennai!

When some technical words gets included in the language we speak, it is extremely difficult to make people understand the technical word using the non-technical ones. :)

Rachna said...

What an adventure! It is a tough job to teach someone over the phone,and you did good :).

Irfanuddin said...

its always exciting for us to teach something to the man, who taught us each n every walk of life...isn't it...???

loved the narration by you here.

irfan

ಅಶ್ವಿನಿ/ Ashwini said...

@ Sujatha: Yeah you're right , simple things gets complicated when tried to explain on the phone. Loved the bit of experience you shared.

@ Spicy sweet: Ha ha ha 4 hours.. Well I dont know how long it would take if I try the same with my mom ?? She has masters in Type writing course - but that was about 25 years back... Will she be able to catch on with this silly machine - laptop.. Need to try it out once..

@ Rachana : It was a fun filled adventure. Thank you.

@ Irfan : True! teaching the one who has taught almost everything in my life is a pleasure of its kind. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Mishilicious Mishi said...

ha ha that must have been fun ashwini! nice job..bt credit goes to Uncle too..he learnt quite quickly! you are lucky to have an intelligent student:-)

ಅಶ್ವಿನಿ/ Ashwini said...

@ Mishi: Yep bowing down to Dad's learning ability.He really is a quick and wonderful student. I loved the explaining part though had a tough time doing it.

Anonymous said...

:) nice one. I have once tried teaching someone drag and drop using a mouse over the phone and failed miserably.

--
Mahesh

Sum said...

This kind of exercises keep repeating, with me teaching amma how to mail or how to do something else.... Sometimes it'll be how to find a document that she has saved somewhere on her computer, with me sitting about 30km away and directing her to find it!

ಅಶ್ವಿನಿ/ Ashwini said...

@Mahesh and Sum : Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Vikram Waman Karve said...

Don't worry. Soon your Dad will be teaching you things about the laptop even you don't know.
Don't underestimate us old fogeys!

ಅಶ್ವಿನಿ/ Ashwini said...

@Kharve: Yep, I know that day is not far. He has started learning few new things each day and he is so excited to tell us about it every evening after I reach back.

Thanks for visitng.

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