Adam’s brother Ryan has been living—untethered to the digital world—in North Carolina for the past eight years.

Over the years, we’ve only been able to visit him a couple of times. We once drove up with my father-in-law for an over-night camping trip. We drove up, hiked up a mountain, set up camp, slept, woke up, broke down the camp, and drove back. That was in 2007, shortly after our wedding (which he was unable to attend). Adam’s dad joked that it was our honeymoon. And I guess if you go by the loosest definition of the word: A holiday or trip taken by a newly married couple, then yes; it was technically our honeymoon.

Last year, the three of us drove up to Adam’s grandma’s place in Georgia to celebrate Christmas. Afterward, we continued our drive north to visit Ryan in North Carolina. We mostly hung around Bryson City and talked about how he should come visit us in Orlando sometime.

Through the years, communication between the two brothers has been very limited. Ryan lives in a remote area of Bryson City, so the postman is not very dependable, and he only recently got his hands on a cell phone. Adam and I always said it would be so much easier to keep in touch with him if he had a computer. So, for Christmas this year, we’re giving him a brand new Dell laptop. We bought it last week and Adam has been setting it up. He already posed the question on his twitter/facebook, but I figured I’d ask it here to get a wider sampling:

What would you install/bookmark for someone who hasn’t had a computer/been online in 8 years?