I tend to see moral certainty as a crutch. Life is not black and white, what seems wrong in one situation may seem right in another.
First, YES, life is gray--but there are SHADES of gray, not just one dull gray where everything is acceptable. Some of those shades are so close to either black or white that there really is no practical difference. To blurt out "but it is gray, and gray means OK" shows an inability to understand degrees.
Second, if something seems wrong in one situation and right in another, perhaps that is because it IS wrong in one situation and right in another? If I consider it wrong to imprison an innocent person but right to imprison a mass murderer, it only shows that I have an understanding of circumstance, not that imprisoning people is a gray area.
Temple of Elemental Evil. You can probably get it as some sort of budget release, or as part of some collection. "(Atari) Action Triple Pack," which also includes Demon Stone and Magic Battlegrounds, might be a cheap alternative. Admittedly, I haven't played the Neverwinter Nights games, but ToEE is very close to the paper and pen experience. The game carters to your general party alignment and has different endings depending on that, as well as on how well you do.
Having said that, ToEE is one of the "most flawed PoS games" I've ever played. The game itself trudges along without crashing most of the time, but the game world logic falters regularly. Example 1 (spoiler): Later in the game you will need a sledgehammer, among other things. You can complete the game without it, but not perfectly. The sledgehammer is found in two places in the entire game I think, and at the time you find yourself needing it, it may no longer be available (discarded). Joy! Example 2: You can create magic items, but are restricted to whatever masterwork weapons you find. There is no way to commission a particular weapon type, in spite of there being several weaponsmiths around. Example 3: Certain feats are very limited. I picked "Craft Wonderous Items" for my wizard, only to learn that there is exactly one such item in the game that he can craft, and furthermore his alignment prevented him from making that item! Joy! Example 4: You can't use a higher level spell slot for a lower level spell, which is especially annoying with the sorcerer.
ToEE has potential for a great paper and pen replacement, but has so many flaws that it cripples the experience. I understand there is a modding community that has worked out the flaws and bugs and added spells and abilities and raised the level cap and so on. If you choose to try it out (and I think it is worth it), do by all means apply the mods first (they are incompatible with existing save games). This and this are probably good ways to get started.
In general, you may like game or dislike it (it's based on a very old module), but this is probably the closest to "paper and pen" you will get in a computer game, and IMO worth a look because of that alone. You may actually come out with a greater understanding of the 3.5 rules than you had before.
My brother got a computer recently (well, "recently" as I see it) and of course wants the entire shebang, but has no background knowledge to go on and (of course) is too stubborn to read up on the matter, or go to some beginners' course in computers, and so on. And I don't have the time to "babysit" him through basic use of a computer (although I will say that he seems like a very quick learner of the things I have talked him through). So I set his browser homepage to Google, and told him that he could search for different things on the Web by typing in a few words there. It's only later that I realize that the distinction between what is "my computer" and "my application" and "the Web" was left unexplained. I don't really know how he pictures "THE WEB" and, realizing that he doesn't really need to know, or is interested to know, I gave him a very cursory explanation that he didn't need and left it at that. Google might just as well be "the way you get on the Web" for him.
Quick aside for the "Linux is not ready for the desktop" crowd: Neither is Windows.
Well, fine. But isn't this making a big deal out of nothing? I have friends that have been assigned usernames that... well, let's just say that they didn't turn out well. They were made from picking N letters from the first name and up to 8-N letters from the surname to produce a unique name; the users themselves had no say in the matter. A username that reads "neutered" in the local language is kind of annoying. My own surname, once you drop the umlauts, comes out quite differently, unfortunately. But you learn to roll with these things. Most of the people I deal with are, hmm, mature enough not to go "OMG, UR NAME!! ROTFLMAO!!!1" and I would imagine that most people your mother deals with are, too. People tend to realize that domain name is not equivalent with an actual name.
And as you say, if this is the sort of thing that keeps you awake at night, the website can easily be run under a different domain name than the shop, and the shop's name featured prominently on the pages themselves. This is by no means a solution that is useful only to circumvent special characters in URLs; there can easily be two (or more) Spanish (for instance) shops (or whatever) sharing the same name, but evidently, only one will be able to use that name, letter by letter, in a domain.
And you know, even if you and your mother think that "it's just a local little shop," once it has a Web presence, it isn't exclusively local anymore.
There might also be some potential customer---say, someone visiting Spain---who speaks the language, but still cannot naturally produce it on his (or her) computer (more of an issue with 'å' than with 'ñ', but you know what I mean).
How about mobile devices that only with difficulty produce special characters?
And how do plan to deal with the situation, should it occur, when someone registers the same domain name as yours, except with a 'n' rather than a 'ñ'?
And as a spanish speaker, I feel that it has taken faaar too long to get the "ñ" in domain names. And we only have one funny letter!
As another European speaking several languages that have multiple "funny letters" in them, let me say that I think that putting those funny letters in URLs are a stupid idea. Most people have keyboards that are capable of easily producing letters a-z and digits 0-9, or generally speaking, most of the US-ASCII character set. Fewer people have keyboards that easily will produce 'å', for instance. Do you really think Joe Sixpack in the States is going to enjoy figuring out how to type "www.åkea.com" in his browser when he wants to buy new furniture? Forget Joe Sixpack, how would you like to type in the name of some Asian company in their local language when you want some Asian export game that otherwise would not be available to you? (For the exercise, assume that you can't Google for the URL.)
