Desperate to complete her presentation, she asked if she could use the computers at my place... I told her I do not have Windows but if she was open, she could still get her presentation done on a slightly different program and interface.
I powered up SLED 11 SP1, plugged in her USB thumbdrive and opened up her Chinese poetry presentation in OpenOffice v3.2.1. Next, I showed her how to use SCIM for Chinese character input (toggle via Ctrl-Space & HanYu PinYin input). Left her to it for an hour and she successfully completed her assignment, saved it in PPT format and went home. I did warn her that her presentation may not be 100% WYSIWYG when opened on a Windows PC at her club meeting. *fingers crossed*
My mum came back the next evening to add a few more slides and told me (not surprisingly) that the slides did not turn out 100% as planned but she was resourceful enough to copy-n-paste (what a wonderful invention) the characters from the PPT created in OpenOffice and merge it with a PPT created in MS Office. She even managed to get me off my lazy bum and help create transparency effect (using GIMP) for one of her mid-autumn backgrounds used in the presentation.
Wishing her all the best for that final presentation this evening. I'm so proud of her
because:- She only picked up basic English and basic Windows & MS Office usage a few years ago at around 50+ years of age.
- She is fearless... there are many people half her age who wouldn't even touch a keyboard with a non-Windows screen in front of them.
- She is adaptable... man, how many people can use cut-n-paste effectively?
