i'm a tech, and I have to treat the customers as dumb..
Well treating people as dumb isn't necessarily the answer. I think putting it in terms people can understand is probably a better idea - and fortunately I have a knack for analogies. If you refer to DNS as something like a phone book, and networking settings as how the computers "talk to each other" you'll find users are much more receptive then if you simply verbally berate a user, fix their problem and mysteriously leave.
Now that has it's own issues in that some users INSIST on the technical explanation. Just last week one user wanted to know why the network neighborhood didn't work and want the "real explanation" so I went on and on about SMB networking and how there was a weird occurrence with the elections, and none of the computers seemed to be acting as a local browse master and sending the list to the wins server, etc. After that they promptly shut up.
What you had however was someone who thinks they're technically oriented (which they may be) but isn't so great with computers. My boss once worked for IBM, and DEC, and I swear he's messed up more stuff than anyone else where I work. In that case just fix the problem, blame a "bug" and leave.
"Hmm.. the static IP netmask seems to have changed a 255 to a 225... must be a windows bug or something":)
I have to agree. I find most problems are due to both users who don't know what they're doing, and tech support who doesn't know what their doing. You'll find that if either end is knowlegable and the other end willing to cooperate then problems are usually very easy to resolve.
I recall calling my (at the time) domain hosting place and asking tech support what my SMTP server was supposed to be.
Support: "Um... lets see, if I go if you go into outlook" Me: I don't use outlook Support: How can you not use outlook? Me: uhhh.... [idea] Okay, I'm using outlook, what's my SMTP setting? Support: maybe it's in this menu. no, maybe this one? you wanted the SPT setting? Me: nevermind
I just ended up just routing my mail through formail.pl that was laying around on their server until I switched provides 2 days later. But you know, out of the 4 settings you need to configure email - of which SMTP is one, they could at least write that crap down on a post-it note!
thinking you need to be an 'expert' to use text commands
I think part of that comes from the high inital learning curve. I remember the first time I saw someone typing stuff on the command line and thinking, "how in the hell does he know what to type?". We aren't inherently born with this skill. The unintuitive program names in Linux only makes this worse. So I guess that sort of depends on the definition of "expert" relative to the person in question.
As for mindless pointing and clicking, I think that has a sad ammount of truth behind it. The command line suffers more because it requires thought and experience in using a computer, while a windows GUI is just a point and click nightmare that people navigate through like they're in a fog.
win r - show run dialog win e - open internet explorer win d - minimize / restore all windows win f - open find box win l - lock computer (xp only) win break - open system properties
I found a nice BS keyboard once, but unfortunatly no windows key, and I go insane if I can't use the run dialog box with a keystroke since I use it so much. Eventually I got a new BS keyboard that did have one so I'm rather happy now. Mapping this in a similar way in KDE is also pretty easy.
And once you remap your caps lock to a control key, you're ready to rock.
Well here's an interesting thought. What if Novell develops Evolution into a totally awsome product but still gives it away for free. Novell then manages to develop the "Exchange killer" on Linux that the OS world has been spinning it's weels on for ages.
Now because it's Linux underneath you could just have a drop in sort of mail server like exchange. It could integrate nice with Novell stuff - but plays nice with OS technology. If they developed a plugin for MS outlook, they could be a very serious player in the groupware market.
Red Hat has a nice update system from an administrators standpoint, not neccesarily a users standpoint.
Apple has a nice interface in that it's easy to use, and can happen automatically. Information is generally not very... informative. It's well integrated with the OS in the control panel where you would expect it.
MS has a decent interface that's based off of "windows update" which is traditionally just a website. The con to this is that you must use IE, and if IE is broken you're hosed. One plus of windows update is that you can make a nice snapin with MMC - nice for people who just group a heap of the usual stuff together in one console. Information on updates is generally pretty good.
--
Now Red Hat has a much different approach if you go with the Red Hat network - Pay for the service, or pay for the OS is essentially the same. [Note that I only use the command line version of up2date.] The system is nice in that you can easily automate it. "You can do that in windows" you say, "It'll destroy some package" you say (well maybe) - but with up2date you can specify what packages are installed, and what is ignored - so you can skip over packages that you want to oversee updates and do yourself. That's pretty much not possible with Microsoft because... well they never give you a list of the possible stuff they would update.
Also convenient in that you can have servers check in and see if they should update themselves. You can be away on vacation and just check the RHN website and tell server X to update something. You can also choose not to have a server check in by just killing the daemon - a nice choice. Due to the fact that redhat does server profiling (and tells you about it and lets you see it) you can see what servers are oudated, the serverety of the problem, and it's qute verbose about what the problem is. Also nice that the emails about problems tell you about what servers are affected.
