What's that thingy called?

[Griffin NoName]

I am having trouble teaching my father to use IE over the phone. (Don't be put off by IE - it's irrelevant, could be any web browser).

I was trying to get him to sign into his hotmail account, so on the page we had "Enter windows live ID" and "Enter password".

The next hour was pergatory.

All seemed to go alright on Live ID, but first digit of password appeared several times in the Live ID box, mucking up the hotmail address which is the live ID.    (diagnosis: cursor moved off password box, and key pressed too long).

So this is where it all went pear shaped.

I managed to get him to clear out the Live ID box, and select his hotmail address again, and press return on it. Ok. (although this took a very long time).

So, then we have a |  (line A) flashing at the beginning of password, and we have the cursor appearing as a white arrow (item WA) hovering around any old which way on the page. So I wanted to avoid the problem we had before. So I told my father to move WA over onto the password box and that when it was there it would change to a vertical line with a horizontal line top and bottom (line B).............

and when it had changed to that, he should left click the mouse to ensure the cursor was in the box.

So, during this process one has (line A) flashing at the beginning of password, and the cursor showing as (line B) somewhere hovering over the password box.

So I was referring to (line B) as the cursor, as that had been the white arrow (WA) which had changed to (line B) - with me so far? ..... so he wanted to know what (line A) was called, if it wasn't the cursor, because obviously the cursor could not be two things at once.

We then argued for about half an hour about what (line A) was called when one also had (line B) showing.............

In the end I said it was called Bertie.      

Does anyone call it something else?

[Roland Deschain]

I'm not completely understanding the issue here, although being tech support for my own father, I fully understand where some issues may lie...anyway, if it's just inputting his email address and password, I don't know what he's doing wrong. Is the below picture the one he's using to sign in with? I think this may be a case of Fatherpushingwrongbuttons Syndrome, something to which I am becoming increasingly familiar. If it isn't, then i'm not sure what's going on.

[Griffin NoName]

Yes, eaxactly that screen.

Basically he can't type his password in. Not so much finger trouble, it's mouse trouble; he does stuff with the mouse so the cursor comes out of the password box while he is typing into it: the cursor somehow gets back to the Live ID box so the password appears there! His mouse handling is very poor. He finds it difficult.




The exact problem at present is:

He won't try again until we have agreed what the two black lines shown in the pic, indicated by the bluelines pointing at them, are called.

ie. to get him to be prepared to type in his password, I first have to name the lines.

They have to, as far as he is concerned, have names, and they have to have different names, ie. they can't both be called cursor. He won't accept them as both being "cursor". He just won't continue until we have named the lines individually. (this is what I am up against).

What do you call (line A) - the black line flashing at the start of the password box?

What do you call (line B) - the black line (topped and tailed) showing the (cursor) hovering over the password box?

[Bluenose]

OK, I call the curser attached to the mouse the pouse pointer (or cursor) and I call the line in the field the insertion point (ie, where what you type will be inserted.)  This applies to things like MS Word, Excel etc too.

[Griffin NoName]

Thanks Blue.

I did try a version of that. He wouldn't accept anything like "insertion point"  - he insists it has a "proper name" - that's why I ended up telling him it was called "Bertie". I don't know whether to laugh or cry. He's always been like this. I can't even say it is much worse now he is in his nineties. He's like it about everything. One has to take a lot of deep breaths when talking with him.

[Swatopluk]

According to wikipedia:

In text that the user can select or edit, the pointer changes to a vertical bar with little cross-bars (or curved serif-like extensions) at the top and bottom — sometimes called an "I-beam" since it resembles the cross-section of the construction detail of the same name.

[pieces o nine]

Deepest sympathies, Grif.  

Trying to act as long-distance tech support for my mom is a similarly trying experience for all involved! I simply cannot   get her to drive her mouse up to the menu bar and select a category when she gets stuck. I've explained (personally and long-distance) about the differences between menu bars for the interwebs itself, the menu for websites opened on the web, and menu for applications opened on the hard drive, whenever she is trying to reply to, or save a picture from, an email.

* we rejoin our program, seven minutes into the phone call *

* patiently whisper-screamed into phone *  CLEAR AT THE TOP OF THE SCREEN, MOM, AT THE VERY, VERY, VERY TOP, JUST UNDER THE TOP EDGE OF THE MONITOR ITSELF . . .

. . .

MOM?  . . . MOM?  . . . DO YOU SEE IT?

. . .  mmmm, maaaybeee . . .

CLEAR AT THE VERY, VERY TOP. Are you clicking on "[insert desired command here]"?

. . . mmmmm, there isn't a "[desired command]" . . .  

* !?! *  There isn't? . . .  Mom, are you sure you're at the very top of the screen itself. The very top . . .

. . .   mmmmm, maaaybe . . .  *giggles*

*deep breath*  Okaaay, what are   you seeing?

. . . select new game?

Mom, are you in your Solitaire games again?

. . .  mmmm, maaaaaybeee . . .   *giggles*

* is doing yogic Breath of Fire *

Oh!  There's another row of words further up the screen . . . Should I 'red x' the game and drive up there? *giggles*  

* beats head on desk *

The woman who cavalierly maneuvered a mouse-less bank computer system to move millions of dollars of other people's money around at their whims, all day every day for years, without a breaking a sweat, cannot click on, say, "File". She just can't. Or won't. I can't decide. She is one of only two in her circle who even have computers and they think she is incredibly brave and daring, so huje props to her. Still, I am closely watching myself for signs of impending technophobia catastrophica totalis...

