How to help old folk get connected to the Internet?

skill to

Perhaps if you don't start right at the begining it's a problem. "Click on the Firefox icon" needs a heck of lot of explanation/demostration before it makes sense to someone who doesn't know what an on screen mouse pointer is or looks like, how to move it and the variations in left/right click. Not to mention that the options and layout under either click are anything but consistent (at least in doze).

I suspect a failing in the teacher more than the pupil. Not going far enough back in the basics. B-)

I have a sneaky feeling it's not that simple. I'm not aware of any app that can tell you "which network is best" and it's such an obvious thing for an app I'd expect there to be loads about if it was easy/possible to do. Yes there are (Android) apps that'll give all manner of information about the network you are connected to but I don't think you can get the same information from a network you aren't/can't connect to.

Touch... touchy things and tremors do not mix well. Even a a mouse can present problems with wobbling pointers or "phantom" clicks. Having a Parkinsons right sided tremor I know. I've added compression springs to a mouse and my trackball buttons to try and reduce such unintentional clicks.

Aren't Chromebooks little more than WIMP dumb terminals? With out a reasonably fast and reliable 'net connection and you can't do much as everything is "in the cloud".

That admittedly may be. But .... (cond. P94)

;-)

Some mobile devices come with an eSIM installed. The current generation of iPads come with an eSIM.

There are a number of mobile data plans you can sign up to on the iPad which will require card details.

The eSIM is effectively a programmable SIM so you can switch mobile network providers. So this removes one one step but however, teh data plans chose may not be the most competitive around.

You're thinking of Shadow:

https://shadow.tech/int

There's that, and there's also sensitivity issues. I'm not sure if there's a physiological cause for older figures to not activate touch screens so well. IME it's either pressing on something and nothing happens, or pressing on it too long and it's treated as a drag.

iOS has accessibility options that look like some of these things can be tuned. It appears there's an accessibility button on the setup screen, although you'd probably have to know it's there and what to adjust in the settings. It would probably need someone to help out with the setup process.

That's in contrast to the touchpads on Windows laptops that often have an obscure vendor-specific app for tweaking things that's lurking somewhere in the Start menu. (Precision touchpads have got a lot better, but I'm not sure how well they handle accessibility).

If it's a beginner doing basic stuff, the system shouldn't get laggy in the first place. Fair enough if you have 200 browser tabs open, but there's something wrong if it's slow on one.

I'm sure Apple will sell you a nice fast SSD for that (in your next Mac Mini, of course).

Theo

OK. You need to find out why they are not on the internet. Where I live reasons include "can't see the point", "can't get usable service Does anyone know of any guides or tutorials that would help here?  I've

FWIW My suggestion would be to demonstrate what you can do at one of your meetings. Nothing beats showing them how easy it is (but practice first - Murphy's Law applies to demos and if it can go wrong it will).

The groups I belong to vary in their sophistication - the British Cactus and Succulent society have taken to holding weekly international Zoom meetings with expert speakers from around the world in the absence of any physical UK branch meetings. AT the other extreme my village hall committee includes people without internet or a computer at home. (and the church committee is even worse in that respect)

I have not found a way to persuade the refuseniks to accept the internet although some of them will use it in the village hall (or at public libraries in the good old days when they were open and had librarians). Basically some of them don't feel confident to do it on their own.

If you have a phone and go for 'manual network selection', perhaps because you're roaming, it shows you all the available networks.

I'm not 100% that happens if you have a local SIM which already knows which networks it can use. Roaming does still work for emergency calls, so there must be some degree of that plumbing in place. But if the 'survey' box has a roaming SIM in it (often they're from Isle of Man or Jersey or Lichtenstein or something) then it will see and connect to all networks. (which is useful as you might actually want to do a speedtest rather than simply assess signal strength).

I think you can get more out of a USB dongle you're explicitly controlling, rather than an Android phone where Android is in the way.

Yes, but then people do email in the cloud these days (Gmail and friends), Google Docs, etc. Arguably that's less surprising to a beginner than having to manage files on their device. It does obviously depend on having a decent network connection.

Theo

Well it's looking where I was. Remove the games and have email, messenger apps and facebook.

ITYM "used to".

Even our library in a big city like Brum is only open an hour a week. And that was *pre* Covid.

suffer

microphone

That's why I suggested a laptop, no need to "upgrade". And video communication is not difficult these days with Zoom that pretty much "just works". The same cannot be said for MS Teams, which IMHO is a slow, clunky, user unfriendly heap of poo.

Assuming that Three has a decent 4G signal where the 'net access is required. Three's coverage is not a good as the other networks.

What's the catch? Can't find any real information about this "Data Reward" SIM. Are they really giving you 200 MB/month for free? Is tethering allowed? I can see this SIM might intended to be used in an end user device to give that device only 'net access rather than a MiFi?

And avoids any "ISP tie in" if you use the ISP's email service.

Agreed, and use the kit that they would most likely be using as well.

Remember with broadband and a smart TV you get lots of useful things TV related too - for free.

SIL did manage simple online stuff, using an old desktop. When Covid arrived their kits gave them a tablet with things like Zoom and Skype loaded. They already would have had the Wi-Fi password, and SIL got the hang of Zoom etc quickly.

With so many bank branches and post offices etc closing, the sooner oldies get online, the better.

happened.

My ancient (2012) 7" Android tablet suffers from not "seeing" some touches but I think that is down to the touch not actaually being where you think it is(*) combined with small active screen areas.

I heard quite a while ago that some one had developed an anti-tremor input filter for Android that I think google then bought. Not seen anything about that recently, must have a dig...

(*) If you turn on the developer option to show where touches are being detected, the hardward is working fine, it is detecting the touch where it is physically is happening. It is just that that doesn't match where you think it should be.

There isn't one. Been using them for years. Eventually they expire. I'd put £2 on them and send a text every few months to keep them alive.

Yes.

Formerly not, but Ofcom have banned discrimination against tethering. So I think it is now.

The tethering block was based on TTL in packets, so if doing wifi tethering you just set the TTL emitted by Windows/Mac/etc to be 65. It worked fine. Alternatively Bluetooth or USB tethering doesn't decrement the TTL.

I think the TTL block may still apply when roaming abroad (for which the free data also works).

There's no difference as far as the SIM is concerned. The issues about tethering above are still relevant.

Indeed. And since the SIM is free, you can have several. The 200MB renews every month. When it stops working, put in another SIM. I did imagine a machine-gun style 'magazine' of SIM cards, that advances every time you run out of data :-)

For me 200MB is enough for a couple of days email/Google Maps/satnav/etc, which made them handy for travelling. A few SIMs would cover a week's trip.

Do any mobile operators offer their own email these days?

Theo

It?s possible that drier skin has an effect. I once suffered a bit of a cold injury to my fingers and had real problems with touch screens for a while.

Tim

Might do I find that with capacitive screens you don't actually have to touch them. They'll dectect a finger 1/2 to 1/4 mm away. I guess a really dry finger will be less conductive on the surface an present a lower coupling to the screen?

Friend OS

How about a ?smart assistant? like an Echo Dot? While I?ve not done it, I understand you can set up gmail so it can be read by Alexa and you can send Emails by dictation. The calendar function works rather well- Alexa and add events, tell you what is scheduled etc. You can message others. I assume the Google beast does the same. The Echo Show does Skype. You don?t need to subscribe Prime, unless you want Prime services like films etc.