Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Mothers-in-law & technology

Before she lost her son last month, if you had said 'web address' to my mother-in-law, she would have assumed you were talking about the street location of a spider's spinning endeavours. No longer unfortunately.

A photo site dedicated to her son, and her desire to inform far flung friends and family of it's existence and location, has forced her to deal (albeit from a distance) with the technology she so successfully avoided up till now.

Of course she doesn't have email, so the communication channel by which she broadcasts the above address is good old Canada Post. Consequently, there have been many a phone call along the lines of:

Mom: Can I get that address for Jamie's photos again?
Me: Sure, it's 'w w w'
Mom: capitals?
Me: doesn't matter , but no, no capitals.
Mom: OK, 'www'
Me: 'dot flickr dot com'
Mom: Got it
Me: Now a line starting from bottom left and ending top right
Mom: K
Me: 'photos' and another line like above
Mom: K
Me: 'jamiemurraylife' and that's it
Mom: Got it. Any dot at the end?
Me: Nope. Now it doesn't change so you could write it down and save it for next time
Mom: Oh, I'd probably just lose it. I'll just call you back.
Me: Righto. Talk to you tomorrow.

Using the POTS to communicate a web address for snail mail forwarding. Now that's convergence.

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