I think I come from a different background perhaps? Maybe I cater to a different audience. Regardless, I have no problem speaking my mind. Likewise, same with ptitterington and that in itself should be respected.
So, with that said, to address some of the issues here:
First, I've been doing this for 24 years. I've run a very successful, ever growing computer business for the past 11. It's fair to say I'm no spring chicken at this stuff.
That experience covers a vast array of aspects, from tutoring, web design, server design/build (ranging in price from 1600 to 12,000) and installation, wide range/high power wireless, laptop repairs (PC and Mac), Shuttle, PC design, build, sales, service, virus prevention (and at one time, virus distribution.. many MANY years ago), HTPC, gaming systems, networks, you name it pretty much. Binary, programming in basic and assembly.. I've even run online communities, edited for major search engines, did speaking engagements at events, etc.
I think what you've seen of my posts in various threads here makes it rather obvious I know what I'm doing.
And yes, I started somewhere too.. but not screwing up other people's computers.. I actually started on Commodore Pet, Vic 20, 64 and Apple II.
Ok. Enough of the background nonsense... to the point.
Firefox: I can't tell you how many times over the last five years I've heard people running to it's defense. Quite clearly, the people that did weren't website designers. I've had the (dis)pleasure of trying to make my pages Firefox compatible after Opera and IE were neatly sewn up. It's rendering engine is crap. That's all there is to it.
For years the argument stood about "plugins" and "ActiveX" combined with the age old "Security". For the longest time, they had a point. True, much of the web was rendered improperly, they missed out on a wide variety of interactive and multimedia content, etc. However, IE6 had as many holes as swiss cheese.
For me, one thing that's important is that I be able to log onto my office network remotely. Firefox is simply unable to do so. It's not possible without "IE Tab". With half my clients corporate clients, They require things to do their job that Firefox will not allow them to do.
Finally, the "security" myth. It is precisely that.. A myth. For one, year over year Firefox has as many documented exploits as IE. Some of the most severe ones remained unpatched forever. In most cases, Microsoft got the fixes out faster. Secondly, ActiveX infections are old news. Todays infections affect both browsers equally via java, etc. Third party software is required to adequately protect your computer.
So yeah, the Firefox/IE debate is utter stupidity and completely 2005 with the introduction of IE7 and now IE8. So we can let that go.
Next. Backups. Clearly there aren't many people here that are business people and thus understand that time is money. Many of my clients don't have the time to screw around and they certainly don't have the time or where-with-all to reinstall everything. Backups, while being the case with residential clients at times, isn't the same ball of wax as professional clients that often invest a lot of money in backup technologies.
These people depend on their computers, as do I. Every minute they are down costs them money, and in many cases lots of it. We attended one job site where a so-called "tech"... probably more aptly named "hack" installed a cheap piece of junk so-called "server" in an insurance office. When it crashed, we were called in. I won't tell you how much it cost that company... but suffice it to say it was more than some youngsters make annually. I CAN however tell you that they DID have backups of their data.
I went to another site that absolutely depended on their Simply Accounting. The "tech" had configured a tape backup. Their database corrupted. After 4 HOURS enumerating the tape, we found that the only file that hadn't been backed up was the one we needed. It cost them almost $1000, not including down time, to have the problem resolved by a third party.
Is a computer a toy? That depends on your point of view. To many of my clients, it's the core of their business. To others (particularly our senior clientelle) it's their only lifeline to the outside world. It's not an amateurs' world, nor does an amateur have any business being anywhere near this equipment. The ramifications are serious.
Reinstalling apps, copying over data, setting a computer back to the way the client had it. For many clients, having to reset everything to what they were used to is actually traumatic for them. I've seen meltdowns because their shortcuts weren't the way they remembered them. They get used to doing things a particular way, and justifiably they expect that to remain the case after the repair.
Many times we've ghosted machines to new builds so that they'd have that "comfort" knowing that everything was exactly the way it was. We're very good at that.
Reinstalling creates a lot of havoc. I've seen incompetent "techs" do the following:
Format and erase all their pictures, music, documents
Lose all their emails and email settings
Lose all their favorites.
Delete programs that were downloaded
Break links to file shares on servers and in workgroups
Break printers
Kill remote desktops
Trust me, I can go on and on. On occasion I've even taken pictures. Seriously. An amateur can do a LOT of damage. And it can be very, VERY costly.
Calling a computer a toy could be ignorance. It could be a point of view. It could be a result of that individuals background. It doesn't matter. They shouldn't be bashed for that view. However, they SHOULD be corrected/reminded that for many people it's anything but a toy.