User responsibility

One of the reasons we re-write PCs for Dummies for Australian users is the risk of people trying to get around the standard, US based settings. A story in the SMH tech section has a good example of this.

What does bug me with this story is the underlying assumption is that the software company, Microsoft, the laptop manufacturer, Toshiba, or the retailer, Domayne, were responsible for this.

In this case, it's the user that screwed up. They chose the wrong country settings and were stuck with the wrong keyboard layout. Perhaps they should have thought before setting the country location to UK, Uzbekistan or Uruguay.

I'm often less than sympathetic to MS in this blog, but in this case why shouldn't they charge for their time? This isn't anything to do with them.

That said, it's pretty sad that neither Toshiba nor Domayne could figure out what the problem was. Perhaps their techs need a copy of PCs for Dummies.