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Geek Eye for the Average Guy
Yxes writes "Fortune designed an experiment: give three geeks US$15,000 and three days to bring a family of four up to date with technology. The average family doesn't know which DVD player to buy or how to setup a wireless network. What happens when even the geeks can't get it to work?"
3 days?! What a blatant anti-Gentoo bias!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
- Get them down to one remote - Nice receiver, learning remote - properly programmed, buttons all labeled
- DVR - TiVo or Replay TV, its a must have. Enable the 30 second skip button on the TiVo remote.
- Adjust the TV properly - turn the sharpness the whole way down, go through all the test patterns and balance the colors.
For the computer:- Open source software - Install software from the Open CD, Linux if they are up for it..
- Decruft the mouse and keyboard (although even most geeks could use this)
- A decent home network, add more computers as needed.
- A nice office chair and good ergonomics - switch them over to the dvorak keybord and make them practice.
For the kitchen:- Print out list of all pizza delivery options
- Stock fridge with Mt. Dew and Guinness.
Personal grooming:I enjoyed your article immensely, especially when the Geek starts calling everyone 'bitch'. However, I can't quite get the gist of it.
Please repeat your experiment of 4 guys installing 15,000 dollars of equipment at my house, so that I may understand *exactly* the trials of learning to use technology.
Many Thanks,
Teamhasnoi
It should be the other way around. A group of average people can tell a geek how to shower. They can teach him that long greasy hair in a ponytail is not a fashion statement. They could even take him shopping to buy clothes that aren't just t-shirts with nerdy slogans or anime characters on them.
"Ok, the first thing you need on your PC is Linux. And forget a GUI, you need to do everything in text. Windowed interfaces are so not cool. Once you're set up with this, we'll go to the de-tanning booth to get your skin a nice white pasty color..."
"But why is my homepage www.slashdot.org? What is this site? What's it good for? Are there games? Oh wait, I see the games section!"
...the last few paragraphs of the forthcoming Fortune article are dedicated to the team of geeks sitting around a monitor on the other side of town, packet-sniffing the new network for leaks and shreeking at what horrible things the new users are doing to the whole system.
--
Where do I sign up to (pretend to be) technically illiterate, so I can get this kind of electronics budget? The sad thing is that these days I probably wouldn't be pretending, I've been so broke lately. I have no idea what is cutting edge on anything.
-1, "1337" speak
The $15K money would be a nice change, but I'm always spending my free time setting up WiFi home networks, etc.
The same problem would exist for both the "Geek Eye" and it's original "Queer Eye"... given a few months without supervision and the recipient will revert back into low-tech chaos. Maintenance is much harder than configuration.
Murray Todd Williams
Woo hoo! Nerd chic!
I'm popular! People love me!
Can I leverage a TV show from this?
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
No wonder the project failed. Where was the Requirements Document? The simple statement: "bring a family of four up to date with technology" is not a proper requirement. Did they want to make home movies? Send email to Grandma? Walk in the house and have the lights turn on automatically? What were they trying to do with that $15k?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Never had anything delivered in less than 3 days, and I don't shop at circuit city for computers (perhaps DVD players, TV, etc)
--------
Free your mind.
I was pretty proud of myself, i set the clock on my vcr. Too bad a blown lightbulb tripped the circuit breaker. Now its flashing 12:00 again.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Does the $15,000 include the $699 for SCO?
Trolling is a art,
"no no no, these shades of white have gotta go, we're gonna glue up a thousand natalie pr0tman so you can gizzzzz all over the walls... How about that ? Ohhh it'll be so delectable, now for that chartreuse tinted wardrobe !"
... Still brushed your teeth, I'll show you how to do it the geek away... Here, throw the tooth paste into the garbage and wait a few weeks. Teeth are actually self cleaning."
"**SIGH**
Most people can avoid issues with compatibility and getting things working if they buy their equipment from one vendor. As long as you're not trying to buy the best of everything you can do this very effectively.
Also, most people have never considered this, but don't care about connecitivty at home.
Is it a education problem or is it that things haven't reached critical mass?
From the article, "really, all they wanted to do was send digital pictures of the kids to Grandma. Heistad came back with a shopping list that would get them that, plus a home theater, a wireless network, new computing, a tricked-out music system, and GPS positioning capabilities."
Pathetic. How about a 6 month followup (honestly reported)? After all, what are the odds that most of this equipment will just be gathering dust by then?
Alright, probably not the Tivo... but still...
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
$15,000 = ONE REALLY FAST POWERMAC G5.
Buy it and you're done. Everything else is uncivilized.
Mine blinks 11:00 now
What happens when even the geeks can't get it work?
Blame it on Windows : it always works with budget overruns as well as questions about technical problems. Tell the family you told them about Linux but they wouldn't hear. Make sure you use a patronizing tone.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
1. Install cardboard box with "Really Neat Box!" written on it.
2. Pocket $15,000.
3. ???
4. Profit!
(I think ??? involves running away very fast, but doesn't it always?)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The main problems here are compatability and demand. First, demand... The people don't need it. So, they won't use it. That's easy. The people in this article were all wrong for this stuff. They will NEVER use 20% of it.
Second, compatability. We all know and it is obvious to most people that this stuff all becomes 10 times cooler when it works with other stuff. When I buy a new X, it would be totally awesome if it will integrate with my Q, R, S, and V. Well, open standards certainly won't make much money for the manufacturers, so they don't work very well together. Heck, even all my Sony stuff has problems playing nice together. And especially the really cool features will never integrate.
Last, but not least, they kids are gonna ruin it all anyway. So to hell with it. Read a book. Take the $15,000 and put it in the kids' college funds.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Now that being geeky is seen a cool trait, marketers are now buslily redefining the label to describe people that spend lots of money on high-fashion electronics.
Why are we letting this happen? Which is more impressive: owning a lot of expensive hardware, or turning outdated junk into useful tools?
--
Long-term effects of Bush deficits
The idea as a whole is intriguing, but with posers instead of real geeks, it's pretty pointless.
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
So i'm behind the times and they'll come in and replace all my old 386 class and 2x CDR crap with SOTA gear??
Yes, that will work. Fab 3, please email me, I'm stuck in 386 hell...
Please hurry!
I find it remarable how the average technophobe fails to comprehend that they're basically out of their element when it comes to technological gadgets. I don't profess to be an expert so I won't install my own dishwasher, but instead contract someone to do it.
Why should computing be any different?
Which is nice.
"Don't blame me, it's a software problem." Hope I didn't just put too many people out of work...
Where'd you order that? What a DEAL!!!!!
..he isn't a very good geek?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
[Geek] Okay, now you're running Linux! Your computer will run faster and be more stable. Also it's politically and morally superior, and the software is all free!
[AverageGuy] Awesome, thanks! So what games are on here?
[Geek] I have to go now.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
they like HPs and Dells. what kind of geeks are these?
"These geeks--as different from nerds as orcs are from trolls"
huh? I didn't know there was a difference.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
>There isn't time to order a new PC from Dell
>--the geeks' PC maker of choice--
>so they head to Best Buy and pick up
>a $679 HP Pavilion Home PC.