And for what, really? So that we nerds can pat ourselves on the back? So that Motörhead's manager finally can give the band the Internet presence they deserve? So that people can stop feeling "oppressed" and now get to use their favorite oddball characters in URLs, rather than approximations that are easily produced? Do you really think that having 'ñ' and 'å' available as URL characters will enhance usability for the end user, rather than just giving cyber-squatters a larger set of domain names to hijack?
Personally, I see little use in increasing the character space allowed in URLs (but not in documents, obviously), and I don't see what putting 'ñ' into domain names really has to do with US control of the Internet anyway.
If nothing else, knowing the pattern greatly decreases the number of strings you need to test with a dictionary attack. You only need to check strings that produce the same pattern.
I appreciate the correction -- I'd been mystified as to why the blinking hieroglyphics where there are at all, and when I read the Hall of Shame page, figured that must be the explanation.
Well, the Hall of Shame page (the particular part you linked to, anyway) is OLD. I seem to remember that those feedback links used to work; it may have been there, and not in the Help, that the meaning of the hieroglyphs was spelled out. Other than that, I recall once reading through the entire page and finding it somewhat unfair (although it is so long ago that I can't comment on specifics anymore). The thing with Lotus Notes is that it is not JUST an e-mail client, but an interface to an entire application platform. The e-mail application may have been rough around the edges, relying on default functionality rather than going the extra mile and making it more similar to other e-mail clients. Once you get used to Lotus Notes applications in general, it makes more sense, but many users will probably never do that. This inarguably qualifies as bad interface design, from the perspective of being an e-mail client at least. Having said that, some (but certainly not all) of the complaints seemed along the lines of "this isn't Outlook" or, more generally, "this isn't how I'm used to do things." Oh well, enough about that.
It still seems like an annoying solution to a complete non-issue, or at least something that would be an non-issue if it weren't for the even more annoying random number of bullets per password character. (Does that also have some utility I'm not noticing?) I'm more than old enough to remember modems and don't recall lengthy authentication failures being a big problem.
The random number of bullets, OTOH, may have been intended as a way to keep a shoulder surfer from learning the exact numbers of characters in your password. Useful or not, who can say. Annoying? My OpenSHH SSH client does not display bullets at all when I type my password, and it has never disturbed me, either. YMMV.
BTW, I did a brief search and also found a suggestion that the hieroglyphs may additionally have been intended as a way to make spoofing the login screen more difficult; if you repeatedly wrote your password and got the wrong set of hieroglyphs, you'd know that something strange was going on. Of course, with a proper dictionary that knows the correct sets for all passwords, this is a useless measure. And a keylogger evidently catches your keypresses either way. And knowing the hieroglyph set, from shoulder surfing for instance, obviously makes a dictionary attack easier. I still stand by my earlier explanation, though---I recall waiting for a fairly long time to be authenticated on some slow connection, and not having to redo it due to a mistype was useful in such cases. (Of course, it was still pain to do anything over that connection in general.) Very useful? Hardly. Enough to be put above all other quirks you had to deal with, even when factoring in the random number of bullets per typed character? I don't think so, it seems easy enough to ignore completely from an interface perspective, but again, YMMV.
Anyway, I brought it up because I was wondering how it could be extended to support accessibility.
It seems highly unlikely that every quirk in Lotus Notes is in some way related to accessibility support, or lack thereof. Having not used Lotus Notes in a while, and having never needed such support myself, I can't comment on what Lotus Notes can bring to the table. It seems unlikely that the login screen will be one of them, however.;-)
I'm not defending Lotus Notes in general, but in this particular case you're wrong. I had to work extensively with Lotus Notes many years ago, and the reason for the hieroglyphs was NOT to confuse shoulder surfers, as you seem to believe.
It used to take quite a while to authenticate when using a modem (you know, the 56kbps stuff and earlier). The hieroglyphs were there as a visual clue that you had entered your password correctly, BEFORE you even attempted to authenticate. The same password always produced the same hieroglyphs. If you recognized the set of hieroglyphs, it was likely that you punched in your password correctly, and that you'd authenticate successfully.
To forestall the inevitable "So shoulder surfers could deduct your password from looking at the hieroglyphs? BRILLIANT!" response, it should also be mentioned that lots of password strings produced the same set of hieroglyphs. An attacker would still need to perform a dictionary attack, even if he knew "your" set. (I have no idea if there were extra safeguards in place that reacted quicker if someone tried to brute-force a password with various strings that produced the same hieroglyphs as the correct one, but it would seem prudent.)
All in all, while not Lotus Notes' best "feature," and perhaps of dubious usefulness (especially today, when bandwidth is measured in Mbps, not kbps), it certainly wasn't its worst. It still tends to amuse me when, in spite of the many quirks Lotus Notes had/has that you constantly ran into, people pick the password dialog to complain about. (Especially when they get it wrong. The purpose of the hieroglyphs may even have been explained in the Lotus Notes Help, although it is too long ago that I can say with certainty.)
