Sure... I even do daily for certain reasons (don't ask). However, have you recentlyseen a 5 1/4 inch floppy? Worse, have you seen (if you even remember those, I do) a 8 inch floppy?
For a free Antivirus software go for AVG Anti-Virus. Free for non-commercial, non-networked use. It's what I install on people's machines when they are low on cash, and want to continue running Windows.
Ctrl-Alt-Delete brings up task manager on some systems
Only on 9x/ME systems. The taskmanager under NT/W2K/XP is Control-Shift-Esc. Ctrl-Alt-Delete is used for login on NT4 based system, but you can turn that on too for W2K and XP (I think for XP, no XP experience here). When logged in on NT4/W2K (again, no XP knowledge), offers a slew of choices including "Lock Machine" (default button, very useful), "Change Password" and "Shutdown/Logoff". I always found this the least intuitive place to put the "Change Password" option, but it's there.
Strange... I also work in a financial institution, and most "backroom stuff" is done directly with a terminal application connected to the big mainframe in the basement.
Yes, that application (the terminal program) is run under Windows, but I see no reason why this couldn't be done under Linux. After all the mainframes are usually IBM, and IBM could easily provide a client application for Linux.
This stuff is text-only... No additional fluff... Should be rather easy, even if the protocol is non-standard.
Yes, it is precisely why we need one. However, this country has so much power it is able to influence our poitics that we don't get one.
I want an EU army, a powerful army for my Union. I don't think we'll ever get one though. The big power doesn't want us to have one and such we will not.
Yes, it is two years old.... Do you think the international relations changed that much? If they changed, I don't think they would change in favour of an EU army.
As a Belgian, I know this... I am in favour of it even though I don't live in Belgium, France of German. There is another reason why it won't happen: international pressure .
You are forgetting that the British are the least European of all European countries. Try to find another example that fits better.
Hey, I hope that the EU finds a way to mobilize a military so that we finally get some respect, but I'm realistic and I know it won't happen.
I told that story to illustrate how people feel about military here. There risk of having a military conflict in the EU is about nihil these days. We found a way to keep peace without having to fight and I'm proud of that.
Remember the EU was founded on the principle "Never again a World War" (and no hunger either, that's why agriculture is so heavily subsidised)
I know one country that is very much opposed to a EU military. There were talks about such a military not so long ago: that country I meant was saying something along the lines like "you don't need a military, that's our job". Hint for you: this country was not a member of the EU.
The EU will never have a military for the cultural reasons I stated and because that other country sees it as a threath (read: international politics).
I know all this, but I didn't want to sound like flamebait for all the US citizens around here. There is one thing I disagree with and this the following:
The EU could (God forbid), be the biggest economic and military superpower the world has ever seen.
You have seem to forget that Europeans in general have deep hatred against anything that is "military" these days. I know that getting people in the military are despised and seen as "failures of society". They have to truly advertise a lot to even get new recruits, and usually they emphasise on the humanitarian tasks that military often does. The stance against "military people" in the US is very different: they are seen as heroes and patriots.
I recall that once a cousin of mine said the wanted to become a soldier (had a lot of trouble at school), several members of my family plainly said he wouldn't be welcome in their home if he did that. He didn't.
Also don't forget that one of our biggest member countries is by international law not allowed to have an offensive army, only a defensive.
All that together, I can assure you that the EU will never have a great military power.
Oh, well, seems we really want to get a mini-US. *sigh*. On the bright side, the french article mentions this:
Le parlement europeen etant colegislateur dans ce domaine qui releve du marche interieur, le texte doit maintenant etre examine par le Conseil des ministres, avant de revenir en seconde lecture a Strasbourg.
Freely translated: Because the European Parliament is a co-legislator in the domain that concerns the interior market, the text must now be examinated by the Counsel of Ministers, before it comes back for a second reading in Strasbourg.
I fear it is just a formality, but perhaps there is still some action to do... I donated money to FFII, in order to give at least a bit support.
You get upset very fast. Calling me an ass and such. Hey, I stayed polite. Can't you just return that courtesy?
The whole reason for this arugment was that you shouldn't be offering your expert critique of a piece of software if you can't even navigate a menu correctly.
I know very well how to navigate the menus, thank you very much. I don't have a problem with Word, and I disable all the stuff I don't like the first time I start it up on a new machine.
Thanks for the info. I didn't know *everything* was stored in normal.dot, including the menu structure and settings. Good thing to know.
(I looked for it in the most evident place on a W32 machine: the registry...)
And I just typed in how most people call the automatic spell checker, namely "Squiggly red line". It says indeed "Customize spelling and grammar checking", which is of course very obvious. *ahem* The help text associated with it is.
