[Raphmedia]

I am the opposite of most comments here. Don't stupid her away to a mobile device.

We got our mom a computer, a cheap one, and told her to play with it. Break it. Click everywhere.

Soon enough she was playing with windows settings. Soon enough nothing worked. She now knew you can brick computer, she is more careful.

We fixed the computer and she explored the internet. She asked how she could download wallpapers, we introduced her to torrents and file sharing. She got viruses. She learned that you can get virus online and they will delete your hard worked wallpaper collection. She is aware of the dangers of the internet now.

For a while you would download all the free adblockers, anti-virus, etc., she could find and put them on CDs. She learned to clean her own computer.

Right now she is very comfortable with computers and it allows her to have more freedom. She will easily connect with people online, like we do here. I'm certain it has helped her keeping smart.

She even feel out pain now. Whenever one of her neighbours lady has issues with computers they call her.

[falcolas]

This assumes an interest, willingness, and time to learn. For better or worse, not everyone can/wants to become an expert in managing these buggy and vulnerable messes we call general purpose computers.

It's a big investment, an investment many of us don't remember making since it was effectively part of our childhood. That same investment, in a world with special purpose computing devices, has a very low ROI for people who would rather be doing something else.

[ralphc]

It's also assuming you live close enough to your parents that you can go over and physically revive a bricked computer.

[i336_]

I just thought of a bizarre but interesting idea - an i3/i5-capable server motherboard with IPMI, and a rock-solid router running OpenVPN in front of the IPMI port.

Maybe fractionally higher power consumption, and perhaps you'd need a GPU for it, but if both ends have really decent internet, that could very legitimately work.

[pc86]

> a rock-solid router

Make one of these and you'll end up with a lot of money.

[i336_]

Where would be a good place to start? OpenBSD? http://www.skeptech.org/blog/2013/01/13/unscrewed-a-story-ab... Another platform?

It's tricky. You could for example pick seL4, but then you have no router. That could be interpreted as an amazing opportunity to make a new stack, or a feat significantly less interesting and more strenuous than climbing Mt. Everest.

Then on the hardware side, do you pick x86 (complete with firmware that lets you use fallthru to ring -2! \o/), ARM, MIPS, or what? This is a question I've no idea how to answer.

Also, heh, I'm reminded of this:

1. Search Shodan for JAWS/1.0

2. Take one of the results, go to the IP[:port], append "/shell?" and a command, eg "/shell?ls"

3. Try running "whoami"

4. Go back and look at the number of results

5. Visit the IPs normally, and learn that these are DVRs, for security cameras; alternate between dying inside and reattaching your jaw.

[Haegin]

There's got to be money in a service where a company provides your parents with a computer that's set up to be pretty user friendly and safe. If they brick it, the computer is replaced. The company manages the machine so backups are handled and the new machine will be pretty close to whatever they lost wherever possible (in terms of content on the machine). If the hardware gets damaged that'd have to be paid for I guess.

[rthille]

Yeah, Google provides that service and many manufacturers sell the products which make use of it. (chromebooks)

[JTon]

I like this approach. But how did you mitigate the risk of a more serious data compromise like identity theft? Did you wait until she understood the dangers before allowing her to use sensitive logins like banking and email?

[Raphmedia]

Online transactions weren't as safe and ubiquitous back then. She already had a paranoia of entering those informations online and we told her that her instinct was right.

She does some Amazon orders every now and then but that's it.

[soneca]

Good question and good answer through your rhetorical question too. GP approach with your addendum is the way to do this in my opinion.

[PaulKeeble]

It is after all how the rest of us learned. Windows 95 (alpha) was so unreliable you had to reinstall it monthly as it ripped itself apart so you got to know how to reinstall windows and get it setup again. I spent time in the control panel after that because I knew how to start over.

20 years later after countless errors my computer gets reinstalled when Microsoft pushes out a garbage patch or I get new hardware.

[JadeNB]

> It is after all how the rest of us learned.

Thank you for this very important reminder. Everyone has to learn this at some point, and will necessarily start from a position of relative ignorance; the fact that someone hasn't learned it yet doesn't mean that he or she is stupid, and it's wrong to treat it as such. (Not to say that anyone here, particularly the poster, has said or even thinks this; but it's easy to fall into that mindset, at least for me.)

[ShaneOG]

> She asked how she could download wallpapers, we introduced her to torrents and file sharing

But... why?

[Raphmedia]

Ever been to those "super-awesome-hd-wallaper.com" websites? They are FILLED with ads, popups, etc.

Instead, you can safely download one of the top wallpaper torrent package on Pirate Bay and get thousands of good quality wallpapers.

[_v7gu]

I find it a bit ironic that 4chan's /wg/ of all places seems like the safest choice here. Plus, the content is always up-to-date

[amiga-workbench]

wallbase.cc used to be an archive that scraped the various wallpaper boards on the chans, it worked brilliantly with colour searching, tagging and they had a fantastic supply of dual/triple monitor papers.

[Raphmedia]

There's alpha.wallhaven.cc now but it's nowhere as good as wallbase used to be.

[_v7gu]

now that looks like something that can be a nice side-project. Thanks for the great idea!

[jonwachob91]

Or ya know... Google Images...

[dajohnson89]

Is it that hard for you to accept that people use different tools to accomplish the same task?

[CardenB]

It's a little bizarre to introduce someone to torrents when you can use google images. Especially someone who is struggling to grasp computing as a whole.

[Raphmedia]

Psst... Didn't want to focus the discussion on the legality of torrenting. Of course she uses torrent for more than only wallpapers. ;)

[totalZero]

That's pretty much how we all learned. Good on your mom!

[WayneBro]

Teaching someone to fish only works when they want to learn. For the vast majority of people who just want to consume the media available on the net, this would be a monumental waste of time.

It's like me trying to fix my own car just for the sake of knowing how to fix my own car. Nope. No thanks. I'll take it to the garage when it's broken.

For most people I would recommend an iPad or a smartphone.