Any normal & reasonable user expects a program to stop running when you click the 'close' button, right? Kazaa kept running in the background ! IMHO, this is a non-point. I have never used Kazaa, so I can't claim personal experience, but if it minimizes to the system tray as another poster claims, only the most clueless of individuals could possibly claim ignorance. That's no longer a "normal & reasonable user." There are several programs that minimize to the system tray that normal users can be expected to have encountered, and be at least passingly familiar with. Software firewalls, anti-virus software, Skype (and probably Windows Messenger, although I don't use that either), the volume control and probably "safely remove hardware" as well. I really can't see this as anything else than an attempt to avoid taking responsibility.
If AOL (or, somehow, Kazaa/Sharman Networks) prevented her from receiving warning messages which may have caused her to stop, then any infringement after those messages were sent may be at least partially down to them. Somewhat more relevant, but still. "I'm downloading music files from... I have no idea from where, actually, but somehow still believe that it is OK and perfectly legal." Seriously. Any time you go to the cinema, you get the "music piracy is a crime" pseudo-trailer thrown in your face (or at least you used to). It's hard to accept that anyone above the age of, hmm, ten maybe, is going to be unaware that there are some sort of issues involved, even if common sense somehow fails to tell you that.
People should stop using the "I'm stupid, which absolves me" excuse for everything. If you're that stupid, you should not have a computer; you should have some sort of restricted-access restricted-function system that lets you surf the Web and read your e-mail and use some sort of instant messenger, but does not allow you to install anything. Or at most, install programs that some external entity/company is willing to take legal responsibility for, since you are too stupid to do that yourself (meaning trivial and safe stuff). Hmm. Having written that, maybe that is the point of Windows Vista, and the current direction of Windows; protect the stupid user from liability. And protect Microsoft, of course. Because, you know, that is the next logical step: "Why does Windows allow me to install programs that let me break the law? They are responsible for this, not me!"
1. It isnt the Inability to type, Its that email software isnt validating jack in the "TO:" field.. having software that changes the line background from red (invalid address) to Yellow (possibly Valid) to green (known good site) to white (known good site & sender) would make the problem obvious from the get-go.. there are a bunch of solutions for this, but really the software blows.
Nothing of which changes the fact that if the user had got the e-mail address right in the first place, there would not have been a problem at all.
And to be honest, if a user routinely summarily ignores all error messages he encounters, I don't see how he is going to react to the line background being red, yellow, green, white or even pink with green dots and a little unicorn icon to the right for extra impact.
2. The reciprocation of customer service, come on, They need to get their jobs done, and they dont care whats on your plate. Just like when you walk up to payroll and ask WTF is up with my paycheck being $220.14 for two weeks, you dont care what theyre up to, you want that fixed now. Scheduling people is an art and takes real practice.
The issue wasn't about scheduling, it was about blowing off the helper and then getting pissy about it, probably because the helper left to take care of other issues instead, rather than hanging around until it was perfectly convenient for the user. A more apt comparison is me going to accounting---no, scratch that, demanding that accounting comes to me---with my paycheck issue, and when they ask me what the problem is, I say "I don't really have time for this" and leave, and then e-mail the VP and head of accounting about how accounting failed to fix my paycheck.
Once you stop whining about the users you might be able to help them.
Sorry, no. Those two are in no way dependent of each other.
You want to know one of the chief problems with IT today is? First, we develop for the "dumbest" 0.1% of the userbase, because they need solutions too. Since we don't want to customize the same application for hundreds of segments, we go with the lowest common denominator. This, however, is a great disservice for the other 99.9% of the userbase, which would greatly enjoy and benefit from somewhat more advanced features and control. Second, there is a strong anti-intellectual sentiment among IT users; if there is something in a program that isn't understood, that is a fault with the program, not with the user... complicated software should completely adapt to simple users, rather than simple users educating themselves so that they can avail themselves of complicated programs. These two feed each other, so the "dumbest" 0.1% can afford to be "dumber" as time passed (and by extension, the rest of the userbase as well), and that means that programs must be made simpler as time passes.
The computer, on virtue of being programmable to an almost unlimited extent, is the most complicated machine you will see in a household, or anywhere for that matter. And what do we do with it? That's right---we dumb it down to perform simple tasks like displaying text and pictures taken from the Internet, or write messages that are sent almost instantly to some recipient, also over the Internet, and are dazzled by what we make it do, in spite of all this just using a small fraction of the computer's capabilities. And when we've done that, we dumb it down further so that we hardly even have to worry about writing the addressee's name correctly, and when we do, we blame the computer for it; the computer, and the IT jerks that still haven't got e-mail clients right.
And where do we end up? With VCRs with eternally blinking zeroes; with microwave ovens that we don't know how to cook with; with cellphones that we don't know how to call with; with printers that we don't know how to refill with papers. And when our kids take care of these issues for us, we beam with pride over how smart our kids are, instead of decryi
Yup, nothing says "my attitude is not the problem" more clearly than "If you want good IT support then show your IT people RESPECT and get the FUCK out of our way" While the previous poster used more colorful language than I would, he still has a point. If you first vocally request support, only to blow off your helper, twice, then you have no business complaining about the "nasty, nasty IT support not helping you out" later. Besides you acting like a jerk, that helper is IMO completely justified in deprioritizing your issue.
