Not smart enough to own a PC? I think most people aren't.

A lot of problems can be solved with trial and error. But that requires being brave enough to play (hardware and software)
My desktop wouldn't even power up yesterday (no power to motherboard at all).
Took power cable out, ram etc, put back in and worked. Probably a problem but fixed just being confident enough to use general problem solving.

If it had been broken I would have scrapped the lot. Just not needed anymore a PC for 95pc of people. And a lot who use one use an encapsulated solution (tablet, laptop) anyway.

Unless you're a hard core gamer or need special cpu/gpu requirements a desktop isn't needed. And if you do, you probably know about PCs internally and software anyw!
 
terley said:
Aye i am almost 100% sure he meant to say OSX, was just playing on it. In terms of macs being used at the high end, it is true in many professions.. although you tend to see a trend..

Start ups & small businesses -> Macs
Medium size "quirky businesses" and graphic design studios -> Macs
High end graphic design studios and animation studios -> PC's/Macs

It seems to be more of an image thing than anything else, one of my brothers is an experienced graphic designer and the higher he has gone in the industry, the less macs they use. My other brother is a professional Animator and similar trends are present, he has started having to do a lot of his rendering work at home on his PC as the macs in the office export so much slower. It really depends what kind of software they decide to use.
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I'm not sure it is an image thing in general - well maybe graphic designers are a bit different - for plenty of developers they often just prefer working on a unix based system and the laptops are so well made compared to anything else out there + the apple premium doesn't really matter much if someone else is paying for the hardware (AFAIK they're actually cheaper overall for companies)

this ties in with the subject of the thread too - Macs are cheaper to support, Mac users require far less Helpdesk support than windows users - overall if either can be used then it is often cheaper to buy Macs
 
You can't expect people to take an interest in things they are not interested in. Computers are just a tool to serve a purpose, and if you've no interest in how that tool works then you're just going to care about it doing its job or not.

I have my central heating boiler serviced once a year. I have no interest in central heating systems so just let an engineer carry on and do it. If it starts rattling, or (god forbid) fails completely then I've no interest or confidence in trying to diagnose and fix it myself - I would rather pay an expert to sort it out for me. I don't think that makes me any less intelligent than the engineer. I'm sure that I spent free time learning how to service a boiler I could give it a go - but I've no interest in it whatsoever so I don't.
 
413x said:
Unless you're a hard core gamer or need special cpu/gpu requirements a desktop isn't needed. And if you do, you probably know about PCs internally and software anyw!
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as a person who runs a PC repair shop I can assure you this is most definitely not the case. ;)
I think you'll probably find your view skewed slightly by being a member of a tech forum.
ANd I'll find my view skewed by the fact that people only come to me when they have nowhere else to turn.
 
ZombieFan said:
You can't expect people to take an interest in things they are not interested in. .
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I am more concerned about people having no interest in the things their life depends on.

My life does not depend on my PC (Nor my TV) but the things that do matter to me matter. (I still like building PC's and my "Media center" is a dedicted PC with sat/Terrestrial cards feeding an old tv as a monitor)

There is a reason why I will continue to use my 30 year old Motor vehicles, Boiler and coal fires for as long as physically possible.

A friend of mine has recently had an awful "Tradesman's" experience (No Fnarr Fnarr) and it simply justifies my paranoia about the inadvisability of having to rely on other people to look after your home and the essential hardware in ones life.

I have only had one "Tradesman" in my home in the last 17 years. He was a bloke from the water company who was fitting a water meter.

He ****** it up! Badly! the next time I used the washing machine, the water hammer blew the connections off the new meter and, had I not been at home, would have filled up my cellar with water.

I fixed it myself....

And will continue to do so for as long as possible...
 
Orionaut said:
I am more concerned about people having no interest in the things their life depends on.

My life does not depend on my PC (Nor my TV) but the things that do matter to me matter. (I still like building PC's and my "Media center" is a dedicted PC with sat/Terrestrial cards feeding an old tv as a monitor)

There is a reason why I will continue to use my 30 year old Motor vehicles, Boiler and coal fires for as long as physically possible.

A friend of mine has recently had an awful "Tradesman's" experience (No Fnarr Fnarr) and it simply justifies my paranoia about the inadvisability of having to rely on other people to look after your home and the essential hardware in ones life.

I have only had one "Tradesman" in my home in the last 17 years. He was a bloke from the water company who was fitting a water meter.

He ****** it up! Badly! the next time I used the washing machine, the water hammer blew the connections off the new meter and, had I not been at home, would have filled up my cellar with water.

I fixed it myself....

And will continue to do so for as long as possible...
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I'm all for fixing things, sure, but a 30yr old boiler and coal fire can't be very efficient can't they?
 
sigma said:
I'm all for fixing things, sure, but a 30yr old boiler and coal fire can't be very efficient can't they?
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No, but they are very cheap.

What is the point of buying a new boiler just so I can "Save" just enough money over my old one so as to be able to afford to replace it when it packs up in 12 years time. Replacing my old potterton might well save some fuel money, but nowhere near enough to justify the expense of replacing it just for that. No doubt I will have to replace it one day. but I will not do so until I have to.

And a coal fire is not only rather nice, it also still works if there is a power cut. When we get the 1963 winter rerun, this will be a rather useful feature to have in a home heating situation....:)
 
I learned a valuable lesson around 1992.
I used to build PCs for people and put software on for them and then expect several phone calls.
Anyway, I fixed a mates PC and the following day started to go into detail of how I fixed it when he burst out "Dave, shut up, I'm not bothered, I have no interest, I just want to turn it on and it works".
He had his skillz that I had no interest in.

Cool story bro.
 
VincentHanna said:
On the other hand, being able to instantly Google an error code or issue that a PC is having makes fixing issues so much easier now than the old DOS/Windows 95/98/XP days.

Even when you have a PC that won't even POST you can get some ideas on a smartphone. Never used to have that option. It was all more hassle before smartphones.
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I remember back in the 90s looking for the red/black pins on cables to identify which way they slotted in as it could go in multiple ports in two different ways. Building a PC now it's literally childs play by comparison. No need to worry about whether you can boot off CD or if it's floppy disk etc.
 
Orionaut said:
No, but they are very cheap.

What is the point of buying a new boiler just so I can "Save" just enough money over my old one so as to be able to afford to replace it when it packs up in 12 years time. Replacing my old potterton might well save some fuel money, but nowhere near enough to justify the expense of replacing it just for that. No doubt I will have to replace it one day. but I will not do so until I have to.

And a coal fire is not only rather nice, it also still works if there is a power cut. When we get the 1963 winter rerun, this will be a rather useful feature to have in a home heating situation....:)
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Well loads of people have wood burners. They're also more sustainable and cleaner than coal so you're no better than that.

Agreed about not replacing something until it needs it. I can't imagine many people do that.
 
Some people just want to use a PC, they have no interest in how, or why it works, much like owning a car, you don't need to have an in depth understanding of it in order to drive one and when it goes wrong, you take it to a garage.

I'm personally thankful for people like that because if everyone could fix their own computer when it went wrong, I would be out of a job.
 
mistersprinkles said:
I haven't recommended Windows PCs to noobs for such a long time now. I think microsoft would be wise to make a "For Dummies" version of windows where everything is automatically sandboxed and options are limited and it just does the basic stuff without risk (minimal risk at least) of malware and screw ups. Guy. Buddy. Friend. Eh?
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Microsoft Bob!

bUGsFW2.png
 
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