Tag: Microsoft

Seniors becoming savvy about digital technology

Early PC, complete with floppy disk drives source Wikipedia

During a frustrating hour or two updating our websites, I realised I am more savvy than the average 74-year-old when it comes to digital technology. Or so I thought. Later, you will read about how Covid-19 prompted many older Australians to start interacting with Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp and other communications systems.

In what has been a busy month (editing the U3A newsletter, updating three websites, updating our self managed super fund and writing a new song), I am finding time to create a short course in basic computer skills for U3A members. Most of our members are in the over-70s age group and a few do not have access to the Internet. I am hoping some will find a use for U3A’s laptops, which have been in hibernation since Covid broke out in early 2020. In preparation to run the computer course, I took these laptops home and updated them.

It wasn’t too difficult, but these laptops were a reminder of how quickly digital technology becomes obsolete. I was reminded of that last Friday when the WordPress website which hosts this weekly essay “broke”. That’s WordPress community geek-speak for not doing what it’s programmed to do. Therefore, WordPress followers who had subscribed to the blog did not get last week’s email with a link to the website. The blog was still posted to the website, but the electronic sharing didn’t happen. It turned out I’d been ignoring reminders to ‘update your PHP’, which is the software within WordPress that interacts with plugins (or apps) that make the website work efficiently.

(That sound you hear is me snoring, having fallen asleep. Ed)

I am convinced that everyone who uses a computer has a ‘blind spot’, that is, a technological advance with which they cannot cope.

My blind spot would be anything to do with coding, editing the registry, updating drivers or any one of a dozen under-the-bonnet programming tasks. In this case, I asked Craig P from Inmotion Hosting to do the hard work updating PHP (the older versions are ‘deprecated’), and I’d take care of the detail.

Computer hardware and software companies are continually updating their products, to fix glitches in the system and to improve security. They also do it to sustain cashflow. There was a time when you could buy the complete Microsoft Office programme at a retail store and use it seemingly forever at no extra cost. Now they want an annual subscription (which includes updates and support).

I’ve been using a computer at home since the mid-1990s and came into daily newspapers at a time when they were leaving the old technology behind. I learned a lot, but don’t ask me about programming.

She Who Sometimes Shouts at her Computer told me the other day she studied Base 2 in grade seven. Base 2 is a field of mathematics that is particularly germane to computers.

As Wikipedia explains, the base-2 numeral system is that in which each digit is referred to as a bit, or binary digit. Because of its straightforward implementation in digital electronic circuitry, the binary system is used by almost all modern computers and computer-based devices.

Got that? You can log back into Facebook now and carry on regardless.

While kids are learning computer science and coding at school, we of the older cohort rely on the ever-changing versions of Microsoft Windows to make it easy. There have been 11 versions of Windows since 1985. Some, like Windows ME, 2000, Vista and Windows 8, were not perfect, so Windows moved on to 7, 10 and now 11.

One of my contacts in information technology tells me that Windows 11 is the best operating system yet because Microsoft has looked at security first and everything else second.

I haven’t upgraded from 10 yet. I limped along with Windows 7 until it got the point where Microsoft wouldn’t support it at all. As of this month, people with Windows 7 won’t even get security updates.

I set off with this idea of teaching older people how to take control of their computer because the conventional wisdom is that older people struggle with new technology. Our reflexes have slowed and we have leathery fingers – ask anyone.

But maybe not so much in Australia. A recent study by The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) set the record straight.

While older people have trouble navigating touch screen gadgets like smart phones and tablets, in the four years from 2017 to 2020, many were on an IT learning curve and probably still are. ACMA’s report, produced in May 2021, noted changes in the way older people engage with the online world.

While most use the internet at home, they also used a mobile phone to go online when out and about. Their adoption of other digital devices like smart phones, tablets and fitbits is also on the rise.

In mid-2020, ACMA found that 93% of older people had internet access in their home, up from 68% in 2017.

In 2017, only 6% of older people used apps and digital devices to go online. In June 2020, 26% of older people used five or more types of devices to go online.