Apart from that... calling IT supervisor and cc:ing the VP is just grinding in what a jerk you are, and you might even be successful in convincing the supervisor and the VP that it is so not your fault... but your helper remembers. Oh yes, he remembers. And quite likely, so will the rest of IT, if not its supervisor. What comes around, goes around, and when it does, you're... surprised!? If you behave like a jerk, show IT no respect, consider them just a drain on the company's coffers and second-class workers at best, cause them extra work with what they consider trivial issues (like filling the printer with some papers), behave like they are your personal whipping boys, think it is ok to blame your failures on them, and are hostile and demanding to boot... seriously, what planet do you come from where anyone would just be "happy to help you out, and can I have another one, sir?"
No. You'll be considered one of the largest stains in the office, and treated by them accordingly, meaning no-one from IT is going to do any more for you apart from the bare minimum required to bring in the paycheck. This, of course, will give you more to moan about, rather than generating any realization that you are one of the chief reasons IT sports bad attitude. IT may not play office politics games with you, but you are a fool if you believe that they don't care.
However, you sir have just made his case all the stronger. If that's the best response you can come up with as the first line of your reply, he's already won the argument. He doesn't have a case, and he doesn't have an argument. I can come up with some mirrored, similarly twisted scenario where IT are GODS and can do no wrong, and everyone else are just insects, but that doesn't mean I have an "argument." Calling the earlier poster's trolling a case lends it credibility it doesn't have.
You're making the assumption that the genes of his family are going to mix with those of the general population to a greater extent than those of the previous poster's family.
Remember, you must ensure that a credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented.
While I agree that the defaults should be clean and intuitive... you are aware that the grandparent (as far as I can tell, at least) complained about the looks of the interface, not its layout or functionality? And that the parent started by mentioning skinning, and then went on to talk about its configurability?
In any case, I disagree with your statement that being extremely customizable is not always a good thing. I can't intuitively come up with a case where having less options is a good thing. But that is in no way incompatible with having a good default UI layout and functionality. Having good defaults lessens the need for customizability, but it doesn't make having the option to do so, a bad thing. Neither does the fact that available skins (in your opinion) are unprofessional and sloppy make it a bad thing. Neither does the fact that it takes time to customize everything make it a bad thing. More options is good. If you never have the need to avail yourself to those options because the defaults are well designed, even better! But if you'd choose to, or even need to, for one reason or another, you have that power. And that is good. I don't see anyone complaining about the possibility of using Firefox extensions, either. In fact, with Firefox you have the option of getting the source and making changes to your heart's content, and building it yourself--so you have even more options. So how is this not a good thing?
The only bad thing about extreme customizability is that the time spend to make the UI just that, might (and this need not be universally true) have been better used to improve application performance and/or functionality instead. But that is largely dependent on how the application is built in the first place; with the right tools the cost of making the UI just so doesn't need to be particularly severe, and I also imagine that the "cost" of reconfiguring UI design mistakes in said defaults drops (as opposed to having to change the layout of all UI components when using a more fixed design). As a developer, you typically won't even need to recompile in order to test the changes, which can be considered a win in itself. (And as a power user with a UI that doesn't do exactly what you want it to, you might be able to get the UI to let you do that, even without having to modify the source, which you don't have access to in this case anyway. Of course, it might also be that you won't be able to do so, but that leaves you no worse off than when you have an UI with limited configuration options.)
The poster said that the links are next to each other. Unless you have seen the site in question, I don't think you are in any position to bash its layout.
There are people I seriously think shouldn't be on the Internet. Heck, there are people I think shouldn't even own a computer. Besides IT-related issues, there are also people I don't think should be allowed to drive a car, use a credit card, raise children, have dogs, etc.
An interesting aspect is that many of these people, especially when it comes to technology but also seen in other areas, somehow think that others are somehow obliged to help them with their activities. Have kids, but expect others to raise them. Get in debt, but expect others to lend you money to deal with the bills. Get a computer, but expect others to hold you by the hand whenever you use it. (Caveat: There are things you can't control, and those you can. If you get in debt because you are between jobs and need a place to live and food to eat, that's one thing. If you get in debt because you must have a better car than your neighbour, that's another.)
I dunno about others, but around the 20th time I show someone how to copy a file, it already feels old. At some point you start wondering whether the user really cannot learn how to copy a file, or doesn't want to learn. In either case, you're screwed.
The same goes for userfriendlyness. I'm all for userfriendlyness. If a task inheritedly is so simple that it can be generalized into "click here" and the designer does just that, great! (I'd argue that there is a class of tasks that can't, and also yet another class that can, but only at the expense of configurability--take a set of defaults and assume they'll be good enough for everyone.) But even then, you'll see users that will say it is too difficult--they might not know where they saved the program, they might not yet have figured out how to run any other program than Internet Explorer, they might feel intimidated by the button, they might refuse to run the program because they read somewhere/someone told them that they should not run programs they got from the Internet.
And that's where userfriendlyness falls apart, and that is when the battle is picked. You can either strive to improve on userfriendlyness forever, aiming to make it automatic and/or intuitive for 100% of your userbase, a goal that will never be reached, essentially wasting all your time for that final fraction... or you can set your percentage lower (exactly how low is up to you) and spend more time on actually developing your program.
And quite frankly, barring a completely horrid homepage, if a user can find the "Forums" link but not the "Download" link right next to it (or maybe not understanding that "download" means "get program")... that user might not be the kind of user you want to spend time supporting.
