It might not come as a suprise to anyone who knows me or if you´ve read some of this site, but I´m a major geek. I have two desktops, 3 laptops, 2 mobiles, an iPod, a 42" plasma TV, dvd, Sky… and the list goes on. The best part about all this is that I know how they all work and how to use and if necessary, fix them.
Then there´s the rest of the population who listen to the PR, marketing and press bumf and go out and buy Centrino laptops and no access points, MP3 players, but don´t know how to rip their CDs and transfer them across…. and the list goes on.
So what happens when they realise they don´t know how to use their shiny new purchase? They come to people like me who they´ve heard "do computers". That´s fine except that I´m really busy and so don´t have enough free time to go round helping them all which just makes them get arsey. "Why don´t you charge them?" I hear you ask. I would but since my call-out charge at work for web development is about ?50 per hour, which I enjoy, then I´d have to charge about ?75 an hour (since I hate it) to make it worth doing during business time. I don´t think anyone´s going to pay me that to show them how to turn an iPod off (someone did ask).
So what´s the answer? Small print that´s not so small? Security software that updates itself? More training courses at Selfridges? Who knows. In the mean time, I´m going to scour t´interweb for an Xbox 360.