gifts from frenemies

My mom was having computer trouble. Her five-year-old computer was prohibitively slow. I put $100 into it, and upgraded the RAM from 256 MB to 2 GB. It helped, but not as much as one might have hoped. A friend of hers bought her a new laptop computer. If he'd asked, she would have said no, but he didn't, so she got it and we determined to make the best of it. First I had to spend a couple of long evenings over there getting it set up. Adding antivirus software, setting up her e-mail, getting her files transferred over, all that. I told her we could connect it to her old monitor and keyboard, since she doesn't like the small keyboard, and it doesn't fit on her keyboard tray at the proper typing height. Well, we couldn't do that, because her keyboard doesn't have a USB plug, and she didn't want to spend the $35 or whatever to buy a new keyboard, especially after spending a similar amount on a new mouse. She decided to leave the old computer set up for the grandkids. And then her old printer/scanner doesn't have an upgrade to Windows 7, and she really doesn't want to spend the kind of money it takes to buy a new one of those, especially when the one she's got works fine. So when she wants to print something, she has to transfer the file to her old computer using a card reader, and and print it from there. Except that she can hardly figure out how to do that, since she's computer illiterate.

So this brand spanking new computer is either going to cost her a lot of money she wouldn't have had to spend if she'd kept using her old one, or it's just a pain in the ass. But the guy thinks he did her a huge favor. I suppose it's only a matter of time before the old one crapped out completely, so this puts her ahead of the game, but still...

People, if you want to give someone a gift they can use, please work with them to give them the best solution. Don't just grant them something, and expect them to be thrilled. I mean, you want to get your money's worth out of your gift, too, right?