"To improve the accuracy and speed of a spelling and grammar check, you can set spelling and grammar options and use special dictionaries. For example, use a custom or supplemental dictionary to check words that the spelling checker doesn't recognize, such as technical terms or text in other languages. Or, use an exclude dictionary to specify preferred spellings for words."
No word about "automatic spell checking". From that screen it is just 2 clicks away, but you have to know you're looking for spell checking options in the first place.
No, I did not know that (I am by no means a Word expert). Have any pointers to that? It might prove extermely useful next time I have to do stuff like that.
You think it took me more time to find that out? (Heck, I know it by heart because it is the feature that most word users want turned of at once) She perhaps would have lost 30 minutes figuring it out.
Apart from that, did you consider that there are different language versions of Office? She was using a french version (she was at work) and at home she has an english version.
I had to support dial-up settings at an ISP for some time. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is when people ask support when you have an english version in front of you and the customer has a french or german version.
Then try doing it for pathological reports that are littered with terms that I don't even know what they are. (for your information: I don't post AC, but I agree with the AC that took the time to reply to you)
And that's why I only help people when they're looking for the help function
Then you don't help a lot of people, do you? Most people don't use the "Help" function.
I support people because I like to help them, and I know that they don't have the time to actually learn all the finesses of a certain software package. Besides, how would I have sounded when I'd have told her to sod off and click on clippy? Like an asshole. That's the last thing I want from my real life friends. Also, if I do that, the next time she has a problem -a real one, like the computer being infected by a virus or something (shouldn't happen, I made her buy AV software)- then she won't call me. That is the real danger in not helping people.
Well, I have personally never seen a normal user actually use the "help" feature of any application. It doesn't come in their mind. It is the same as people not reading their VCR manuals... or heck, even their car manuals.
Disinterested or lazy, at worst, but never stupid.
No, they want to get their work done... not going into the details of how the machine works. I have another little anecdote for you: I was once working at a bank as the boy that had to collect the papers from the "out" boxes. I noticed a certain broker was starting up his terminal emulation program every time by typing in a very long command line (this was in the DOS days). I walked over to him and said "just press F3 and then enter, you already have entered it before". He became mad at me and shouted something about "I don't want to know how this computer works, I want to enter my transaction". This is how users work, not like you and me work.
I wouldn't give vi to that friend of mine in the first place. I like vi for what it does best: editing configuration files on my unix machines.
These damned features are *hard* for normal people to turn off. You may think that it's easy as a seasoned computer user. Just yesterday a friend of mine called me on my cell, just to ask how she could turn off automatic spell checking in Word. She is not dumb at all, but for her this was a task that she could not do alone.
I had to support a bunch of secretaries when they started off with Word. They all had problems with the feature overload. These secretaries had to write pathological reports and their former system was text-only in a Novel network. Word for them was hell (and the support for me was hell too *grin*).
Never say that people are stupid because they don't know how to use computers. Otherwhise we are stupid for not being able to write reports at insane speeds.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure... I even do daily for certain reasons (don't ask). However, have you recentlyseen a 5 1/4 inch floppy? Worse, have you seen (if you even remember those, I do) a 8 inch floppy?
For a free Antivirus software go for AVG Anti-Virus. Free for non-commercial, non-networked use. It's what I install on people's machines when they are low on cash, and want to continue running Windows.
A SMB kernel? You mean with Samba enabled? ;-) You must have meant SMP.
Only on 9x/ME systems. The taskmanager under NT/W2K/XP is Control-Shift-Esc. Ctrl-Alt-Delete is used for login on NT4 based system, but you can turn that on too for W2K and XP (I think for XP, no XP experience here). When logged in on NT4/W2K (again, no XP knowledge), offers a slew of choices including "Lock Machine" (default button, very useful), "Change Password" and "Shutdown/Logoff". I always found this the least intuitive place to put the "Change Password" option, but it's there.
Yes, that application (the terminal program) is run under Windows, but I see no reason why this couldn't be done under Linux. After all the mainframes are usually IBM, and IBM could easily provide a client application for Linux.
This stuff is text-only... No additional fluff... Should be rather easy, even if the protocol is non-standard.
I want an EU army, a powerful army for my Union. I don't think we'll ever get one though. The big power doesn't want us to have one and such we will not.
Yes, it is two years old.... Do you think the international relations changed that much? If they changed, I don't think they would change in favour of an EU army.
As a Belgian, I know this... I am in favour of it even though I don't live in Belgium, France of German. There is another reason why it won't happen: international pressure .
You are forgetting that the British are the least European of all European countries. Try to find another example that fits better.
Hey, I hope that the EU finds a way to mobilize a military so that we finally get some respect, but I'm realistic and I know it won't happen.
I told that story to illustrate how people feel about military here. There risk of having a military conflict in the EU is about nihil these days. We found a way to keep peace without having to fight and I'm proud of that.
