There are two 80 something year olds living downstairs from me. She won't go near the computer and he sops up everything techno.

I LOVE him. His grandchildren get a big kick when he does email and he sends them photos (He knows what he is doing). Everything on his computer is in italian because they don't speak any english.

They called me downstairs the other day saying there was an error message. I go downstairs and I see "you have an infected file, " blah blah blah.

I turn to him and say "you might have a virus or spyware, what anti-virus software are you running?"

He stared at me blankly. Now how am I supposed to explain viruses, spyware, malware, adware, grayware (any kind of ware), to an 81 year old man who LOVES THE INTERNET but no one told him how to protect his computer.

He has the Cable package. All three things in a bundle.

I call up His Optimum Online person, and they said "sorry, that's a computer problem, not a cable problem". So I translated. Then I wrote everything down for his grandchildren who are coming on Friday. He had some sort of Trojan thing going on. It kept changing his home page from Italy to something else. I got him his Italian page back.

So the next day he's outside taking a walk and he runs up to me all excited.

It seems that he got his daughter on the phone (she lives in Arizona) and shes going to marry this engineer who is also A COMPUTER SPECIALIST.

Well, you should have seen the little man's eyes light up as he told me what happened.

The computer boyfriend asked him (through a translator), if he could take over his computer. The guy downstairs says: "what do you mean, take over my computer, you're in Arizona???"

The guy told him what to do and in 5 minutes, the guy downstairs was sitting in front of his computer and the daughter's boyfriend had control.

Well, I looked at him and burst out laughing and said "yeah, it's called remote hosting, I do it all the time with Verizon".

Well, the guy could not get over it. He kept shaking his head and saying "oh my god, someone in Arizona was moving my mouse around the screen, and he got rid of the error message, and he did this, etc. etc".

I thought he looked like a boy on his first trip to the circus. His eyes were all round and big and he just stood there explaining it to me like he discovered America.

I so thoroughly enjoyed this older man's enthusiasm, I cannot tell you.

I have never met anyone older than me who did the videos, and the photos, and the uploading and downloading.

It's quite neat that when you get to your golden years, that you don't just wind up on the front porch knitting.

YOU DO REMOTE HOSTING!!!!

lol lol lol

That is absolutely great! And funny It gives me hope for my golden years. I do not like to knit; I am allergic to wool and even acrylic.

You are delightful. How to explain virus, hardware, software in English, let alone in Italian!

One piece of information was left out...What is the name of his daughter's boyfriend? There are times when my computer leaves me frustrated!

My grandmother is 90, she retired from work in her 70's. After she retired she had to go back to the office and train her 20ish replacement how to manage the server and use the computer/software. She was quite proud of herself for knowing more than her young replacement. Until her replacement showed her about on-line dating. Now my gran is mad at all the time she lost that she could have been searching for a boyfriend at work.

So, Mel, do you really speak Italian? Or do you just communicate by speaking fast English and waving your hands like an Italian?

I really do speak italian. And French, and spanish.

Actually, I'm a polyglot. I can converse in about 5 languages.

Can't do math that well, (I can do it, but not like I can do languages).

I have an ear.

anyway. I'm having big problems with my computer. Please see my latest thread.

Now I can't use Mozilla.

I need help people.

HELP

Melody

You have an "ear"? Can you play a musical instrument by ear?

You are so lucky to have those foreign-language genes. My 2nd brother and his kids got all the FL genes in our family.

Foreign languages genes!!!!

That is SO funny!!!

Maybe I also have computer genes??

I figured out my mozilla problem. and now it's back.

Thank god for that.

mel