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I went to my local processing lab the other day to collect four films I'd put in for processing (Superb prints btw, company called Sandra Day Photographic. I would recommend to anyone in Portsmouth/Southampton 35mm & Medium Format!).
While I was waiting for the last set of prints, this mid-forties lady walks in.
I took a quick glance at her (like you do) and she didn't look happy.
She looked at the shop assistant, slapped a Compact Flash card in the counter and says:
"I bought this camera, it came with this thing and I don't know how to get my photos off. I took the camera to America on holiday. I hope I haven't lost my photos."
The assistant says "Do you have a computer"?
"Do I need one?" came the reply . . . .
The lab assistant's next statement (as I left) was that he could put the CF card on their computer so she could see the images before they printed whatever she wanted. I did hear a comment along the lines of "Do I really need a computer......" as the door closed.
I did chuckle to myself, being a techy I have sometimes found it hard to understand why people go and buy the latest bit of kit without checking the resources it requires. Most people do their research before buying don't they? Just look at all the vs threads on here! 
Yeah, the sales guy that sold her the camera should have checked she had a computer, but at the end of the day, "if it's what the customer wants..."
You mean I need petrol, and insurance and tax for my new car???
btw, thanks for the viewpoints guys, I had originally posted it here because it amused me, but it really does show the mentality of some businesses these days.
You don't need a computer to use a digital camera any more than you need a darkroom to use film. Getting it printed by a lab is cheaper, faster and produces far better quality prints.
As I see it, the problem is with the stupid salesmen who actually DO tell people they need a computer to use a digital camera.
and so comes the old debate . ..
If you have the computer, you can pick and choose which photos to print, adjust them if you don't like them etc.
I do agree though, that lab printing does achieve better quality.
I am pretty sure that the lady in question wouldn't have had all her pics printed if she had looked at them on the PC.
Ok, I have to join in now!
Lab printing faster? Noooo!
At the weekend I decided to take one of my better pictures to Jessops to get nice big print, which should be better quality than my little Epson 810.
First Jessops; machine was broken. So, off the second Jessops (yes, we have two in Oxford!); theirs worked but would not handle TIFF format that it was saved in. Next stop was Snappy Snaps; sounded promising, but an hour later they told me they could not print TIFF either. Finally onto Morris Photographic, they could take TIFF images, but would have to copy from my CF onto a CD and send it away for a few days!
The result, I gave up, came home and got an excellent print out of my 810 that's now framed on the wall!
Still, back to the original point, although some salesmen really need to help people with what they're buying, some people really should not be let near technology! A friend of mine said how he knew someone who believed that once you'd filled your CompactFlash and downloaded the images, you throw it away and buy a new one!
Ed.
Ed - Jessops - what can you say. I saw a sign on the photo kiosk in the Swindon store that proclaimed they couldn't take an order of more than 40 images or the software would crash. Very reassuring for the customer. I spoke to Fuji tech support, who had not heard of the problem, and I spoke to my support team who had never heard of the problem. As I am in charge of the software development, I asked myself, but no, I hadn't been told about it either. Just goes to show, you can put the technology in the store, but you can't make the staff us it.
Big B
We have had our lab since July last year and have had a Fuji guy out at least 6 times for the kiosk locking up or crashing when a big order has been put through. So how they can say they have not heard of it I don't know?. 40 images never lock up so is safe. But we have found when 60-70 + is put through 1 in 5 just crashes or locks up. We don't tell customers no way though, we just take their card or CD hostage so if it does happen we just put it through again in smaller batches. As for the machine not taking TIFFS I have no idea why I print TIFFS all the time without any problems. There is 1 exception though when images have been saved in multi layered TIFF that does lock up.
Baz
Baz, seems like a breakdown in communication. Fuji should be reporting any crashes back to me. I've just had a similar situation in the US - when I was over there at Fuji last week, I got bawled out because they had this problem that was causing lost business at a certain major chain (where they put about 1.5 million prints a week through it). I just got informed of the problem and they were blaming me for 3 months of problems - turns out the Fuji tech support were just telling the stores to get the hardware fixed, but the problem with the software wasn't passed on to us for 10 weeks.
For your info, I regularly put jobs of over 2000 images through the kiosk with no problem. Guess you need an upgrade 
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