Buy her an iPad

I recently bought a Samsung chromebook and it is similar to Mac as far as virus protection goes, but costs a fraction of the price. Very few people really need a Mac. The chromebook has its flaws, but for day too day emailing, websurfing and Facebook usage it's just fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the suggestions -- yes I was on the library train last time she blew out a computer, but it was a nonstarter.

We were stern with her this time and just said it would have to wait until our next visit. Unfortunately she took matters into her own hands and signed up with a tech support service from her ISP. Of course they could not help either and now she has locked herself into an expensive, useless contract. Again, poor impulse control - she could not wait 24 hours to hear from us before signing up.

She is not well off so even if we make her pay for this fix, ultimately we still pay as we are supporting her in other ways.

It doesn't sound like she needs a computer. Stop purchasing them for her. Problem solved. No one needs to email, specially at an older age.

My grandmother (90's) emails and does Facebook.
But she does the same thing as OP's MIL and it drives my mother BEESERKO!!!
Grandma was just here and got my DH to try to fix a "problem" with getting her email on her kindle!
We all swear if she gets a smartphone we're having the geek squad move in with her.
By the way, old people can get a lot of real email , you would be surprised.

None of the email is worth it. All junk.

Buy a refurbished Mac online for less. Then she can go to the apple store when she has issues.

She sounds entitled.

It's probably worthwhile to get her a Geek Squad (or equivalent) membership/warranty that covers all this kind of stuff. I think it's a couple hundred dollars for a couple years.

My mom has gone to them - paying too much for ad hoc repairs - but at least it was their problem to solve. (The only thing is they talked her into buying some new driver or something once.) It's nice for a parent to be able to walk in and hand over the computer vs. having someone remotely try to walk her through steps to fix something over the phone (like with Dell-type company).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the suggestions -- yes I was on the library train last time she blew out a computer, but it was a nonstarter.

We were stern with her this time and just said it would have to wait until our next visit. Unfortunately she took matters into her own hands and signed up with a tech support service from her ISP. Of course they could not help either and now she has locked herself into an expensive, useless contract. Again, poor impulse control - she could not wait 24 hours to hear from us before signing up.

She is not well off so even if we make her pay for this fix, ultimately we still pay as we are supporting her in other ways.

It doesn't sound like she needs a computer. Stop purchasing them for her. Problem solved. No one needs to email, specially at an older age.

My grandmother (90's) emails and does Facebook.
But she does the same thing as OP's MIL and it drives my mother BEESERKO!!!
Grandma was just here and got my DH to try to fix a "problem" with getting her email on her kindle!
We all swear if she gets a smartphone we're having the geek squad move in with her.
By the way, old people can get a lot of real email , you would be surprised.

How old is MIL? I can't get my mom near a computer, iPhone or ipad, but she's 81, and she's even overwhelmed by a cable remote.

Considering your situation, maybe I'm better off.

iPad

My parents are in Orlando, which is further away. We found a computer support person local to them and we have this womanb "on call". If they have problems, my parents call her and she will schedule a visit to come to their house, fix the setup and restore their computer and she bills us only a reasonable amount (costs us about $100-150 a visit). They have a backup drive and scheduled backups, plus she has an image of the computer, so if this happens, she erases the disk drive, restores the image and starts the backup restore running. It doesn't take that long (maybe one afternoon) and the system is back to where they were the night before. We found this woman on the Internet who does computer consulting and repair work local to my parents, asked for a few references and got good reviews from previous clients, so hired her. Even if this happens a couple of times a year, it's still cheaper than a new computer and cheaper than flying to Orlando for a weekend to fix the computer. Plus, it means that we also are not spending our vacations at their house fixing the computer.

Send her some stationery and a subscription to readers digest instead.

No - but glad to hear I'm not alone in this. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!

Nik...is that you? Lol!!

That sucks, OP. Agree that an iPad is the way to go.

we MUST be related. your MIL sounds like my mother. thus,, i am truly very sorry for your situation!!! and the answer is...it's hopeless.

Get a mac