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Internet Appliance Experiences?
farnsaw asks: "As Christmas approaches, I find that I have several relatives who are Internet challenged... Ok, technologically challenged. I have decided to make it my business to help them overcome their limitation this Christmas by providing them with a connection to the Internet. The problem is, I don't want to spend the next 5 years holding their hands so I thought I would Ask Slashdot for suggestions. I am looking for experiences, both good and bad, about the uninitiated using any and all means to connect to the Internet, from the full blown 2Ghz Overclocked Celeron PC down to WebTV. My plan is to purchase one or several "Internet Appliances" to get these people online. I need the help of /. to determine which is the best method of solving this problem. Please take into consideration that I am not looking for a device to hack (ok, I am ;-) but really need to provide an all inclusive solution to the posed problem. I am aware that getting the unitiated to actually use the Internet is a big problem in an of itself, so I made that greatest of sacrifices (just kidding Suzannah) and just got married, thus providing much dialog and pictures on the Internet that family and friends would be interested in." I figure quite a few of you out there might be looking to do the same thing this year, so this one seemed appropriate, and it's best to discuss these things now, rather than spend hours in the After-Christmas return lines, later.
The latest N|C CD (1.2) inclides Tik, so now users can get on AOL's IM network and chat with all the saps^H^H^H^H users there. A good thing, IMHO. The CD can be had by asking for one, or you can download the ISO if you're impatient :)
1.2 also adds Tetris :)
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
You should be able to do the above for about three hundred bucks (less if you have stuff laying around) and it can be upgraded slowly as the folk's learning curve is traversed. Sooner or later, the user will want something more than an internet appliance can manage, and you end up in this spot anyway. Get it over with early.
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
(Please note, this is not an endorsement of the I-opener, especially as they're being discontinued.)
Well, guess what. She loved it. She got into the whole eBay thing, is sending e-mail all over the place, is throwing out her cookbooks because she can find all her recipes online (no joke!)... having a ball.
Four months later, she's thinking of getting rid of it. Why? Well, as great as it is, it's not a real browser. It can't do movie clips, I don't think it can do sound, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it couldn't handle some websites. She's now thinking of getting an honest-to-goodness computer solely for the purpose of surfing. So I expect that she'll either get a bottom-feeder Dell for well under $1000, or I'll tell her to just get a remanufactured Pentium or something.
If I had any knowledge about Macs (she's used them before) I'd get her an old Mac, a modem, and a dialup account and let her go nuts. And I could probably do it for the price of an appliance, too.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
I faced a similar situation not long ago and was considering the WebTV. Then I spent a week in a hotel room where, for a few bucks a day, they'd give me a WebTV keyboard and net access. Man, you talk about ugly! The way a bunch of sites were handled was downright unpleasant.
After ruling out the WebTV, I chose to go the ThinkNic route. (www.thinknic.com) For those who don't know, the ThinkNic is a processor, a couple of megs of flash memory (for storing Netscape bookmarks), some RAM, and a CD drive in a small, cheap box. There's no hard drive, no built-in monitor. The OS is on the CD from which the machine boots. It runs Linux 2.something, but that's entirely beside the point since the user can't make any changes to the boot drive data, anyway.
My basic reasoning was that it was a better concept. Most of the net appliances I've seen are expensive enough that you could have gotten a full-fledged computer for the same price or they come saddled with crappy little LCD monitors that, especially for an aging family member with less-than-perfect eyes, would render the device unusable. The ThinkNic avoids these problems. It's cheap at $200 and you can connect it to a nice, big monitor.
I ordered online, the machine arrived in less than a week, and it was a breeze to set up. It's now happily helping my Mom surf hither and yon via an IDSL connection.
I found only a few shortcomings.
First, it comes running Netscape so if you have issues with that browser you'll have those same issues with this machine. Performance issues when rendering tables come to mind. I found that my mom, having no experience with the net, simply expects every page to pop instantly onto her screen the split-second she clicks the mouse. She can't understand why things take so long and the browser isn't helping.
Second, it lost BIOS settings once and wouldn't boot. A quick call to the free tech support fixed that in under five minutes. The problem hasn't recurred. I've had this happen to a number of boxes and definitely wouldn't hold it against the ThinkNic. Actually, the incident shows how good and fast their tech support was.
Third, Java is enabled and you can't turn it off. I have (purely for testing purposes, you understand) found myself in the middle of a "p*** storm" of rapidly opening windows that simply can't be stopped. The keyboard shortcut for closing Netscape is disabled and no one can mouse that fast. Some of the most execrably coded sites will leave you with no practical choice except to hit the power button for a reboot.
Fourth, there are no instant messaging clients. Yes, there's an IRC client (that can't keep logs, dammit) but I assume that anyone wanting to get new users online wouldn't want to try take a newbie up the IRC learning curve right off the bat. For some users, this is the thing that would make the device useless. (Well, that and the fact that it doesn't run AOL.)
Fifth, setting up space on a public file server to store files is trivial to me but certainly wouldn't have been for my Mom. Remember to take care of this step when you initially set up the device. The same goes for setting up some sort of web-based email account. Luckily, the machine walks you through the setup quite thoroughly.
Sixth, the (cheap) sound system is useless and it can't play movie clips on a dial-up connection. Since it doesn't appear to be caching anything, it just plays movies and sounds at the rate they come in - in incomprehensible fits and starts. Now that my mom has an IDSL connection, though, those features are useable.
Finally, it comes with only a couple of games and they're ugly. Workable, but ugly. That needs to be fixed.
None of these flaws is fatal. Despite the long list of nit-picky problems, I'm actually extremely happy with the product and looking forward to the day when software updates become a cottage industry. Someone could put out a CD for this thing that uses, say, Galeon for a browser and includes a couple of instant messaging clients and the thing would be perfect for lots and lots of folks. As it is, it's darn good and a super value.
In this sort of bottom-end market, any product will be seriously compromised in some way. I happen to think the ThinkNic folks chose the right places to compromise. (This is especially true in regards to the decision NOT to include a monitor. If Mom upgrades to a "real" computer, she can keep the nice monitor she's now using making the upgrade process cheaper and smoother.) As long as you recognize the limitations before buying, the ThinkNic gets a big thumbs-up from me.