I liked this article on the BBC news website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4387525.stm

This guy put an postcard add up at a local newsagent's office offering help with fixing computerproblems.

His phone never stopped ringing.

People are quite desperate for help since computers are rather complex compared to normal houshold appliances. Needless to say lots of things can go wrong.

Even small businesses seemed to be in a dire position. They can't afford expensive service contracts.

Is there an untapped market out there?

Should something be changed in the nature of the computer?

damn.. have to run to lectures. but to be brief:
I think the problem resides between the keyboard and the chair not in the computer.
p.s. of course there's a market for it, at least from my experience.

its not all that new to me that no-one knows how to fik their computers. that is why there are people like us: nerds.

Oh, I don't clasify me as such, but I can set up a system for you :p

Hahahah, I had a friend in Hight School, who dropped out and fixed computers earning good thousands a month. I recently whined about my pc to a computer science major, and he offered his service for $45 (!!!). Yeah, this pays well. There are plenty of people who know nothing about their computer besides typing and downloading music and who don't wish to know more (and that's their problem, which has nothing to do with computers).

This is no surprise really. As technology advances, the level of specialized knowledge required increases accordingly. I remember how annoyingly difficult it was to hook up the new fangled VCR thingy, and now I could do it blindfolded if for some bizarre reason I needed to use one. However, while I could certainly tell someone how a projected film works, I certainly couldn't explain how a VHS taped flick works. Two points can be made here: first, intimate knowledge of a technology is not required to make effective use of it; second, the development of specialized knowledge niches forces a decrease in the number of people who are familiar with that niche.

Simplest approach is to diagnose by method. Namely "Human Error" accounts for most computer problems, this admittedly is made less by computers being programmed to be more tolerant to human errors but it doesn't rule it out.

For instance the usual:
"I've got no sound coming out of my soundcard"

The first question to remove human error from the equation:
"Is it plugged in to the card and powered?"

I'm sure that some of you have phoned tech support in the past for a product and you probably feel that those sorts of questions are belittleing or even stupid, however they are necessary to assure that there is no human fault before directions to alter things occurs. Otherwise a complete reinstall could have been avoided with a simple jack being plugged in the right socket.

Some people have tech queries that to those computer literate types would seem silly, however this is understandible since computers can be to some how driving, skateboarding or flying is to someone else. (Some can do it and some can't)

For those Technophobic's that are scared of touching the keyboard because the computer might die, you should realise that the computer is just a "Big Calculator. If you are too scared to touch it, you should realise that the calculator is getting the better of you.

The worst case scenarios that can happen to a computer is the loss of data and the need to reinstall your Operating System.(okay I rule out hardware failures because when they rarely occur they do so with little help from a human.)

Just make sure you backup the data you want to store to a different Drive or Disc and keep a copy of your OS software nearby, then you can toy with the computer to your hearts content and if it should die just reinstall it.
[Play with the computer by all means, however it's suggested you don't alter the BIOS at bootup if you don't know what you are doing, since that can cause the power supply to alter charge, RAM or CPU to run at a different speed etc]

Is there an untapped market out there?

Should something be changed in the nature of the computer?

I believe that the computer is just fine but the problem comes from outside sources like the different websites you link onto. I find that over 75 percent of my PC's problems come from those sites that infect your PC with spyware, trojans and other malicious things that create the problems.

I just loaded Asmw PC-Optimizer and ran the Empty file program.

It found 480 empty files including My Music?!!!

My Music isn't empty (although there are three uses and thus three music files, on this computer and only I down load music).

So what do I do?

As for the other files, I have no idea what they are for or if I need to keep them or not.

So like most people I am totally confused.

