IT Help for Old Folk!
 

My mum is in her 70s now and only just learning to use a computer, in order to stay connected with us from Europe. She is able to accept Skype calls, which is great, but I would love to find an easy way for me to send her photos/videos daily.

What would be the easiest interface for me to upload media to, please? I'd love to find some sort of web album that we could bookmark with a desktop icon and which is designed with really simple controls. I guess a digital photo frame is a possibility, but it would be great to not have to buy more hardware when she has a laptop now.

Thanks a lot for any ideas you have and happy new year!

Set her up on FaceBook and make everything private / shared only with her.

^ seems oxymoronic. ( FaceBook/private )

Most modern routers have provision for a separate drive that can be accessed via ftp. (she would see it as a network drive - put a short cut on her desktop)

Set up a Dropbox account. Share a folder with her and regularly add sub folders with new pictures. Label the subfolders with the name of each event or picture set.

I second Dropbox. I have it on a couple of my devices, and it's really simple to use.

The simplest I found is using Apple products. I can take a picture or movie from my iPhone or MacBook Pro in California and, using photo sharing, my family who live a thousand miles away can see my photos on all of our apple devices (the apple tv, iPad, iPhones etc). It works seamlessly and nearly instantaneously. We have the apple tv screensaver setup to show my photos. Of course, you have to buy into the apple ecosystem which isn't cheap but it has worked flawlessly for us for a few years now.

So if you had an iPhone and your mother had an iPad that would be the simplest both logistically and user interface-wise that I can think of.

Thousands of bucks for Apple products (if you don't already have them), or a few bucks for Dropbox (I think my subscription cost me $45), which anybody using any system can access the stuff you want them to. Pretty simple maths to me ;)

Not necessarily thousands of dollars. If OP has an iPhone/iPad then they can simply go the apple tv route - that's only $99 and she can see the pics/movie on a big screen.

Forget dropbox.

copy.com

I've posted this before.

My clients all give me internal email addresses for convenience. That means I need multiple dropbox accounts.

Copy let's you link all of your email accounts to one copy account so no signing in and out when a different client sends me a link to something.

Equitable sharing. With dropbox if someone shares 5 gb with you it counts as 5 gb in both theirs and your account. With copy the same 5 gb only uses 2.5 from each account. The amount of data is divided by the users so even if 5 people share that same 5 gb it only counts as 1 gb in each account. Put another way the 5 gb is 5 gb not 5 or 10 or 25.

Currently they are still giving credits for driving users. I've got 60 gb for free right now.

Use my referral link and we both get an extra 5 gb for free. https://copy.com?r=BgtGZC

I still stand by FB as the solution. A benefit for FB is she can comment, have dialog on specific items posted and will get notification of new content. Besides, it's dead simple.

You sure you got a handle on how Dropbox works? I have a Dropbox account and I can make a link to share with anybody in the world that I want to; they don't need a Dropbox account to see whatever it is I want to share.

Sharing from your account to non dropbox users is unidirectional. Non dropbox account holders can't upload. If you already have a dropbox account and are logged in as User A and client sends an email to your User B address the link is not valid until you log out as A and log back in as B.

True. I think I was assuming that his elderly mother wouldn't be sharing stuff with them, just receiving. I could very well be wrong, though. I just know that MY mom (mid 60s) won't ever be uploading anything anywhere lol.

Photo frame with wifi

Amazon.com : Nixplay 8 inch Wi-Fi Cloud Digital Photo Frame. iPhone & Android App, Email, Facebook, Dropbox, Instagram, Flickr & Picasa - W08A : Camera & Photo

I can second the nixplay photo frame. I got one for my parents for Christmas- they are in their late 80's. I can control it and upload/change photos from my computer. Gives them a pleasant surprise every couple of days.
Gary

This. Either you are an Apple Fanboy or an Apple hater - but the truth is, Apple products are easy to use, and integration with multiple Apple products is seamless.

My mom is 80 years old, and she not only views photos I share with her, but her shares select photos with us as well, using her iPad. And that iPad is the first computer she's ever used. (She's also been writing her autobiography on that tablet...)

