Internet pirates on the wireless sea

The jig is up

When we were thinking about getting dad the iPad, I brought my laptop over to their place to check out the wireless situation. I figured, hey, they live in a 55 plus building, there's probably a pretty good chance an older person might not know how to lock their network.

Lo and behold, someone in the vicinity had neglected to password protect their wireless network. Bonus!

So they've been stealing wireless from the start and really seemed to embrace the idea of piracy. I told them they might lose their internet if the provider figured it out.

Then one day mom tells me they lost their connection. I think they got wise, dad tells me.

But when I checked things out everything seemed tickedy boo and I chalked it up to something they did.

We always figure it's our fault, mom says.

But alas, access didn't last and the next time I went over I could see the free ride was over. So they called the cable provider and got hooked up.

Did you password protect your network? I ask.

Oh yeah, mom says, the installer guy said we don't want anyone stealing our wireless.

Did you hear the one about...

"How do I send this to someone else?"

You know those people in your e-life with whom your only contact is forwards of jokes or sappy expressions of friendship replete with lame animated gifs?

Yes. I fear the parents have become forwarding fiends. As soon as I walked in last time, dad wanted to know how to forward an e-mail to my brother. Then he enthusiastically shows me all these off-colour jokes their friends have sent them, even covering up the punch lines so I don't jump ahead and ruin the joke.

Finally I'm like – Seriously, dad, you're showing me this stuff? And sending them to my brother at his work address?

Now my mom wants to make sure we forward one to her sister, because it's so funny. The one about the man in the nursing home who prefers the company of a certain woman because she has Parkinson's.

I've created monsters. Dirty monsters.

It's not made out of wood

"Is this real water?"

So I was trying to show the folks how to transfer e-mail addresses to their iPad's contact book and add phone numbers, etc. (Okay, that's something they're not ever going to get.)

My mom's address book is a random, non alphabetized list in a journal book so I was entering all their names and numbers for them when mom says to dad – Oh, you wanted to ask her about the water.

Water?

Dad tells me to pass him 'the thing' – that's what he calls the iPad. He goes to the home screen.

Is this real water, under the glass? he asks.

Ha! No. That's just wallpaper, I laugh.

Wallpaper? both mom and dad say at once.

Uh. Just an image, for the background. You could make any picture the background image. Here look, I say, going into settings and calling up the built-in wallpaper, now it's wood.

Oh, dad says. But why would they make it look like there was condensation under the glass? Because that could actually happen.

I dunno, I tell him, still chuckling. Later, I call them from my car. Mom answers. I say, Hey, tell dad even though I changed it to wood, it's not made of wood now.

Are your laughing at us? mom asks.

A little bit.

It knows where we live

"Where's South from here?"

So I'm sitting with mom and dad, going over how to delete e-mails (again) and feeling quietly joyful about how engaged dad seems to be with his new digital toy. He shows me how to play a game that I couldn't figure out, and at one point reminds my mom (again) to "tap it, don't press it!"

Cool.

Then it occurs to me he's always been a gadget guy so I shouldn't be surprised that he's taken to this new one. I tell him about one of my bosses – a guy in his 60s, who got a tech to come in consolidate all his remote controls so now he has this giant mega remote that controls every electronic device in his house – and how that sounds like something dad would do. We laugh.

I tease him about how, in the past, he had bought all these GPS devices and then never learned how to use them, and how ridiculous it was for someone like my dad to even own a GPS. Because, I said, "you could be dropped from a helicopter, blindfolded, in the middle of the Amazon jungle with a handful of salt and piece of string and still find your way out. What the fuck do you need a GPS for?"

We laugh. Hard. Now, it occurs to me we've been laughing more lately.

I tell him the iPad is actually a GPS device too – he had noticed how the mapping App had marked their address. "Hey, it knows where we live," he tells my mom. She thinks that's kind of creepy.

Unfortunately, I did not inherit dad's highly tuned sense of direction, and mom has none at all. Then dad asks mom, "where's south from here?" She thinks and points at a wall. "I don't think so" he says. As they are discussing it, I think, surely there's a Compass App... within seconds I'd downloaded it and handed it to dad.

"what do you know, she was right." he says quietly.

This thing is going to be the ultimate argument solver.

Mom finds Togo

"How do I ask it a question?"

I suggested dad should tap around on the iPad for a few days after he got it, and see how much he could figure out on his own and then I would come by and go over anything he couldn't figure out.

As soon as I walked in, he had his questions ready – some stuff I had to figure out, not owning an iPad myself. As soon as Dad got up and left the room for a few minutes, Mom was, "okay, I want you to show me something"

Really? This is four days after she wouldn't even touch it. Okay.

So she wanted to know how to start an e-mail, and I showed her how the addresses in your records automatically pop up when you begin to type them in the TO: field. Cool.

Then she asks - how do I ask a question?

Me - Huh? You type it in the e-mail and send it.

Mom - no, not in e-mail. How do I ask it a question?

Me - it?

Mom - the iPad, how do I ask it something?

Me - Ohhh – you want to look something up online.

Mom - well, whatever, I don't care what it's called, I just want to find something out.

Me - Okay. What do you want to find out?

Mom - I want to know where Togo is.

Well, alright then.

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.

An iPad would be perfect for dad

The back story

Just over a year ago my able bodied, active, country living 72 year old father had a massive stroke which paralyzed the left side of his body.

Just over year later, everything has changed for he and my mother.

They now live in a small 55+ apartment in the city, after having spent their lives in a large three bedroom house on a sprawling property in a rural area. Then there's the shop. My dad's huge garage where he spent most of waking hours tinkering with (but never completing) no end of projects. And hosting visitors who would drop by to shoot the breeze and drink beer.

He hunted and guided visiting hunters. He fished and fixed things. He wandered in the bush picking blueberries and mushrooms in their season. He mowed the huge lawn and the field behind it summer, and plowed people out of their snowed in yards with his CAT in winter. That was his life. Then the stroke took it all away.

Now he watches TV. Obsessively. My brother and I and our partners have cast about for other things to engage him, games, books, but nothing can replace the life he lost.

Since the stroke he has also suffered a couple of major seizures, a potential side effect, that are devastating and erode much of the progress he has made. He will never really recover, and on the one year anniversary of his stroke, I think he finally realized that and it hit him hard. He began backsliding in his physiotherapy and descending into morose.

So I bought him an iPad. A 73-year old stroke victim with diminished capacity who has never been on the Internet in his life.

This should be fun.