Now what kind of geek would do something like that
It should have read:
There isn't time to order 100 RM1-4U cases from Koolance --the geeks' waatercooling provider of choice--
so they head to the industrial compound and get an industrial fan to cool down the Beowulf cluster of
the bleeding edge AMD Athlon 64 systems that they plan to blow the $15,000 on.
Most Geeks dont know what DVD player to buy.
Pioneer Elete series? Or do we go for the Carver Studio series? or do we go for even better? or are we happy with the sub $400.00 junk at best buy?
Most of the decisions are made based on preference as is you went for the "best" based on research and actual reviews $15,000.00 is not anywhere near enough money.
I can spend $15,000.00 on the PC,home netowrking and home server alone.
for the average Joe, the best DVD player to buy is the $59.00 APEX cheapie.. they will be happy with the picture on their 29 inch tv. and it's the one I reccomend to all my relatives as it's dirt cheap / throw away type appliance if the kids break it. plus it does a better job than the playstation2 or Xbox.
unless you have a HD tv or projector that can handle the progressive output buying a "good" player is a waste of money.. and most "geeks" wont admit that buying the cheapest is the best for the average joe.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
With XCode running distributed compiles I can get my work done yesterday.
-- thinkyhead software and media
"Day Two The now fully assembled geek team pulls up to the Burkes' house at 9 a.m. " No real geek, given $15K to play with for 3 days, is going home/hotel to sleep!! Who are they trying to kid??? -k
Your mind moves quicker than a nun's first curry. - A. Rimmer
Just getting a few tech toys and setting them up
with few geeks is fun for the geeks, but not for
those who need to use them everyday. What happens
when one of the stuff gets hungup, or something that
needs reprogramming because the power went out, or
because there was a glitch in the power supply.
What is lacking in today's tech toys is not the
innovation, but the intution(to continue to use it
and fix it as it happens, without having a geeky
attitude). If such a project is ever attempted,
a custom programmed consoles at various places
(using a single board linux computer), that would
control all the devices on the network would do
a better job, even if someone has to learn how
to use it. Hooking up different stuff is not
simple(just as a harmony central remote!).
You read the end of the article as
/.
They pause. Ross fingers his goatse...
instead of
They pause. Ross fingers his goatee...
Damn you
Heistad grilled them on their tech needs--really, all they wanted to do was send digital pictures of the kids to Grandma. Heistad came back with a shopping list that would get them that, plus a home theater, a wireless network, new computing, a tricked-out music system, and GPS positioning capabilities.
Not only did the family not want the technology but had what they didn't want "forced" on them. This is the problem with mass consumerism of entertainment technology. You don't need it. It isn't even cool if you think about it.
- Crappy pop music doesn't sound any better on outrageously huge speakers and expensive audio system.
- The TV show "Friends" certainly isn't any funnier on a 90" plasma HDTV.
- GPS is only helpful if you don't know where you and you know where you want to go. Besides, who needs to know the lat/lon of the dry cleaners?
- Computer and console games like Grand Theft Auto X, Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, and Sims still suck and disconnect you from society whether on a slow computer or fast one.
The parents should do their kids a favor and sell all that crap. Keep a decent notebook and digital camera around for the pictures to grandma and email. Buy the kids some books, take them to the parks, get them involved in their community.All of that useless tech is going to kill your culture.
Speak truth to power.
Heh. I'll never forget the look on his face when Mom walked over to me and said "Here! You fix it!!"
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
No self-respecting geek watches Enterprise.
What happens when even the geeks can't get it work?
It'd certainly explain why four out of every ten IT guys are unemployeed.
Kids need their own PC if possible, Larson explains, "because kids' software has, like, this uncanny knack for wrecking a PC. They introduce all kinds of weird fonts, and the thing just crashes all the time."
Like, yeah. All those kids installing those nasty, like, fonts are just a pain in the neck, aren't they? Like, yeah, the big purple gorilla thing is cool and the green lizard thing that saves their passwords, but those custom fonts will crash a pee-see for sure.
sigh
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
That was one lame article. The goof balls couldn't even do the job. Give me a break.
This is why, in my ideal world, in a few months we'd see some restrospective "Queer Eye" shows and a follow-up article doing a sort of "where are they now" that details all of the stuff that's fallen by the wayside and/or been destroyed by small children as compared to the geek-toys that are still in use. I have to agree with other posters here, once you've got your plasma TV and Tivo, I seriously doubt you're going to revert on purpose.
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
"You call this a wireless mouse? More like a wireless HOUSE!"
"Hmm. I like what you've done with this cabling - it's very Feng-Schwing!"
"I hope you're going for a grainy, 'Kiss me Deadly' sort of thing with this greyscale monitor!"
"Nice X-Box! Can we move in? And the controllers...I haven't seen anything that big since we did Kevin Mitnik..ss house... ahem.."
Maybe it's just me, but it seems wrong for a geek's preferred computer vendor to be Dell (or to even consider walking into a Best Buy).
Being a geek myself, I'd never consider getting a name brand computer (unless the name is Alien Ware (shamelessly copied from a previous article).
Having said that, some of the choices for tech are cool (like the Yamaha musicast).
Throw money at the problem.
Don't think long term. Remain fixated on the short-term.
I've taught basic Internet and computer skills classes to a wide variety of people, all over the US. In doing so I've found that the only way to really make something stick is to actually sit them in front of the computer and have them learn by doing. The "three geeks and $15k" method is like a Microsoft Windows wizard. It may help you with the problem at hand, but it's not revealing anything about the hows and whys behind the problem.
In short, the end user isn't learning. They're still beholden to the geeks, because as soon as the carefully orchestrated setup hits a snafu, Abbie Normal won't know how to fix that problem.
Immersive, hands-on teaching works. It takes time and patience. Unfortunately neither are in ample supply these days, so everyone keeps on looking for silver bullet "solutions". This attitude is everywhere, even in large corporations, where managers want the latest shiny packaged product, because they actually believe that they can get results without having to learn anything first.
The computer industry is a victim of its own hype. Or rather, society is a victim of the industry hype. If we actually acknowledged the value of learning, we might collectively be able to harness the power of computers instead of spending huge chunks of time dealing with trivial annoyances.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Why didn't they just stick with all Macs? I mean we are talking about non-techies, that are going to be using them, and the Mac is one of the easiest systems to use for a newbie. Not to mention stable. Also why did it take them so long? I've setup simular set-ups (everytime I move) in under a day.
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
Hopefully, the geek-eye guys have unlisted phone numbers ...
I would take a year vacation in some exotic country.
These toys are cool, but spending $15k on these is IMO ridiculous.
Ahh...and the remotes. This is the kind of stuff that has ALWAYS needed a lot of work. Check out this Cooper article on an elegant solution.
...at the bottom of todays page.
Ever feel like you're the head pin on life's bowling alley, and everyone's rolling strikes?
Actually, the 3 Pin for rightys (or the 2 pin for leftys) take the headon hit.
Zep
-5 offtopic
Damnit!!! No game console, I dare say that its probably time for the two year olds gaming education to start. An X-box with Halo would do nicely.
