Yes ... Mother, mom, mommy.

I thought that said hairDRYER...

I laughed for days

I'm 46 so maybe in some ways on the upper cusp of computer cogniscenti if you know what I mean, I know a guy who is probably ten years max older than me and was quite au fait with some pretty complex tv broadcast equipment of the late 70s to early 80s but, basically, he stopped learning it seems. Has a PC but would ask the same dumb questions over and over....made the mistake of agreeing to help him fix the thing up - he'd look at me blankly when I'd ask for an original installer disk, he'd either lost them or his former staff had just loaded lots of pirate stuff on it...he too had turned his anti-virus off or an virus had, he rang me very excited because he thought a job had come in, he got an email from a client with a .vbs, remember those viruses? He needed help to open the attachment he said....I could not convince him the email addy had been harvested - I went over there and he was still not convinced "no, no it's a script or something, it's a job" - finally, i got him to email the client - no of course they hadn't sent it....that brought him into a whole new world of wonder, of computers and software doing things 'themselves" -

Then he gets one of those emails saying 'forward to everyone you know' - I usually hit delete as soon as I see that - telling him 'do a search for this file, if you have it, trash it, it's a virus' - of course it's like a reverse virus, you do the damage by deleting part of your own windows OS....

He was so proud of himself for finally 'getting' the virus thing, and so crestfallen when I told him what he'd done, poor guy.

Moral? Never stop learning, and don't smoke dope, kids - it rots your brain (he was a huge toker)

You almost feel sorry for the sales people that have to deal with you guys lol.

I have not really had any bad experiences with sales people maybe its just that in Canberra (Australia) we only really have 2 major stores that you would buy name brand computers and software from(Dicksmith and Harvey Norman) and they both do their best to hire competent staff members and also hire people with experience with the things in the area that they are going to be working in.

only brand name pcs here are

hp/compaqs
packard bell
acer
toshiba
medion

and thats only in pcworld/dixons etc.....

Most pcs here are ownbuilds (e.g novatech) or dells (or alienware if youre rich)

I often help my dad whose in his late sixties, best one i heard was that a friend of his (a fellow retiree) was complaining that their phone bill was astronomically high since they bought a pc and connected to the internet, (they were on a pay as you go package)
when asked if they would describe what they where doing they told my dad that they where leaving they're pc on and connected to the internet............................ 24/7!!!!!!!!!!
when he asked why on earth they where leaving it connected to the internet 24/7 they replied "well i dont want to miss any emails"

they thought emails where like phones calls and that if they didnt leave it connected all the time they would not recieve them!!!!!

my dad felt very pleased with himself when he was able to explain the good news, made him feel like a real pc boff even if for only 5mins

Try explaining the 0900 Ilikegirls bill on her phone account from the last time you caled in

I like this topic. Wasn't it Einstein who said "You don't understand something fully unless you can explain it to your grandparents"? I'm nearly sure I'm mixing quotes, but I stand by it.

My grandmother, bless her soul, could never quite understand the difference between a t.v. and a computer monitor....

What I couldn't explain to my Nana... Linux. I couldn't explain anyone that I know to use Linux. Not that I couldn't, it's just that no one WANTS to learn it.