What do you think you’re doing, Dave?

All in all, our plan (see Part 1) worked pretty well. Mom had to wait a few days after her new Dell was delivered for an appointment with Alyx, her computer consultant. During that time, Time Warner patched up a couple of loose ends and Dell delivered an additional box that had gone missing (I never did find out which one it was). As with most new computers, a large amount of effort went into moving data over from the old computer. The old HP had a CDRW drive, so everyone agreed that transferring the data to CDs would be the easiest thing. Not so fast, it said in an old wheezing voice. No CD’s for you!

Prompting my mother to write:

Belatedly naming my old computer: Remember Hal from “2001″. This computer is named after it. Hal is in charge and Hal does whatever he wants to do, disputing my authority. He is about to get the ax.

At the end of an evening’s work, Alyx had the new Dell set up with a working Internet connection and access to Gmail. There were no old files transferred yet but a plan was in place to get a couple of USB memory sticks to use for the transfers and later as backup devices.

A very important piece of the setup was making sure that I could access the new computer using LogMeIn, a remote desktop control service. There was a little miscommunication here and I had to send written instructions to my mom on how to get this service connected. It’s a credit to LogMeIn that their setup process is simple enough that in just a few steps, their software was installed and operating. Of course, it helped that the required accounts were already in place on their system. With this service in place, I now had access to a computer that was light years ahead of the old one, with a brand new name.

THIS IS A BEAUTIFUL MACHINE. My sentences are over a foot long. The screen is bright and the size of an IMAX…. I’M LOVING VERONICA!!!

Whenever I set up a computer, one of the last steps is to organize the Start menu and remove as many shortcuts as possible from the desktop. All of the programs groups that are related to the system go into a System Tools group, including the many Dell “helper” programs. The idea is to remove clutter and display only those programs that will be used on a regular basis. Everything else gets moved into lower level groups, accessible from the Start menu.

A key strategy in the success of this project was not to try and change too much at once. Yes, Veronica is a new computer but she’s running the same operating system and many of the same programs that Hal was. There is very little that’s new in the basic operation of the computer; startup and shutdown, running programs, browsing the Internet, etc. I’m sure that Mom will find differences along the way but she knows that she has resources available to help her on down the road.

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