I invite you to log onto the home page - www.thealzheimerspouse.com - and read today's blog about my AD husband and computers.
In my experience, the problem has been with the AD husbands, not AD wives. It may be that many older AD wives never got into computers in the first place.
Joan when it is time for a new computer or laptop go to a computer shop and check into having one built with only certain things on it. They can build it with as few bells and whistles or as many bells and whistles as you want. My son told me that it might be cheaper in the long run.
It looks like your running a wireless network and it's almost certain he's hooked up to your broadband.
So given the e-mail/surfing the web applications a three to five year old lap top wouldn't get stretched. Lots of technophiles are wanting to upgrade especially if there's a university or college nearby.
The value of a perfectly good five year old lap top is under $100 because nobody buys them yet it's probably got half a meg on the processor and enough hard drive space to download the entire works of shakespeare.
I was in technology in a large company. We sold 5 year old laptops from the salesforce to employees for $10 with the hard drive wiped because they fully depreciated in 3 years. Putting the word out to people who work in these big companies are likely to be get a replacement very cheaply.
I'm sure you know but I'll also mention that all the popups can be blocked by setting the popup blocker to 'all' in the properties on the local machine. It doesn't eliminate it but almost because if he's a user and not the administrater then downloading can be further restricted.
Thank goodness DH does not use the computer except to play his golf and other games on. Doesn't know how to get on the internet or to e-mail. if anything does pop up he usually remembers to "x" it down before proceeding with his games. If not, he'll call me to do it. I did block the PPV channels on dish network and also blocked the shopping channels. I don't use either and I wasn't sure if he would try. Ounce of prevention...
I thank you and appreciate the technical advice. I've got that covered from coast to coast. My computer son in California and my business computer expert here locally can fix and build just about anything. The blog was simply meant as a tongue-in-cheek look at AD spouses and the trouble they can get into with computers. My friends have lots of stories to tell, and I thought maybe you did too. I am very lucky that Sid has no clue how to buy online. Whenever he sees something he wants, which is rare, he asks me to order it. Then he forgets about it, so it's no problem that I didn't order it.
My husband knows too much about how to use his email and the web and too little about our financial situation. Last January, while I was on the Caregiver's Cruise, he signed up for a "free" vacation at a timeshare for which he charged $500 on his credit card. We would have also have had to pay transportation to Florida and for meals. I did manage, after much arguing, to get them to remove the $500 from the credit card. I told them he had Alzheimer's. The woman said he must really want to go, since he signed up for it, implying that I shouldn't deprive him of something he wanted because he was sick. I said that he didn't know what he wanted when we went out to eat, that I had to tell him what to order (that wasn't true!), so he definitely didn't know if he wanted to go to a timeshare. She finally agreed to cancel the charge.
Today, as he was reading his email, he asked me about 5 times if we could give money to some cause, all of them good causes. We're going to Alaska next week, somewhere he's always wanted to go. I finally told him, we could cancel the trip and give the money to whatever cause he wanted. Stopped the questions for a while!
I wish he would forget how to use the computer. I know I should take the credit card away, but I haven't yet.
Joan...with all your technical people helping with the website, I think the solution is pretty easy/// I am sure you know the importance of backup copies, and you should just restore the system to a prior date. You could probably do it once a week, and just restore to the "known good configuration... Just a thought/
Dh has forgotten how to use his computer but likes to sit beside me and watch me play spider solitaire, deal with mail or pictures or read on this site. He says with surprise, "Hey it says Alzheimer there" but never connects that up with himself. He used to think I was interested in this disease because his mother had it, now he has forgotten that as well.