Think about it.. you need talent to make headshots, teach em young and before they hit 5 they will be "owning joo noobs!!!"
I just got a Harmony remote b/c my Pronto is a pain. It takes long to program, but most importantly, it's impossible to use without looking. And the screen isn't very sensitive so you have to touch a button a few times to get it to "take".
The Harmony is a generally good concept, but its major downside...like all universal remotes with hard buttons...is the fact that you have to remember where you mapped all the "special" buttons. For example, my cable remote has an "info" button that is separate from a "guide" button. I had to arbitrarily map it to an asterisk button because there is no "info" button on the Harmony...much to the chagrin of my wife.
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
MONSTER DATA CENTER!
I had a sucky sig.
I could blow $15,000 in a single afternoon at any electronics store.
Sure, it might take me two days to set everything up, but any self-respecting geek could master this task by themselves.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
"Handheld PC with built-in GPS"
/animosity toward luddites? Maybe. . .
The iQue is a PalmOS device. They're making it seem like its above what it is. Trust me, I want one, but there's something unsettling about not saying "A Palm with built-in GPS" as opposed to the archaic name used for PPCs.
Besides if they were real geeks, they'd know they could easily use the iQue as a master-remote and eliminate all their troubles. Any Palm device can use one of about 3 different programs to emulate any IR hardware. Pity they're going to mis-use the iQue as just a GPS, just like most people will mis-use the Zodiac as just a gaming device.
But this is all for not, these people will probably break something 30 seconds after the guys leave and be unable to reboot their computer. There's no respect for these guys("BITCH!"?), and honestly, you have to be pretty bad to start off with to be picked for this, I assume.
Mike was taken aback. "No way!"
"Yes," Larson said. "You're only missing one thing."
"What's that?" Mike asked quizzically.
"FIFTEEN THOUSAND FREE FUCKING DOLLARS!"
Mike beamed.
Hell, I could spend $15K at the Apple Store in about 30 minutes.
Damn, I want all that free stuff
Instant Street Cred:
For 15,000USD You get a lot of AOL CDs!
:-)
Ups sorry, AOL is definitly not geekish enough. Maybe MSN 8.0 on a Pentium 90 with 32MB of RAM and a Mediaplayer 9.0 Update.
Is this geekish enough?
NoSuchGuy
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
HA! You think a group of geeks would only buy a camera and maybe a new PC? HA! GPS is definitely needed to send photos to grandma.
GPS: Know your exact location in your own home!
Without GPS:
Wife: "Kids, dinnertime!"
(no answer)
Husband: "Maybe they're in the toy room, dear!"
With GPS:
Wife: "Kids, dinnertime!"
(no answer)
Husband: "Kids are at 33 56' 52" N, 118 8' 5" W, dear!"
Just think of the fun!
Joe Technophobe: "There's muh cumputer, it's uh winders three kind, but the cup holder
on it is durn broke".
Techno Geek1 : "Dear god, something from the Jurasic period, Just look at this fossil, a 286SX
and the cdrom, I mean 'cup holder is jammed with... , oh no that's sooo
sooo soooo very wrong.'
Techno Geek2 : "There are wires everywhere, have you even heard of zip strips? Keeps your layout
nice and tidy, and you don't even have to trip over them."
Techno Geek3 : "Let's talk about Product, it's all about the preparation and the hardware,
I think we can get you a nice durable all steel case, that's coffee proof and
and with lots and lots of RAM."
Techno Geek4 : "You god damned ignorant hilljack! How can you treat hardware this way, didn't
your mother teach you to wear anti-static wrist guards? Where did you grow
up? The third world?"
Joe Technophobe: "Nope, uh work fer Marketing in the Racing business"
Techno Geek2 : "Say no more, well take it from here"
Next up: getting the Apple PowerBook G4 to work. A mac?! geez what kind of geeks is this??
I too prefer traditional buttons (you can feel 'em in the dark (wow, did that sound dirty))
And the Sony RM VL-900 learning remote is the SCHMOKINEST. Why? Because it works. How? That list of codes they give you on that index card written in 2 point font? useless, don't even bother with it.
Its remote-to-remote learning function is sooo good, the only thing you have to worry about is forgetting to record a button.
I'll admit, it takes a little getting used to, hitting (TV) then (POWER), instead of just hitting the (POWER) button, but if you have more than 3 components (TV, Cable box, VCR, DVD) there is no excuse for having 4 stupid remotes.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Get better geeks. Duh.
Ideally.
...Everything else has at least one too many mouse buttons.
Hmm...how to mod a funny troll?
What happens when even the geeks can't get it work
Shaaarron!!
very, very insightful
the most mysterious thing you'll see today
These turds blew $15,000 on gizmos and gadgets for a family that only wanted to send pix of the kids to Granny? Talk about scope creep....
What happens when even the geeks can't get it work?
You know they didn't buy a Mac, that's what.
Seriously, get 'em DSL, an AirPort base station, iBooks and iSight for each family member, and now they have high speed wireless internet with videoconferencing.
Pile on a TiVo, any DVD player, and a $1000 30"+ CRT TV, and a decent sound system.
Total cost: way under $15k.
The key is, don't buy the best of everything, buy the stuff that's proven to work.
Who wants to lay bets as to when they first get robbed?
Did they get them some high-tech security?
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
[AverageGuy] Awesome, thanks! So what games are on here?
xBill & Nibbles. 'Nuff said :-)
Quite frankly, if I was kitting out a family with a games machine, it would be a PS2 or similar console system. The idea of any family not familiar with keeping a PC up and running would use it for gaming is pretty funny. Wait until they have to install their first Windows SP, update Direct X or their box gets overrun by Sven, Welchia and Blaster. It would actually be easier to install UT2k3, Quake3, Savage, Orbz, Thinktanks and half a dozen other native Linux games and LOCK DOWN THE BOX. The average user (note: not the average PC gamer) has little enough clue about these issues in the first place. As has been postulated elsewhere, maintenance is the tricky part. At least with a console, the effective locking down has already been done and the average person can find games in future shop or wherever.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
"the Linksys EtherFast five-port switch and a Linksys Wireless Ethernet Bridge. (Those in the know refer to the last item as a "Wet 11." Naturally.)" Wet 11? No man! Hell no! I do believe you could get your ass kicked for saying something like that!
If that happens, they send someone out to buy them a preposition.
"Toward the end of their time together, the geeks ponder over the lessons they might pass on to ambitious digital do-it-yourselfers. They pause. Ross fingers his goatee, and tentatively offers, "Don't expect it to be too easy?" " Ambitious digital do-it-yourselfers don't buy prebuilt hp, dell or other computers and would make their own all-in-one remote from the garage worth of scrap electronics they've accumulated.
last page of article:
..."
Day Three
The pressure is on. Larson has to leave at 2 p.m., Ross at 5 p.m. The subject of the day is, of course, whether they can get the remotes done in time. It's not looking good. There are also the two TiVos and the home entertainment system left to set up.
