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Remember to activate/newbies
Authored by: wayne t on Aug 28, '03 09:38:08PM

I think we all need to remember that there are now a *very* large number of people around who are almost illiterate [or lysdexic] as far as computing goes, but use them every day .. i.e. they *use* them, but they don't have the first clue about how any of it works, how to think, to look, what to read, where to get help, etc.. many, for example simply would never even *find* an awesomely-useful site like this ..

We sometimes assume a lot of knowledge that isn't there in other ppl :
[I love that ol' "back to the 80's" Star Trek episode when Bones (?) - needing info - vocally addresses a Mac as 'Computer !' .. and then is handed the Mouse and, being told : 'no, you have to use this' .. - slightly baffled - he looks at the mouse, holds it up and barks 'Computer !' at it....]

I have a couple of clients.. one's an Octogenarian - lovely, clever bloke ... but although the Wintel he has is his window to the world, he hasn't a clue about how it all works .. I regularly get the same calls from him : "Wayne .... I didn't do ANYTHING ... and now ... xxx Doesn't work !!!!" ... etc.. my favourite 3 this year have been the same one : he has an infrared KBD and moose [it's big]... and a very cluttered desk .. he said ' the Bar thing with all the programs and little pictures and everything has disappeared !!!' (The windoze task bar - a sorta 'Dock-like' thingie - for those fortunate enough not to have to use Wintels).


I'm 1000Kms Nth of him and support him over Broadband using Timbuktu and similar remote support products - they let me take over his machine, see what he sees, do whatever I could do if I was physically present - with a few obvious limitations :).

Took ME 5 mins to figure it out )... the Task bar can be moved and resized... I found it - as a 1 pixel wide line on the far right of his screen, - (it looked like the black edge of my viewing window) - so I widened it .. and dragged it back to the bottom where he's used to it being etc.... "but I didn't do ANYTHING .....".

He's been shuffling things around on his crowded desk, picking up and moving the mouse as if it were another item of junk - forgetting that it's connected to the Wintel and Doing Things - , not looking at the screen etc.. and has somehow first 'flung' the task bar to the right .. and then - God knows how, selected the 3pix wide 'resize' edge of it and dragged it to the far right - a point of virtual invisibilty - all w/o looking at the screen ...



It's also how stuff 'disappears!!!".

Same as above, only this time he drops stuff inside other folders on his desktop etc.. :))


Now, this is NOT a stupid man : he's astonishingly accomplished (famous) and probably rates off the scale for IQ ..

But he doesn't *understand* computers, how they work, how to work with them.. and, probably doesn't want to 'go through another (non) learning curve' for a new one - otherwise I'd have him on OS X G5 faster than u cd say 'Conan fer Govna'


:)


Sometimes, we just gotta cut em some slack - and realise that 'ease of use/user friendly' etc are VERY relative terms ..

regards to all from Oz..



wayne t
obfuscated [and-i'm-at] optushome dotcom dotau



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