Now I wouldn't put grandma on RHN to update 40 servers, but I'm not too keen on using MS or Apple for 40 user computers either. They just have different orientations.
Wouldn't that bias the discussions towards technically oriented people? I know a lot of rather smart people that become total idiots when at a computer. There are many people who are quite knowledgeable in many areas like history, music and so forth that would have a lot to contribute - do we really want to weed these people out as well? I'm not saying it's right or wrong but it's certainly something to consider.
I think probably the only real way to clean crap out of a truly open system is to do something similar to slashdot - with a sort of moderation system. While many (myself included) wonder if the moderators are on crack at times, it actually seems to work quite well, and is even better policed with meta-moderation
"I'm a real Linux user because I don't use Redhat or Mandrake"
I think that additude is more because those distro's tend to hide a lot of the fundamental parts of really administering a Linux box. Mainly because there seems to be a growing ammount of people who can use Linux, and perhaps even get around okay, but have never even compiled/installed from source before.
In some ways it is an elitist additude, and in some ways it's sort of a valid concern. It's also a problem because there's a lot of nice software out there with no binary form (rssh as one example). Not that it's hard to check an MD5, and read a readme file - but some have never done it and you wonder what other areas they're probably lacking in understanding as well. Like a windows admin who's never used regedit - using it may not be neccesary on a regular basis, but not knowing how to use it is probably shifty at best.
Installing Linux on their own is a bit much. My dreams are really simple - like I just have this button that shocks people and they just magicly get a clue - like why sending a 5 meg bitmap to a guy who accesses his email through a 28.8 modem is a dumb idea.
Actually in all honesty I wouldn't want people installing Linux on their own anyway. All users with admin priveleges? I don't know what kind of heaven you're going to, but count me out! =P
I don't know why people would bother with the headache of trying to get that stuff on Kazaa when you can get a good quality VBR from emusic.com . And consistent volume settings across a whole album - imagine that! Just getting all the CC albums pretty much makes up the cost for half a year.
Is there any news on the PGP/GPG integration? I was reading enigmail documentation the other night and there was some talk about encryption going in all the way and not just as an extension. Enigmail goes a long way in making that easier but it's still way beyond most people.
heh, I haven't messed with Visual Studio in 2 years, but I find that rather interesting. It's the exact opposit of what MS should be doing in my opinion - which is giving VS away for free. If MS wants to see how it's going to be losing mindshare to Linux, it's going to be at the developer level where a lot of people get to play around with Linux tools for free but MS charges way to much to even consider actually buying. And PAYING for an MSDN subscription? That should be free as well if they really want to encourage more development.
It's interested that MS is so blinded by dollar signes that they can't see that keeping people on windows is more important, and the easiest way to do that is to give everyone the chance to make stupid little apps that ONLY work on windows. Those people that start out developing on windows will probably stay on windows, and each app (big or small) that they create that people like, encourages users to stay on windows as well.
Well if so many people use windows there must be some value in windows - even if it is because "every application I use runs on windows" sort of reasons... which isn't much, but it's something.
I wonder if this isn't the second sly attempt by microsoft to move to a subscription model. Look at what RedHat does - Get the OS for free, then encourage people to pay for their services. Now Microsoft takes this a step farther. Get MS Windows [blah blah] Edition which is discounted but allows you to get updates with a [$integer] year subscription.
I stand corrected. Obviously a video card would function. I meant generally render with the correct drivers installed (not the default drivers on Windows). My mistake.
It seems like most ATI cards are made this way, and it's really annoying if you don't have the disk or a network connection to download direct X - you're stuck with 16 colors.
I've never owned a forign car until my current car. My last car was a piece of garbage and I swore I would never buy another American car again. I can tell you this, the problem with American cars is comming from the top. My last car was a Buick. Ever changed the transmission fluid on a Buick? These guys every hear of a fucking drain plug? And as an aside GM has got to be designing some of the UGLIEST looking cars ever now days.
While America is busy building huge gas guzzling vehicles, I'm very happy with my Honda which is cheaper, more reliable, and just all around well thought out. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to buy a piece of shit just because it's made in America. When I buy American, it's because it's better quality - and much of the time American stuff just is better quality and in my opinion worth the extra cost.
Which is sad because the workers in the American plants just build what the people at the top told them to, and I won't buy what they build because it's crap.
Oh yeah, and you'd have to shoot me before I would buy a Focus. I've never seen such an obnouxous annoying car (I drove one 2000 miles from a rental place). They are definatly at the top of my hate list.
