The Inmates is an excellent book for a non-techie. It's also very entertaining IMO. But for a textbook there's an alternative, also by Alan Cooper, About Face 2.0. It's actually quoted a number of times in The Inmates.
It's a lot more work to read, but time well spent for any developer.
I'm past the point of realising that I really need to learn to do most of the configuring using a command shell. Not because there aren't nifty little configuration tools, but because they hate me.
It could be that I have a special talent in crashing the KDE config utility but I've tried SuSE, Debian, Knoppix and Mandrake, and in every single distro managed to crash it and/or make it act funny afterwards (lose items / invisible items / unclickable items etc). The windows control panel never does that to me.
I'm waiting for the right moment to switch to Linux, but being a person that likes to tweak system settings, I would need a Linux distro that had settings a bit more foolproof.
The new update system is getting on my nerves. I just woke up to the windows logout sound -- because the machine booted itself. I thought it was a new msblast or whatnot -- until I checked the event log and it told me that an update had requested the reboot within 5 minutes -- and the machine complied, without asking me.
I know people who speak english fluently and read it pretty fast, yet they can't decipher that. I on the other hand learned my first english words at the age of three. By the time I was twelve, half the time I was "thinking in english". Could this be somehow related, as I had no difficulty understanding the scrambled text?
The production version of MySQL still has no subqueries, they're due in 4.1. Some types can be emulated with a left join-ish thingy (IIRC), but that's one big minus for MySQL. Disregarding that, it's a kick-ass db.
As for optimizing, InterBase is (or can be) one weird mofo where it comes to query plans -- if you have complex databases. I worked on a db with 7 tables and I had to include all of them in one query (the relations were like that). The plan it came up with was seriously fscked (despite the fact that AFAIK the database structure was _pretty_ carefully thought out).
I suppose you could say there aren't many problems in winXP for the more knowledgeable user. However it does have a strange tendecy to lose (!) critical os files at seemingly random moments. I've had three friends' computers and my own toss me a 'NTLDR is missing' when powering on my computer. I'd consider that a problem.
Also, I think most of the WinXP users don't know how to use the NT recovery console, or where to put NTLDR even if they did.
Don't get me wrong, I think XP is ok. I use it every day, since to me Linux desktops don't feel comfortable, and I've yet to find a distro which has a graphical configuration tool (yes, graphical, since I don't have the time or motive to learn all those options by heart) that doesn't crash on me every time I try to change anything significant.
An HMIS provides significant opportunities to improve access to, and delivery of, services for people experiencing homelessness.
Homelessness is an experience, not a symptom of a broken or missing social security system?
describe the scope of homelessness? honestly? "This one's a bit homeless today, what shall we do with him?" "Nothing, that one over there looks far more homeless to me!"
Remember, kids, in soviet Russia, homelessness experiences you!
Ditch the complaining >:P the box looks neat to me, plus the added weight keeps it from falling to the floor when my kitten decides it's time to toy around with the controller wires:D... although a miniature version in the spirit of PSOne would be nice.
Seems to have done something though. I'm on a 512/512 dsl line and it took microsoft.com a full minute and then some to respond. The actual page load was fast enough though, so I'm guessing it's the connection limit. Only guessing though. It's hard to tell if it's the worm or the people desperately trying to get the patch, but the end result is pretty much the same.
... Isn't it funny that users don't patch when there's a threat that could wipe hard drives clean, but when something interrupts their daily pr0n wank with a reboot they rush at Mach 3 speed to get the fix?
IMO the worst part is that it creates the quick links automatically. I frequently visit small lan parties, so you can imagine the amount of clutter. I know, I can probably turn it off, but I can't be bothered to try and find the checkbox, so I'll just bitch and whine:P anyway it's a godawful decision to turn crap like this on by default. The installer should come with two options, one that has every "helpful feature" on by default and another one that doesn't. Would save me a considerable amount of time, since I have to install most of my friend's XP's too:P
I realise there are millions of users that like big shiny buttons and stuff like that, but just because it's there doesn't mean I like to be forced to use it:P
That's not half as bad as legally bought dvd's that have trailers and studio ads that can't be skipped. And they come before the movie. I think it was a Columbia/Tri Star film, but it seems to be a growing trend. While other companies are actually bringing the retail prices down (I find it hard to imagine it would be MPAA;) some are working towards the same artificial price limit that cd's have, and to top that you can't even decide if you watch the ads or not (much unlike VHS). Doesn't that just make you want to delete all those DivX -movies and run along to pay for them?
More informed users would probably just become more users that switched from Kazaa to dc/freenet/what ever. But then again, that's less visible than Kazaa is, so you might have a point.
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The Inmates is an excellent book for a non-techie. It's also very entertaining IMO. But for a textbook there's an alternative, also by Alan Cooper, About Face 2.0. It's actually quoted a number of times in The Inmates.
It's a lot more work to read, but time well spent for any developer.
Actually, reading Silmarillion I felt like it was closer to the Bible. In that aspect at least, that both can be very boring to read.
