Special on Bluetooth Setup!

For $10, Best Buy will reattach your Bluetooths. How much to insert flash cards?

Best Buy's $10 headset pairing service includes testing, finger pointing [Engadget]

[#1 posted by strider_mt2k , July 14, 2008 5:06 AM]

I've been stupid.

All this time I've been helping people for nothing.

Dammit.

[#2 posted by Joel Johnson , July 14, 2008 5:30 AM]

You know, I kind of get this one. I've known lots of people who've had problems getting Bluetooth to pair properly with funky phones.

[#3 posted by zuzu , July 14, 2008 6:56 AM]

Whats sad about this is not that they're offering it. Its the fact that they're able to, that theres a market for such insanity. Technology is everywhere and some people seem to be scared to explore, experiment, etc. I don't know if its the fear of breaking things or just the complete disconnect from it or simply not giving a rats ass but its sad. Bluetooth might not be the easiest technology to use but its not rocket science either.

c.f. voodoo users

One of my professors in college (Hi Prof Pierroule, if you read this!) called that sort "voodoo users": they have no idea whatsoever what they're doing, no amount of training actually gets them to understand the computer, and they have merely memorized (or written down) a series of exact steps and they know that if they perform the magical steps, the magical process occurs and they get the desired output... but if anything goes even the slightest bit wrong with any of those steps, they fail completely.

My experience with many such people leads me to believe that voodoo users have a mindset that effectively prevents them from learning how computers work: I think in some cases they're so convinced that they can't learn it that they prevent themselves from doing so even if they otherwise could, and in some cases they don't have the sort of brain processes that allow a person to systematize knowledge about how one part of one thing works to understand how other parts or other things work, so memorizing instructions is all they can do.

I usually make them lavish documentation with lots and lots of color screenshots. (Yes, I've had users that failed because the document was b&w and the screen was color and they couldn't match the two in their heads. This also means the document has to be created with the default system colors, and I have to ensure that their workstation is set to the default system colors.) And over-simplistic language. (You can't say "click 'ok'" and expect them to figure out that there's an on-screen button labeled 'ok' that they're supposed to click with the mouse: you have to say "using the mouse, move the pointer so that it is on the on-screen 'button' labeled 'ok'. [picture of it here] Press the left mouse button and release it.")

Also, The Know-Nothing, Mr. Entitlement, and The Finger-Pointer

Antonymous: computer literacy

[#4 posted by Anonymous , July 14, 2008 9:39 AM]

I work at RadioShack and the company's official policy is that they'll pair any bluetooth audio device to your phone at no charge, whether or not you bought either of them from a RadioShack. Now, whether the employees at your local Shack know how to pair a bluetooth is another story.

[#5 posted by Anonymous , July 14, 2008 3:54 PM]

Staples has this "service" as well.

[#6 posted by Halloween Jack , July 15, 2008 11:08 AM]

Another tax-for-those-who-can't-be-bothered-to-RTFM? *shrugs*