I sometimes use my university's wireless network (whenever I bring my laptop). Since the university's IT lab has no way of knowing who is using what laptop[1], they redirect all initial traffic to a portal where you must log in (using the username + password you use on all other university computer systems). Point being, you get a network connection, but must log in to actually get where you want.
Since I installed WGA[2] (at the point I was rather indifferent to it), every time I use the university's network I get 50 entries in the Application Log (error source: crypt32; description: "Failed auto update retrieval of third-party root list sequence number from: with error: [timeout/server cannot perform operation/error code]"). This happens before I have a chance to log in on the university network, which of course means that my laptop can't yet access said site. More annoying, though, is that svchost -k netsvcs starts eating memory like crazy; peaking at over 90 MBs and then falling down to 70-80 (used to stay at 20-30). This only happens when I use the laptop at the university; at home (where obviously no login is required) the process stays at 20-30 MB.
I personally think that some "advantage" component that, when unable to access some site, causes a process to eat up 3-4 times the memory it usually does, taking up an extra 10% of the computer's physical memory in the process, is rather a DISADVANTAGE. I don't know how much memory spyware typically consumes, so I can't reflect on the comparison between WGA and spyware. 50 MB seems a rather hefty price for failing to communicate with some server, though.
Maybe they should rename it WGD?
[1] I guess a) setting up individual users' connections, including keys, is too much work, b1) collecting MAC addresses is too much work, b2) Joe Average won't be able to figure out his computer's wireless' MAC anyway, and c) there are potential security leaks if wireless cards, or laptops, are stolen/sold to non-university users (both a and b1).
[2] Troubles started at that point. Could be something else, I SUPPOSE, but I think it is unlikely.
Slashdot Mirror
Err, no, because you get a replacement phone?
Er, is this a serious post? You do realize that the link leads to a thumbnail, don't you?
Remove the -thumb part of the URL, and you get something more readable. Still a pretty lousy scan, but perfectly legible.
I tend to see moral certainty as a crutch. Life is not black and white, what seems wrong in one situation may seem right in another.
First, YES, life is gray--but there are SHADES of gray, not just one dull gray where everything is acceptable. Some of those shades are so close to either black or white that there really is no practical difference. To blurt out "but it is gray, and gray means OK" shows an inability to understand degrees.
Second, if something seems wrong in one situation and right in another, perhaps that is because it IS wrong in one situation and right in another? If I consider it wrong to imprison an innocent person but right to imprison a mass murderer, it only shows that I have an understanding of circumstance, not that imprisoning people is a gray area.
Temple of Elemental Evil. You can probably get it as some sort of budget release, or as part of some collection. "(Atari) Action Triple Pack," which also includes Demon Stone and Magic Battlegrounds, might be a cheap alternative. Admittedly, I haven't played the Neverwinter Nights games, but ToEE is very close to the paper and pen experience. The game carters to your general party alignment and has different endings depending on that, as well as on how well you do.
Having said that, ToEE is one of the "most flawed PoS games" I've ever played. The game itself trudges along without crashing most of the time, but the game world logic falters regularly. Example 1 (spoiler): Later in the game you will need a sledgehammer, among other things. You can complete the game without it, but not perfectly. The sledgehammer is found in two places in the entire game I think, and at the time you find yourself needing it, it may no longer be available (discarded). Joy! Example 2: You can create magic items, but are restricted to whatever masterwork weapons you find. There is no way to commission a particular weapon type, in spite of there being several weaponsmiths around. Example 3: Certain feats are very limited. I picked "Craft Wonderous Items" for my wizard, only to learn that there is exactly one such item in the game that he can craft, and furthermore his alignment prevented him from making that item! Joy! Example 4: You can't use a higher level spell slot for a lower level spell, which is especially annoying with the sorcerer.
ToEE has potential for a great paper and pen replacement, but has so many flaws that it cripples the experience. I understand there is a modding community that has worked out the flaws and bugs and added spells and abilities and raised the level cap and so on. If you choose to try it out (and I think it is worth it), do by all means apply the mods first (they are incompatible with existing save games). This and this are probably good ways to get started.
In general, you may like game or dislike it (it's based on a very old module), but this is probably the closest to "paper and pen" you will get in a computer game, and IMO worth a look because of that alone. You may actually come out with a greater understanding of the 3.5 rules than you had before.
Bah! Everyone knows that it takes a keyboard that shines in the dark to be FTW-worthy.
Oh! I just realized that "in Bizarro Universe Soviet Union, rain falls down and people eat hamburgers." And so on.
Explains a lot, really.
So true.
My brother got a computer recently (well, "recently" as I see it) and of course wants the entire shebang, but has no background knowledge to go on and (of course) is too stubborn to read up on the matter, or go to some beginners' course in computers, and so on. And I don't have the time to "babysit" him through basic use of a computer (although I will say that he seems like a very quick learner of the things I have talked him through). So I set his browser homepage to Google, and told him that he could search for different things on the Web by typing in a few words there. It's only later that I realize that the distinction between what is "my computer" and "my application" and "the Web" was left unexplained. I don't really know how he pictures "THE WEB" and, realizing that he doesn't really need to know, or is interested to know, I gave him a very cursory explanation that he didn't need and left it at that. Google might just as well be "the way you get on the Web" for him.
Quick aside for the "Linux is not ready for the desktop" crowd: Neither is Windows.
