This morning, I tried to convince my mom to stop using crapo.com for her email service after talking her through the set up for a gmail account. She pays 10 dollars a year for crapo-mail and has been using it since 1997. It won't attach more than one item at a time. It sends forwards as attachments. It takes up to two hours to send emails to my hotmail account at peak hours. It is, in fact, a piece of crap, especially for a paid service. She thinks it is fine.
I think that there is a fundamental difference in the way my generation uses computers compared to that of my mother's generation. When I use a computer, having had access to them the majority of my life, I want the process to be completely efficient. I want to avoid erroneous clicking and mouse movements and downloading anything, ever. If I am forwarded something, the last thing I want to do is download a file to my computer that I have to open with another program to read a joke about a cheeky octogenarian ordering milk for a bath. We don't even have milkmen anymore! And who the hell sells unpasteurized milk!?
My mom, on the other hand, is used to reading mail the conventional (read:old fashioned) way. She expects to open an envelope, unfold a letter, and flip through the 6 different attached Sunday Funnies clipped from the newspaper, so she has no qualms about having to click 4 different things to get a stupid joke forward to open. If she could do eBay via postcard, she would. She won't, however, click links that I send her in emails. Somehow she has learned that downloading things on her computer is fine, but links are super dangerous, especially those sent by your computer savvy daughter. Or maybe it is because crapo-mail doesn't generate clickable links in their incoming emails and she doesn't know how to copy and paste them...
I was going to bid on that clock but I spilled my inkwell and my quill needs to be replaced.
ReplyDeleteI thought cheeky octogenarians were those shaggy red apes at the zoo.
ReplyDeleteAt least she doesn't do what my grandmother does, and send you every single forward she ever gets, because something interesting might REALLY happen. Then, even though its a forward some idiot sends you about once a month, she acts like its the newest news ever. Really grandma, we talked about this one twice already, you've sent it 4 times, are you SURE you're not starting to forget things?
ReplyDeleteMy mom is the opposite. She thinks she's computer savvy, and so tries to get fancy with all of her e-mails and tabs and such, luring me into the false sense of security that maybe she knows what she's doing. Then she'll call me over and say, "How do I get back to my previous tab?" And I know all hope is lost.
ReplyDeleteHah ohmygosh that is hilarious! It took me forever to get my dad to do things more efficiently. "Really Dad, it doesn't take an hour to do [something]". "But it's easier this way." No really ... it isn't.
ReplyDeleteLol how does that email service even survive? :P
You are so going to get a C&D email from the Crapo family for the unsolicited reference to their website. ;)
ReplyDeleteMy mom finally let me set her up on the gmail and now she calls me every other day because she heard about another cool g-product she needs to have. I created a gmonster.
ReplyDeleteToday my dad asked me if I could fax something to my brother for him. Fax. Since it is no longer the 1980's, I scanned and e-mailed it.
ReplyDeleteMy mom is very computer savvy! It's my dad who doesn't know much...and yet thinks he's an expert. He does things like show me Youtube because he's pretty sure I'll like it.
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