[Leah]

We are getting my grandparents-in-law (late 80s/early 90s) a second-hand Mac (iBook 300 mhz G3) for Christmas as a result of their claimed desire to "get on the Internet". We went for a Mac because we felt it would be more user-friendly (no blue screen of death, for example).

However, I have not used a Mac since the days when I was using gopher and wais protocols to access the Internet, and I suspect things have moved on since then.

In terms of nice simple email/web browser/office software, what can (i) we expect to come along with the OS (OSX 10.2), if anything, and (ii) you recommend as easy to use for a couple who are not very technologically literate (they have trouble remembering what the buttons on their phone do)? I think they will take to the 'net if they aren't scared off at an early stage.

Just looking for any recommendations, really...

TIA!

[winwintoo]

Hi Leah, Congratulations for helping your Grandparents get into the digital age. I love to watch older people get their first taste of the wonders of computers.

I've always had Macs and love them, in fact, I just moved my iMac over to my Mom's house so she could play computer games - she's 83!!

OS 10.2 comes with mail.app and Safari the native mail and browser. Both are easy to use and pretty straightforward to set up.

Safari can be set up to block all pop up windows and mail can be set to move spam into a junk folder. As mail comes, it is very good at recognizing spam and you can set a "rule" to delete the spam right away so they never need to look at it.

The OS also comes with AppleWorks - a word prcessor, spreadsheet etc. Also TextEdit - a plain vanilla text editor with a few formatting features.

Other goodies are iCal - a personal calendar; address book that is available no matter where you are (not just in mail)

I would recommend that you get them a good mouse - the trackpad can be annoying. You can set it to ignore the trackpad if there is a mouse present - otherwise the trackpad will jump around every time you pass your hand across it.

Make sure they have some games to play - that's the best way I know to get used to using a mouse etc.

Hope this helps, Margaret

I can hardly wait to find out how it goes