Well, fine. But isn't this making a big deal out of nothing? I have friends that have been assigned usernames that... well, let's just say that they didn't turn out well. They were made from picking N letters from the first name and up to 8-N letters from the surname to produce a unique name; the users themselves had no say in the matter. A username that reads "neutered" in the local language is kind of annoying. My own surname, once you drop the umlauts, comes out quite differently, unfortunately. But you learn to roll with these things. Most of the people I deal with are, hmm, mature enough not to go "OMG, UR NAME!! ROTFLMAO!!!1" and I would imagine that most people your mother deals with are, too. People tend to realize that domain name is not equivalent with an actual name.
And as you say, if this is the sort of thing that keeps you awake at night, the website can easily be run under a different domain name than the shop, and the shop's name featured prominently on the pages themselves. This is by no means a solution that is useful only to circumvent special characters in URLs; there can easily be two (or more) Spanish (for instance) shops (or whatever) sharing the same name, but evidently, only one will be able to use that name, letter by letter, in a domain.
And you know, even if you and your mother think that "it's just a local little shop," once it has a Web presence, it isn't exclusively local anymore.
There might also be some potential customer---say, someone visiting Spain---who speaks the language, but still cannot naturally produce it on his (or her) computer (more of an issue with 'å' than with 'ñ', but you know what I mean).
How about mobile devices that only with difficulty produce special characters?
And how do plan to deal with the situation, should it occur, when someone registers the same domain name as yours, except with a 'n' rather than a 'ñ'?
As another European speaking several languages that have multiple "funny letters" in them, let me say that I think that putting those funny letters in URLs are a stupid idea. Most people have keyboards that are capable of easily producing letters a-z and digits 0-9, or generally speaking, most of the US-ASCII character set. Fewer people have keyboards that easily will produce 'å', for instance. Do you really think Joe Sixpack in the States is going to enjoy figuring out how to type "www.åkea.com" in his browser when he wants to buy new furniture? Forget Joe Sixpack, how would you like to type in the name of some Asian company in their local language when you want some Asian export game that otherwise would not be available to you? (For the exercise, assume that you can't Google for the URL.)
And for what, really? So that we nerds can pat ourselves on the back? So that Motörhead's manager finally can give the band the Internet presence they deserve? So that people can stop feeling "oppressed" and now get to use their favorite oddball characters in URLs, rather than approximations that are easily produced? Do you really think that having 'ñ' and 'å' available as URL characters will enhance usability for the end user, rather than just giving cyber-squatters a larger set of domain names to hijack?
Personally, I see little use in increasing the character space allowed in URLs (but not in documents, obviously), and I don't see what putting 'ñ' into domain names really has to do with US control of the Internet anyway.
If nothing else, knowing the pattern greatly decreases the number of strings you need to test with a dictionary attack. You only need to check strings that produce the same pattern.
BTW, I did a brief search and also found a suggestion that the hieroglyphs may additionally have been intended as a way to make spoofing the login screen more difficult; if you repeatedly wrote your password and got the wrong set of hieroglyphs, you'd know that something strange was going on. Of course, with a proper dictionary that knows the correct sets for all passwords, this is a useless measure. And a keylogger evidently catches your keypresses either way. And knowing the hieroglyph set, from shoulder surfing for instance, obviously makes a dictionary attack easier. I still stand by my earlier explanation, though---I recall waiting for a fairly long time to be authenticated on some slow connection, and not having to redo it due to a mistype was useful in such cases. (Of course, it was still pain to do anything over that connection in general.) Very useful? Hardly. Enough to be put above all other quirks you had to deal with, even when factoring in the random number of bullets per typed character? I don't think so, it seems easy enough to ignore completely from an interface perspective, but again, YMMV.It seems highly unlikely that every quirk in Lotus Notes is in some way related to accessibility support, or lack thereof. Having not used Lotus Notes in a while, and having never needed such support myself, I can't comment on what Lotus Notes can bring to the table. It seems unlikely that the login screen will be one of them, however.
I'm not defending Lotus Notes in general, but in this particular case you're wrong. I had to work extensively with Lotus Notes many years ago, and the reason for the hieroglyphs was NOT to confuse shoulder surfers, as you seem to believe.
It used to take quite a while to authenticate when using a modem (you know, the 56kbps stuff and earlier). The hieroglyphs were there as a visual clue that you had entered your password correctly, BEFORE you even attempted to authenticate. The same password always produced the same hieroglyphs. If you recognized the set of hieroglyphs, it was likely that you punched in your password correctly, and that you'd authenticate successfully.
To forestall the inevitable "So shoulder surfers could deduct your password from looking at the hieroglyphs? BRILLIANT!" response, it should also be mentioned that lots of password strings produced the same set of hieroglyphs. An attacker would still need to perform a dictionary attack, even if he knew "your" set. (I have no idea if there were extra safeguards in place that reacted quicker if someone tried to brute-force a password with various strings that produced the same hieroglyphs as the correct one, but it would seem prudent.)
All in all, while not Lotus Notes' best "feature," and perhaps of dubious usefulness (especially today, when bandwidth is measured in Mbps, not kbps), it certainly wasn't its worst. It still tends to amuse me when, in spite of the many quirks Lotus Notes had/has that you constantly ran into, people pick the password dialog to complain about. (Especially when they get it wrong. The purpose of the hieroglyphs may even have been explained in the Lotus Notes Help, although it is too long ago that I can say with certainty.)
