J has a feel for pushing buttons

Last night I went over to the house of a friend of mine whose computer was showing all the signs of dementia. After an hour and a half of running cleanup programs and diagnostics and making a few educated guesses, we got it working again at a reasonable rate of speed. But computers are always lagging behind developments. They may be bleeding edge when they're still on the store shelves, but not necessarily even then, because it all depends on when they were made. And everyone knows they begin their descent into obsolescence as soon as the ink dries on the check (cheque).

The current buzzword, of course, is Vista, Microsoft's newest version(s) of the Windows operating system. You can find every possible point of view about the merits and demerits of this offering on the web: thousands of reviews that have been penned since the product launched in January.

Most of the seniors I teach, however, want a reliable computer than can do email, surf and search the internet, and show slideshows of their grandchildren to anyone who cares to stop and watch. Modest requirements these are, and yet every time a new version of Windows comes out, it seems they have to drop what they're used to doing and start upgrading and relearning. The computer makes life more interesting but also more complicated. Screens get bigger but print gets smaller, just at the time when it should be getting bigger.

One gentleman I used to see in a nearby town asked me to come over and help him sort out a problem on his computer. It turned out that his machine was a relatively early IBM PC. He had used it for all his research and correspondence for years, but now it was showing its age, and refusing to print.

When it finally became apparent that his machine was past retirement age, he cast about amongst his friends, and someone donated a more recent model which was functional, although not significantly advanced beyond the ailing machine. He was very pleased with this turn of events, given that he was not anxious to part with good money for something that really didn't need to meet complex demands.

I guess it comes down to what a person needs to be satisfied. In my case, life is simple. If I want to watch a prerecorded television program, I ask J to watch it with me. I lack the remotest interest in learning how to program or control the digital video recorder. The number of buttons on the handle is daunting. And in any case, what I need is the company, the companionship and the mutual interest. J, on the other hand, is a master of anything remotely related.

How does J learn to operate all this stuff? Not by reading the manual. That's for sure. She just presses buttons and watches screens until she has her muscle memory programmed to feel for the right button. It is all a great source of wonder and amusement to me. Come to think of it, that's enough for tonight. She wants to watch something. Excuse us, will you please?