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What Should People Understand About Computers?
counterexample asks: "It seems to me that there aren't very many good books out there that explain to the layman what is really going on with computers. My mother cannot go to the bookstore and pick up a book that will make her understand the strange language that we IT people speak, or why her computer would be susceptible to a virus. So, I intend to write such a book. I have a fair idea of what should be in it (history of the Internet, how computers talk to each other, what a hard drive does, etc.), but I'm interested to see what you all have to say. What do you wish your users knew? What kind of questions are you so sick of answering because you hear them every week? What does the general public think they understand, but really don't?"
How about... Norton internet security and Mcafee will cause them more problems then they fix. Windows XP firewall and a free virus checker like AVG will save them a lot of grief. A good spyware program (how I wish pack.google.com did not include norton) like ad-aware or spybot and how to use it, anyone offering you a million pounds over email are scammers.
Stop using the web for free porn and crack sites (mostly if using ie) firefox and thunderbird replace the normal xp offerings well. You don't need a computer that is all singing and dancing just to use word and msn, or just buy a mac.
Buying a centrino laptop doesn't give you magic access to the internet (legally), stop plugging in usb stuff without the drivers first; erm, and the cdrom is not a damn cup holder!
use linux, openoffice ect...
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
But I was thinking about how such a book should be structured. It occurs to me that there's a lot of stuff that a person might like to know but might not need to know. And so I'm thinking the book should begin with an explanation of what's right in front of them. What each object on their desk does, how they relate to eachother, and the basics of how to interact with all of them.
Then from there, the next sections would go one step beyond that. So the first part would be to talk about what the computer is, then the second part would talk about how memory works, etc. So at any point if the person gets spooked by any of it they can just stop where they are and have a good amount of knowledge. Make it easy for it to be a gentle progression.
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I went to a comuter show and someoen was selling new computers with a windows XP coperate edition and a cracked version of go back for the restore disk. They said the corp edition allowed them to test and evaluate the computer (demonstrational purposes).
I started asking them about the computers and the sales lady though I was some average user who thinks it all smoke and magic inside the box. She was saying the cpu (computer itself) had a a gforce4 proccesor 80 gig of memory a 10-100k modem and they could UPLOAD Windows Office (?WinXP?) onto it for an extra $25.
People have actualy taken the public's misunderstanding of computers and turned it into a selling point. Chances are, people call things the wrong way because it was presented to them by someone trying to scam them. I remember taking a computer to the shop to get a cdrom replaced once when I didn't have the time. The tech told me it needed a "plug and play card" because it is the reason the old cdrom quit (not because I spilled coffee (or beer) on it when I droped a cup.). I ended up spending $40 just to get my systems back and install a CDrom from somewere else myself.
Frankly, I am more and more coming to this point of view, as far as users are concerned. Let them think the tiny god could become angry with them if they browse the wrong folders, or tamper with the holy configurations.
You can't teach them enough to be fully competent. If you teach them a little, you just make them dangerous, able to screw up on a much more profound level.
Solution? Teach them as little as possible.
This goes against my grain. I love teaching people things. But whenever I show someone how to do something, inevitably, destruction ensues.
How many user problems arise from them trying to install software? Solution: make it so they can't install software. Give them access to system files? Not if you don't want them to throw them away later, out of boredom. Let them configure their own apps? Are you out of your MIND?
I used to work in my university computer lab. When you logged into a computer, it would build your system profile for you, from stored settings (not thin client, mind you, it pulled down everything you needed and wrote it on the local harddrive). Applications were served from central servers. Files were saved in your serverside directory.
When you logged off, it went through and ran a cleanup app that expunged every trace of your presence, checked all the system files, and replaced any that had been modified in ANY WAY. Five minutes later, a perfectly clean machine was ready for another user. The only real problem we had with it was that it was rough as hell on the harddrive, so the replacement rate was pretty high.
Every place I've worked since then, I've longed for that level of control. No viruses, no wierd errors. Worst case scenario, you replace the harddrive and run a build script.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Analogies in general work well.
True story: I was in a major computer store when a perplexed looking man, probably about 60, asked me if I knew anything about the USB keys they had. He wanted to store some letters on it (probably saved from Word.. didn't ask), and his outlook contacts list.
I started with 'well a 16mb is cheap and will do what you need I think' but he looked perplexed.. time for an analogy. '1 megabyte is about 1 floppy, so 16 megabytes is 16 floppies'. It was like watching a light switch on - the analogy had allowed him to make the connection between something he knew (floppy disks) to something he didn't know (what a megabyte was). His next question was, 'ah, so that one is the size of 256 floppies'.. and he was well on his way to making an intelligent buying choice.