Matthew Wall: 'an analogue mind in a digital world'

A geek in every home...

We Brits don't much like paying for after-sales support services, particularly premium-rate 'helplines'. We think that if our gadgets go wrong the warranty should cover it or that free support should be included in the price.

Well, it's time to wake up and smell the Fairtrade coffee. This is a global economy with a massive mis-match between Western and Eastern labour costs. We get our gadgets as cheaply as a highly-competitive Far Eastern manufacturing market can stand. Try to get those gadgets repaired and Western labour rates apply. We shriek in horror.

But this is the choice: pay nearly double for all your digital gizmos (that ain't going to happen in our price-obsessed consumer economy) or get used to paying for geeks to come round to your house and make things work.

Now that so much of our work/home lives is going digital we're finally cottoning on to the real value of data - all our photos, videos, music files, documents, spreadsheets. Can we afford to lose them all? We need to protect them and make sure we can access them via a range of devices. That takes know-how many of us don't have.

So just how much are we prepared to pay for someone else to do it for us? This is the golden question, and Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad - the US home/office digital servicing company - thinks he has the answer. He's just launched in the UK (London).

You can read my profile of him in New Media Age (subscription required).

Cliche of the Week

"More must be done..."

The catch-all phrase uttered by all politicians in response to the latest crisis. What this really means is that they haven't a clue what to do themselves and have no intention of assuming any responsibility for the current state of affairs. Does it ever occur to them that sometimes, given the primacy of the law of unintended consequences in politics, it might be wisest to do less?

Getting your hands dirty...

We are a nation of potterers, tinkers, dabblers and fiddlers, spending around £16 billion a year on DIY and gardening equipment. Not very deep within the national psyche appears to be a peculiar feeling that we ought to be able to repair, decorate, and install everything ourselves by reference to some primordial instinct. In many cases this is delusion bordering on madness and must explain why men in particular never look at instruction manuals. There are plenty of websites out there willing to tell us how to do-it-ourselves and some that tell us how to find someone else to do it - whatever the 'it' may be. Click here for my latest Sunday Times 'Webwise' feature and get your hands dirty....