One of the main problems with users are those who *want* to remain ignorant about things they perceive aren't worth the effort to learn, or use.
While working on a PC in the messenger department, I listened for about 10 minutes to the manager and another employee talk about sports. I was really impressed with their mastery of obscure baseball statistics, and the details of player's careers that were used to support their arguments.
Then for the 3rd or 4th time, I once again had to show him how to find the "print" menu item.
My Grandmother is another good example. At age 55 she went back to school and became a nurse, graduating 3rd in NY. Last time I offered to set up a computer and teach her how to use email and a simple word processor, she refused because she thought it would be "too complicated" so she wouldn't be able to understand it.
Then there are the users who simply don't read the messages that pop up when something does go wrong, even when the solution is in the message. Things like the user thinking the jaz disk he was copying to his drive was broken because he kept getting the "Drive out of space" error message, or DTP techs thinking the printer is broken when Adobe ATM puts up the "FONT not found" message.
The fax machine we used had the paper supply in a open, vertical feed tray. When you no longer saw the usual stack of paper sticking up out of the machine, it was time to add more. This was a bit too much for some people, so I taped a sign to the tray, so only when the last sheet was used, the sign would be visible. I still got the amusement of watching several people staring at the machine waiting for a fax to come out. After a few minutes I'd ask them to read aloud the sign, which was "If you just put more paper in you wouldn't be standing here waiting like an idiot"
Another example was in a simple program I made, which was used by a dozen DTP techs (whos *job* it was to know computers). Since there was one part that had the potential of the user making a typo, the error message gave very clear instructions on what to do. The 5th unsucessfull try resulted in a message that addressed the user by name, made a rude noise, told him to call for help, and did not have any buttons to dismiss the dialog box. It took less than a week before that feature was used, and the typo mysteriously disappeared when I was watching the user try it for the 6th time......
Basically, i think there is a case to be made for more user-unfriendly software. If the user is repeatetly doing something that can't be automagically fixed, rather than keeping him in a endless loop of: user goof --> error message and fix suggestion --> user ignoring it and hitting "ok"--> repeat same user goof the software should become unfriendly, and force the user to do something different, like actually read the error message.
There is also an issue of the software having the needed features, but the user hasn't been taught the skills on how to find things in a new program. Basic things like actually reading all the menu choices in a methodical way, or choosing the one labeled "help"
Market to both the geeks with a clue, and the newbies without. The ones in the middle will probably be buying a Dell
For the high end, have every little gizmo you can find, repackaged into small quantaties. Screws, ties, adaptors, fans, antistatic bags, drive sleds, etc. See http://www.startech.com/ and www.directron.com for ideas.
Keep a small stock of very high quality parts on hand, like gold cables from www.scsipro.com, kingston drive sleds, power supplies, online type ups, etc.
For the newbies, have an "out of the box experiance" set up, so they can, under your guidance, set up a system in the store. It's amazing how many people get paniced at the sight of an instruction sheet and loose cables. If they do it once, then chances are they will be able to do it again at home. Also, bundle all the manuals, disks, warrenty cards etc into a folder. Make up a general troubleshooting booklet, perhaps velcroing it to the case. This can avoid the "is it plugged in" questions. Another idea is making a presale video on "what to look at when buying your first computer" which you can lend out with a small deposite on the tape.
I've had a dot nu domain for a few years,with the redirection service. Since I orginally got it, they split off the redirection from the domain hosting, which has been very annoying having to renew with 2 different companies. Also their tools to update aren't too good. Up untill recently I haven't had a problem, but a few weeks ago it was down for the entire weekend. Since it costs $60 for 2 year minimum, PLUS additional for the redirection, I'm going to drop them in a year or so.
umm, do you consider less than 40 nationwide "a lot" ?
Re:Soviets were never really far ahead
on
Soviet Moon Rocket
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
>>Keep in mind that the US's Explorer went into orbit only a few months after Sputnik [nasa.gov]. Granted, Sputnik was more advanced [space.com], but the difference was mostly due to a lack of motivation on the part of the US.
Actually, the US *waited* for the USSR to launch a satallite first. This was part of the cold war, to let the USSR establish the precedent of allowing orbital overflight of any country. If we had gone first, they could have claimed we were violating their airspace just like we did with the U2.
I've used 2 Voyager 3100's with the fibre module.
Due to excessive server room heat, we did lose a drive, but data was fine. While it has Windows software to monitor it when connected via scsi, they didn't have anything for unix, so configs had to be done via telnet on its serial port.
from her site:
"Every scientist dreams of seducing people with the beauty and wonder of the natural world. But few take it as far as Lynda Williams - the Physics Chanteuse - who puts her microphone where her mouth is." --K.C. Cole, LA Times
The Physics Chanteuse is a cabaret-style musical act produced and performed by physicist and chanteuse Lynda Williams for scientists at conferences and meetings.
