I'm aware of seniors. Heck, I'll end up being one myself one day. I've even started an octogenarian club. Rather than look for, ahem, the pre-forties at every affair that I go to, I glean the attendees for the over eighties. I snap their pictures, interview them, and write them up for my columns. Come to think of it, I think that I'll start previewing them next week under this by-line.

My newfound hobby has made me more sensitive and aware that my previous notion that anyone could use a PC these days was erroneous. With naiveté' I had the thoughts that usability had actually gotten better and that there were no age barriers to PC users just because I had given my mother a PC with a few lessons. Well, my interviews with my octogenarians convinced me that I was wrong.

Let me pass on some useful advice to all of you who hope to introduce one of your elders to the greatest technology of our times.

• Most authorities have agreed: "Buy an iMac." Graphically, it is appealing but the danger of that is, "What if Mom takes off and runs with this new technology?" I'm here to tell you that if that happens you will have to run to your nearest technology store and replace her iMac with a PC!
  
  
• Pick a smart, friendly home page for the elder in your life. Some vote for AOL, others agree that MSN, with its crowded ugly home page and its purple gorilla bot, who constantly uses it as a default homepage, is a no-no. I myself like Netscape. Despite its imposing appearance, it is really very user friendly.
  
  
• Be very mindful of the equipment. One of my octogenarians was aghast at the type of starting equipment I had set up for my mother. "I can't believe, with you being in the business, that you set up that poor woman with such crap units and expect her to learn on it much less run it. Really, a 14-inch monitor is antiquated in today's world! -- and only 64MB of memory? One can't even run the operating system, Windows 98 on that little amount of memory. At least give her 128MB. Good God, man, this is the 21st century! Shame on you!"
  
  
• Be cognizant of their physical limitations. I did learn that our elders do have specific equipment preferences. Multitasking and multiple windows hold no charm for this audience; they want to do one thing at a time and they want one way to do it. Flexibility is a confusing course for them. Their arthritic hands reject the conventional mouse and demand the trackball mouse, which separates pointing from clicking largely eliminating accidental selecting and dragging.
  
  

My Octo Group caused me a sleepless night that night. These senior computer geeks have a tremendous respect for techie things even though they don't understand them. They have even gone so far as to threaten to organize a march to visit Uncle Bill to ask him to "reset Windows" so that they don't have to deal with so many of its vast options which would take them another lifetime to master.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
Marty is interested in your human-interest stories. Relate yours to him. If you have an Octo Senior at home, please contact him. Perhaps our own PressPoints SeniorNet® can be lauched from this Netnews. Contact him on site; http://www.4pointspress.com or direct your email to the Editor.