At the risk of seeming elitist...

First, read this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/tuttle_centos/

UPDATE:Well... it seems there's another episode in this saga. Poor Jerry Taylor just can't seem to let it lay. What recourse does one have when his town is run by a PHB?

Now, I have known many people in my life who have been ... well, let's just say they're not the sort of people whose first solution to a problem is to reach for some high-technology implement. My father, for example... great guy, means well, smart, thoughtful, but not the most high-tech fellow to come down the street. This is not necesarily a bad thing. I just means that some of the things I talk about with him may not click, and that, if I have found a novel use for some technology in my life, he is likely to be less-than-enthused about adopting it in his life. He is not, for example, an avid computer user. This is fine, as long as he recognizes that he is not an authority in the IT field, which he does. My dad is content to write things on paper, and if he needs them typed, he calls me.

Tuttle, OK. City Manager Jerry Taylor seems to need a lesson from my dad in the technology department. I mean, here's a guy who claims to be an IT authority (fron one of his threatening letters to the CentOS crew: "I am computer literate! I have 22 years in computer systems engineering and operation.") and does not recognize... is not even able to READ this test page.

As a Systems Administrator, myself, I have resisted the urge to carry a legal pad, pencil and cheap calculator with me for desktop support calls. The idea is that if the user has made an error which plainly lays bare his or her incompetence on a level which far exceeds remediation, then the computer should be replaced with a new "Desktop System"... one which more closely tracks the user's skill, and more importantly, interest.

Jerry Taylor, City Manager of Tuttle, OK, you are deserving of a new Desktop System. This system is both highly sophisticated and very easy to use. Of course, you will have to provide your own connectivity to the outside world, bu the same is true for your old Desktop System. You new Desktop System provides many of the same functions as your old one, but in ways which will likely seem more familiar and friendly to you, including:

• calendar
  
• word processor
  
• spreadsheet
  
• storage
  
• text editor
  
• an image management system
  
• music player

This system seems to be more his speed.