I love tinkering with computers, troubleshooting them, swapping hardware, trying different operating systems. But they are still too difficult to use for the overwhelming majority. The majority of people out there need something that is as easy to use as a television, an internet appliance. I have a hard time holding my temper when giving tech support to my relatives. My brother has lost some gigabytes of capacity of his harddrives because they are larger than what the motherboard supports. I offered to talk him through a BIOS update which would give him the full use of the harddrives (hell, we even did it once before over the phone on another motherboard I'd sent him) but that was too much trouble! That drives me crazy. And he persists in using IE after my many warnings to stop (my girlfriend likes it. Ok, have her fix your computer then).

The computer I built for my aunt is scarcely used because she is so technophobic. The CD player in her stereo quit working, and I pointed out that she could still play her CDs by using the computer, which I have connected to her stereo rather than use computer speakers. This was a complete shock to her. I offered to show her how, but she lost interest. She would rather not listen to music than bother to learn how to turn on the computer and use Winamp! And she really likes to listen to music. And after having it for over a year, she had no idea that there was a huge collection of music in MP3 format that I had put on the harddrive. And trying to pitch the idea to her to save her music as MP3s, and use the computer as a jukebox, with no more having to manually load CDs, or skip tracks you don't like, and the ability to make playlists that suit your mood, and all of the other options and flexibility that come with using a computer this way; forget it. Too hard. And she is a relatively young (early fifties) and fairly intelligent woman.

I don't know anyone personally that I can talk to about computer stuff. Only online can I find people who understand.

I sent an email to most of my friends and relatives advising them to download and install MS new anti-spyware tool. I konw some of them really need it. But I'm not sure any of them have. My one friends wife dodged a specific inquiry about whether she had done it yet. And when last I visited, they had one of the most bug laden computers I've ever come across. I sent a link to a free program that works well. But they'd rather live with it as is, though I'm sure they regularly curse it (stupid computer) when it malfunctions because it is laden with resource hogging spyware. And they won't stop using AOL!

Anyway, I need to get my A+ certificate, and start making some money. Let their ignorance pay for my hardware upgrades.

Luckily I dont know anyone really stupid. Even my grandfather and grandmother know how to use PCs!

Oh, but there was that person in my class who broke a PCs mobo by plugging a USB device into the wrong socket. Thats pure stupidity. ITS JUST MATCHING THE SHAPES!!! 5 YEAR OLDS CAN DO THAT!

or the my friends idots of parents, they didi not trust me to set up their computer due to my age, so they got a total retard ot some computer shop to set it up. he ran a raid0 config to combine both HDDs, and on top of that, he used 1 partition, of NTFS for fucks sake, so i cant even use mandrakemove when it fucks up from having an unprotected satellite connection. he removed the firewall i installed when he came to install the modem and i cant find the file again(i had to steal the file off limewire)

Theres a solution:
<img src="http://images.apple.com/macmini/images/indextop20050111.jpg"></img>
http://www.apple.com/macmini/

It's perfectly beautiful :)
If I had the money, I'd buy it and install Linux on it.

Judging by the quality of replies seen here on this forum and in this thread, I certainly wouldn't post here if I had a problem.

There is one thing worse than someone who has no idea how to fix or maintain their own computer - and that's the one who thinks he does.

Making changes which are not improvements creates complications which create unnecessary problems. Look at Microsofts operating systems. Win 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP now Longhorn is coming. I have a Linux book that is the first and only I have ever seen talk about the planned obsolescence of computer software.

Linux has its own wierd problems. An editor called vi which should stand for Virtual Idiocy because it is so difficult to use. I have a DOS editor called Qedit that I've used since the early 90's that is more convenient to use than anyting I've seen that came with UNIX/Linux. The "less" command is named after "more" as a joke but the name has nothing to do with what it does.

Part of the problem with computers is COMPUTER PEOPLE. More interested in showing how smart they are by hiding information than getting things done.

Now I can go write another virus for XP. LOL!

psikeyhackr

as microprocessor power growth slows, the focus of the industry needs to be on universal stabilty. building both HW and SW redundancy so that a broken system will keep working.

Nothing new here; just pulling ideas from the server market down to the Desktop level.