>>Unlikely - you underestimate the power of stupidity.
>
>And the inability to grok.
>
>To most people, even those who are fairly competent in very narrow
>areas of computing, computers as a whole are scary and intimidating,
>and they're afraid of making a mistake. Then there's people who don't
>know nearly as much as they think they do, who are even worse. I'd
>rather have to deal with timidity due to ignorance rather than
>brazenness formed from idiocy any day.
>
>For example, my sister is reasonably computer-literate in a few narrow
>areas. She can do far more with MS Excel and Word than I've ever
>bothered to learn, and she can navigate the web reasonably well, and
>can find how to access a program so long as it's either in the start
>menu or on her desktop. But she was scared sh!tless to try to install
>additional RAM in her laptop, even when I offered to talk her through
>it over the phone, and insisted that I do it when I came down. (Took
>me ten seconds.) Forget trying to troubleshoot i-net problems over
>the phone, or talking her through configuring a dialer. So I wind up
>just doing things the easier way (i.e., spend fifteen minutes in front
>of her laptop whenever I'm in town to fix any problems she might or
>might not be aware of).
>

Sounds like me... except that I know I could figure it out if I wasn't so lazy.
Generally either bug someone about it (and they're probably on this forum) for detailed instructions to jot down on the back of a busticket or just forget it as it wasn't important anyway.

>Then there's my grandfather, who's a WPI alumnus and worked as an
>electrical engineer for about fifty years. He was on the team that
>installed and ran the first computer ever in Wappingers Falls, NY.
>But modern computers are so different from what he knew that he has
>problems even connecting to get his email. (I had a promise forcibly
>extracted by my uncle that after I move to GSO, at my earliest
>convenience I'd drive down to my grandfather's house near Charlotte
>and make his life easier.)
>

Oh gods! The time it took to explain 'Save As' on Windows to my mother... who earned a BSci in computers in 1973. Or the wonders of 'cut&paste' from her email onto wordpad and saving to a floppy. I think she still uses my handwritten notes as a guide today.

drakensisthered