A long row to hoe

[tobeth@lava.net (Beech Family)]

  I just returned from a meeting at my church..I'm working on the church
  website with a group of folks - all of whom use Wintel computers. I found
  out some news.
  
  Remember that "Road Runner" thing I told you about? The one where Microsoft
  is doing a joint venture with Oceanic Cablevision to bring cable access to
  homes in the Honolulu area?
  
  Three points..First - not one person in the group knew of Microsoft's
  involvement in the venture.
  
  Second,when I brought it up, one of the more knowledgeable guys said -
  "yeah - that makes sense..Oceanic's guys come to your house to install the
  stuff necessary to for the system to work..they install Windows NT on your
  computer".
  
  They don't tell you what they're doing, apparently - they just install
  Windows NT.So you sign up to get cable access and you get Windows NT. Most
  people don't know or care of course, or think they're getting such a deal!
  
  
  Nice, huh?
  
  One final point. There were about 14 people at the meeting..all bright
  enough people..some of whom are pretty technically savvy - I thought. About
  half of them didn't know how to download an image from a web-page onto
  their hard drive.
  
  I was amazed at how little these slightly above average users knew about
  their computers:their hardware *or* their software. I think the level of
  knowledge of the people on this list is so great, that we forget how many
  users out there will just blindly "follow the leader", as it were, when it
  comes to things like this Road Runner Service.
  
  There is no way they are *ever* going to question things like which OS
  comes pre-loaded onto their computers, or consider changing it..no way.
  
  We've got a long row to hoe here gang.
  
  Heather