At about 11 a.m., Heistad admits that with respect to the remotes they are "sucking wind, bad." The house is in chaos. The kids are everywhere. Heistad starts sweating through his shirt and has long since begun calling everyone "bitch." There is dissension in the ranks:
Heistad: "Call the guy [from customer service]! Say, 'This is really hard to understand! Can you please walk us through it?' "
Ross: "But--you should really be able to
Heistad: "Call him, bitch!"
Adding to the pressure is the not-small task of teaching the Burkes how to work everything in so little time. Mike, who has been traveling for work all week, can get away for only two hours today, at lunchtime.
At noon he shows up. Mike is very much the sales guy. He is upbeat and apparently interested, though he has a tendency to cut explanations short by saying things like "Terrrrific!" and to fawn over his kids and the gadgets at the same time, as in, "Oooh! TiVo! Want to give daddy a kiss?"
The geeks start walking him through his house. Larson shows Mike how to hook his camcorder up to the PC and make movies that he can send to his brother in Japan. He explains the difference between "slurping" (video), "ripping" (music), and "shoving" (the camera's media card into the PC media server). Larson tells Mike that when he wants to print a photo, he should simply "connect the squiggly one to that thing-a-ma-doodle." (Larson also refers to the PC media reader as a "front-loading deelie bopper.")
Throughout, of course, Mike is thrilled. ("Terrrific!") Having DSL in his house is "a total miracle." After only a few minutes, he declares that "TiVo has already changed my life." ("Twilight Zone?" he says, scrolling through a list of shows he could now record. "Why wouldn't you tape all the Twilight Zones?")
Because Jenny had gently suggested earlier that Mike sometimes gets lost in D.C., the geeks take some time to show him the Garmin GPS unit, which he can't help but compare with the Hertz Neverlost system. ("She talks to you," Mike says of the in-car navigation system's computerized female voice. "She's nonjudgmental. She corrects you nicely if you screw up.")
In fact, despite being "so pre-Clinton era" in the realm of home electronics, Mike seems to be a quick study. At the end of the walk-through, he programs the Yamaha to play Heart's "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You" and imagines out loud the idyllic possibility of sitting at the table in their backyard with his wireless laptop, downloading big PDF files from work with no long delays.
Finally, in a state of shock and awe, he says: "Hey! We're going to bypass the 1990s and jump straight into the new millennium!"
"I can tell you're a wannabe tech guy," Larson say. "You're going to pick this all up pretty quick."
Mike beams.
As the day winds down, however, it becomes clear that the geeks are not going to get everything done. The plasma TV, DVD/VCR player, surround-sound speakers and speaker stands are a breeze for Ross to set up. But the remotes never quite work.
Instead of saddling the Burkes with a dud, Heistad makes a last-minute switch to the Prontos and offers to install them on his own time over the next couple of days. (Which he does: four hours on Saturday and a few more on Sunday, with plans to stop by a few times later during the week.)
And maybe that's what a perfectly seamless digital life requires. Not a limitless array of stuff, necessarily, but a lifetime supply of Heistad.
Toward the end of their time together, the geeks ponder over the lessons they might pass on to ambitious digital do-it-yourselfers. They pause. Ross fingers his goatse, and tentatively offers, "Don't expect it to be too easy?"
I don't know where the rest of the money went...
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
There are some people out there that are inordinatly technologically impaired. I have often tried explaining computers to such people in on case while trying to help someone with a computer they asked me if the strange silver/grey box on the floor was nessisary for the computer to work. Lauren.
"Most interesting how often you humans seem to obtain that which you do not want" -Spock
Beowulf Hunter!
(CRIKEY! Here's a 1100 node cluster of Athlon 2200s running Linux! Be warned though, it's bluetooth is razor sharp and the combined heat output can cook 'er arm clean off! Danger danger danger!)
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
It's just reverse discrimination..."Ooo look at us we're gay and therefore have magical powers to make you look good"
It's me at my parent's house.
"Want in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first." - My Dad
If these 3 are the best that Fortune could find, I'm ashamed to call myself a geek. "deelie bopper?" "wet11?"
Sheesh.Unless your house is mobile and in Kansas, chances are you don't need a home GPS unit.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Poor midwest family ends up with a "consulting" bill of $25K to "maintain" existing hardware and "update" software as necessary just so they can watch the evening news and email grandma.
No, the cheapest is not best for the average joe.
The best for the average joe is the most reliable, and the best bang for the buck.
Did they need progressive scan? Well, if you're going to blow $4k on a TV, get the people the equipment to carry the best signal and hook em up with a nice sound system as well.
When someone who doesn't know anything about DVD asks me what to buy, I tell em Sony. Sony's aren't the cheapest, but they make a nice $100 or so model and those stand up over time.
I had a Toshiba that burnt out in a year. I know three different people who bought those $69 Apex pieces of shit and the best one lasted six months.
You get what you pay for, and suggesting Apex to your friends or family will just make sure they don't ask you for your advice ever again...
Selling and installing C-Band dishes to average consumers for several years in the mid '80s makes me appreciate this story! There is such a difference working in your normal environment than in some family's home. No matter how prepared you are ... "you can't get there from here" Everything goes wrong, from not enough electrical outlets to the 2 year old dropping the remote control into the the fishtank.
We won't talk about the dog digging up the newly buried cable cause he thinks you buried a bone :-)
Ahhhh ... the memories
What most of us really need is a job that pays real money but I'll accept a 15k line of credit at the moonlight Bunny Ranch as a consolation gift.
So for a family of complete techo-illiterates, they bought a PC _and_ a Mac. That way they'll never figure out how to use anything. Bravo.
What a load of shit. If you piss away $15k on a home computer, you're a fucking moron. Sorry, you aren't developing new weather models in your spare time. Perhaps spare cycles, but you're going to spend $15k on that?
The Apex is a cheap piece of shit. Spend another $30 and get something that wasn't built from a Korean scrapheap. I hope your family beats you to within an inch of your insulent life for saddling them with such garbage (I know from what I speak, I've had two.)
Pioneer Elete series? Or do we go for the Carver Studio series? or do we go for even better? or are we happy with the sub $400.00 junk at best buy?
Or do we understand that this little device, known as the transistor, has made very high quality electronics available to the masses. Sorry to burst your bubble, but most people aren't going to notice the differences without the help of electronic measuring devices. And just wait until presbyopia and presbyauria catch up on your lame ass. Mother nature will take away more of your listening pleasure than you could hope to notice between a mass market and an expensive piece of kit.
$15,000.00 is not anywhere near enough money.
To be able to send pictures to grandma? Read the fucking article, moron. You must be a government employee or contractor. Only someone with his head so far up his ass couldn't buy a digital camera and docking station for less than $15,000.
Oh, that's right. You store your goatse pr0n on your $15,000 'home' server. You are so cool.
Split into teams.
Team 1: Install the biggest TV they can buy, hookup the TiVo and spend the rest of the time showing everyone how to erase everyone else's shows. Before leaving, hack TiVo and put in 200GB disk.
Team 2: Install the GPS in the SUV. Show mom the basics.
Team 3: DSL to firewall to airport. New PC's with wireless cards installed. Test with camera. Teach 4 year old how to run camera and send movies to granma.