Yeah, I admit, I am an Apple fanboy - after many years of resisting...Don't worry - just dive in -- the water's fine. Here, try some of this delicious kool-aid too! ;)

-Z-man.

invest in an iPad for grandma. get a cheap one on ebay if you must. then share photos with photo stream (via iCloud). having grandma see her grandkids is worth the cost. your kids will feel closer to grandma too. forget about dropbox and the rest. making or taking those extra steps to upload the photos won't be immediate.

The other benefit of FB.

Take a pic, tap the upload button, tap the FB icon, done. Works for iOS and Android devices.

Google Drive works for me. Share the drive with her and she can access and download all she wants. It's very easy to use, works on computers, phones, and tablets, and free.

Upload albums to a Shutterfly account. She opens a bookmark (or can give her a desktop shortcut) and all the albums will be there.

I'm neither a fanboi nor hater; just a pragmatist. Apple products are obscenely overpriced, so I have a hard time justifying purchasing from their product lines (computing, that is--their phones are garbage). My personal experience with their products has been so/so. I liked my OG iPod; had no issues with it. Upgraded to a iPod Touch, and it completely died after 3 uses. Switched to a Zune due to needing a MP3 player NOW, and no iPods being available, and was astounded at how much superior the Zune was (and still is, several years later). Bought another iPod touch to give to my daughter, and she loves it. My other daughter loves her iPhone, though it's half the phone of my G3, and a couple hundred more expensive. My son bought himself a used first gen iPad and has had no issues with it. HOWEVER, I will give them kudos on their systems integration; they've done a remarkably good job there. But that just isn't enough to get me to overspend on their tech (for myself, at least).

My wife, on the other hand, hates anything Apple related. I'm unsure why, as she's never owned any Apple products.

google drive is fabulous for this-

I have a good friend that had the same dislike for Apple products. Then one day he broke down and bought a Macbook and now has more apple products in his house than I do. He turned into the fanboy. LOL. SmileWavy

Thanks for all the great suggestions!

Not a hater....yeah, right!

No. More of an informed buyer ;) I don't overspend on technology just to "fit in" when I can get the same/better product for nearly half the cost.

And how can you say I'm a hater when I give Apple credit for what I feel are their true successes--their seamless interaction between their device lines (not to mention their marketing team). If you scroll down to the iTunes thread, you'll also see there that I state I like iTunes--it's what I use daily.

So yes, I'm not a hater. I even stuck the Apple logo sticker that came with my daughter's iPod onto the cover of my Samsung Galaxy tablet just to piss off the wife ;)

Ok - now that's funny... Zune was discontinued by Microsoft in 2011 - they just could not compete with the success and popularity of Apple's products... To say the Zune devices are better than iPods goes completely against the opinion of just about every tech expert out there...

Lemme guess - you have a Windows Phone? That would make you one of 72 people on the planet that own a personal Windows Phone. :D I actually have one that is my work issue cell phone. Folks complain about how rigid iPhones are compared to Andriod phones -- well Windows phones are pretty much completely uncustomizable, not to mention awkward, non-intuitive, and blah.

Between my wife and I , we have had thee iPods, including an ancient 2nd gen, three iPhones (4 and a pair of 5S's), an iPad 3, an iPad mini with Retina, and a Macbook Pro. Only issue I had with all of these devices is a hard drive failure (non-Apple component) on the MacBook. When I upgrafded my iPhone 4 to an iPhone 5S, ATT paid me $140 for the old phone. I paid $200 for that phone (with a 2 year contract).

Back on topic - the system integration is what makes Apple products so desireable for older people -- they don't want to or know how to tinker with settings and customization -- they just want it to work. And that's what Apple does - it just works.

-Z-man.

Apple advertises the CRAP out of their product. That doesn't make them better. (I expect that Guy is right - Zune was a better product, for the informed buyer .)

iPhone has lots to like, esp now that they caught up to useable screen size. Too bad their GUI is so cartoonish.

There will be NO pragmatic assessment of the iReligion; you heretic . :-/

Sheesh, I caught all kinds of flack, way back, for pointing to the ridiculously small pixels of the iPhone... said the high pix-count should be in a bigger screen. (look at them now - huge success)

sensitive bunch of iMinions.