Dad and PCs
When he and mum first got the Internet at home, he got into email in a big way, and sent me inane missives about his daily life all the time (which I was happy to receive, of course). One day though, I get the following request for help:

SNOWY

ME AND MUM HAVE BEEN HAVING A LOVELY WEEK OFF WORK. YOUR MUM HAS BEEN DECORATING THE BACK BEDROOM AND I HAVE BEEN GARDENING. ALSO, I CAME SECOND IN THE SNOOKER LADDER DOWN THE SOCIAL. GOOD RESULT!

GRANDMA VISITED AT THE WEEKEND AND SHE IS FINE TOO.

HOPE YOU ARE WELL.

ONE THING I HOPE YOU CAN HELP ME WITH. I AM WRITING IN CAPITALS, AS YOU WILL HAVE NOTICED. DOES MY COMPUTER HAVE SOME SORT OF VIRUS?

THANKS,

DAD

A brief note explaining the function of Caps Lock and he was back on course.

Due to his naivete about the Internet, I also later had to give him a bit of a tutorial on covering yourself when mum uses your computer- I was visiting home and inevitably stumbled upon his internet history.

Rubber-fetish stuff. Blimey! He said he was just curious. I was less shocked than I might have expected to be because, at the end of the day, any man who gets internet for the first time is going to go off and look at a load of porn, including any weird stuff which takes their interest, and I really don't think it would be fair to hold my dad to standards I myself would have totally failed to live up to.

I gave him a crash course in clearing your internet history, periodically deleting Temporary Internet Files, and the value of mum and him having separate log-ins.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Sat 26 Sep 2009, 11:18, Reply)