In my experience if a movie is based on a book, watch the movie first, then read the book. You'll be a lot less disappointed.
I don't suppose that girlfriend is the closest relative to a recently deceased rich Nigerian man...?
I'm past the point of realising that I really need to learn to do most of the configuring using a command shell. Not because there aren't nifty little configuration tools, but because they hate me.
It could be that I have a special talent in crashing the KDE config utility but I've tried SuSE, Debian, Knoppix and Mandrake, and in every single distro managed to crash it and/or make it act funny afterwards (lose items / invisible items / unclickable items etc). The windows control panel never does that to me.
I'm waiting for the right moment to switch to Linux, but being a person that likes to tweak system settings, I would need a Linux distro that had settings a bit more foolproof.
Most popular, definitely. Most efficient? a system IMO isn't efficient when the subparts don't work towards common goals.
The new update system is getting on my nerves. I just woke up to the windows logout sound -- because the machine booted itself. I thought it was a new msblast or whatnot -- until I checked the event log and it told me that an update had requested the reboot within 5 minutes -- and the machine complied, without asking me.
A nuisance, if you ask me.
Yep. And telemarketers have already started calling people's cell phones, at least in Finland :(
I know people who speak english fluently and read it pretty fast, yet they can't decipher that. I on the other hand learned my first english words at the age of three. By the time I was twelve, half the time I was "thinking in english". Could this be somehow related, as I had no difficulty understanding the scrambled text?
The production version of MySQL still has no subqueries, they're due in 4.1. Some types can be emulated with a left join-ish thingy (IIRC), but that's one big minus for MySQL. Disregarding that, it's a kick-ass db.
As for optimizing, InterBase is (or can be) one weird mofo where it comes to query plans -- if you have complex databases. I worked on a db with 7 tables and I had to include all of them in one query (the relations were like that). The plan it came up with was seriously fscked (despite the fact that AFAIK the database structure was _pretty_ carefully thought out).
Nope, the file was flat-out missing from the hard drive. I restored it with the recovery console. Happened to three others too.
I suppose you could say there aren't many problems in winXP for the more knowledgeable user. However it does have a strange tendecy to lose (!) critical os files at seemingly random moments. I've had three friends' computers and my own toss me a 'NTLDR is missing' when powering on my computer. I'd consider that a problem.
Also, I think most of the WinXP users don't know how to use the NT recovery console, or where to put NTLDR even if they did.
Don't get me wrong, I think XP is ok. I use it every day, since to me Linux desktops don't feel comfortable, and I've yet to find a distro which has a graphical configuration tool (yes, graphical, since I don't have the time or motive to learn all those options by heart) that doesn't crash on me every time I try to change anything significant.
An HMIS provides significant opportunities to improve access to, and delivery of, services for people experiencing homelessness.
Homelessness is an experience, not a symptom of a broken or missing social security system?
describe the scope of homelessness? honestly? "This one's a bit homeless today, what shall we do with him?" "Nothing, that one over there looks far more homeless to me!"
Remember, kids, in soviet Russia, homelessness experiences you!
And it's great for weight-lifting too!
Ditch the complaining >:P the box looks neat to me, plus the added weight keeps it from falling to the floor when my kitten decides it's time to toy around with the controller wires :D ... although a miniature version in the spirit of PSOne would be nice.
Seems to have done something though. I'm on a 512/512 dsl line and it took microsoft.com a full minute and then some to respond. The actual page load was fast enough though, so I'm guessing it's the connection limit. Only guessing though. It's hard to tell if it's the worm or the people desperately trying to get the patch, but the end result is pretty much the same.
... Isn't it funny that users don't patch when there's a threat that could wipe hard drives clean, but when something interrupts their daily pr0n wank with a reboot they rush at Mach 3 speed to get the fix?
IMO the worst part is that it creates the quick links automatically. I frequently visit small lan parties, so you can imagine the amount of clutter. :P anyway it's a godawful decision to turn crap like this on by default. The installer should come with two options, one that has every "helpful feature" on by default and another one that doesn't. Would save me a considerable amount of time, since I have to install most of my friend's XP's too :P
:P
I know, I can probably turn it off, but I can't be bothered to try and find the checkbox, so I'll just bitch and whine
I realise there are millions of users that like big shiny buttons and stuff like that, but just because it's there doesn't mean I like to be forced to use it
That's not half as bad as legally bought dvd's that have trailers and studio ads that can't be skipped. And they come before the movie. I think it was a Columbia/Tri Star film, but it seems to be a growing trend. While other companies are actually bringing the retail prices down (I find it hard to imagine it would be MPAA ;) some are working towards the same artificial price limit that cd's have, and to top that you can't even decide if you watch the ads or not (much unlike VHS). Doesn't that just make you want to delete all those DivX -movies and run along to pay for them?
More informed users would probably just become more users that switched from Kazaa to dc/freenet/what ever. But then again, that's less visible than Kazaa is, so you might have a point.