We have quite a wide inverted audience, audience of all ages. Certainly, since I started doing video, pushing a lot of it to YouTube, I have gained a younger audience, substantially younger audience. My MySpace in Facebook friends are largely kids in high school and college. Some female, largely though in the male demographic. Which is good, it is a good demography to go after but I also have quite a large elder audience. People who have retired and started to get into computing in general. They were certainly with me in the early years because we are the only ones who could afford, or they were. The other ones who can afford computers or internet access when it was so brand new outside the education sector, in military sector at that matter.
We got a top five list from Clay Cowell and he always signs his emails to me, your neighborhood Mac, Linux and Windows expert. Macboy14 is his handle. He has got a top five list computing for the elderly. It is very important. In fact my grandfather has been on the internet and I realize it sounds kind of funny if I say that out loud. He does not really do a lot on the internet but he is online. I do not know if he has really figured out what he would use the internet for but certainly, he is at least been online.
So without further I will do, top five tips for computing for the elderly. Number one use the Dvorak keyboard layout. Now, that is not John C. Dvorak. It is less stressful in the hands and the wrists because the most commonly used letters are together, there is less movement involved to get to those letters. Which equals lessen that are being used, which equals good for bad joints.
Number two, if you are getting the elderly started on their first computer, or trying to help someone who is having trouble seeing the screen, get them a big monitor with a high resolution. When you set it up for him or her, set a resolution lower than the optimal, say 1152 x 864 for instance for a monitor with a 4 x 3 aspect ratio or an optimal resolution of 1600 x 1200. This will help in several ways. First, some websites are wider than 1024 pixels in width. If you have a small monitor with a resolution of 1024 x 768, they have to squirm horizontally. If you can set the resolution higher then they do not have to do that. Second, the monitor is big so your resolutions add to do a bigger size will make the text and images even bigger, making them easier to see.
Number three, they do not need a fast computer. You can get them an older or slower computer. First, most likely, they are going to use it only for the internet and for most computers, beyond 1999, that will work just fine. Second, if they are patient, then will not mind waiting for programs to start.
Number four get them started on Linux or even in old Mac. This way, they do not have to worry about viruses, spire wherein all the junk you will always have to update. Doing the updates will probably not happen also. Doing the update, he is saying that they probably would never update the software anyway. My grandparents will not update the protection. I have shown them how and program for the up though like the update, but they stop them when it starts. I would guess that many other people would, too. Another advantage to Linux or Mac would be that they are stable even on the best Windows machine. You can get errors while browsing the web. Save them from that torture.
Well, any program will give you problems. I have just new problems with Mac programs just as I have with Windows programs. If I add it as a side note, my own note, if I were to start in elder on computing today, it would be a Mac. Sorry all you Linux fans, sorry all you Windows fans. I am sorry. I would totally start my grandfather on a Mac, sorry. No actually I am not sorry it is just the way it is.
Number five help them out with the computer when you can. When you are there to help them, then they know that you really care about them. Also besides that, they enjoy the company. Fair enough. In fact, when I lived in Aiwa and when both my grandmother when she was still alive, and my grandfather who is still alive, I did make it a point to stop by at least every week and I do not call them as much or him, since my grandmother passed away last year, I should probably call more frequently than I do. Of course this is kind of nice watching these videos too even though he does not have broadband. My dad does not have broadband. They tried to watch the videos and apparently DSL in Aiwa is horrible and they are not going to pay extra for it. My grandfather I think is still on a dialup. Probably he has ALL most likely. I do not know.
This is the way I like communicating, through video. I tend to educate better in a broad sense rather than a one-on-one sense because I tend to get frustrated. You have seen me try to teach things to my wife and getting a little hot under the collar because I get frustrated if I cannot explain something or they are thinking something else. I try not to but you never know. Yes it is OSX, in fact, the Mac will tell you if you type in say OSX on the command line with codes in OSX, and you do not say OS 10. X is the Roman numeral for 10. I just started to let you know. Not X, 10.
As a tip, maybe you did not know that before, maybe you did. Maybe you have another top five tips for elders in technology, elders and technology. I will take any kind of top five tips you got, top ten tips, top X tips, does not matter. You can email me chris@pirillo.com. You can even embed this video or send this video to someone who has got an elder in their family most likely or just an elder in their computing circles is wondering what they can do to help an elder along and getting started with computing or getting used to computing.
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