For each performance Ms. Williams researches the scientific topic and writes custom songs and repartee which are usually performed at the event's banquet. She has performed for scientists all over the world and has been featured in the NY Times, People Magazine and Good Morning America.
In the late '80s and early '90s The NY chapter of L-5 / Space Studies Institude / Space Frontier Society held meetings aboard the Intrepid Aircraft carrier / museum. (the chapter was founded by Rick Tumlinson of Mircorp)
Gil gave a talk on the findings of the Viking landers. He was very careful to *NOT* say there was life on Mars, but to just present the evidence.
His main points were:
- his experiment was positive for life both on Mars and with Antartic lichen
- another experiment was not positive on Mars, nor Antartica
- The final sciences reviews of the data was cancelled due to budget cuts. There is still unexamined data from Viking
- Stereoscopic pictures of the ground in front of Viking show brown rocks during the winter, and the same rocks as *GREENISH* and *ONE MM HIGHER* during the summer (I wonder if we can download them from NASA's website....)
I might have an audio tape of this if anyone is intrested.
After the talk we went out to dinner. What intrigued the women in the group more than life on Mars was that he was working on manufacturing left-handed sugar, which can't be absorbed by our right-handed body chemistry.
>>Technological heretics - anyone hear from Sir Clive Sinclair, lately? looks like he's had a good reason not to be playing with technology lately.... http://www.megastar.co.uk/megababes/19990707b_angi e.html Lovely Angie, 22, became romantically involved with the egg-head C5 and pocket calculator inventor back in 1998. The unlikely couple - she was a former £52,000-a-year lap dancer, he was one of Britain's most eminent brains - hit the headlines when they declared their love for each other, despite a 36-year age gap.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the main problems with users are those who *want* to remain ignorant about things they perceive aren't worth the effort to learn, or use.
While working on a PC in the messenger department, I listened for about 10 minutes to the manager and another employee talk about sports. I was really impressed with their mastery of obscure baseball statistics, and the details of player's careers that were used to support their arguments.
Then for the 3rd or 4th time, I once again had to show him how to find the "print" menu item.
My Grandmother is another good example. At age 55 she went back to school and became a nurse, graduating 3rd in NY. Last time I offered to set up a computer and teach her how to use email and a simple word processor, she refused because she thought it would be "too complicated" so she wouldn't be able to understand it.
Then there are the users who simply don't read the messages that pop up when something does go wrong, even when the solution is in the message. Things like the user thinking the jaz disk he was copying to his drive was broken because he kept getting the "Drive out of space" error message, or DTP techs thinking the printer is broken when Adobe ATM puts up the "FONT not found" message.
The fax machine we used had the paper supply in a open, vertical feed tray. When you no longer saw the usual stack of paper sticking up out of the machine, it was time to add more. This was a bit too much for some people, so I taped a sign to the tray, so only when the last sheet was used, the sign would be visible. I still got the amusement of watching several people staring at the machine waiting for a fax to come out. After a few minutes I'd ask them to read aloud the sign, which was "If you just put more paper in you wouldn't be standing here waiting like an idiot"
Another example was in a simple program I made, which was used by a dozen DTP techs (whos *job* it was to know computers). Since there was one part that had the potential of the user making a typo, the error message gave very clear instructions on what to do. The 5th unsucessfull try resulted in a message that addressed the user by name, made a rude noise, told him to call for help, and did not have any buttons to dismiss the dialog box. It took less than a week before that feature was used, and the typo mysteriously disappeared when I was watching the user try it for the 6th time......
Basically, i think there is a case to be made for more user-unfriendly software. If the user is repeatetly doing something that can't be automagically fixed, rather than keeping him in a endless loop of:
user goof --> error message and fix suggestion --> user ignoring it and hitting "ok"--> repeat same user goof
the software should become unfriendly, and force the user to do something different, like actually read the error message.
There is also an issue of the software having the needed features, but the user hasn't been taught the skills on how to find things in a new program. Basic things like actually reading all the menu choices in a methodical way, or choosing the one labeled "help"
Market to both the geeks with a clue, and the newbies without. The ones in the middle will probably be buying a Dell
For the high end, have every little gizmo you can find, repackaged into small quantaties. Screws, ties, adaptors, fans, antistatic bags, drive sleds, etc. See http://www.startech.com/ and www.directron.com for ideas.
Keep a small stock of very high quality parts on hand, like gold cables from www.scsipro.com, kingston drive sleds, power supplies, online type ups, etc.