People should stop using the "I'm stupid, which absolves me" excuse for everything. If you're that stupid, you should not have a computer; you should have some sort of restricted-access restricted-function system that lets you surf the Web and read your e-mail and use some sort of instant messenger, but does not allow you to install anything. Or at most, install programs that some external entity/company is willing to take legal responsibility for, since you are too stupid to do that yourself (meaning trivial and safe stuff). Hmm. Having written that, maybe that is the point of Windows Vista, and the current direction of Windows; protect the stupid user from liability. And protect Microsoft, of course. Because, you know, that is the next logical step: "Why does Windows allow me to install programs that let me break the law? They are responsible for this, not me!"
1. It isnt the Inability to type, Its that email software isnt validating jack in the "TO:" field.. having software that changes the line background from red (invalid address) to Yellow (possibly Valid) to green (known good site) to white (known good site & sender) would make the problem obvious from the get-go.. there are a bunch of solutions for this, but really the software blows.
Nothing of which changes the fact that if the user had got the e-mail address right in the first place, there would not have been a problem at all.
And to be honest, if a user routinely summarily ignores all error messages he encounters, I don't see how he is going to react to the line background being red, yellow, green, white or even pink with green dots and a little unicorn icon to the right for extra impact.
2. The reciprocation of customer service, come on, They need to get their jobs done, and they dont care whats on your plate. Just like when you walk up to payroll and ask WTF is up with my paycheck being $220.14 for two weeks, you dont care what theyre up to, you want that fixed now. Scheduling people is an art and takes real practice.
The issue wasn't about scheduling, it was about blowing off the helper and then getting pissy about it, probably because the helper left to take care of other issues instead, rather than hanging around until it was perfectly convenient for the user. A more apt comparison is me going to accounting---no, scratch that, demanding that accounting comes to me---with my paycheck issue, and when they ask me what the problem is, I say "I don't really have time for this" and leave, and then e-mail the VP and head of accounting about how accounting failed to fix my paycheck.
Once you stop whining about the users you might be able to help them.
Sorry, no. Those two are in no way dependent of each other.
You want to know one of the chief problems with IT today is? First, we develop for the "dumbest" 0.1% of the userbase, because they need solutions too. Since we don't want to customize the same application for hundreds of segments, we go with the lowest common denominator. This, however, is a great disservice for the other 99.9% of the userbase, which would greatly enjoy and benefit from somewhat more advanced features and control. Second, there is a strong anti-intellectual sentiment among IT users; if there is something in a program that isn't understood, that is a fault with the program, not with the user... complicated software should completely adapt to simple users, rather than simple users educating themselves so that they can avail themselves of complicated programs. These two feed each other, so the "dumbest" 0.1% can afford to be "dumber" as time passed (and by extension, the rest of the userbase as well), and that means that programs must be made simpler as time passes.
The computer, on virtue of being programmable to an almost unlimited extent, is the most complicated machine you will see in a household, or anywhere for that matter. And what do we do with it? That's right---we dumb it down to perform simple tasks like displaying text and pictures taken from the Internet, or write messages that are sent almost instantly to some recipient, also over the Internet, and are dazzled by what we make it do, in spite of all this just using a small fraction of the computer's capabilities. And when we've done that, we dumb it down further so that we hardly even have to worry about writing the addressee's name correctly, and when we do, we blame the computer for it; the computer, and the IT jerks that still haven't got e-mail clients right.
And where do we end up? With VCRs with eternally blinking zeroes; with microwave ovens that we don't know how to cook with; with cellphones that we don't know how to call with; with printers that we don't know how to refill with papers. And when our kids take care of these issues for us, we beam with pride over how smart our kids are, instead of decryi
Apart from that... calling IT supervisor and cc:ing the VP is just grinding in what a jerk you are, and you might even be successful in convincing the supervisor and the VP that it is so not your fault... but your helper remembers. Oh yes, he remembers. And quite likely, so will the rest of IT, if not its supervisor. What comes around, goes around, and when it does, you're... surprised!? If you behave like a jerk, show IT no respect, consider them just a drain on the company's coffers and second-class workers at best, cause them extra work with what they consider trivial issues (like filling the printer with some papers), behave like they are your personal whipping boys, think it is ok to blame your failures on them, and are hostile and demanding to boot... seriously, what planet do you come from where anyone would just be "happy to help you out, and can I have another one, sir?"
No. You'll be considered one of the largest stains in the office, and treated by them accordingly, meaning no-one from IT is going to do any more for you apart from the bare minimum required to bring in the paycheck. This, of course, will give you more to moan about, rather than generating any realization that you are one of the chief reasons IT sports bad attitude. IT may not play office politics games with you, but you are a fool if you believe that they don't care.
You're making the assumption that the genes of his family are going to mix with those of the general population to a greater extent than those of the previous poster's family.
Remember, you must ensure that a credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented.
While I agree that the defaults should be clean and intuitive... you are aware that the grandparent (as far as I can tell, at least) complained about the looks of the interface, not its layout or functionality? And that the parent started by mentioning skinning, and then went on to talk about its configurability?
