Aye, I've been struggling with that breed too. For one site I created a PHP script that parses the HTML file looking for two comments that were named PARSE-START and PARSE-END. The PHP script would then pull all text between those comments and place it into a textarea with only one button, namely "save". The script would then insert the modified text between the comments. Thus, you would end up with an interface that hides almost all HTML of a page, no need for FTP and so forth.

Works great. Except this one time when the customer's delete key "got stuck" and he "accidentally hit Save". Sigh.

maybe its us...

maybe we're all a bit too tech-savvy.

and maybe all these people are really the bulk of the bell curve, and not the lower outer rim.

then again, maybe they're just dumb. what did ole' sigmund say... sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

*LOL*

Words cannot describe how stupid these people are. I'm not talking 'cant turn the monitor on' stupid; its...'why is the looky thing black?' - I wiggled the thing, and its still black.

"The internet doesnt work - well I unplugged that thing (the modem) and moved it to the laundry room - did I need that?

I'm tempted to grab the wiki-system so its editable with version history.

here's one.
I'm coming out of my turkey coma yesterday and I hear my wife's cousin and uncle trying to fix their pc. so I crack my eye and I see them starting to turn to look at me. So I closed my eyes shut thinking they'll think I'm sleep and leave me the fuck alone.

Well I thought wrong, her pesky cousin comes over and nudges me, I'm thinking to myself "If I hit him not only will he lave me alone but I'll never be invited to another of her family thanksgivings".
Ok, can't hit him, I'm outnumbered.*LOL*

so I fake waking up cause I was already up faking sleeping. he goes, something is wrong with my pc, can I look at it.
so I walk over, look at it and go It's fucked up.
h goes can you fix it?
I go I don't have any tools or software.
he goes I got that stuff,
I go well why don't you fix it?
he goes I don't know how.
I go let me see wbhat software you have.
this motherfucker pulled out an AOL 8.0 cd, a modem drivers cd, and a cd of office, not the actual office cd, a cd he made by burning program files\microsoft office directory.
I go, you got shit. I can't do nothing with these but throw them at your ass.
so I tell him I can take it back and fix it cause I don't work on holidays, and you can pick it up saturday.
he goes can I bring it back? I go hell no.


but that's nothing to today.*L*
a woman calls, I answer with the standard business greeting.
she goes are we open.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????
wanted to say No, I just like answering phones.

i can't count how many times i've asked "do you have the installation disks that came with the computer"... and had someone hand me an AOL 9.0 trial disc, MS Works CD, an HP user manual disc, their blackberry sync software disc..

really??! the blackberry disc?!?! c'monnnn... that didn't even come with the PC!!

and the worst of all, the one that really made my brain pause, was when this guy had to go look around the home office for the discs, cuz he had been using them as frisbees and apparently (from the coffee rings), coasters. then has the fuckin nerve to ask me if i can GET him a copy of windows.

that shit is so true LMAO

So its official - Blogger (by google) has the goods. I set blogger up with 'advanced mode', where it offers me the option to input an ftp server, and directory for the entire blog, entries, listings, and most importantly, rss feed...

I made a 'press/' folder on the ftp, it drops that in a css formatted blog, on MY server (woot). I just use a javascript on the main page to run a ticker of the rss

Now hopefully she doesn't break it... As a quote over the desk at work states "Nothing is so foolproof that a fool can't break it"

There's a lot of not so computer savy people out there, but on the other hand, there's a lot who simply haven't had the chance to learn. A friend of my parents (nice old lady, somewhere in her 70s, stereotypical know-nothing-tech-related oldy) finally decided she needed to get online to keep up with her research, got herself a comp, a scanner, and a digital camera, and over the course of the last three years or so has gone from the "which button turns it on" level up to the "photoshop grunt level" taking, scanning, and doing pretty good editing of digital photos for her collections and distributing them online. I think she may even have set up her own database of specimens and photos too. And when she has problems she even harasses the local tech support services with reasonably inteligent questions. Unfortunatly she hasn't picked up most of the vocabulary that goes with such skills, being self-taught, so her questions are a bit different than the way we'd phrase them. Likewise has trouble with the answers, too, for like reason.

zitchas: I know someone just like that too. Here's an example. I introduced an elderly couple to Skype for making cheap long distance calls (didn't even get them started. Just showed a quick example) and a couple months later when I visited them they were telling me to hurry the hell up and get a webcam! They're calling up all their friends and family (often much younger ones) and telling them how to set it all up. Most of them weren't even using email previously but are now video chatting. they're a really remarkable couple.