Team 4: Keep the house stocked with pizza and beer and go around putting the tech support phone numbers on all the devices.
This is appropriately characterized.. only "geeks" would get excited about a Best Buy shopping spree to set up a home entertainment system. NERDs on the other hand, would take an existing setup and hack it and make it more functional, without any need for extra money. While the geeks would go to Circuit City, the nerds would be all over ebay picking up skeleton equipment uber-cheap to repurpose.
If you want to do a reality show properly, you have nerds go into peoples' houses and do stuff like:
* Take the kids' X-Box and show how it can be turned into a home-monitoring alarm system
* Hack the DVD player to disable macrovision and country code restrictions
* Modify a refrigerator to be used as a wine cellar
* Hack the TIVO to be more functional
* Switch the phone service to VOIP
* Modify the existing air-cooled air conditioning system to be water-cooled and more efficient
* Implement a wireless mp3 broadcasting stereo system throughout the house
* Create a black box that disables all television commercials from the tv screen automatically
* Turn a normal array of home speakers into a custom 5.1 setup
* Show mom how you can override the diagnostic codes in her new car's electronics and tweak performance parameters
* Jack into the neighbor's wireless LAN for free Internet access
Now we're talking nerd-eye-for-geek-guys
The point is that these guys were SUPPOSED to go overboard. Hell, on Queer Eye the only thing really wrong with the guys are that they're messy and slobish. All they really need is a maid to swipe through and vacuum their apartment and do the dishes. Is that where the show stops? Of course not, where's the fun in that? It's more entertaining to see a guy's guy get totally redone by a bunch of flamboyant fashion kings/queens going the whole nine. New pimpish wardrobe, new interior decoration, a preplanned meal that rivals most 5-star restraunts', etc.
Sorry for the rant. It just seems that a lot of people read too deeply into the whole purpose of this "experiment". Have fun, enjoy. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go find the family's address so I can sniff their wireless traffic and blackmail 'em for that plasma tv.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for SEGA. ..."
I hope TLC shows something like this rather than those marathons of home improvement shows.
I've been through that.
But the key line over here is not "throw money at the problem"; it is "Any price that will take the problem off our hands". Perversely, it may not be the highest.
We once had to buy, for regulatory reasons, a specialised software for the evaluation of financial options. Of the three contenders, one was good, the others were on the rainy side of lousy. Problem was, the guys building the best programs, which was the priciest, actually INSISTED on seeing their program used well, which meant trying to see how well our company knew the matter, meeting with the PHB responsible, the operatives guys, etc.
Now guess: the field is down to two contenders, and they are not one of those two.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Hmm.. From skimming thru the article (which was pretty dull) it seems to me that these fellas are more yuppies than geeks. Guess they didn't look to slashdot when they were recruiting.
;)
Plasma screens aren't really the best thing to spend your money on considering the high price and the fact that they loose brightness VERY fast. It didn't say what they paid for theirs but seems like it was a LARGE percentage of their budget.
They bought a G4 powerbook. hehe..
They didn't even build a custom pc. HP Pavilion.. bah!
What to speak of the rest of it all.
A distinctive mark, characteristic, or sound indicating identity
Queer Eye doesn't just fix their problems and say "Here is what you need to wear to not look like a slob. By the way, your hair sucks" ... they actually take the guy and say "Hey, this would look good on you, this would look good in your house... and here is how to do it from now on." They give tips, pointers, and no-no's.
/. readers, I'm sure that may be relative. ;-)
Geek Eye just said "Here's a bunch of technology, which you have no idea why you need it and not something else... now use it." There was nothing beyond the How To UseExpensive Technology for Dummies crash course that they were given.
If you want people to actually grow and learn, you need to explain why. Honestly, technology is a more difficult beast to master than fashion... although looking at many
*prepares for mod down*
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
They did buy a Powerbook and Airport base station - which they designated for use in reading email!! Then they bought a $699 Best Buy PC to handle the tasks of camera mounting and digital video editing. Madness!!
/. - where is the post from them outlining more detail?
They should have gone one way or the other (I'd have gone Mac myself), but introducing a mixed system to non-tech people is not a good plan. They basically demonstrated no degree of ability to interconnect systems, where all the REALLY cool features you could have nowadays come from.
The interesting thing to me is that these guys, being geeks, must read
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Pioneer "50 Plasma HDTV
Everyone will forget about a wireless this or gizmo that, when this baby fires up and lights the room.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Well, yeah - but does it *ever* really work out well when you send a group of people into someone's house (on a tight schedule, no less), and start making buying decisions for them?
This was money spent for the sake of writing a story... not for the sake of ensuring the family's goals are achieved.
It's no different than the shows where they remodel your house for you. People following up on it later find that at least 50% of the time, the homeowners undo all the remodeling work shortly after they're done being on TV.
I think, all things considered, they didn't do TOO badly. I mean, almost anyone can enjoy a large screen TV set, "technology-impaired" or not. They were already using the net for email, so they'll at least use the DSL connection for the same things as before. (Yeah, they might not need the speed, really, but it's nice having an "instant on" connection, and none of the dropped carriers in the middle of sessions.) It looks like they'll mess around with the digital camera too. I don't think I've ever met someone who got a digital camera, learned the basics of using it, and then let it collect dust - opting to go back to the film camera instead. They're not THAT tough to figure out, really - unless you dig in to the advanced features, and saving hassle and money on film developing is usually motivating enough to keep people using them.
I'm sure their wireless network security was overlooked in the time crunch. These folks will never know the guy next door is sharing mp3's over their network, and their kides are going to be sued for a million dollars each. Terrrrrific indeed.
Right there is the problem. If you want a straight answer, you ask only one. With two, or more, they'll spend all their time arguing about the merits of various bits of technology.
un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
"a Linksys Wireless Ethernet Bridge. (Those in the know refer to the last item as a "Wet 11." Naturally.)"
With terms like that, who needs females? oh wait..I forgot this is slashdot
Linux or even upscale Windows is absurd for the nongeek. What they need is several iMacs and maybe a G5 connected wirelessly.....and an assortment of iPods, PDAs and other toys scattered about.
Barry
Do you not understand the definition of profit??? Oh yeah, I get it, the question marks are necessary to get the Funny points. Soon we will be seeing posts like this:
1. Have an idea
2. Form company
3. Have revenues exceed expenditures
4. ???
5. Profit!
Come on now.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
"The PC sports a 2.08GHz XP processor"
XP processor, what's that? Is that what I use to run Windows 97 for my Outlook Explorer?
The article states that they used a Linksys Wireless Ethernet Bridge to connect the PC to the DSL connection?? They also bought an Airport Base Station. Why not just buy a Linksys WRT54G and use it to connect both the PC and Powerbook. Seems like these geeks might need to go back to geek school.
I for one whole-hearedly welcome our Geek Overlords and their $15,000 make-overs.
That is the answer. They should have outsourced a $7500 time and materials budget, then pocketed the spare $7500. Am I not right? OK, might have outsourced a $5000 budget, then kept $10000. Any lower bidders out there?
Going, going, sold American!
The average user learns by doing, just like you did, you arrogant twit.
