how does a non-tech update?

hi, I know somebody who’s running WordPress 2.1.3 on what I’d presume is shared server space at Network Solutions hosting. He’s a very smart guy but just not much into computers, I guess.

What would be the usual way for somebody like that to update to the newest version? Hire a neighborhood teenage geek? Does the hosting company usually do that (for free or for a charge)?

I looked at the doc and it seems that older versions do not have the facility for automatic upgrade. (I’d also read a blog that auto update might be bad because you have to give write permissions for the server to write over config files.)

Also, apparently a manual update involves downloading then unzipping then ftp’ing the files to the server. But backup beforehand would be crucial. So how/where does a non-tech get somebody to do that? Thanks.