On a related note, is Bart's dad still appearing upside down on Skype?    

[edit] sorry! -- I got so fuzzed up from reliving that recurrent experience that I almost forgot to say that I rumble with "Mouse Pointer" and would offer "Blinking Pointer" for the other side. Something like that worked for my mom. [/edit]

[Griffin NoName]

Swato - I think my Dad would like I-beam. Especially as basically he wants to call the "insertion point" pointer a cursor. I'd just have to remember that actually the I-Beam is the cursor, or the Mouse Pointer, and the (P09) Blinking Pointer is the "Insertion Point" pointer while saying something different to him...................... aaaaaaaaargggh!....no that can't be what I meant to say............

P09, you made me laugh ( or cry, I'm not sure which)

Solitaire figures largely with my Dad too. He has appointed it as his training exercise, so we have to understand that he is NOT playing a game, but doing mouse training. I get calls :

>>> I can't pick up the card

>>> where is it?

>>> well it's above the four cards

>>> do you mean the deck?

>>>No. The card next to the deck

>>>how did it get there?

>>> I clicked on the deck

>>> how many cards are there next to the deck?

>>>three

>>> and which card are you trying to pick up?

>>> the second one

>>>what do you mean, the second one?

>>>the one underneath the top one

>>>Dad, in Solitaire you have to turn over three cards at a time and you can't get at the two cards underneath the top card unless you move it down to one of the four sets below.....

>>>oh. I've forgotten how to play Solitaire.

>>>why not read the Help - that tells youi how to play  :head: :brick: :wall:

[pieces o nine]

My dad liked Solitaire, too; he used to play it on my first Macs when they came to visit. Fortunately, he remembered and scrupulously followed the rules, so that went well.

Why not make yourself a post-it note or index card with a Grif-to-Grif's Dad/Grif's Dad-to-Grif pc terms "dictionary" on it.       Good luck!

[Griffin NoName]

eek!!! Post-it notes.... clearly I never told you about the post-it notes..... another of my father's foibles. Year by year the number of post-it notes adorning my parents' flat increased exponentially. The most interesting one pictured a chicken with wiggely lines coming off the top vertically indicating heat. If one caught sight of this particular post-it note one was to understand there was a cooked chicken outside the front door left to cool off which must at some point be retrieved and put in the fridge. Other major post-it notes included "do not open this window more than 1 inch", "the dishwasher is ON", "the dishwasher is CLEAN", "guest towel" and my favourite, "way out ->" placed beside the kitchen door.

[Sibling DavidH]

All four of our parents are long dead, but I well remember the frustration of trying to tutor Wendy's mum by phone.  She used to write word-processor files on her BBC Master 128 which were too big to save on a single floppy.  I then had to talk her through splitting it into two files.  This happened about once a week while she was rewriting Depression After Childbirth, but she never learned either to keep files short or how to split them.  As for the nightmare of talking her through ...

[Roland Deschain]

Oh wow, I have so much more "fun" to look forward to with my dad in the future. Not knowing whether to laugh or cry is indeed a major dilemma here. You clearly have the patience of the Dalai Lama. I salute you.

Loathe as I am to introduce yet another variable into the equation here, what about, once your father has managed to get the cursor to appear in the Live ID box (email address time), he uses the "Tab" key to get Bertie to appear in the Password box? Or would that be too many variables for him? It should help alleviate the issue of his mouse control if he leaves it completely alone.

PoN: I, too, fear reaching the stage where technology outpaces my ability to understand its usage. This is one thing which truly scares me about old age; encroaching senility and/or losing the ability to easily understand.

[Griffin NoName]

...........what about, once your father has managed to get the cursor to appear in the Live ID box (email address time), he uses the "Tab" key to get Bertie to appear in the Password box?

there are going to be all these people going around talking about Bertie much to the puzzlement of their friends and family etc.  

The one thing that scares me is not remembering PINS and passwords.

Today I ordered online from a shop I had not ordered from for over a year, and I was able to remember the random password without looking it up. I must have upwards of forty passwords in my head, plus probably another dozen or so from more than 10 years ago, and I can remember them alright, and I am going to be gutted when I can't. It's my one talent

[Roland Deschain]

Statistically, you're safer writing down username and password combinations than you are storing them on the PC, as digital theft is more likely than physical theft. Plus, if the worst does happen, and you're broken into, the last thing a burglar would want to take is a tatty random notepad in a drawer, as they'll be looking for the stuff that's easy to fence. That will help you out if you ever start to lose your memory, which will hopefully not happen for another 50 years or so.

[Swatopluk]

An easy and reasonably safe way is also to encypher the written down passwords by adding a standard string to them (easiest of course with numbers). The passwords should be short enough that a frequency analysis does not work. The key should be easy to look up, so you do not have to write it down directly.
E.g. there is a website that gives translations of the Monty Python quote "My hovercraft is full of eels" into multiple languages. You's just have to note which langage you used.