What I want to know is WHY DOES SERVER 2003 HAVE DIRECTX!!!!!!
It's an essential Windows component, you know... the whole integration thing. Why would a server have a web browser? Maybe people would use one for some reason. Who knows. When you go with a Microsoft solution, you basically take what they give you - you're the one that gives them the power to make that decision when you chose to use their software.
Besides which a lot of video cards now days seem to require Direct X in order to function at all.
It's changed, for the worse, into more of a cheerleading outfit these days . . .
I think that inferrs that the media and the goverment are in alignment. I don't think that's so much true as the fact that both of them have basically turned into ratings whores - The media for ratings, the goverment for votes - neither caring for the actual welfare of the people.
The media as a watchdog is much more important than the media as a business.
Sort of applies to the goverment as well (assuming a positive sense of "watchdog").
I think you may be underestimating the innovation behind some of these alternate browsers.
Not really. I've been using Mozilla as my primary browser since way back in the milestones. Mozilla has shown a LOT of innovation. BUT, look at Opera - I mean this browser is extremely efficent, fast, and has had innovations over all other browsers for a long time (from which Mozilla took quite a few). Does Microsoft consider them a threat? I doubt it, and if they do it's because of the embedded market.
It doesn't matter how much better a browser is than IE, all MS understands is losing marketshare. Which is sort of my point about being an OS componnent more than anything, what people get with their OS is probably what they're going to stick with - and I doubt most windows users will be switching to anything. They'll just use addons to IE if anything.
It's not just transparency, it's partial transparency across multiple channels as well. A PNG is far more than the glorified GIF that people make it out to be. I don't know what the parent poster was complaining about but "extremely broken" is a gross overstatement. Buggy, yes, but many things in Mozilla are still pretty quirky - I wouldn't call CSS support extremely broken just because Mozilla still completely fucks up a file upload field whenever you attempt to control it with CSS - it's just another bug (that hasn't been fixed)
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i'm a tech, and I have to treat the customers as dumb..
:)
Well treating people as dumb isn't necessarily the answer. I think putting it in terms people can understand is probably a better idea - and fortunately I have a knack for analogies. If you refer to DNS as something like a phone book, and networking settings as how the computers "talk to each other" you'll find users are much more receptive then if you simply verbally berate a user, fix their problem and mysteriously leave.
Now that has it's own issues in that some users INSIST on the technical explanation. Just last week one user wanted to know why the network neighborhood didn't work and want the "real explanation" so I went on and on about SMB networking and how there was a weird occurrence with the elections, and none of the computers seemed to be acting as a local browse master and sending the list to the wins server, etc. After that they promptly shut up.
What you had however was someone who thinks they're technically oriented (which they may be) but isn't so great with computers. My boss once worked for IBM, and DEC, and I swear he's messed up more stuff than anyone else where I work. In that case just fix the problem, blame a "bug" and leave.
"Hmm.. the static IP netmask seems to have changed a 255 to a 225... must be a windows bug or something"
I have to agree. I find most problems are due to both users who don't know what they're doing, and tech support who doesn't know what their doing. You'll find that if either end is knowlegable and the other end willing to cooperate then problems are usually very easy to resolve.
I recall calling my (at the time) domain hosting place and asking tech support what my SMTP server was supposed to be.
Support: "Um... lets see, if I go if you go into outlook"
Me: I don't use outlook
Support: How can you not use outlook?
Me: uhhh.... [idea] Okay, I'm using outlook, what's my SMTP setting?
Support: maybe it's in this menu. no, maybe this one? you wanted the SPT setting?
Me: nevermind
I just ended up just routing my mail through formail.pl that was laying around on their server until I switched provides 2 days later. But you know, out of the 4 settings you need to configure email - of which SMTP is one, they could at least write that crap down on a post-it note!
thinking you need to be an 'expert' to use text commands
I think part of that comes from the high inital learning curve. I remember the first time I saw someone typing stuff on the command line and thinking, "how in the hell does he know what to type?". We aren't inherently born with this skill. The unintuitive program names in Linux only makes this worse. So I guess that sort of depends on the definition of "expert" relative to the person in question.
As for mindless pointing and clicking, I think that has a sad ammount of truth behind it. The command line suffers more because it requires thought and experience in using a computer, while a windows GUI is just a point and click nightmare that people navigate through like they're in a fog.
