My dad the hacker

"I don't think I should be able to see that"

We gave dad the iPad on the occasion of his 73rd birthday, a Saturday, so with dinner and cake and all, there wasn't a lot of time to conduct a thorough tutorial.

I chose the iPad for a few reasons. First, since the stroke, dad has the use of only one hand so a touchscreen just made sense. And I felt it would be a less intimidating device for an old person because it essentially only has one button and doesn't feel like a fragile thing you could easily break. Finally, I'm most comfortable on a Mac and knew I'd have to teach and troubleshoot.

I got it a few days before his birthday and used it one handed myself, setting up an e-mail account, downloading apps I thought they'd use and enjoy, organized the desktop and even set up a facebook account and got relatives and friends to friend them.

He seemed pretty enthusiastic about it - mom, on the other hand didn't even want to touch it.

I showed him the basics - how to access e-mail and get online, how to enlarge what he's looking at and how to get back to home base. We agreed that I'd come back later in the week to show him more, but in the meantime encouraged him to tap around and see what the thing does. I assured him and mom that they simply could not screw it up because the whole thing lives online.

On Tuesday evening I was working late, my partner phones me and suggests that I call in and check our messages. I don't think they intended to leave a message. I'm pretty sure they'd called and were in process of hanging up but the answering machine kicked in. The message went something like this:

Dad - ...she's the one who said we couldn't screw anything up...
Mom - Well, I don't know Ken!
Click.

Oh oh. I called them back and asked how things were going.

Dad - Oh not too bad. We're kinda figuring it out. But I got an e-mail from your cousin Alicia and I don't know what I did but I think I somehow got into her e-mail.

Me - What?

Dad - Yeah, I could see her messages.

Me - Dad, there's no way you could have -

Dad - No, no, really, I could see messages TO Alicia from other people.

(it dawns on me)

Me - Ohhhh. Dad you were looking at her facebook page. I forgot to show you that.

Now. Imagine having to explain facebook to a 73 year old who has suffered a stroke and has never been online before. Good times.