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Wasting Time Fixing Computers
An anonymous reader writes "Interesting experiment by Marshall Brain, where he tracked every time-wasting error, repair, annoyance on his home network for one month. He logs 11 hours and 20 minutes of crap, everything from driver problems to forced upgrades, spam overflows... you name it. Anyone on /. is experiencing the same thing. Is it going to get better or worse in 2004, and how much time are we all wasting?"
in my opinion it will get worse, as my machine gets older and filled with more junk i fear more time wasting errors will occur....and it does'nt look like M$ are doing alot to stop it.
world's biggest red bull drinker
I simply don't have the time. It's quite surprising too, how much antagonism I get from family members that I, who Knows Computer Stuff, won't come around for an evening to just fix a few little things. A third of the time it's a "little thing" that can be lived with, another third it's a little thing that can be fixed quickly, but the last third it's a little thing that requires much effort, much time, and occasionally a little money to fix. There's only so much Fixing Stuff I can get to do, and only so much 'training' people on the correct ways to use a computer and fix it themselves (yes thats the ideal solution, but it doesn't just take a 10 minute rundown to get that working in practice)
My sisters, my brother, my mother, stepfather, father, aunt, two uncles, a few cousins and about six friends all see me as "the computer guy" and call on me to fix things.
Do you people who know car mechanics intimately get the same kind of fixit requests from family? damn that'd shit me. Maybe I should go become an expert in astrophysics or some other shit my family don't do
But I think that time spent restoring a computer to its formerly working state isn't so much wasted as annoying. Because you're going to waste a lot more time if your computer isn't usable.
Seriously, the downtime plague has gotten better in the past few years. Even Microsoft software is more stable than in the past (gasp!), and switching my personal laptop to an iBook running OS X has made reboots a lot less frequent (although I still have to force quit an app once or twice a week, Apple doesn't go completely blameless here).
All in all, out of the 43,200 minutes in a month w/ 30 days, we're talking about a 1.6% rate of unavailabilty. And no doubt, that's unacceptable, but I bet as far as home computers go, that number is as good as it's ever been.
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How could it be classed as 'wasted'? Its a necessary fix. Would you class filling your car as wasted time, or making lunch as wasted time? I think the article is a bit redundant personally. Its just nullified my entire job by saying all I do is a waste of time.
And Linux isn't the answer to all our prayers. It will work 100% out of the box, only if you install it on supported hardware, otherwise its a few hours finding an obscure patch to make things work. I spent a good few days trying to coax FreeBSD into running UDMA modes on its IDE controllers only to find out its not supported with the controller on the board. That's not 'wasted' time though. It was investigation to find the problem was mine - my fault for buying a cheap board. The only things I'd class as wasted time would be waiting for a bus that never came or waiting for a render which you knew wasn't going to work.
Using Outlook and IE makes me wonder if this fellow is one of those who thinks IE "is the internet". Hm.
Personally, I feel that a good bit of this waste and vulnerability is caused by Microsoft.
Uhm.. sure. The latest version of their operating system is stable enough for most things. Around 50% of explorer crashes on XP are due to misconfiguration or user error.
Microsoft could build a bullet-proof OS, solve the virus problem completely, etc. But it chooses not to do that and, at least for now, seems to be largely immune to liability for all of these problems.
So stop using admin logons for everyday things. Most of the problems with spyware, malware, etc will disappear.Would you check your email or do anything else that is not admin work on linux as root? Of course not. When you have administrative priveledges on NT you can do lots of nasty things to your computer without difficulty. This means that any applications you run can do the same, since they are run with your access priveledges.
How is fixing your computer wasting time? If anything your computer lets you do things a hell of a lot faster than if you had to do it with a calculator or god forbid in with a paper anc pencil. Computers do have errors now and then and like all things occasionally break down, unless someone designs a crashproof bugproof computer, that will do all tasks you need it to do (internet, e-mail, word processing, whatnot). Its an unavoidable existence.
That is like saying eating is a waste of time because it prevents me from doing things I need to do. Whereas in reality, logic would show you it is what allows you to do things you do.
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
My dad the welder taught me not to let family take advantage. If you do something for a living it means you bill for your time. You might have a 'family rate' but you still bill. He does make exceptions but in general he has a an hourly rate he charges for welding. He has also paid me for any tech work I've done for him.
Ok, looking through the log there are a minimum of three computers. His computer, Mom's computer and the kids' computer.
Of the 11 hours and 20 minutes, he includes 30 minutes of a cable blackout. Now unless Bill Gates went over to the cable company and snipped some wires, that's hardly a Microsoft problem. It isn't a tv or light fixture problem if the electricity goes out, so I wouldn't call it a computer problem if the internet provider is down.