I'm sick of hearing how regular folk are just too dumb to use a computer like an elite genius such as yourself.
Its not always worth the effort of researching then ordering parts only to deal with the occasional DOA part and various sources of support for hardware issues when prepackaged prevalided machines using essentially the same components you would buy are available for about the same or lower price point.
I keep an eye on sites like Ben's Bargain Center, where really good deals from vendors like Dell are brought to the budget conscious geek's attention. I recently picked up a pair of 2.4Ghz 800Mhz FSB dual channel DDR P4s from Dell for less than 500$ each, and I'm very pleased with the machines. They are petite yet expandible, made of standard quality components, neat, silent, stable and fast. The one I use as a Windows box boots into XP before my monitor warms up. Which is another thing, essentially free Windows licenses, which is nice when I need to use Windows. And Linux has no problems on the machine, aside from a bit of difficulty during install since most of the hardware is quite new compared to the aging Debian install disks, like a new unrecognized rev of the Intel eepro.
My main machine is an upgraded Compaq W8000, which was a great deal back when I bought over a year ago. For 700$, I had picked up a great case with a 500W power supply, an i860 SMP motherboard worth at least 500$ itself, a P4 Xeon 1.7Ghz which was at least 150$, 18GB 10k SCSI drive which was over 200$ at the time, and the other necessary parts short of memory and video.
I call bullshit -- real geeks don't have to call tech support....Let alone spend hours online with tech support. They must be at one with the gadgets. The gadgets must be an extension of them.
** Plus if you are going to get geeks to spend 15K to supply a family with the latest gadegts....Make sure it is geeks who have had 15K to spend themselves. A true geek does not just read about it...he lives it.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
must kill them....
How does this help anyone? What I think would make this cool would be to form it more into This Old House, or Trading Spaces. Take the tech guys, move into the house and actually do what they need. maybe make a show on how to properly network your house. Here's an idea to fit the needs that the AVERAGE family needs.
I mean they get this fancy music system. screw that, take the money and give them a normal cd player. Chances are they can actually use it.
Give them DSL, can they afford it? is sending email instantly really that important to someone who can't figure out how to program a VCR?
Buy them a new computer... once something breaks their going to be calling tech support having the conversation: "Can you open Internet Explorer please?" "ok... now internet explorer... what is that... I don't think i have it, i'm on 2000XPME." (acutal response i've recieved lately)
If you can get along without downloading the newest strongbad email within 5 seconds, or God forbid having to get out of bed to check your email, WHY DO YOU NEED IT NOW?
I'm all for getting new high tech toys, but if a tech guy has a hard time figuring it out to get it set up, what happens when it breaks?
I consider my parents to be relatively average with technical things, they put their computer togeather without help, but when it come to trading in 5 remotes for one, the concept of pushing the TV button before controlling the TV is sometimes hard to grasp. Some people are better off keeping the 5 remotes knowing the Black on means TV, the White one means VCR and the Grey one means DVD player.
This is fantastic! From the article:
"Mike and Jenny Burke live in a two-story brick house in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., with a pretty, postage-stamp lawn and a crape myrtle tree out front, and a little handwritten sign taped beside the door that reads Doorbell Doesn't Always Work."
Shouldn't be too hard to locate this place. From the sounds of it the Geeks forgot to spend a little of that cash on a decent burglar alarm (assuming Mr. and Mrs. Technodope already have one the PIN is probably a default or their house number). Who wants $15,000 worth of new toys? The only drawback? They probably "forgot" to tell their insurance agent about the geeks' visit so it would be back to the Eighties for the Burkes'.
"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." -- G. K. Chesterton
Since when?
I thought most geeks built their own PCs or atleast bought them white box...
They ended up buying them a damned Pavilion, my BB has quite a few PCs I would buy before I bought ANYTHING from HP.
While we are at it, why buy them both a Powerbook and a P4 desktop system? They should have either stuck with x86 hardware all the way through or went completely Mac. Having two different systems is going to end up confusing them needlessly.
Are you sure these are geeks? They're buying PCs based on nifty $9 features, sounds more like something a Average Guy would do: "Oh look, the mouse glows red! I want this PC!"
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
At the risk of -1, redundant...
The projection TVs are cheaper and better for the size, even when replacing bulbs is considered. (After all, with American habits that plasma screen is only going to last 8-10 years...)
These 'geeks' had trouble with the Harmony Remotes. It's not clear why, but I've found Harmony remotes are wonderful, and are great for the non-geeks in your life.
One of the very nice things compared to most multi-device remotes is that you don't have to spend time programming macros, worrying about which items need to be turned on or off or which input selected. You tell the website what devices you have, and which is connected to what, and it sets up "activities" like "Watch Television" or "Play a DVD" or "Listen to Radio". When you select one, the Harmony turns on or off all the boxes that need to be, and does any required switching automatically. No macros to program. It also changes the remote so that the buttons are all relevant to what you're doing (in "Play a DVD", the play button is the DVD play button, etc).
It's also a learning remote, so if you have truely oddball equipment like my Unity Motion big-dish satellite HD receiver, you can learn the codes in a few minutes.
And if you're a _true_ geek, you can reprogram it in XML.
(I had Mod points I could have used on this thread, but I couldn't resist posting.)
Not necessarily.
Our decidedly non-Geek gaming family bought a mid-line Dell, our first "real" computer, and moved to broadband cable service last fall. On a friend's advice, the only change I made to the plain vanilla install (which includes Norton A/V) was to add the freeware Zone Alarm firewall. I don't understand ports and didn't want the problem of configuring them manually. SP1 was our first cable download and went off without a hitch, since then the process has been pretty much automated.
Filtering at the ISP level is very effective, the few examples of Sven and the like that slip through scarcely rate as an annoyance, though the kids seem a little disappointed when they don't get a chance to "squash" a bug themselves!
You stop getting low-grade geeks. "What do you mean it doesn't taste like a burger? Grade F meat is still meat!"
It hasn't been hard to set up consumer electronics for years. When I bought a commodity box for my mother, I plugged it in, hooked the color-coded picture-demarcated mouse and keyboard plugs into the back, and hooked the monitor into the back. Then, I plugged the monitor in, and wham! Done. EVerything was magically ready to go. Even had a little bit of music on the machine.
Might want to spend $15,000 on getting a writer that doesn't have to bum ideas from Bravo!.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
So it's not Linux... it rocks (so does Tivo, so no flames please). Both are wonderful for skipping commercials, backing up after "what did he say?", dealing with "Honey, can you come here for a second?", etc. Not to mention effortlessly make sure that you don't miss Crash on Junkyard Megawars.... :-)
1) 30 second skip button without having to reprogram
2) Instant replay, skip forward/back N minutes, skip to minute N of the program
3) Can use all free disk space for buffering live TV
4) Networking - unlike Tivo, networking is built into the base unit. Stop playing on one, go to another room, resume playing there - way cool. Tell it to record something on the other Replay, easy.
5) DVArchive (open source java program) - make your Replay(s) think your PC is a Replay, and stream/download shows to it. Even better, the PC can serve them back to the Replays. And you can burn the files to DVD's or VideoCD's.
