How do I get my dad's wife into the 21st century just a tiny little bit?

No. I have been trying with members of my family for 15 years. As you correctly point out, there is much fear around the whole concept of technology. This fear shuts down their ability to learn about even the basics, and without a grounding in the basic concepts of the internet and computers, there is some reason to be afraid. Fear will often bring about exactly what is feared.

I have an aunt who I have been providing tech support for the past 15 years. Every time she asks me a question, I have to put the phone down, do breathing exercises and then return to explain to her what a web browser is (for the 8,645th time). There are people who have the patience for this. I am not one of them.

Tell her politely that you don’t have the time to send her daily, individual stuff. You’re not stuck doing anything you don’t want to.

But just having an email account makes her “vulnerable.” But…I shan’t tell her that.

Oh, she isn’t forcing me @gailcalled, or even bugging me. I just know that she likes the pictures I send once in a while, and she’d like more. Just trying to figure out a way to make that happen in a way that we can both live with. I can only send, maybe, 2 at a time. Big pain.

I think that some people who don’t have FB are afraid of it because of the negative things they hear about it. I think you should help her set up an account and explain to her about privacy settings and how they work. Explain to her that you want to be able to keep her in the loop but FB is the best way because you want her to be able to access all of your photos, not just the rare few you remember to send her.

Oh, I did. I even offered to set up an account under me, all identifying features would point to me. She refused. It’s almost like a superstition.

Hmmmm….....I just thought of something…........I could set up a photobucket account, tell her it’s mine and give her the user name and password…..I wouldn’t tell her that by having that info it, in effect, makes it hers, too….Thoughts, guys?

You could store your photos online (using sites like Flickr, Smugmug, Dropbox, Google’s Picasa web albums) and send her links to view them instead of attaching files to your email.

“She isn’t much older than me, but she has that old-fashioned fear of computer web sites.”

…as opposed to the other kind of website? :)

I say leave her be. Teaching her how to use Facebook would probably be way more frustrating than using email to send her a few pictures.

LOL! That was a bit redunant @livelaughlove21, wasn’t it!

She doesn’t want to learn facebook, and I wasn’t suggesting that. I think I’ll make a completely private photobucket account that only she and I will have access to. Plus, any information in there points to me, not her. I’ll tell her it’s just as safe as her email account. Plus, if she’s visiting friends who have a computer, she’ll be able to share the pics with them if she wants.

It’s at least worth a try.

People who view the computer as some sort of black magic bug me. I have worked with SO MANY people who view the computer that way. They’re the same kind of people who would have refused to get a telephone when they were invented, or a TV.

If she’s that old-fashioned and techno-phobic, she’ll probably always choose tangible over virtual. Maybe you could make copies of your favorite photos and mail them to her?

When there were no digital cameras, email, or social media, that’s exactly what we all did. If we wanted to share pictures with someone, we’d have prints made from the negatives and provide them as gifts. Photographs were scarcer and more meaningful.

She accepts them if they’re emailed, and while emailing one or two at a time is a pain, it is a whole lot easier and cheaper than printing them off and snail mailing them.

@SadieMartinPaul I know what you mean. I got my first camera, a Polaroid, in the 60’s. Got my first serious camera in the 80’s, a 35 mm. You were real careful about what you took pictures of. I have boxes and boxes and boxes of developed film.

I had about 20 rolls of 35mm film that had been hanging around until I got the money to get them developed. When I did get them developed, a few at a time, (the last of them just last year ) it was a total blast to the past. Pictures I’d completely forgotten I’d taken of my kids back in the 90’s. Also, they put all the prints on a CD, which is nice.

^^^ Yes, it was expensive to buy film and then develop/print photos. Also, the number of pictures was limited by the number of frames on a roll of film (usually 12, 24, or 36).

We were more careful and discerning. If someone brought a camera to a party or other event, the person would pose subjects in groups, make sure that nobody was squinting into the sun or a bright light, and avoid having trees or lamps “growing” out of someone’s head. The individual would also try not to catch someone with an open mouthful of food, or anything else so unattractive.

Sure, there’d be a clunker or two in every batch of prints, but the good ones were precious. Things have changed now that people take dozens (hundreds?) of indiscriminate photos with a digital camera and never take them out of e-format.

@Dutchess_III When I had to clear-out my mother’s house, I found boxes and boxes of old pictures.

Right away, I learned that someone in my family had been a terrible photographer. There were countless shots of floors, ceilings, and the backs of people’s heads! That helped make the job easier; I could immediately trash about ⅓ of the pictures.

Then, there were photos of people and places I didn’t know or recognize. They weren’t meaningful to my brother or me and, because I couldn’t identify the subjects, there was no possibility of giving them away. So, another huge batch went into the trash.

Now, I still face the huge task of organizing the good photos and putting them in albums. I know what you mean, though, about the “blast to the past.” There are pictures of my dad from WWII. I also have the histories of my brother and me from baby photos through adolescence.

Yep. My shots were never really posed though. Some were, but 90% of them were of my kids just doing what ever. I usually called their names to get their attention so they’d be looking at the camera, and the instant they turned toward me I’d snap the shot. I was never one of those who waited, and waited, and WAITED for some perfect look. After a split second all the naturalness is gone from their faces. As the photographer is waiting and waiting, the looks get more strained.

My manager of many years ago use to have a saying, “Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.” I think it was from Mark Twain.

If she is happy, don’t hurt yourself trying to change her.