We're now down to 10:50:00.
He spent 5 minutes helping a friend with Word problems, 10:45:00.
That takes the time spent *per computer* down to 3:36 and a few seconds per month.
Of the remaining problems, a very small amount of user education can take care of a large chunk of the time. Let's start with Windows updates. 6 clicks automates this whole process and you get all the critical updates you need to stop the next worm. He devoted 1:20 minutes that he never should have to that problem. That takes the total time down to 9:25, or approx. 3:08 per computer. While this is a problem, the fix takes literally 10 seconds and from then on you spend no time keeping your computer up to date. It just happens automatically. I think this may even be turned on by default in XP now, but I could be wrong.
I've seen a lot of posts that didn't read the article and just started bashing MS and Windows. Of the remaining problems, a couple were from third party software. In fact, he even counts the time spent consoling his child when a game doesn't work as part of the computer problem time. While there are few things as sad as a Christmas toy that won't work on Christmas day, it simply isn't fair to allocate that time to the computer.
So we're down to about 3:05 per computer over the course of a month. This includes what is probably a one time event -- the 4 hours spent determining that motherboard drivers were needed and installing them. If this is a one time event, then the per computer time drops to 1:45 per month. Because this is such a limited time frame, it is unknown whether the average time spent per month is closer to 3 hours or 1 3/4 hours.
Yes, there are plenty of things wrong with Windows, Linux, OSX, and computer hardware and software in general. But this is not the article to use to get an accurate picture of how much time is wasted on poor design, bad programming, and out right errors.
....I have a Mac
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Many of these problems he describes seem to come from the use of IE where better alternatives exist.
And of course, we who are in the know about alternatives to Microsoft's products could holler and rant forever about our preferred alternatives. That would not keep Marshall Brain or anyone else of his fellow power users from wasting time as he has just documented.
The problem isnt just a debate of MS or alternatives, it is rather that a lot of people expect their computers and internet connections to function about as reliably as any other comparable appliances. And MS and all the others are failing miserably in that regard.
His remarks about having to wade through kilobytes of EULAs are spot-on. Nobody requires you to read and accept a one-sided document like that when you buy a new oil filter or new tires for your car, why should an equivalent fix for some utility software have to be radically different? Many of these exclusive-rights software are things that it doesn't make much sense to copy and distribute, I mean, is there anyone that even would care about warez-sites offering "printer driverz", considering that they're rather worthless without the actual printer?
Really, the state of computers today bear strong similarities to what cars were back in the early 20th century. The difficulties with reliability, the need for frequent maintenance, and the requirements of the operators were a lot bigger than they are today. A driver had to be a fairly competent mechanic as well; similarly, people using computers can still not get anywhere close to optimal use from them without the knowledge about how to fix the internals.
Thus, like many of the above posters note, we who know more about computers than our friends get requests from them to fix theirs, as the ones that don't know how to fix their computers ask someone they know that does. The point remains that all this need for fixing and maintenance is indicative of a more fundamental flaw.
It is time to try and move forward, from the present-day sorry state of affairs. Abandoning certain flawed designs would be a good place to begin.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
"how much time a average computer joe spends installing, configuring, tweaking, a linux distro"
Simple - 0 hours. Average Joes don't install Linux - they either give up, get a friend to help or they aren't average..
I do tech support for my extended family as well. Most of them (cousins, in-laws, friends of family, etc) offer to pay me when I spend some time fixing them up. I almost always refuse, but the fact that they recognize the value of my services is appreciated.
As for immediate family... parents, brother... nah, they get free tech support. Part of the reason I'm So Darn Smart is that my parents brought me up that way, and bought encyclopedias when I was young, and helped me with my homework and drove me to computer club and helped pay for college and and and and and and and....
I figure I could do 2 hours of tech support every day for the rest of my life and still not pay them back.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
Just for some background, I work in corporate IT, and generally end up doing things nobody else can do. So I spend a lot of time on the phone and internet with vendor support.
If you have a catch-all service like on-site, use it! Dont let them push the problem back at you.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
>I use bayesian spam-filtering to cut down on time waisted by spam
And how is that linked to Windows?
I'm using Mozilla on Windows and it has a spam-filtering tool too..
>Sometimes I have even been known to forget about several systems because they just work.
Well for client work, Windows XP works pretty well too..
Yes, you have to do security update quite often, but this is true for Linux too..
If you forget some system without updating you may end up with having your server rooted, currently it is less likely than with Windows but only because Linux market share is much lower than Windows..