ACMA says that parallel with their uptake of digital devices, more older people are using the internet for a wider variety of activities and tasks.

“Almost all older people now use email, while banking, viewing video content, and buying goods and services online have increased substantially over the previous 4 years, to become relatively common behaviours for this age-group.”

There was also a quantum leap in the numbers of older people who use apps like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to make voice calls, video calls and send texts. In 2019 the figure was 33% – a year later it was 55%.

The Pew Research Centre, which keeps tabs on this topic in the US, also noticed growth during the pandemic but observed that 7% of Americans aged over 65 are not online at all.

The Pew Centre said there were notable differences between age groups when measuring the frequency of internet use. Some 48% of those ages 18 to 29 said they were online “almost constantly”.,compared with 22% of those 50 to 64 and 8% of those 65 and older.

Joelle Renstrom, writing in ‘Slate’, an online magazine, said computer and digital technology companies are not designing devices that older people want. Renstrom cited research by Bran Knowles who studies how older people use technology.

Knowles says tech companies don’t see older people as valid stakeholders.

“That’s evident in how they fail to consider seniors’ needs, even when manufacturing products like the Jitterbug, a phone with extra-big buttons.

“Button size doesn’t dictate seniors’ decisions about tech use, and such presumptions highlight Silicon Valley’s bias toward youth.”

The people who drive tech development “can’t imagine what it’s like to be 80”, said Knowles.

Meanwhile, big organisations and governments continue to drive their customers/clients (young and old) to online accounts and digital apps.

RACQ’s Road Ahead magazine reports in its latest edition that drivers will have access to a ‘digital licence app’ in 2023. Queensland’s Department of Transport has been conducting trials since legislation was passed in 2020 to allow development of a digital licence (which will have equal weight to a physical licence). Drivers can store their digital licence on their mobile phone and use it for ID purposes as they travel. The Road Ahead article notes that the new digital licence will be ‘opt-in’ and not compulsory. Phew, we all said.

So, WordPress readers – did you get it?

Return of The Wastemakers

wastemakers-computers
Image: INESby, pixabay.com

I had a Vance Packard moment this week, thwarting the concept of planned obsolescence, which he wrote about in his 1960 best-seller, The Wastemakers.

My triumph was no big deal, but they were hard-won as I finally, after four weeks, got my 32-year-old Technics stereo system working again.

Before we get into that, and on a similar theme, I would like to have a rant about the complexities and nonsense of Windows 10. Microsoft’s latest operating system deserves inclusion in my seldom-heard song, ‘Windows F*****g 8’, which I wrote in honour of the man who warned me to stick with Windows 7 (…”It isn’t fair, but they don’t care, that I can’t find F*****g Solitaire”….)

When we moved, my 2015 laptop, running on Windows 7, was labouring, crashing, not responding to commands, giving me blue screens and multiple hard drive error messages. My new Lenovo has a lot going for it – extremely light, fast and not too expensive at all. But it came with Windows 10 pre-installed and an infuriating voice-activated robot called Cortana, who offers to solve any problem but more often will say “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand.”

So Mr Microsoft, why did you dump Windows 7 (which, after this month will no longer be supported). in favour of an operating system that tried to look like Apple Mac and failed? Just like Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1, it has so many bugs you do so yearn for good old Windows XP. IT companies constantly upgrade and invent new software and gadgets. The manufacturers of computers, smart phones, mobile entertainment and all their peripherals have no choice, if they want to stay in business, but to continue selling us flawed ‘upgrades’.  In the case of Windows 10, Microsoft forced us into it by withdrawing support for Windows 7.

Windows forums have a lot to say about 10, its dodgy updates and other shortcomings. The most irritating thing is the assumption (by Microsoft) that you will take up the expensive annual subscriptions to pre-installed software trials and store all your personal data in the cloud, at a cost, of course. After some reading, I managed to install Office 2010, which I bought and paid for once already.

The good news is there are plenty of ‘fixes’ out there for Windows 10 glitches. I found one key piece of advice (not from Microsoft). In Windows 7 I used the ‘recent documents’ link constantly. It was easily found under documents/folders. Windows 10 has done away with this useful tool.