6) Trivial to add larger drives to.
7) Great IPG, and Replay Zones are great (preset searches/lists of programs, like SciFi movies)
ReplayTV (or Tivo) will change the way you deal with TV. No doubt about it.
I'm going to suggest "mug". It seems to have gone unused since the 40's--"Hey, you mug!"--so we might as well dust it off. Plus, it suggests "Muggles".
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
I've noticed that now my wonderful employers can afford to buy stuff again they are doing exactly what they did when they could afford to buy stuff last time ( immediatley before they realised they were totally inefficient, burning money and with far too much "wastage in the middle management tier".
Yes they are once again spending an awful lot of money on, occasionally, very nice enterprise systems which they don't bother training anyone how to use ( or even finding out what it can or more often can't do beyond the shiny advertising which presumably causes them to buy this stuff )
Consequently all the main IT infrastructure in my company ( ironically enough a company which claims to advise or outsource IT know how for other less fortunate companies - victims ) are either very nice but only used up to around 5% of their potential usefullness or totally useless and forced on everyone to use for everything.
That turned into a rant. Sorry.
A. Someone has to RTFM
... you can do your average family's house for 1/3 of that maybe less... these are not geeks/audiophiles/experts we are talking about by definition... wal-mart and kmart grade stuff would do the job... or generic taiwanese stuff... come on people be realistic!
[what?]
As a geek who has set up AV and computer systems for 'average' family members, I've found that getting the thing working is by far the easy part.
It's when you say goodbye and leave the house that the problems start happining. Computer drivers become muddled. Wifi networks magically stop connecting. Stereo settings become off.
And you end up dreding answering your phone because you're going to have to do tech support.
To the average person, keeping a hi tech setup in good working order is difficult. (My stereo doesn't work. After hours of troubleshooting over the phone, you discover it's because they hit the 'a' speaker button while cleaning the recevier).
Keeping a computer system in top condition is even harder. "Of course I clicked on that attachment. It said it was from microsoft and it would clean the virus out of my computer".
The Internet is generally stupid
I look around my apartment and it would take a lot more than $15k to bring myself back up to speed, let alone a family.
Get them a decent DVD/CD writer and let them take the disc to WalMart to get quality pics. Probably cheaper too. IMHO.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Silly me. I assumed you meant a real computer, The IBM PS/2... Why would anyone ever need more than 1 Mb of memory and 20 Mb of hard disk?
I was bored this summer and bought like 4 or 5 low-end DVD players to see which really is the best and could play VCD/SVCD/XSVCD/wmv and my findings were in general, cheaper was better.
/rant off
My friend has an expensive Toshiba piece of crap which only plays SVCDs and barely at that, it doesn't even attempt to play any other format.
My parents thinking they were smart or something.. went out to get the cheapo APEX/MinTek and thought they'd get the next model up cause it looked better.. Turns out the processor is crappier and won't play any VCD/SVCD without major artifacts.
The latest to market cheapo has the latest asian low-end technology to bring cost down and end up playing more formats and doing a better job. Oh, and *SCREW* Sony if you want it to play anything other than DRM, special-branded media, licensed DVDs from your region.
I thought that myself. I hate Dell, every time I ask someone if they want me to build them a PC they say they've already ordered a Dell. I hate most name brand PC's to be honest.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
I seriously doubt the geekness of these guys.
I expected to see them wasting the 3 days in a vicious debate over which Linux distribution they would install on each of the family's new PCs.
Then over Window Managers, and then over retraining the family to use Mozilla, Konqueror, or Lynx.
Instead, they start by doing the sensible thing and getting them Powerbooks. Ok, not so bad here...
But then, they want to buy them a DELL?! And their second choice is an HP Pavillion?
What self-respecting team of geeks can't find a decent custom-built barebones, or put one together themselves, in 3 days with 15K? Or at least go for an Alienware or something like that if you want a "brand".
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
For 15k, buy @ least a 20" telescope with 0 chromatic aberration, and send granma a picture of the ring nebulae big enough for her to make a hat out of. Screw kiddie pictures!
Or how about we treat this like a project in the REAL world and grant 2.15 hrs billable from inception to implementation, give the geeks $500, a deadline that's already two weeks late, and wait for the miracles. It's sadistic as hell, but I actually prefer my projects this way. If it bombs, hey, tough shit, failure was imminent. If it works, you're a freakin' genius, and you ARE a genius, right? No pressure there bitch.
Agreed.
I know it's really DIFFICULT to find hardware that even the luddite can get a grip on.
One printer i've noted that seems to have the average user in mind is the HP psc 950, though this particular model is a few years old... I'm sure there is something newer that is equilivent. Among it's features are printer, scanner, fax, copier with nice buttons ontop that allow you to "scan" to "fax, printer and PC save". Easy peasy. Further, it takes smart memory / memory sticks, further more it prints out a proof sheat of your photos and to enlarge one you don't even need a PC. Just using a #2 pencil you fill in the bubbles on the proof sheet and it takes that input on the scan bed. While I see some advantages to having solid state removable media accesable on your PC... I find that this solution is far superior to the inexperenced user who pretty much wants hardcopy of their images without any fuss.
----
Home theater I setup for a family member who had the following plan in mind. They wanted DVD, replacment of their big ass speakers with small bookshelf varity to maximize on space, the ability to access their legacy media (vinyl, cassette, video tape), as well as reducing the size of the stack. All with the ease of pushing a button. To this end I went with a bargin bin solution offered by Circuit city. They had a Magnavox 5 disk home theater with smallish speakers and 5.1 sound. The important feature I was looking for was line level input and output as well as independent buttons for each fuction. What it lacks is video input for each fuction, which detracts from the intuitiveness of it. The existing amp cross wired into the tape input and output so the aux fuction would listen to whatever the old amp was listing to, which seemed to make the number of button pressing minimal. I also went with a simple radio shack switchbox which has one very important feature, not only does it accept svideo input, but will output both svideo and composite, making it ideal to pigtail to the vcr's input and record what ever you happen to be watching. (Note: recording something diffrent then what you are watching is an advanced concept). Also since I had a seperate amp, I set it up in a diffrent room, made a wire run and picked some jenson bookshelf speakers.
Thigns added... 5 disk DVD player, two bookshelf speakers, switchbox, 4 small speakers and subwoofer.
Things subtracted FM tuner, 4 large speakers.
-----
Ease of use....
Remote controls.... the stock digital cable remote doesn't control the sound levels, and it's common for the user to use the "wrong" remote to adjust the sound levels. There are three places to adjust the volume, the cable box, the TV, and dvd home theater amp. [not to speak of the aux amp with turntable and tapedeck]. In theory the next version of the Motorola cable box will come with a remote that handels the home theater. If I was doing this professionaly, i'd make sure to BUY a remote that supported all the above. For now, the instructions are clear, use the dvd remote for sound, use the Cable remote for channel.
Manual controls...
One thing important to people is a manual control for volume when they can't find the regular remote. This home theater unit has a traditional volume control.
