[phantomdragonz]

So I have been given the task of teaching my 75 year old grandma how to use her iMac.

I will be utilizing "back to my mac" and/or Logmein so I can troubleshoot from three states away, but what constructive advice do you have?

Good books?
Basic troubleshooting guidelines?

I was thinking of setting up a basic troubleshooting book for her, but I dont know where to start.

using back to my mac/logmein can either one allow her to watch me while I use it? (Can she see me move the mouse?)

Help!

-Zach

[nonhuman]

Good luck!

Last year my mom got her mother a MacBook Pro for her 85th birthday. My wife and I drove up to set it up and teach her how to use it (she's in NJ, my mom's in NM, and we're in DC, so it just made more sense that way). I was actually pretty amazed by how quickly she picked it up. I set her up with mostly web-based services (gmail for email, for example, I wanted to minimize the chances of her having to deal with spam and particularly phishing attacks), mostly because the biggest attraction to her was the ability to look things up online and have all that information available to her. She picked it right up, and we only spent maybe 2 hours going over the basics for her and making sure she had the basics down. Since then I haven't had a single support call from her or anything like that, and she's still constantly sending emails so I know it's not because she just gave up on it in frustration.

[phantomdragonz]

Well thats reassuring! She is a capable typist from what I have been told so I plan to set her up with gmail and facebook.

Facebook should be interesting because she likes to be a very private person but it would be good for her to see the rest of the families Facebook profiles and pictures. I have to do some research into facebook ever changing privacy methods.

She is eager to learn which is half the battle, I will be flying out to see her in less then a month and she wants me to teach her. Apparently the people at the apple store "went too fast" so I expect some frustration.

I would like to minimize the tech calls as much as possible, which is why I want to use back to the mac as I can quickly fix the issue and explain what happened.

After playing with logmein I think I will use that instead, I can control her mac from any computer and not just another mac.

any advice, experiences?

[nonhuman]

Another thing you might want to set her up with is a genealogy site or two. Ancestry.com is the obvious one, and there's also geni.com which is more social-networking focused and allows you to build a pretty decent graphical family tree (I've actually been having a lot of fun filling in my family tree and learning a lot of interesting stuff.)

[AKcrab]

Upgrade your mobileme to a family pack, $149 a year.

[brassplayersrock²]

It’d be kinda cool to do a macumentary on this.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by phantomdragonz 

So I have been given the task of teaching my 75 year old grandma how to use her iMac.

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock² 

It’d be kinda cool to do a macumentary on this.

You mean mockumentary ?

-t

[imitchellg5]

My grandparents had an easier time picking up OS X and iMacs in their 70s than most of my friends my age did switching from Windows.

[phantomdragonz]

Well I hope I can teach my grandma... I will try like hell!

I will be using logmein since its free and I can use it from a PC (like if I were at school or work)

-Zach

[tightsocks]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

I haven't had a single support call from her or anything like that, and she's still constantly sending emails so I know it's not because she just gave up on it in frustration.

Does she do her system updates and security updates for stuff like Flash Player?

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by tightsocks 

Does she do her system updates and security updates for stuff like Flash Player?

I believe so, I showed her how it works, though I haven't specifically asked her about it.

I'm trying to remember if I set her up using Safari or Chrome though; hopefully the latter in which case she'll be fine with the browser and Flash, though probably Safari.