I think that's what he means. When I went to college I met a lot of chicks too because windows 95 crashed on them and they "needed help".
win r - show run dialog
win e - open internet explorer
win d - minimize / restore all windows
win f - open find box
win l - lock computer (xp only)
win break - open system properties
I found a nice BS keyboard once, but unfortunatly no windows key, and I go insane if I can't use the run dialog box with a keystroke since I use it so much. Eventually I got a new BS keyboard that did have one so I'm rather happy now. Mapping this in a similar way in KDE is also pretty easy.
And once you remap your caps lock to a control key, you're ready to rock.
Well here's an interesting thought. What if Novell develops Evolution into a totally awsome product but still gives it away for free. Novell then manages to develop the "Exchange killer" on Linux that the OS world has been spinning it's weels on for ages.
Now because it's Linux underneath you could just have a drop in sort of mail server like exchange. It could integrate nice with Novell stuff - but plays nice with OS technology. If they developed a plugin for MS outlook, they could be a very serious player in the groupware market.
Red Hat has a nice update system from an administrators standpoint, not neccesarily a users standpoint.
Apple has a nice interface in that it's easy to use, and can happen automatically. Information is generally not very... informative. It's well integrated with the OS in the control panel where you would expect it.
MS has a decent interface that's based off of "windows update" which is traditionally just a website. The con to this is that you must use IE, and if IE is broken you're hosed. One plus of windows update is that you can make a nice snapin with MMC - nice for people who just group a heap of the usual stuff together in one console. Information on updates is generally pretty good.
--
Now Red Hat has a much different approach if you go with the Red Hat network - Pay for the service, or pay for the OS is essentially the same. [Note that I only use the command line version of up2date.] The system is nice in that you can easily automate it. "You can do that in windows" you say, "It'll destroy some package" you say (well maybe) - but with up2date you can specify what packages are installed, and what is ignored - so you can skip over packages that you want to oversee updates and do yourself. That's pretty much not possible with Microsoft because... well they never give you a list of the possible stuff they would update.
Also convenient in that you can have servers check in and see if they should update themselves. You can be away on vacation and just check the RHN website and tell server X to update something. You can also choose not to have a server check in by just killing the daemon - a nice choice. Due to the fact that redhat does server profiling (and tells you about it and lets you see it) you can see what servers are oudated, the serverety of the problem, and it's qute verbose about what the problem is. Also nice that the emails about problems tell you about what servers are affected.
Now I wouldn't put grandma on RHN to update 40 servers, but I'm not too keen on using MS or Apple for 40 user computers either. They just have different orientations.
From a company that has essentially standardized on "What's apple doing? Lets do that" (but not as well) - is this really a surprise?
kapput = [bsod]
Wouldn't that bias the discussions towards technically oriented people? I know a lot of rather smart people that become total idiots when at a computer. There are many people who are quite knowledgeable in many areas like history, music and so forth that would have a lot to contribute - do we really want to weed these people out as well? I'm not saying it's right or wrong but it's certainly something to consider.
I think probably the only real way to clean crap out of a truly open system is to do something similar to slashdot - with a sort of moderation system. While many (myself included) wonder if the moderators are on crack at times, it actually seems to work quite well, and is even better policed with meta-moderation
"I'm a real Linux user because I don't use Redhat or Mandrake"
I think that additude is more because those distro's tend to hide a lot of the fundamental parts of really administering a Linux box. Mainly because there seems to be a growing ammount of people who can use Linux, and perhaps even get around okay, but have never even compiled/installed from source before.
In some ways it is an elitist additude, and in some ways it's sort of a valid concern. It's also a problem because there's a lot of nice software out there with no binary form (rssh as one example). Not that it's hard to check an MD5, and read a readme file - but some have never done it and you wonder what other areas they're probably lacking in understanding as well. Like a windows admin who's never used regedit - using it may not be neccesary on a regular basis, but not knowing how to use it is probably shifty at best.
Installing Linux on their own is a bit much. My dreams are really simple - like I just have this button that shocks people and they just magicly get a clue - like why sending a 5 meg bitmap to a guy who accesses his email through a 28.8 modem is a dumb idea.
Actually in all honesty I wouldn't want people installing Linux on their own anyway. All users with admin priveleges? I don't know what kind of heaven you're going to, but count me out! =P
I don't know why people would bother with the headache of trying to get that stuff on Kazaa when you can get a good quality VBR from emusic.com . And consistent volume settings across a whole album - imagine that! Just getting all the CC albums pretty much makes up the cost for half a year.
Is there any news on the PGP/GPG integration? I was reading enigmail documentation the other night and there was some talk about encryption going in all the way and not just as an extension. Enigmail goes a long way in making that easier but it's still way beyond most people.
Seriously dude, you need to lighten up. Although the parent probably deserves it for the dreaded "assume" dissection, which is over used by managers.