Also, the whole system is dependent on the TV being on aux 1, and the VCR being on aux for recording and such. When ever anyone changes the station, the whole thing doesn't work and a phone call is needed. This would be resolved in a couple of ways
1. Have a menu option on the TV to disable the Turner and other unused inputs so people don't get confused.
2. Have a Home Theater amp that accepts video input so the buttons on the front that say "TV" will show you TV.
While the home theater offers 4 speakers and a sub... there really isn't an option like there is on other older amps to just output stereo to all 4 speakers. There is the prologic decoding that makes a valued judgement of what i
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
What happens when even the geeks can't get it work?
I think you answered your own question.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Geek Pride ??
What did the family really desire?
"Heistad grilled them on their tech needs--really, all they wanted to do was send digital pictures of the kids to Grandma."
"Because Jenny had gently suggested earlier that Mike sometimes gets lost in D.C., the geeks take some time to show him the Garmin GPS unit, which he can't help but compare with the Hertz Neverlost system. "
If they bothered to focus completely on that, they would have only gotten them digital cameras, PCs, GPS, and the DSL connection. What would you have suggested they do? Get them interactive Barney? Slushy machine?
Instead they focused on general improvement of their condition: big TV, music in every room, Tivo, etc..
In terms of "improvement" shows, you seem to think more along the lines of "Ask this Old House" where they go and fix 1 problem and only 1 problem. Whereas shows like "Queer Eye" try to improve on a bigger and more general view. Sure the guys will probably revert back into slobs, but unless people are willing to submit to psychological breakdown and brainwashing, it's up to them to step up and be held accountable for their own self-improvement.
$15000(??!) minus $199 for a Walmart Lindows PC = $Profit!
I'm going to Disneyland!
In fact, despite being "so pre-Clinton era" in the realm of home electronics, Mike seems to be a quick study. Finally, in a state of shock and awe, he says: "Hey! We're going to bypass the 1990s and jump straight into the new millennium!" "I can tell you're a wannabe tech guy," Larson says. "You're going to pick this all up pretty quick."
Well of course he is now that he has an excuse to buy all these cool gadgets the wife would never let him buy!
The qualifications of these "geeks" seems questionable. It sounds more like they had typical executives from technology companies (an IT executive at Time Inc., A former CTO, and an audio store owner) calling shots in their standard fashion:
1. Buy expensive things based on the brochures,
2. Yell when the standard lack any due diligence or research left them in a jam,
3. Demand a bonus for staying on the sinking ship! / Get the geeks to come up with a workable interim kludge. -- omitted
However, in this case, they didn't have actual geeks to pick up any slack. And, they also were forced to omit their core competency of writing memos "We are excited to announce the strategic alliance with $VENDOR! We will be rolling out $BROKEN_PRODUCT beginning next month!"
Excellent point. I agree that this was just a lark on Fortune's part. But I think it's also indicative of a larger fixation in American business and society at large.
People discuss computers in megahertz, but not ease of use. They talk about Java this and Java that without ever finding out exactly how Java is really going to provide any benefit beyond what their existing languages/apps/infrastructure/whatever are providing them. They look for the silver bullet when the answer isn't that easy.
Actually, Fortune isn't an exemplar of long-term thinking anyway. Although some of their columnists are pretty sharp, they tend to play up the latest trends and fads in investing and business, rather than focusing on what works over the long haul. But then, when public companies are only looking quarter to quarter in a frantic effort to placate shareholders, what should we expect?
OK, I'm getting way off topic. Time for me to find that old stash of Quaaludes...
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
...oohh...oohh, you know... oohh.
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The last page is where it gets real funny:
"Call tech support, bitch!"
If I heard the Fab 5 on the real Queer Eye saying that, I'd just die.
------
"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" --George W. Bush, in Jan. 2000
PC Load Letter
Paper Cartridge, Load Letter Sized paper
Heistad: "Call the guy [from customer service]! Say, 'This is really hard to understand! Can you please walk us through it?' "
..."
Ross: "But?you should really be able to
Heistad: "Call him, bitch!"
Ha hahaha. That's classic. I can just imagine this long haired chubby guy with red hair, glasses, and a goatee on the computer, saying that to a skinny short brown haired guy with freckles. hahaha
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Thats more of an insiteful comment than funny one.
An average family doesn't need half the stuff they were given to become a digital family.
Why were they given a full multimedia center? The Geeks themselves didn't really do enough research into what they were giving the family.
Would a family really need a GPS system? YahYahYah I know trips. Was that much of a home theatre necessary? Especially with the 4 year old and 2 year old, I have visions of sandwiches and peanut butter in the DVD player, kid prints on the plasma TV. Perhaps all that was needed was to run the current TV through a Stereo and add a DVD player, if one wasn't already there.
All the devices should have been working with a universal remote. It's not that hard to do a quick look to see what devices have compatibility issues with other devices.
To get this family to the digital age all that really needed to be done was install a new computer, a digital camera, DSL, and a photo quality printer. They were right on regulating a separate computer for the kids' games. Wireless is good, very good, but there can be signal crosses from fun things like cordless phones.
New Technologies are great and wonderful...for geeks. For the average user who just wants it to work, waiting for the second or third revision of a new product is probably the best bet.
'Pleasure is the Disease, Pain is the Cure' - Lilith
Why would anyone ever need more than 1 Mb of memory and 20 Mb of hard disk?
:-)
I see we wear the same model of digital wristwatch!
> "how to setup a wireless network"
That should be: "how to set up a wireless network"
"Setup", "login", "logout", "logon", "logout" are nouns.
"Set up", "log in", "log out", "log on", "log out" are verbs.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
The average user learns by doing, just like you did, you arrogant twit.
I'm sick of hearing how regular folk are just too dumb to use a computer like an elite genius such as yourself.
Must ... not ... feed ... the ... trolls ....
***failed***
Look, my opinions are the result of working with normal people trying to use their machines. They don't result from some ivory tower view of the world. Computers are HARD TO USE. Period. Most people find their computers baffling at least some of the time, and downright frustrating and impossible when things stop working.
And yes, the average user does learn by doing. But doing what? Most people get better and more experienced at using their systems by being able to ask someone for help when the proverbial hits the fan. If the family in question was not previously technical and they are given a computer as part of their high tech make-over, they will need help a lot in the first month, fairly regularly for the next 6 months and after that most things will be okay and fixable by themselves. If you are trying to introduce the family to computer games (which was the point of this thread if you hadn't noticed) why burden them with a bunch of system admin? They don't need the hassle.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
People Can't Manage Computer Industry Acronyms...
We could steal a word from science-fiction fandom: the opposite of a SF fan (or computer geek) is a "mundane"). If you want one syllable, it abbreviates to "'dane".
(Of course, this may not please actual Danes, so I had to link to one of their sites to appease them.)
The 17" MAG was for to mod into a fishtank. They got a 23" Apple Cinema display for the computer.
Sorry, but if geeks can't figure this one out, we all have no hope. I run mainstream services on Mac OS X ... and never did before Mac OS X, so you might consider me a newbie to the server admin arena.
BTW - I just had a meeting yesterday at a law firm whose computers could NOT print-out an Excel file for me, so I don't want to hear how easy MS OSes are to use.