She wants pictures @Tropical_Willie.

I’ll let you guys know what her reaction is when I get it all set up.

Have a large envelope and send them to her, once a month.

@Dutchess_III It’s always different with children, because you want to catch them being natural. Their inherent charm disappears when they stand there frozen, like so many tiny statues, waiting to have a picture taken.

With adults, the old rule was to arrange them in a nice grouping, and let them stay relaxed until it was time to take the picture. Then, you’d give them the 1–2-3 warning to smile and make sure they weren’t blinking.

I didn’t do very many posed pictures. I loved my telephoto lens because I was able to get pictures of people who didn’t know I was taking a picture of them! At our family reunion, one of the elders had a book of pictures that were taken in 1990, the first year we had a reunion. Half of the pictures in the book were taken by me. That’s one thing I disliked about the original digital cameras….that lag in snapping the shot. However, with my Canon I don’t have that problem at all and I love it!

Even with digital, if you’re trying to take a group shot you have to go through the same process. But you can get a zillion pics along the way, as the group is forming. I wanted to get a family shot of my daughter and her fiance and the 4 kids. I probably took 15 pictures of them as they were trying to get all together. It was an interesting set, showed a lot of movement. In that regards, the digital cameras are great. I have a couple of pics I took with my old 35 mm that I want to down load as soon as my photobucket is freed up.

@Dutchess_III Also, they put all the prints on a CD, which is nice.” You just gave yourself the solution. Have all pictures uploaded to a blank CD. Then send her the CD by snail mail. It’ll be cheap for you, and she’ll be happy.

That’s an idea!

Get cheap hosting and allow listing directories. It would look something like this. You can just make folders for each day or event and toss pictures in there with FTP. Once it is set up it is pretty simple.

I haven’t read through everything here closely, but have you ever sat her down and shown her your own Facebook page? The way you can organize and display photos for other people to see? That’s probably the best way to introduce her to it.

If your page is not secured, she can bookmark and visit it without even having a Facebook account. This would eliminate the need for her to open her own – until she finds that she can’t resist participating. And it would mean you don’t have to email photos to her.

If your page is secured, you could set up a bogus page for her – model it after a favourite movie character of hers or something. You could friend that account and she’ll have access to your photos that way. And she wouldn’t have the pressure of getting requests from people she doesn’t trust.

It’s probably also a good idea to make a list of the things that you can protect yourself from, for example:

— People finding your home address, telephone number, email address
— People being able to search for your Facebook page on the internet
— People knowing when you are online

and so on. And be able to back this up by showing her the security settings.

I’m really pathetic with technology. I’ve never used a digital camera (“Umm…where does the film go?”). I don’t know how to put images on my computer, post them online, or attach them to emails.

But, when I really need to send pictures to someone, I have my own ham-fisted, inelegant method for doing so:

1) Open a Word document
2) Copy/Past the e-photos to Word
3) Using the tools within Word, adjust the size, placement, and arrangement of the images; make a collage
4) Save the Word document
5) Create an email message and attach the Word pictures as an attachment

@Dutchess_III I mention all this because you say that your MIL’s comfortable with email, but that it’s a pain to attach all those photos to a message. If you “Pull a Lori” and put a bunch of pictures into a single Word document, it’s quick and easy to attach that one item.

Feel free to laugh at me. Personally, I think I’m rather clever, not being deterred by my own lack of techno-skills

I’ve done that too @SadieMartinPaul. Like, if I have a story to tell I’ll post pics in with the story.

@johnpowell Just came up with a blank page. :(

@dappled_leaves Yes, I’ve shown her my fb account. I think it’s the very idea of fb that has her so flustered. It’s so famous and well known, and she’s heard “stories about facebook and places like that.”
I’m in the process of creating a super top secret photo bucket account. She and I will be the only ones who have access to it. She doesn’t have to do anything active in it at all, unless she get curious. Which she won’t.

It’s difficult cause she lives 2000 miles away. :( Can’t hold her hand, really, and walk her through it.

This is my final attempt! If she balks at that I guess I start loading them onto disc and mailing them. Sigh.

@Dutchess_III :: I realized that my lease was in that directory a few minutes ago and scrambled to hide it. Should work now.

@johnpowell Yes it works…WTH IS it??

Well, I pretty much finished my intro Photobucket page. I just wanted to throw in some example pictures to show her. Just told her about it over the phone and she sounded genuinely thrilled…..I’m going to call her on Sunday and give her a tutorial over the phone.

So far so good. If it’s a go I think she’ll be thrilled.

@Dutchess_III “she sounded genuinely thrilled…”

“Thrilled” is a very good outcome indeed. Kudos to you, for finding the happy ending to your story, and for being so kind to this lady.

Back in the day, Boy Scouts would help old women cross the road. I wouldn’t be surprised if they currently have a program to help Luddites cross the information super-highway.

Paranoia isn’t easy to deal with, even for medical professionals, and phobias are immune to facts or reason, so mitigation is the only option; she’ll never be “up-to-date” without serious medical help, so the best you can do is work around it.

I second @snowberry idea of putting them onto CD, grand idea.

Sounds like you’ve come up with a very good idea Dutchess, hope it goes swimmingly.

Thanks you guys. We’ll see on Sunday. If I can make it as simple as possible for her, it may work, especially if it doesn’t smack of “OMG anyone can see this and they’re gonna come after me!!!”

If she’s that afraid of Facebook, I’d guard my optimism.

I am.