Recent security problems on Linux servers have shown that hackers are targetting more and more Linux, which is quite logical: as Linux usage grows, the cracker's threat will grow for unpatched Linux servers..
There are certain family members that I don't support anymore. Mostly because 'Could you take a quick look at my computer? The scanner isn't working' turns into a 8 hour tarbaby reinstall of windows 98 se because they can't POSSIBLY upgrade to anything newer RIGHT now with business being the way it is. This is the computer that you told them NOT to buy because, while it _is_ 5% faster and $100 cheaper than the computer you TOLD them to buy, it's made with crap components with non-existant drivers. (the fact that it also has three virus checkers, three 'system performance enhancers', and four pieces of hardware from companies that no longer exist notwithstanding.)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Repair #3 -- summary: Windows XP security updates -- time spent: 1 hour
Repair #4 -- summary: Another Windows XP security update -- time spent: 20 minutes
Repair #5 -- summary: Microsoft Outlook crashes about once a week, but cannot update it -- time spent (in December): 1 hour
Repair #9 -- summary: Random application crashes that we all experience -- time spent in a typical month recovering from them: 30 minutes
Repair #21 -- summary: Time Warner Internet blackout -- time spent: 30 minutes (blackout lasted 8 hours)So there are some other ones (like his PC-cilin problems, the CNET download manager, etc) which were really problems caused by neglecting his PC (rather than doing 'routine maintenence' and resolving issues before they become problems). But the case is, in the examples cited above, he 'spent' 3 hours and twenty minutes doing things which either are/ can be automated, or else werent really 'fixed' by him (like the blackout! was he out there helping Time Warner get things resolved? No? Then what exactly did he do during that half hour?)
Well, he made the page at Slashdot, so I guess his sensationalism worked. But if this guy were a consultant, I would accuse him of padding his bill, big time.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
This is not all Microsoft fault. It is just a process of having a hodgepodge of different computer equipment, mixed together. If he settled on all the same type of equipment then the issues will be reduced. Still if there was linux or an OS with actual security features then the ordinary family member will not have the ability to mess-up anything that screws up the computer (Hence not run as root). But it is also an issue of people and education officials afraid to teaching people to be computer literate (Using Word and Excel and IE IS NOT COMPUTER LITERATE)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Everything's now driven by a DNS server and DHCP server which does all the configuration of network information centrally. Cool, but it took a while to realise it could work and how to do it. I have an OpenBSD NAT box that does the PPPoE to Earthlink - which is nice, but that took a while to get going too, and I've wasted a fair amount of time trying to fix problems due to Earthlink's vendor network here reimplementing PPPoE and screwing it up. I have various servers so that I can keep most of my files centrally located and back-upable, but that took time to do and still isn't finished. And I'm not counting my anti-spam system which I've had in place in one way or another since the late-nineties.
And then there's the frequent experience of wanting to play with something and discovering I just don't have "just the right" hardware to get it going, or to get it going in a usable configuration. AROS, NextStep, Darwin, Solaris 8, all bombed on my machines here.
Or alternatively there's the things that do "just work" in the Windows world that never quite do in the Unix world because of dependencies and other nasties.
On the other hand, I reinstalled Windows 98 for a friend yesterday. We formatted, went through the installation, removed disks like it said, and ended up with a system that demanded we supply drivers and DLLs - but wouldn't let us - every time you tried to boot up, with it bluescreening after a little use. We tried again, this time never taking the CD out of the CD drive (which we'd done before when it had told us to "remove all disks", something it hadn't explictly complained about but I had a hunch was the problem: we probably wouldn't have bothered but the PC was configured to boot from a bootable CD if there was one so it was easier to remove it when Windows Setup told us to.) and it worked - except no soundcard, no modem, and VGA graphics. Remind me, isn't it Linux that you can never get drivers for? We will not even know which drivers to download until I attack that box with a screwdriver.
I think you end up wasting time at a higher level with the better operating systems. This probably says something.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I run far more apps than the typical Mac OS X user, and I can guarantee that your father's Mac was not forced to do three or four updates/patches per day. Either one of you is lying or else it's an exaggeration to try to support a position.
I just checked my software update log, and I received a TOTAL of seven updates for the month through the Mac OS X software update system, the last one of which was on Dec. 19. If you want us to believe what you're saying about your father's system, show us the update log. But you won't do it, because that number of updates just don't exist.
Tweaking != Fixing.
I may tweak my desktop to look better, write backup scripts, and screw around with software RAID for 1000 hours a month, but that's not the same as making a computer work or dealing with driver issues, etc.