This series is designed to help people to understand modern technology, and become more confident in using computing devices. It is not designed to educate experts.
The author is involved in tutoring older students at SeniorNet, a New Zealand wide organisation. SeniorNet hopes that students will feel more confident in using their computing devices as a result of the learning opportunities offered. This series of articles shares that hope.
I recently had one of the people I support with computing problems contact me. His existing computer (which I had given him some years ago) was in the late stages of dying. I suspect it was full of dust, his housekeeping standards being some of the worst I’ve ever seen.
The upshot was, we decided that his old computer, that had been to computer hospital a couple of times in the recent past, was no longer worth repairing, and he needed replacement equipment. He has only limited means and buying a new computer for $1,000 plus would stress his budget so I undertook to look around to see what I could find that would meet his limited means.
I had recently had my own laptop repaired by a small suburban computer shop in Moera, Lower Hutt. Repair shops can be problematic (ask Hunter Biden about this) and I had spent time checking whether they needed access to the log in password to effect the repairs I needed.
This story, which is pertinent, also popped up in my YouTube feed in the past few days, and is worth viewing.
No, I don’t have porn or politically sensitive stuff on my computer, but there is private information (like Bank statements, my will and my Password Manager, to name a few things) which I don’t necessarily want to be viewed. Turns out they could do the repairs without needing the login, so they got the work. While I was in the shop I asked if they had computers traded in because they wouldn’t take Microsoft Windows 11, and it transpired they did get these from time to time. I filed this information away.
When my friend needed a replacement computer I returned to Hutt Computers and asked if they had anything suitable. They did have a traded-in HP laptop with a Windows 10 license that would work. I negotiated for them to strip out Windows 10 (the best price for Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit OEM) right now is $214.94.) and sell me the laptop for $150 plus a new charger (another $100). So the total cost without an operating system was $250. For a reasonable spec. machine with 8GB of RAM and 256 GB SSD drive that’s an OK price. A new HP laptop with Windows pre-installed would set me back $1,799 from Noel Leeming. You can’t buy a laptop from a box store without an operating system, so to buy new and discard Windows means wasting over $200. I’m too mean to do that.
A quick eftpos transaction later I had a suitable and cheap computer for my friend. I took it home and installed Manjaro Linux with KDE desktop (also called the Plasma Desktop) on it, together with my friend’s Gmail credentials into Thunderbird email, and he had a computer that ran fast and did all he needed. His old computer had run KDE desktop and Thunderbird as the email client, so he could use the new computer with his “old” training and muscle memory.
Unfortunately, in the intervening period, my friend went doolally (lost his mental capacity) and he eventually reached the conclusion that he could no longer drive a computer. I had already worked out that my friend had boarded the Doolally Express. It’s incredibly difficult when you are dealing with someone slipping off the planet, and requires extreme finesse in helping them make the right decisions. I’m usually known as a pretty blunt guy, so I needed to reach deep into my bag of tact to guide him without him realising this was happening. The fact that his doctor had indicated he wouldn’t get his driver’s licence renewed at 86 years of age was a help here, but I like to think my friend believes he made this decision by himself.
A bit of history for the term “Doolally”.
Deolali (also called Devlali) transit camp was a British Army transit camp in India, about 100 miles inland from Bombay (now called Mumbai). Established in 1861, the camp remained in use throughout the time of the British Raj. It served to house soldiers newly arrived in the country and those awaiting ships to take them to Britain. Conditions in the camp were said to be poor, especially for those stationed there for long periods and the term “doolally”, a corruption of Deolali, became associated with mental illness. Doolally tap was a common usage term, the tap part is not well understood but appears to refer to fever, and may have an association with Malaria or VD.
Because my friend would no longer be using a computer, I needed to do some work on his account. I went into his Gmail online and set up an auto responder to advise anyone sending him emails for the next year that the email box was now unattended. Gmail itself will stop working after a period of inactivity, so no necessity to cancel the account. Time would attend to this. I was concerned that he may have arranged for insurance renewals etc. to be emailed to him, and if these didn’t have attention it could cause financial problems. And I retrieved the laptop which he hadn’t paid for, such are the difficulties in getting old.
I think I may keep this computer for myself, and just swap the SSD drive from my old computer to the new as it’s a 1 TB SSD I installed a while back. The great thing about Linux is these drive swaps often work, unlike Microsoft Windows which gets very picky about changing the innards of a computer. However, if it doesn’t work it’s only a quick reinstall and data swap between drives, no big deal.
So, this article, which was planned to cover recycling an older computer rather veered into different territory because of other events. And as my hero, Winston Churchill said “It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”