For the newbies, have an "out of the box experiance" set up, so they can, under your guidance, set up a system in the store. It's amazing how many people get paniced at the sight of an instruction sheet and loose cables. If they do it once, then chances are they will be able to do it again at home. Also, bundle all the manuals, disks, warrenty cards etc into a folder. Make up a general troubleshooting booklet, perhaps velcroing it to the case. This can avoid the "is it plugged in" questions.
Another idea is making a presale video on "what to look at when buying your first computer" which you can lend out with a small deposite on the tape.
I've had a dot nu domain for a few years,with the redirection service. Since I orginally got it, they split off the redirection from the domain hosting, which has been very annoying having to renew with 2 different companies. Also their tools to update aren't too good. Up untill recently I haven't had a problem, but a few weeks ago it was down for the entire weekend.
Since it costs $60 for 2 year minimum, PLUS additional for the redirection, I'm going to drop them in a year or so.
umm, do you consider less than 40 nationwide "a lot" ?
>>Keep in mind that the US's Explorer went into orbit only a few months after Sputnik [nasa.gov]. Granted, Sputnik was more advanced [space.com], but the difference was mostly due to a lack of motivation on the part of the US.
Actually, the US *waited* for the USSR to launch a satallite first. This was part of the cold war, to let the USSR establish the precedent of allowing orbital overflight of any country. If we had gone first, they could have claimed we were violating their airspace just like we did with the U2.
I've used 2 Voyager 3100's with the fibre module.
Due to excessive server room heat, we did lose a drive, but data was fine. While it has Windows software to monitor it when connected via scsi, they didn't have anything for unix, so configs had to be done via telnet on its serial port.
http://www.villagestreetwear.com/heelshredrol.html
They're called "healies"
Ventura is still being used, for example Standard and Poors uses it to publish financial data where a single table can span hundreds of pages.
from her site:
"Every scientist dreams of seducing people with the beauty and wonder of the natural world. But few take it as far as Lynda Williams - the Physics Chanteuse - who puts her microphone where her mouth is." --K.C. Cole, LA Times
The Physics Chanteuse is a cabaret-style musical act produced and performed by physicist and chanteuse Lynda Williams for scientists at conferences and meetings. For each performance Ms. Williams researches the scientific topic and writes custom songs and repartee which are usually performed at the event's banquet. She has performed for scientists all over the world and has been featured in the NY Times, People Magazine and Good Morning America.
With Raid5 a single drive can fail without causing dataloss.
How do you know WHEN a drive has failed?
With the low end IDE RAID cards your notification comes when the 2nd drive fails......
3Ware's website describes a SNMP monitoring utility for windows, but didn't specifically mention Linux support. Ditto for Adaptec.
If the raid is done in software, is there a linux program to monitor and notify when a single drive goes down?
http://www.tinaja.com/books/bkdons.asp
Don Lancaster's books, especially the cookbooks, are a great place to start.
also, check out the hobbyist magazines such as
http://www.circuitcellar.com/
http://www.gernsback.com/
www.directron.com
hardtofindparts.com
>>I'm not sure why they didn't go ahead and design the next generation of space suits around this concept
the short answer:
testicles
The material was lycra.
for most of the body it worked fine, but one area tended to painfully swell.
G. Harry Stine had an article on the suit in Analog magazine.
In the late '80s and early '90s The NY chapter of L-5 / Space Studies Institude / Space Frontier Society held meetings aboard the Intrepid Aircraft carrier / museum. (the chapter was founded by Rick Tumlinson of Mircorp)
Gil gave a talk on the findings of the Viking landers. He was very careful to *NOT* say there was life on Mars, but to just present the evidence.
His main points were:
- his experiment was positive for life both on Mars and with Antartic lichen
- another experiment was not positive on Mars, nor Antartica
- The final sciences reviews of the data was cancelled due to budget cuts. There is still unexamined data from Viking
- Stereoscopic pictures of the ground in front of Viking show brown rocks during the winter, and the same rocks as *GREENISH* and *ONE MM HIGHER* during the summer (I wonder if we can download them from NASA's website....)
I might have an audio tape of this if anyone is intrested.
After the talk we went out to dinner. What intrigued the women in the group more than life on Mars was that he was working on manufacturing left-handed sugar, which can't be absorbed by our right-handed body chemistry.
>>Technological heretics - anyone hear from Sir Clive Sinclair, lately? looks like he's had a good reason not to be playing with technology lately.... http://www.megastar.co.uk/megababes/19990707b_angi e.html Lovely Angie, 22, became romantically involved with the egg-head C5 and pocket calculator inventor back in 1998. The unlikely couple - she was a former £52,000-a-year lap dancer, he was one of Britain's most eminent brains - hit the headlines when they declared their love for each other, despite a 36-year age gap.