My dad turns 60 tomorrow, and as I’m at a wedding this weekend, we celebrated his birthday last weekend. He asked me if I could buy him a laptop, and since he’s never asked for anything before and it was a landmark birthday, I decided to get him something good. Initially I was thinking about a Mac, but his favourite colour is black and I also couldn’t really stretch my budget that far.
I ended up getting him , which is great value for money and, as I put it, ‘should last until he dies if he takes care of it’. (I’m such a good daughter, heh. He thought it was funny anyway). It’s not everyone’s ideal laptop, but it’s pretty up to date and lightweight, slim and has an optical drive, which were his main requirements. Since this was really his first computer use since the late 1960s and early 1970s when they were the size of rooms and had cards to punch, I was impressed by how fast he picked everything up.
Within a day he was asking me how to make websites – like daughter like father eh? – and I did a really bad job of explaining. Whilst I’ve taught eight year olds, sixty five year olds and a variety of ages in between, I haven’t actually tried to explain any concept of web design to someone who doesn’t even know that copy/paste exists. But he’s quick, and he was playing chess, using Google to look for commercial equipment and watching videos on YouTube without a second thought just a few hours after getting ‘Charlie the Second’ (Charlie the First is actually an electronic chess set, go figure). I’ve also had several very random emails, and missed several non-emails owing to the fact that apparently neither of my parents can write my email address correctly. My dad also has a habit of deleting every email he receives after he’s read it, which makes my inner hoarder cry. Luckily he wasn’t paying attention when I told him how to ‘purge’ emails, so they’re all still recoverable.
I also bought him a mouse in case he wasn’t comfortable using the (multi-gesture) touchpad, but he’s mainly using the touchpad. The only real disadvantage for him is that the laptop doesn’t have integrated Bluetooth, but then there are tons of extras we can buy for him in the future. We always have a lot of difficulty buying him presents he actually likes because he tends to just buy what he wants, and anything beyond that is way out of our price range (Aston Martin anyone?). Initially my mum was concerned that he wouldn’t use the laptop and it’d be a waste of money, but I reasoned that she and my sister would use it, or I’d steal it so it would be ok – except on the whole ‘birthday present’ concept of course. Actually, the opposite has happened and he keeps whining about how addicted he is and how it’s taking over his life. But that’s good, because now he understands why all the other family members spend so much time on the Internet. Mmm, lovely shiny Internet.
So, what are your experiences with matching technology and people? Are your parents avid computer users or have they never been near one? What cute or silly things do they do?
*waves* Hi, I'm 
Funny, my husband is worse with learning the computer than my parents! ha ha! I think my parents made the cut off of those older folks actually interested in technology…and willing to learn it.
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Happy birthday to your dad! My dad loves computers but I don’t think he needs a laptop/notebook at all. He likes scrounging through retro stuff for precious junk.
My dad also has trouble copying and pasting. *sigh* I feel a bit embarrassed teaching him something so simple. But hey, that’s how fast technology is going. My mum worked for a computer company in the 80s and she stopped working when I was born, and it’s a bit of a shame that she isn’t familiar with the internet and computers as much as she would like to.
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Haha, WOW, that’s awesome that your dad wanted a laptop! Very cool, and that’s REALLY awesome that he picked it up pretty quickly! None of my parents knows anything about technology…
As for him deleting every e-mail he gets, I know someone who does that. Or claimed that they do. LOL, even though I don’t see how true that is, but I don’t know, I’ve never seen their e-mail account before. Haha.
Eww, I hate using the Touchpad. Haha. I also hate how my laptop doesn’t have Bluetooth either.
I don’t think I’ve taught anyone how to webdesign/develop. It’s pretty hard to explain. =/ LOL.
My dad has his computer (which has to be Dell as he point blank refuses to by anything computer related from anywhere else, much to my annoyance!)
He can do VERY basic webdesign after many years of me trying to teach him, yet can only copy and paste, cut is an alien concept to him. Me and my mum once spent around 30 minutes trying to get through to him that you can just cut if you want to move something, but I think he gets worried cos it dissapears.
To give more of an idea of my dad and technology, he had a Nokia 1100 which he loved, but when it broke we had hell trying to find him another phone he could work. When he found one he liked, he bought another, which is still in its box (3 years later), sim card and all, ready for when this one breaks.
Bless him.
Happy birthday to your dad! It’s nice that he likes his laptop so much, so it didn’t turn out to be a waste/stolen
It does make me feel lazy too, because it’s really NOT that hard to do.. it just takes effort
Meh, I’ll do some soon!
Happy birthday to your dad! I’m glad that your gift went over so well. My own parents are still technologically challenged. My mother still can’t check the voice mail on her cell, but I can say that she can watch her Korean soaps on the internet just fine. Go figure. lol My sister and I are teaching my dad to text and it’s slow going, but I think it’s partly because of the keys. He needs a phone with a full QWERTY keyboard and I think he’ll catch on faster.
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Happy birthday to your dad. That’s so good that your dad likes using the laptop and learn how to use it. Teaching my parents to use the PC is a completely nightmare. After 4 years my mum is able to turn the pc on, surf the internet & check her emails. She recently learnt how to attach a file to her emails!
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Congrats to your Dad on the laptop, and good luck to you with teaching him!
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that’s really cool that you were able to get your dad a computer. it sounds like you were having some fun teaching him some things and seeing how quickly he picked everything up! my dad doesn’t know much about computers… he knows how to check his email and his myspace and sometimes his facebook but that’s pretty much it lol
My mom loves the computer, but she doesn’t know how to fix some stuff, she is always yelling at me to help her, then yells at me when she doesn’t understand!
I am glad your father is so adapted to the computer!
That is so nice of you to give your dad a lap top ^^
My parents can use a computer/the internet, but I didn’t have to teach them, someone else did. I hate teaching.
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