In any case, I disagree with your statement that being extremely customizable is not always a good thing. I can't intuitively come up with a case where having less options is a good thing. But that is in no way incompatible with having a good default UI layout and functionality. Having good defaults lessens the need for customizability, but it doesn't make having the option to do so, a bad thing. Neither does the fact that available skins (in your opinion) are unprofessional and sloppy make it a bad thing. Neither does the fact that it takes time to customize everything make it a bad thing. More options is good. If you never have the need to avail yourself to those options because the defaults are well designed, even better! But if you'd choose to, or even need to, for one reason or another, you have that power. And that is good. I don't see anyone complaining about the possibility of using Firefox extensions, either. In fact, with Firefox you have the option of getting the source and making changes to your heart's content, and building it yourself--so you have even more options. So how is this not a good thing?
The only bad thing about extreme customizability is that the time spend to make the UI just that, might (and this need not be universally true) have been better used to improve application performance and/or functionality instead. But that is largely dependent on how the application is built in the first place; with the right tools the cost of making the UI just so doesn't need to be particularly severe, and I also imagine that the "cost" of reconfiguring UI design mistakes in said defaults drops (as opposed to having to change the layout of all UI components when using a more fixed design). As a developer, you typically won't even need to recompile in order to test the changes, which can be considered a win in itself. (And as a power user with a UI that doesn't do exactly what you want it to, you might be able to get the UI to let you do that, even without having to modify the source, which you don't have access to in this case anyway. Of course, it might also be that you won't be able to do so, but that leaves you no worse off than when you have an UI with limited configuration options.)
Are you just trolling, or are you really serious?
The poster said that the links are next to each other. Unless you have seen the site in question, I don't think you are in any position to bash its layout.
There are people I seriously think shouldn't be on the Internet. Heck, there are people I think shouldn't even own a computer. Besides IT-related issues, there are also people I don't think should be allowed to drive a car, use a credit card, raise children, have dogs, etc.
An interesting aspect is that many of these people, especially when it comes to technology but also seen in other areas, somehow think that others are somehow obliged to help them with their activities. Have kids, but expect others to raise them. Get in debt, but expect others to lend you money to deal with the bills. Get a computer, but expect others to hold you by the hand whenever you use it. (Caveat: There are things you can't control, and those you can. If you get in debt because you are between jobs and need a place to live and food to eat, that's one thing. If you get in debt because you must have a better car than your neighbour, that's another.)
I dunno about others, but around the 20th time I show someone how to copy a file, it already feels old. At some point you start wondering whether the user really cannot learn how to copy a file, or doesn't want to learn. In either case, you're screwed.
The same goes for userfriendlyness. I'm all for userfriendlyness. If a task inheritedly is so simple that it can be generalized into "click here" and the designer does just that, great! (I'd argue that there is a class of tasks that can't, and also yet another class that can, but only at the expense of configurability--take a set of defaults and assume they'll be good enough for everyone.) But even then, you'll see users that will say it is too difficult--they might not know where they saved the program, they might not yet have figured out how to run any other program than Internet Explorer, they might feel intimidated by the button, they might refuse to run the program because they read somewhere/someone told them that they should not run programs they got from the Internet.
And that's where userfriendlyness falls apart, and that is when the battle is picked. You can either strive to improve on userfriendlyness forever, aiming to make it automatic and/or intuitive for 100% of your userbase, a goal that will never be reached, essentially wasting all your time for that final fraction... or you can set your percentage lower (exactly how low is up to you) and spend more time on actually developing your program.
And quite frankly, barring a completely horrid homepage, if a user can find the "Forums" link but not the "Download" link right next to it (or maybe not understanding that "download" means "get program")... that user might not be the kind of user you want to spend time supporting.
Heard of what?
True story:
I sometimes use my university's wireless network (whenever I bring my laptop). Since the university's IT lab has no way of knowing who is using what laptop[1], they redirect all initial traffic to a portal where you must log in (using the username + password you use on all other university computer systems). Point being, you get a network connection, but must log in to actually get where you want.
Since I installed WGA[2] (at the point I was rather indifferent to it), every time I use the university's network I get 50 entries in the Application Log (error source: crypt32; description: "Failed auto update retrieval of third-party root list sequence number from: with error: [timeout/server cannot perform operation/error code]"). This happens before I have a chance to log in on the university network, which of course means that my laptop can't yet access said site. More annoying, though, is that svchost -k netsvcs starts eating memory like crazy; peaking at over 90 MBs and then falling down to 70-80 (used to stay at 20-30). This only happens when I use the laptop at the university; at home (where obviously no login is required) the process stays at 20-30 MB.
I personally think that some "advantage" component that, when unable to access some site, causes a process to eat up 3-4 times the memory it usually does, taking up an extra 10% of the computer's physical memory in the process, is rather a DISADVANTAGE. I don't know how much memory spyware typically consumes, so I can't reflect on the comparison between WGA and spyware. 50 MB seems a rather hefty price for failing to communicate with some server, though.
Maybe they should rename it WGD?
[1] I guess a) setting up individual users' connections, including keys, is too much work, b1) collecting MAC addresses is too much work, b2) Joe Average won't be able to figure out his computer's wireless' MAC anyway, and c) there are potential security leaks if wireless cards, or laptops, are stolen/sold to non-university users (both a and b1).
[2] Troubles started at that point. Could be something else, I SUPPOSE, but I think it is unlikely.