A month or so back one of my computerless neighbors told me
that he and his wife were ready to join the Internet Age and
asked if I'd be willing to give him some advice. Of course
I said yes, and told him to call me as he got closer to
actual purchase.

I saw him a few times after that, and about a week ago he
said he was "real close". I chatted with him a few minutes about
Macs and PC's, strongly recommending the Mac, and especially
made a point to tell him about PC Magaine choosing Mac OS X
as the best
consumer OS.

On the flip side, I also know that his son works somewhere in the computer
field, so I said that if his son would be helping him regularly
with problems, he should ask his son which platform he'd prefer.. that
makes obvious sense, I think.

Two days later I ran into him again and he said "We bought a computer.
Windows". I assumed he had talked to his son and decided on that basis,
but no, his wife "had used Windows at work" so they went with that. I
didn't have the heart to tell him that she had probably used XP at work
and that Vista wasn't going to be anything like what she was used to,
but I did ask where he had bought it. "Best Buy, twelve hundred bucks".

I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn't help reacting.
This guy just needs email and Internet: he doesn't need an expensive
computer. I blurted out "Oh, gee, you paid too much!"

"That included a printer", he retorted. Again I should have just
shut up, but I like these people and I hate seeing them get taken. "A
printer is about seventy bucks", I said.

"And they are coming out to the house to set it up!" he exclaimed.

Great. There's probably two hundred of it, and totally wasted. "Aren't
you getting Verizon FIOS?", I asked, knowing the answer already. He
affirmed that. "Well, you need the computer set up with FIOS, but
there's really nothing to it - and Verizon will do it anyway."

He stared at me for a few seconds. "Well, too late now.". This
time I did shut my mouth. Of course it's not too late: he could take
that right back to Best Buy and get all his money back. He could spend
far less and get a perfectly good system, Apple or Windows, and he sure
as heck doesn't need to pay them to "set it up".

Oh well.. I tried. But I do have to wonder: why did he even bother
to ask me?

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