Typically I just reply that another take on assume is that 'u' are in between an 'ass' and 'me'.
Also there is no 'i' in 'team' which is why I never participate =P
This service announcement sponsored by the "friends don't let friends become managers" campaign
That's what the Three Gorges Dam was for all along. To cool this thing.
heh, I haven't messed with Visual Studio in 2 years, but I find that rather interesting. It's the exact opposit of what MS should be doing in my opinion - which is giving VS away for free. If MS wants to see how it's going to be losing mindshare to Linux, it's going to be at the developer level where a lot of people get to play around with Linux tools for free but MS charges way to much to even consider actually buying. And PAYING for an MSDN subscription? That should be free as well if they really want to encourage more development.
It's interested that MS is so blinded by dollar signes that they can't see that keeping people on windows is more important, and the easiest way to do that is to give everyone the chance to make stupid little apps that ONLY work on windows. Those people that start out developing on windows will probably stay on windows, and each app (big or small) that they create that people like, encourages users to stay on windows as well.
Well if so many people use windows there must be some value in windows - even if it is because "every application I use runs on windows" sort of reasons... which isn't much, but it's something.
I wonder if this isn't the second sly attempt by microsoft to move to a subscription model. Look at what RedHat does - Get the OS for free, then encourage people to pay for their services. Now Microsoft takes this a step farther. Get MS Windows [blah blah] Edition which is discounted but allows you to get updates with a [$integer] year subscription.
I donno about that. The musicians feel pretty used, and the RIAA thinks its fair.
I stand corrected. Obviously a video card would function. I meant generally render with the correct drivers installed (not the default drivers on Windows). My mistake.
It seems like most ATI cards are made this way, and it's really annoying if you don't have the disk or a network connection to download direct X - you're stuck with 16 colors.
I've never owned a forign car until my current car. My last car was a piece of garbage and I swore I would never buy another American car again. I can tell you this, the problem with American cars is comming from the top. My last car was a Buick. Ever changed the transmission fluid on a Buick? These guys every hear of a fucking drain plug? And as an aside GM has got to be designing some of the UGLIEST looking cars ever now days.
While America is busy building huge gas guzzling vehicles, I'm very happy with my Honda which is cheaper, more reliable, and just all around well thought out. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to buy a piece of shit just because it's made in America. When I buy American, it's because it's better quality - and much of the time American stuff just is better quality and in my opinion worth the extra cost.
Which is sad because the workers in the American plants just build what the people at the top told them to, and I won't buy what they build because it's crap.
Oh yeah, and you'd have to shoot me before I would buy a Focus. I've never seen such an obnouxous annoying car (I drove one 2000 miles from a rental place). They are definatly at the top of my hate list.
What I want to know is WHY DOES SERVER 2003 HAVE DIRECTX!!!!!!
It's an essential Windows component, you know... the whole integration thing. Why would a server have a web browser? Maybe people would use one for some reason. Who knows. When you go with a Microsoft solution, you basically take what they give you - you're the one that gives them the power to make that decision when you chose to use their software.
Besides which a lot of video cards now days seem to require Direct X in order to function at all.
It's changed, for the worse, into more of a cheerleading outfit these days . . .
I think that inferrs that the media and the goverment are in alignment. I don't think that's so much true as the fact that both of them have basically turned into ratings whores - The media for ratings, the goverment for votes - neither caring for the actual welfare of the people.
The media as a watchdog is much more important than the media as a business.
Sort of applies to the goverment as well (assuming a positive sense of "watchdog").
I think you may be underestimating the innovation behind some of these alternate browsers.
Not really. I've been using Mozilla as my primary browser since way back in the milestones. Mozilla has shown a LOT of innovation. BUT, look at Opera - I mean this browser is extremely efficent, fast, and has had innovations over all other browsers for a long time (from which Mozilla took quite a few). Does Microsoft consider them a threat? I doubt it, and if they do it's because of the embedded market.
It doesn't matter how much better a browser is than IE, all MS understands is losing marketshare. Which is sort of my point about being an OS componnent more than anything, what people get with their OS is probably what they're going to stick with - and I doubt most windows users will be switching to anything. They'll just use addons to IE if anything.
It's not just transparency, it's partial transparency across multiple channels as well. A PNG is far more than the glorified GIF that people make it out to be. I don't know what the parent poster was complaining about but "extremely broken" is a gross overstatement. Buggy, yes, but many things in Mozilla are still pretty quirky - I wouldn't call CSS support extremely broken just because Mozilla still completely fucks up a file upload field whenever you attempt to control it with CSS - it's just another bug (that hasn't been fixed)