Solution: use the keystroke Windows key/e. Thank me later.

She Who Also Has Windows 10 is now regretting asking me to upgrade her laptop. The worst part of upgrading was that (initially) we could not get the printer to work, or the network sharing we previously employed.

There is now a security feature called Network Credentials which requires you to enter your Microsoft outlook name and password if indeed you succumb to that malware-type exhortation. That only took me three hours to fix – to whom should I send the invoice?

Nevertheless, if you still have Windows 7 and it decides to stop working, you will be in trouble. The good news, if you are game, is that Microsoft’s free upgrade is still available (rather than buying it for $169). Not that I recommend it, but here is the link I used to download and install Windows F*****g 10 on SWAHWT’s laptop.

Vance Packard saw all that coming, three decades before personal and business computers became a mainstream, multi-billion dollar industry. Packard was well ahead of his time, writing a number of thoughtful books about consumerism and the stealthy way the industrial-military complex manipulates people to its own greedy ends.

The thesis Packard pursued in The Wastemakers is deftly summarised in an article found on Trove.

The author of The Hidden Persuaders and The Status Seekers analysed over-production and the planned obsolescence of so-called consumer durables.

“The average American family throws away about 750 metal cans each year,” he began. “In the Orient, a family lucky enough to gain possession of a metal can treasures it and puts it to work in some way, if only as a flower pot.”

Packard claimed that in 1960s America “each individual man, woman and child was using up to an average of eighteen tons of materials a year”.

The concept of eternal growth which developed after WWII required “insidious promotion and worship of ‘consumerism’ the encouragement of waste, the temptations of encouragement of waste and the temptations of limitless H.P (hire purchase).”

Sixty years after Packard published his book, consumerism and the advertising that encourages it is no less insidious. Rampant and shameless consumerism suggests that anything “used” is shaming to its owner.

“The escalation of self-indulgence and the planned chaos leaves the buyer bewildered and helpless amid that shambles of phoney price-cuts, sales prices, special discounts etc.”

 

As people often do when moving, we purchased some new consumer ‘durables’, well aware that the generic 12-month warranties suggested a limited life span.

Meanwhile, the Technics stereo system, bought from one of Brisbane’s Brashes stores in 1986, was still sitting in carefully packed boxes in the garage. Sure, I was listening to MP3s on my Bluetooth speaker, but it is so not the same.

The Technics system was top of its class in 1986 and still performs well. It has seven individual components all interlinked by a maze of cables and power cords (one feeds the other until finally, one goes to AC power).

The problem this time with installation was (a) delving through the five manuals to remember how to reconnect everything and (b) the speaker leads were too short. They were always too short, but in our previous home it was never a problem.

I am not, as you’d know, not the world’s most practical chap. But I’m stubborn (and cheap). I turned to YouTube’s host of geeky how-to videos. What I wanted to do was work out how to extend the stereos leads, which is hard to do when said speakers are sealed boxes which offer no easy way to replace leads.

The first video I found (1:47) when searching ‘how to open sealed speaker cabinets’ is a classic example of why you can sometimes find helpful hints, and sometimes not!

After I stopped laughing and explored some other more useful options, I went into town and bought a 6m roll of 14 gauge speaker cable and some electrical tape. I used a box cutter and a pair of pliers to hand-cut the cable into two lengths, stripped 1cm of plastic off both ends of each cable and then used electrical tape to connect the longer leads to the short speaker cables. As such jobs go, it is not pretty. But it works.

I finished setting up the system about 11pm and rewarded myself with a cup of tea, listening to Homeless, a vinyl album by Ladysmith Black Mambazo.  As you may recall, the acapella African choir’s music formed the basis of Paul Simon’s amazing 1986 album, Graceland. Simon’s song Homeless is track 1, side one. Of course I fell asleep listening to side two and never got to flip the album over.

The really good news is there are a few hundred more vinyl albums in boxes in the garage. (Ed: Not that we have anywhere to store them).