Remember the EU was founded on the principle "Never again a World War" (and no hunger either, that's why agriculture is so heavily subsidised)
The EU will never have a military for the cultural reasons I stated and because that other country sees it as a threath (read: international politics).
Slashdot removes accentuation. I don't know why. Even the é doesn't work
The EU could (God forbid), be the biggest economic and military superpower the world has ever seen.
You have seem to forget that Europeans in general have deep hatred against anything that is "military" these days. I know that getting people in the military are despised and seen as "failures of society". They have to truly advertise a lot to even get new recruits, and usually they emphasise on the humanitarian tasks that military often does. The stance against "military people" in the US is very different: they are seen as heroes and patriots.
I recall that once a cousin of mine said the wanted to become a soldier (had a lot of trouble at school), several members of my family plainly said he wouldn't be welcome in their home if he did that. He didn't.
Also don't forget that one of our biggest member countries is by international law not allowed to have an offensive army, only a defensive.
All that together, I can assure you that the EU will never have a great military power.
Le parlement europeen etant colegislateur dans ce domaine qui releve du marche interieur, le texte doit maintenant etre examine par le Conseil des ministres, avant de revenir en seconde lecture a Strasbourg.
Freely translated: Because the European Parliament is a co-legislator in the domain that concerns the interior market, the text must now be examinated by the Counsel of Ministers, before it comes back for a second reading in Strasbourg.
I fear it is just a formality, but perhaps there is still some action to do... I donated money to FFII, in order to give at least a bit support.
The whole reason for this arugment was that you shouldn't be offering your expert critique of a piece of software if you can't even navigate a menu correctly.
I know very well how to navigate the menus, thank you very much. I don't have a problem with Word, and I disable all the stuff I don't like the first time I start it up on a new machine.
Thanks for the info. I didn't know *everything* was stored in normal.dot, including the menu structure and settings. Good thing to know.
(I looked for it in the most evident place on a W32 machine: the registry...)
My argument would be bullshit if Office 97 did tell me what was going on, it didn't...
Calling them "dumb" is never a way to stay friendly with them.
The help text associated with it is.
"To improve the accuracy and speed of a spelling and grammar check, you can set spelling and grammar options and use special dictionaries. For example, use a custom or supplemental dictionary to check words that the spelling checker doesn't recognize, such as technical terms or text in other languages. Or, use an exclude dictionary to specify preferred spellings for words."
No word about "automatic spell checking". From that screen it is just 2 clicks away, but you have to know you're looking for spell checking options in the first place.
No, I did not know that (I am by no means a Word expert). Have any pointers to that? It might prove extermely useful next time I have to do stuff like that.
Apart from that, did you consider that there are different language versions of Office? She was using a french version (she was at work) and at home she has an english version.
I had to support dial-up settings at an ISP for some time. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is when people ask support when you have an english version in front of you and the customer has a french or german version.
Then try doing it for pathological reports that are littered with terms that I don't even know what they are. (for your information: I don't post AC, but I agree with the AC that took the time to reply to you)
Then you don't help a lot of people, do you? Most people don't use the "Help" function.
I support people because I like to help them, and I know that they don't have the time to actually learn all the finesses of a certain software package. Besides, how would I have sounded when I'd have told her to sod off and click on clippy? Like an asshole. That's the last thing I want from my real life friends. Also, if I do that, the next time she has a problem -a real one, like the computer being infected by a virus or something (shouldn't happen, I made her buy AV software)- then she won't call me. That is the real danger in not helping people.
Disinterested or lazy, at worst, but never stupid.
No, they want to get their work done... not going into the details of how the machine works. I have another little anecdote for you: I was once working at a bank as the boy that had to collect the papers from the "out" boxes. I noticed a certain broker was starting up his terminal emulation program every time by typing in a very long command line (this was in the DOS days). I walked over to him and said "just press F3 and then enter, you already have entered it before". He became mad at me and shouted something about "I don't want to know how this computer works, I want to enter my transaction". This is how users work, not like you and me work.
I wouldn't give vi to that friend of mine in the first place. I like vi for what it does best: editing configuration files on my unix machines.
These damned features are *hard* for normal people to turn off. You may think that it's easy as a seasoned computer user. Just yesterday a friend of mine called me on my cell, just to ask how she could turn off automatic spell checking in Word. She is not dumb at all, but for her this was a task that she could not do alone.
I had to support a bunch of secretaries when they started off with Word. They all had problems with the feature overload. These secretaries had to write pathological reports and their former system was text-only in a Novel network. Word for them was hell (and the support for me was hell too *grin*).
Never say that people are stupid because they don't know how to use computers. Otherwhise we are stupid for not being able to write reports at insane speeds.